Rural population loss means less political power

The 2010 census will causing a shift in the political landscape, giving less weight to rural areas because they lost population. Rural legislative districts will become less numerous, and individual districts will cover more land area. State Sen. Jean Leising told Gary Truitt of Hoosier Ag Today that her southeastern Indiana district, which is already large, will have to be increased even more. Leising worries that, with fewer and larger rural districts, the rural voice and rural political power will be diminished." (Read more)

Charles Johnson of the Billings Gazette in Montana reports that most of the state's "urban counties continued to grow from 2000 to 2010, while many of its rural counties kept losing people." Craig Wilson, a political science professor from Montana State University-Billings told Johnson, "The real significance of these movements is you have a gradual shift of political power from east to west and from rural to urban." (Read more)

Indiana and Montana are not be the only states facing such power shifts. The U.S. Census Bureau reports, "Many Appalachian counties in eastern Kentucky and West Virginia; many Great Plains counties in the Dakotas, Kansas, Nebraska, and Texas; and a group of counties in and around the Mississippi Delta saw population declines. In addition, many counties along the Great Lakes and on the northern U.S. border either lost population or grew below 10 percent." (Read more)

Cash-poor states, localities let roads go to gravel

In the face of dwindling local budgets and rising asphalt prices, some states and local communities are opting for gravel over repaving. "The paved roads that finally brought rural America into the 20th Century are starting to disappear across the Midwest in the 21st," Pam Louwagie of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports. "Some engineers estimate it costs up to $300,000 to replace a mile of paved road surface now. Gravel isn't free, but it's far less expensive." (Star-Tribune photo by Pam Louwagie)

Louwagie writes, "In states like South Dakota and Michigan, the reversions are bringing substantial changes to the landscape." In South Dakota "a state transportation official estimated that 120 miles of pavement have been ground up or left to crumble back to gravel" and "Michigan has changed more than 100 miles of pavement to gravel."

In Freeborn County, Minnesota, Sue Miller, the county engineer, "helped launch a study with the state Local Road Research Board to come up with alternatives, including "putting additives into gravel to make it harder and more durable and building stronger road bases that can use just a thin layer of pavement," reports Louwagie. However as County Commissioner Glen Mathiason told Louwagie, "Gravel won't sit well with residents."

When Tony and Gertie Monat of Lansing, Iowa, lost the paved road in front of their house, they lost one of the principal attractions that brought them there. "We definitely miss the hard surface," Gertie Monat told Louwagie. "I'm like, how can you take that away now?"

USDA tightens reporting rules for tainted eggs

After learning its inspectors unknowingly approved the sale of eggs from an Ohio farm that tested positive for salmonella, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is tightening its reporting rules for egg producers. "The USDA's inspector general uncovered the problem during an investigation started after the massive recall last summer of eggs linked to farms in Iowa owned by or associated with Jack DeCoster," Phillip Brasher of the Des Moines Register reports. "USDA has started requiring farms to notify its inspectors anytime salmonella contamination is found either in eggs or on the farm."

Eggs from the unnamed Ohio farm were recalled on Nov. 5, 2010. USDA "grades eggs for quality, while the Food and Drug Administration regulates the safety of egg production," Brasher writes. "The inspector general said neither the farm nor the FDA had notified USDA's egg inspectors of the salmonella finding." Michael Jarvis, a spokseman for USDA's Agriculture Marketing Service, told Brasher, "We are toughening the requirements, and I think we've opened the lines of communication much better than they were." (Read more)

Florida farmworkers pressure Publix, Ahold and subsidiaries to adopt 'Fair Food' principles

The Coalition of Immokalee Workers, representing farmworkers in South Florida, launched a campaign in the Northeast to pressure food retailers to address human-rights violations in their production chain. The workers "held their first rally in Boston in late February and continued their corporate accountability actions aimed at the large supermarkets with a week-long tour of the East Coast," Yana Kunichoff reports for Truthout, a liberal-oriented news service. Santiago Perez, a farmworker who participated in the campaign, told Kunichoff "We hope this tour will help us achieve our goal of reaching agreements with the supermarket chains such as Publix, Stop & Shop, and others."

The campaign is pushing Publix and Ahold, which owns Stop & Shop, Giant of Landover and the online grocery delivery service Peapod, "to join a partnership of farmworkers, tomato growers and retail food stores and agree to CIW's 'Fair Food' principles, which include a wage increase of 1 cent per pound on tomatoes picked by workers, a cooperative system to resolve complaints, a comprehensive health and safety program, a worker-to-worker education process and a strict code of conduct for the industry," Kunichoff writes. Companies such as Whole Foods, Yum!Brands, McDonald's and Burger King Holdings have signed on to the Fair Food principles.

The farmworkers earn 50 cents for every 32-pound bucket of tomatoes. "CIW argues that a penny per pound increase for a worker who carries two tons or more of tomatoes a day could raise that worker's yearly income from $10,000 to $17,000 a year," Kunichoff writes. Publix and Ahold, have refused to sign on to the principles, saying "they source many of their tomatoes from growers who cooperate with the CIW," Kunichoff writes. (Read more)

Drug makers lobby successfully against bills that would make meth ingredient prescription-only

Drug manufacturers have mounted a so-far successful effort to keep states from making pseudoephedrine, the key ingredient in methamphetamine, available only by prescription. "Prescription-only bills were defeated or failed to make it to a vote this month in Arkansas, Kansas, Kentucky and West Virginia after heavy lobbying by the Consumer Healthcare Products Association, a trade group representing makers of over-the-counter drugs," Abby Goodnough of The New York Times reports. "Similar bills are still alive in Alabama, Missouri, Nevada, Oklahoma, Tennessee and several other states."

The bills would force consumers to obtain a prescription for drugs such as Sudafed, which contain pseudoephedrine. Some bills would apply to two similar decongestants. Police say efforts to keep the drugs out of the hands of meth cooks have failed, Goodnough writes, quoting Thomas Farmer, director of the Tennessee Methamphetamine Task Force, who is pushing for a prescription-only law along with most other law enforcement officials in the state: "It’s a no-brainer. This has got to be the next step." Meth-lab counts have risen sharply in some states as makers move to simpler "shake and bake" processes using 2-liter bottles.

The drug companies and retailers, often backed by major advertising campaigns, "say the measures would place an undue burden on cold and allergy sufferers," Goodnough writes. "They are promoting other bills that would help the police monitor pseudoephedrine sales with interstate electronic tracking." Joy Krieger, executive director of the St. Louis chapter of the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America, which is fighting a prescription-only bill in Missouri said, "we can't change lives just to stop these weirdo people." (Read more)
For previous Rural Blog coverage of electronic tracking click here.

Animal-rights groups' photographic exposés prompt bill to ban taking images without consent

A bill designed to discourage animal-rights activists from taking pictures of farms passed its first hurdle in Florida last week, after considerable changes. The original bill made it a "first-degree felony charge — the same level for rape or murder — for anyone who took photos or video of a farm or its animals without the property owner's consent," Katie Sanders of the St. Petersburg Times reports. Under the original bill "photographers, journalists, law enforcement officers — even motorists pulling over to capture a pastoral roadside scene" could have been punished, Sanders writes.

The revised bill "provides exceptions for law enforcement officers and Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services agents conducting inspections or investigations," Sanders writes. "It also stipulates that photography would be illegal if it happened upon entering the property without written consent, so photographs by road or air are okay." The penalty was also down graded from a felony to a misdemeanor.

Even with the revisions, animal-rights groups are unhappy with the bill. "The amendment simply replaces one absurd bill with another absurd bill," said Jeff Kerr, general counsel of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. "This bill would aid and abet criminal animal abuse." State Sen. Jim Norman, who proposed the bill, said he is trying to protect farmers from "unfair outside assaults" on their property rights. (Read more)

Farmers should "YouTube proof" their operations, Andy Vance writes for Feedstuffs. He says that doesn't just mean taking steps to prevent controversial videos. "More importantly, we need to YouTube-proof our farms and processing facilities because it’s the right thing to do," he writes. "We have a moral and ethical obligation to treat and handle our animals with the dignity and respect rightly due all living creatures." (Read more)

Eastern Livestock bankruptcy trustee files what he says will be only the first of several lawsuits

A lawsuit filed by a federal bankruptcy trustee alleges that an Eastern Livestock Co. branch manager deposited $1.24 million in checks in the days immediately following a bank's hold on the company's accounts. "According to court documents, Eastern Livestock employees signed over 28 checks to Lexington, Ky., branch manager Willie Downs instead of depositing them in the Fifth Third Bank account. Downs then endorsed and deposited the checks," Katie Micik of DTN reports. Trustee Jim Knauer said about half the checks cleared; he said many of those who wrote them probably filed stop-payment notices after word spread that Eastern had issued bad checks to cattle producers.

"Anytime you have a company that owes creditors and you take money from the company to pay someone else, that's fraud," Knauer told DTN. "That's especially true when the company is insolvent and doesn't have assets left to pay everyone." Knauer said the lawsuit is the first of several he is planning to file.

Fifth Third froze Eastern's accounts Nov. 2 "after uncovering an alleged check kiting scheme and as much as $2.5 billion in fictitious sales to related entities," and Knauer's investigation revealed the company had been writing checks for fictitious transactions since at least 2008, Micik reports. A lawsuit in Cincinnati alleges that Downs converted the checks criminally, and under Indiana law, the trustee could be entitled to three times the monetary damages, about $3.73 million -- in addition to recovering the $1.2 million plus interest," Micik writes. (Read more)

Southern farmers forsake food crops for cotton, despite growing global need for food

With worries of a global food crisis rising, farmers may be setting up an acreage war between crops used to feed and clothe the world's population as many plant "cotton in ground where they used to grow corn, soybeans or wheat," William Neuman of The New York Times reports. This change has been "spurred on by cotton prices that have soared as clothing makers clamor for more and poor harvests crimp supply," Nueman writes. (NYT photo by Matt Nager)

"There’s a lot more money to be made in cotton right now," Ramon Vela, a Texas Panhandle farmer, told Neuman. "The prices are the big thing. That’s the driving force." Webb Wallace, executive director of the Cotton and Grain Producers of the Lower Rio Grande Valley, says the decision to follow the money behind cotton may have big implications. "It’s good for the farmer, but from a humanitarian perspective it’s kind of scary," he told Neuman. "Those people in poor countries that have a hard time affording food, they’re going to be even less able to afford it now."

In the middle of the last decade, as food prices rose and cotton prices remained low, many farmers switched from cotton to grains and other food crops, and corn production has been on the rise in recent years as ethanol demand helped drive up corn prices, Neuman writes. "This year, cotton prices are the highest they have been in years, luring farmers despite strong prices for other crops,." The Agriculture Department predicts Southern farmers will plant 12.8 million acres of upland cotton, a 19 percent increase from last year. The National Cotton Council expects substantial increases in all cotton-producing states, including large jumps in North Carolina, Mississippi, Tennessee and Texas. (Read more)

List of 407 closed post offices is released

The U.S. Postal Service tried to keep secret its list of 407 post offices it has recently closed, but the Postal Regulatory Commission asked for the list and then made it public. The list, of "post office/station/branch suspensions" through Feb. 28, apparently had already been shared with members of Congress.

The list includes such distinctive names as Only, Tenn.; Oxbow, Maine; Delta City, Miss.; Vulcan, Mo.; Silver, Tex,; Port Byron, Ill.; Donnybrook, N.D.; Sweet Briar, Va.; Bob White, W.Va.; Rowdy, Hardburly and Yosemite, Ky. (they pronounce it YO-see-mite); and these branches or stations: Assinippi, a branch of Hanover, Mass.; Buttsville (Oxford), N.J., and Surprise (Earlton), N.Y.

While most of the offices appear to be rural, the list includes some notable urban locations: West Hollywood, Calif., and the United Nations and Wall Street stations in New York City. For a PDF of the list, click here.

Threatened end of Corporation for Public Broadcasting endangers rural community radio

Community radio stations in rural areas may have to cut programming or sign off, if Congress eliminates funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, as House Republicans have voted, writes the general manager of one Appalachian radio station. WMMT-FM in Whitesburg, Ky., is the station of Appalshop Inc. and serves 30 counties in rural Kentucky, Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina and West Virginia. The station is "funded through listener support, business underwriting and the occasional grant to produce radio documentaries about Appalachia," Marcie Crim, WMMT's general manager, writes in an op-ed for the Lexington Herald-Leader. "We are not a National Public Radio affiliate, but like countless other community radio stations we receive funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting that is critical to our survival."

Community radio stations, which often receive more than 40 percent of their funding from CPB grants and generally serve rural areas, people of color and Native American reservations, "will have to cut programming significantly and in some cases go completely dark" if CPB funding is cut, Crim writes. She notes WMMT is in danger of shortening its schedule to just a few hours a day, cutting all public affairs broadcasting or possibly going off the air all together.

Community stations provide essential public services. When a diesel spill polluted the North Fork of the Kentucky River in Whitesburg in February, the city waited to notify people in the affected area. "Without WMMT on the air telling our community of the danger, even more people would have continued to use the water," Crim writes. "We don't air NPR programming; we tell our listeners when their water is poisoned (which happens more often than you can imagine)."

Crim concludes, "Community radio is produced by and for our communities and we can't do it without the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. NPR may lose only 2 percent of its budget if CPB is defunded. However, whole communities will lose a vitally important local voice." (Read more)

Forum to focus on agricultural conservation policies in wake of expected budget cuts

The National Agriculture Landscapes Forum, hosted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service, American Farmland Trust and Farm Foundation, will be held in Washington April 7-8 at the Metro Center. It will bring together "Capitol Hill, state and federal agency staff, local government and tribal officials, agriculture and conservation organizations, farmers and ranchers, and others concerned about the future of the nation’s agricultural landscape," says a release from the trust. The event is free, but pre-registration is required by Thursday, March 31.

"The goal of the forum is to provide a venue for key stakeholders to engage in honest dialogue about priorities for USDA’s national conservation program and the future of the agricultural landscape given multiple, often competing, demands on our land and water resources to produce everything from food, shelter and domestic energy, to economic development and ecosystem services," said Julia Freedgood, managing director of farmland and community initiatives for American Farmland Trust. Sponsors of the forum include Altria Group, CropLife America, DuPont, the National Association of Conservation Districts and The Nature Conservancy. (Read more)

Restrictions on gas drilling advance in Md., Tex.

Two states are moving toward more restraints on natural-gas drilling in the wake of concerns over possible water pollution from hydraulic fracturing operations. The Maryland House of Delegates "on Wednesday passed a bill that would essentially place a moratorium on drilling until the Maryland Department of the Environment completes a two-year study to determine whether it endangers drinking water and public health, as some environmentalists in nearby states that allow drilling charge," Darryl Fears of The Washington Post reports. A companion bill in the state Senate is expected to face a tougher road as gas industry lobbyists work against it.

"We’re not going to be like other states that drilled first and asked questions later," Democratic Delegare Heather R. Mizeur, sponsor of the legislation, told the Post. "We understand that second chances are expensive, so we should slow down and take the time to do this right the first time."

Fears notes that U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said earlier this month he was considering federal regulation of hydraulic fracturing. "We are going to have a huge backlash . . . from the American public if we continue to inject chemicals and fluids into the ground without people knowing what it is that’s being injected," he told the House Natural Resources Committee. (Read more)

Texas, the nation's leading gas-drilling state, may require companies to disclose drilling fluids. A bill, which has won praise from industry and environmental groups, "would create a website containing information about the chemicals used in each well," Kate Galbraith of The Texas Tribune reports. David Blackmon, the Texas state committee chairman for America's Natural Gas Alliance, said with a few changes the bill could be a good way to address what the industry considers are misplaced concerns about hydraulic fracturing. (Read more)

USDA sued over its OK of Roundup Ready alfalfa

The Center for Food Safety, a group critical of genetically modified crops, has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture in federal court in San Francisco, challenging the USDA's January approval of Roundup Ready alfalfa as unlawful. Ken Anderson of Brownfield Network reports, "The center alleges the approval is based on faulty information, and that genetically modified alfalfa will damage the organic industry because it could contaminate conventional or organic alfalfa." (Read more)

"This is the second time the USDA has been sued over its approval of Roundup Ready alfalfa, which is genetically engineered (GE) to tolerate glyphosate, a popular herbicide commonly sold under the Monsanto brand name Roundup," reports Mike Ludwig for Truthout. The concern is "that Roundup Ready alfalfa will increase reliance on already overused herbicides like Roundup, encourage the spread of herbicide-resistant 'superweeds' and contaminate organic and conventional alfalfa with Monsanto transgenes through cross-pollination," writes Ludwig. This could "threaten the production of organic meat and milk," since alfalfa is used for livestock feed, Ludwig opines. (Read more)

Interactive 2010 U.S. census map available

The New York Times has made an interactive 2010 U.S. census map available. Click here to view population data for individual counties or view the data by state. The map below, showing population trends, is not interactive, but all those on the Times' site are.

House Appropriations boss, from most-rural and 2nd-poorest district, thinks earmarks are over

Are the days of congressional earmarks over? "I think so," House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers said in a television interview broadcast today. Rogers represents southeastern Kentucky's 5th Congressional District, which is the most rural district and the second poorest, and he has used earmarks to funnel money to it for more than two decades.

Now that era appears to be over, Rogers, R-Somerset, told interviewer Bill Bryant of Lexington's WKYT-TV on "Kentucky Newsmakers," which aired this morning. Rogers said he didn't like the idea of executive-branch officials making all specific spending decisions, but "We'll be looking over their shoulder."

Rogers' main job right now is as a House negotiator for his Republican-controlled chamber's $61 billion in current budget cuts, which the Democratic-controlled Senate and the Obama administration are strongly resisting. He said making the cuts was painful. "It’s hard to do," he said. "The most difficult thing to do, though, is to try to make it as fair and even as you can." He said his constituents have indicated they are willing to go along: "As long as it’s fairly spread we’re willing to have shared sacrifices." (Lexington Herald-Leader photo by David Perry)

Rogers said the programs that he started and maintained in and near his district with earmarks will be able to continue with suppoprt from private sources and state and local governments. Perhaps the leading example is Operation UNITE (Unlawful Narcotics Investigations, Treatment and Education). "They will be eligible to apply for grants on a competitive basis … I think successfully," he said. "They’re going to be OK." He said private support will also continue Kentucky PRIDE (Personal Responsibility In a Desirable Environment) which has cleaned up dumps, stopped blackwater discharges and taken other steps to restore and preserve the natural beauty of 38 counties he has represented in Eastern and Southern Kentucky.

Preliminary tests show electric barriers won't keep small Asian carp out of the Great Lakes

The electric barrier designed to keep rapacious Asian bighead and silver carp out of the Great Lakes probably needs more voltage to stop small fish that may eventually make their way to the man-made connection of the lakes' watershed and the Mississippi River system in which they live, preliminary research indicates.

"Federal officials said Friday that lab testing found the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal's electric dispersal barriers . . . were effective for large fish 5.4 inches or longer," the Chicago Tribune's Katherine Skiba reports. "However, higher electric power levels might be needed to immobilize small Asian carp about 2 to 3 inches long, they said." The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said the closest small carp are 116 miles downstream of the barrier.

The tests were done at a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers lab in Vicksburg, Miss. "Because of the lab setting's physical limits," Skiba reports, officials said "more field research near the fish barrier system is needed." (Read more)

Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation seems overcome by horse crisis; failing farms, animals

"One of the largest private organizations in the world dedicated to caring for former racehorses has been so slow or delinquent in paying for the upkeep of the more than 1,000 horses under its care that scores have wound up starved and neglected, some fatally, according to interviews and inspection reports," Joe Drape reports for The New York Times.

The Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation "has received millions in donations from some pillars of the industry," writes Drape, the newspaper's top Thoroughbred writer. "But over the past two years, according to the foundation’s financial disclosure documents, it has been operating at a deficit, and as a result has not reliably been paying the 25 farms it contracts with to oversee the retired horses." When Oklahoma farm owner Gayle England, below, complained about TRF's chronic slow pay and apparent lack of regard for the farms and the animals, 26 horses were taken from her. She has since received others. (NYT photo by Brandi Simons)

This month in Kentucky, inspectors found that 34 horses at a farm that is supposed to get funds from the foundation were in “poor” or “emaciated” condition, and one "had to be euthanized because of malnutrition," Drape reports. Stacey Huntington, the Missouri veterinarian in charge of inspections, "found that the foundation’s education of the caretakers and oversight of their farms had been poor," Drape writes. "At one farm, Dr. Huntington said, the horses were being fed cattle feed that contained a toxic element." The inspections are being conducted at the behest of the estate of financier Paul Mellon, which has put $7 million into the foundation's endowment.

The foundation's president, George Grayson, told Drape that it has been pinched by circumstances: “We have dug ourselves a big hole financially, and we’re still behind. ... It’s been a struggle to keep up with the costs associated with a large and aging horse population, at a time when the economy and giving is down.” (Read more) "Days after the article appeared, the TRF ended its association with Huntington," reports Glenye Cain Oakford of the Daily Racing Form, which offers many more numbers and details. (Read more)

Rural unemployment down 1 point from last year

Though the rural unemployment rate increased in January, it was still down one percentage point from the year before, from 11.2 percent to 10.2 percent. The January rate in both urban and exurban counties was 9.7 percent this January, down from 10.4 percent and 10.6 percent, respectively, Bill Bishop of the Daily Yonder reports. While the rural unemployment rate was down as a whole from last year, the largest groups of unemployed remain clustered.

"The counties with large numbers of rural unemployed are clustered in the Southeast, the Midwest, the Northeast and in the large counties in the western states," Bishop writes. "The rural unemployment rate in the states was highest in California, with a rate of 15 percent in rural counties. That is almost four times higher than the 4.3 percent unemployment rate in rural Nebraska, the state with the lowest rural unemployment rate in January." (Read more) (Yonder map omits metropolitan-area counties)

Interior overstated income from Wyo. coal sale

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar appears to have vastly overstated the economic benefits of coal lease sales in the Powder River Basin in announcing his department's decision to advance lease sales of 758 million tons of coal earlier this week, the Casper Star-Tribune reports.

Salazar said Tuesday the sales "would add between $13.4 billion and $21.3 billion to government coffers over the life of the leases — numbers repeated by media outlets worldwide, including the Star-Tribune," Jeremy Fugleberg writes for the newspaper. "The likely total is far lower, or the amount you get if you move the decimal point over one spot to the left."

"That was off by a factor of 10," Marion Loomis, executive director of the Wyoming Mining Association, told Fugleberg. Loomis said the proceeds from 758 million tons of coal would more likely produce about $2 billion, with almost half of that going to state coffers. An Interior Department representative referred the Star-Tribune to a Bureau of Land Management spokesperson who did not respond to several calls. "A spokeswoman for the Wyoming BLM office said the office was looking into the numbers," Fugleberg writes.

"Salazar’s numbers would mean the government would get $17 to $28 per ton of the newly available coal," Fugleberg writes. "But that number is considerably higher than the current spot sale price for a ton of coal" in the basin. The federal Energy Information Administration reports a ton of 8,800-BTU Powder River coal is selling for $13.65. (Read more)

Ethanol industry pushes USDA to change the way it accounts for use of grain

In the latest attempt to improve its public image, the ethanol industry is pushing the Agriculture Department to change the way it reports the use of grain. Governors of ethanol-producing states say the reports undercount the amount of corn fed to livestock, leading to unfair criticism of the industry, Philip Brasher of the Des Moines Register reports. "The governors said the numbers fail to note that some of the corn that is processed into ethanol winds up as a byproduct called distillers grains that is widely fed to cattle," Brasher writes.

USDA is considering adding the words "and co-products" to the report category that shows corn-for-ethanol usage. The change could be made in time for the next supply-and-demand report on April 8. "Adding a few words to the report, however, is unlikely to go far enough to satisfy the ethanol industry, which would like to see changes in way the numbers are calculated," Brasher writes. Matt Hartwig, a spokesman for the Renewable Fuels Association, said, "Most people don't know the arithmetic as to how many pounds (of corn) goes into distillers grains."

The industry's concerns reflect the public-relations battle it is "waging to quell concerns about the impact of biofuel production on global food prices, concerns that complicate the industry's efforts to persuade Congress to extend its subsidies," Brasher writes. RFA says one-third of every bushel of corn used for ethanol production ends up as livestock feed, and the Governors' Biofuels Coalition wrote in a recent letter to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack that USDA was "inadvertently perpetuating" a damaging misconception about how much corn is available for feed. (Read more)