Proven killer ethanol is so embedded in US economy, is so important to bankers one says ethanol is a 'national security' issue-Reuters

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9/5/12, "Bankers: Ethanol at heart of corn, farm pricing structure," Reuters

"Before the U.S. biofuels boom took off in 2007, the food versus fuel debate raged: can we afford to use corn for ethanol in a starving world?

Five years later, farm bankers ask: can we afford not to?

"Ethanol demand is the linchpin of the current pricing model that we have," said Michael Swanson, agricultural economist at Wells Fargo, the largest commercial bank lender to U.S. farmers. "It's a completely different question whether it's right or wrong."...

The facts, they say, show that ethanol is now bolted on to the core of three huge industries: energy, meat and banking.

Farm bankers point to statistics on U.S. wealth and economic health that corn-based ethanol has driven -- record-high farmland prices; a rise of some $500 billion in farm assets in the last five years; steady pay-downs of farm debt; a rise in farm assets in 2012 to an estimated $2.5 trillion dollars, based on real land not "paper," and what those assets mean for U.S. money supply and economic demand.

"Corn can be a national security issue for this country," said Curt Covington, senior vice president for agricultural and rural banking at Bank of the West, the second largest commercial lender to U.S. farmers. "That's where we are right now."

Leland Strom, chief executive of the Farm Credit System and regulator of the largest single lender to farmers, was blunt about any sudden suspension of the ethanol mandate: "I think it definitely would have an immediate impact weakening ag and rural America, especially in the heartland."

Bankers say they realize biofuels have been a two-edge sword for U.S. agriculture, since higher corn prices cut livestock producer profits. That is not a minor effect, since receipts from dairy to poultry represent about half of farm income.

But the steady rise in farmland prices based on higher returns from corn - and other crops competing for those acres - has overwhelmed the negatives, bankers and economists say.

"A vibrant ethanol industry is critical to farmland prices where they are at today -- there's no question in my mind," said Brent Gloy, director of Purdue University's Center for Commercial Agriculture."...

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Ed. note: The US is a mass murderer.

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