Today, Sen. Grassley fired off an letter to GMA head C. Manly Molpus asking if food companies will lower their prices in response to falling commodities.  To see the letter, click here.

Click here to read this Consumerist.com post about food prices.

The Missing Cookie Campaign has been a huge success. Brooke Coleman has done interviews with: Fox Business News and radio interviews with: The Young Turks on XM Satellite Radio, KDWN, KTRH, KPNW, WTDY, WRUF, AgriTalk, Clear Channel in Omaha, KPAM and the CBS Radio Network.

DuPont is moving right along.

Click here to read about some interesting biofuels possibilities in Haiti.

CEO of Kraft Foods, Irene Rosenfeld, recently said in an article for a Grocery Manufacturers of America Publication:

“At Kraft, we expect our commodity input costs to be up about $1.7bn, or about 12 percent, in 2008. That’s much higher than we anticipated at the beginning of the year and greater than the $1.3bn increase we saw in 2007. These input costs are already causing higher food prices, with more increases on the way.”

Now that commodity prices are coming down, will Kraft lower their food prices? Probably not, it’s easier to keep blaming biofuels.

The Senate Agriculture Committee held a special field hearing in Omaha, NE on biofuels and food production and apparently it went well.  According to the AP, Senators Harkin and Nelson emerged from the hearing: “with a strong sense of optimism”.

Texas Governor Rick Perry today published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal complaining that:

the diversion of our corn supply from grocery stores to gasoline pumps has caused the price of corn to spiral out of control.

He complains that the federal biofuels mandate is putting ranchers and chicken farmers (like Bo Pilgrim) out of business in Texas.  The reality of the situation, is that biofuels are not the reason corn prices are so high.

Corn prices are high, for the same reason rice prices are high and citrus prices are high. It’s because oil prices are skyrocketing, making the cost of everything go up and dragging down our entire economy.

A few weeks back we blogged a story  in the Smithsonian Magazine, about scientists examining enzymes from termites bellies to help find new, and better ways to create cellulosic ethanol.  Well, there is more coverage today of this interesting subject. 

Who would believe termites could help us end our addiction to foreign oil?

The EPA is apparently cracking down on gasoline retailers who are blending more than the 10% ethanol into gasoline — which is the percentage currently allowed by law. 

“We believe some retailers are either taking inadequate precautions to assure that fuel containing greater than 10% ethanol is not dispensed into motor vehicles and engines certified for gasoline only — or are selling fuel labeled as ‘gasoline’ that actually contains greater than 10% ethanol in violation of the Clean Air Act,” an EPA spokesman says.

Another “downside” of ethanol being cheaper than gasoline!