The Washington Post did a brief write-up of the new biofuels groups profiled extensively by Roll Call yesterday.  You can read it here.

Today, Roll Call profiled (subscription) a new industry initiative to advocate for better agricultural and energy policies to help feed the world. The group, FoodandEnergy.org is being funded by DuPont, ADM, Monsanto and John Deere and will be a multi-million dollar program.  The group will also push back against GMA’s Smear Campaign Against Ethanol.  From Roll Call:

“There was a desire on the part of all four of these companies, these founding members, to try to raise the discussion that’s going on in public policy circles about meeting food and fuel needs,” said Kornblau, a former chief counselor to then-presidential candidate ex-Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) and a one-time communications director for Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.). “They represent the entire agriculture value chain from planted seed to harvest to processing to market. There is an incredible wealth of untapped potential in agriculture to meet the food and energy needs that are growing around the globe.”

The more voices advocating for responsible energy and agricultural policies the better. Good luck!

Famine is looming in Somalia as a perfect storm of events, as well as the hijacking of food aid shipments, is reducing the food supply.   From the article: 

Dutch naval support for food shipments ended on June 28th and WFP country director Peter Goossens believes he only has around five to six weeks’ supplies left on the ground.

With drought, a succession of poor or failed harvests and rising food and fuel prices Somalia is now at a “dire crossroads”, he warned.

Mr Goossens said: “If sufficient food and other humanitarian assistance cannot be scaled up in the coming months, parts of the country could well be in the grips of disaster similar to the 1992/3 famine when hundreds of thousands of people perished.”

It’s important that everyone has perspective on the issue of food prices.   Africa has a myriad of problems that require enormous efforts by local governments, the West, and humanitarian groups.   The small contribution biofuels makes to rising food prices pales in comparision to the enormous amounts of money requireed to support these efforts.   Perspective, perspective, perspective.   

Grocery Manufacturers Association head Cal Dooley is leaving for greener pastures over at the American Chemical Council. While Congressman Dooley was leading the Smear Campaign Against Ethanol, we were adversaries. But, FoodPriceTruth.org believes in a spirited debate and we wish him best of luck in his new position.

We hope the new GMA head will reconsider their hardball tactics in order to avoid this, this or even this. 

The Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank which doubts global warming, today blogged about the UK report on biofuels and how ethanol does nothing to contain global warming. 

It’s obvious, Heritage is doing the bidding of the oil companies.  Heritage is attacking biofuels with anything they can get their hands on even charging ethanol production ”has not changed global climates.”

What’s next from Heritage? Biofuels are bad for labor unions? Gimme a break.

The Truman National Security Project, a highly-respected organization (by both Democrats and Republicans) in Washington dedicated to protecting our national interests released a Backgrounder: “Food Fights and Rising Prices: Renewing Our Fuel Standards and Our National Security.” The Backgrounder begins:

Energy independence is essential for our national security, but recent food riots have shaken many peoples’ belief in biofuels. As unrest spreads and grocery prices grow, conservatives are starting to exploit this uncertainty by mounting a rollback campaign against renewable energy. They are pushing Congress to amend the recently passed Renewable Fuel Standards provision, which promotes alternative energy, while endorsing expanded oil drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge. This would be a grave mistake. Not only is ending our oil addiction crucial to our national security, but our oil dependence is a key cause of skyrocketing food prices. Continuing our reliance on oil will only heighten the price spike.

The Backgrounders are widely distributed on Capitol Hill, to both House and Senate Members and their staffs.