Reply #26: The price of dairy is going up because the oil companies are converting corn into ethanol.

[AdHocSolver]

Corn is used to feed cows. The oil companies have lots of money to spend on corn to convert into ethanol to burn up in cars. So they drive the price of corn up. Agribusiness sees that they can make more money growing corn for ethanol, so they are converting their farms from growing wheat, or oats, or alfalfa to growing corn.

This means reduced grains for people food and animal feed. So the dairy farmer pays more for cattle feed and the price of dairy products goes up the quickest. The price of cereals, bread, cake, candy, soda, and meat will be rising, also. To lower costs, some pet food manufacturers were buying lower-priced grain from China which, unfortunately, was tainted with melamine, a toxic compound which poisoned some people's pets.

The truly sad part about all this is that putting ethanol in gasoline does NOT save oil. Gas mileage with ethanol drops significantly. I had proof of this when I went on a trip recently during which I compared MPG with gas containing ethanol to gasoline not containing ethanol. Gas mileage dropped about 10 per cent when 10 percent ethanol was added. No advantage with ethanol. However, oil companies and agribusiness make increased profit with it so don't expect relief any time soon.

I empathize with everyone here. I am providing this information on the basis that people really want to know how and why we are all being royally screwed. If any similar questions being posed here are for rhetorical purposes only (that is, you really don't want to know), please indicate this and I will not respond.

P.S. A suggestion. We switched to skim milk, which is less costly (at least, in our area). It takes a little getting used to, but we are fine with it now, and it costs less.