Cornell University

Just went to a interesting briefing on the corn genome and the future of corn research. Mostly it reinforced my beliefs that the future of the worlds fuel supply will have to be from a constantly developing agriculture. We will have to change adapt to keep up with yield needs and the needs of a growing world. The big issue with plant research is the benefits are not instant they take almost a decade to see depending on the relative speed of the crops growth cycle. This means that R and D for plant and ag research is a huge investment in the future.
Some people would say the future is in sustainable agriculture and with that they apply that this is in a small farm organic system. This may be true for consumers that can afford the high cost that comes with organic food markets. However for the majority of the populace we will have to really on low impact conventional agriculture to feed the world a purely organic arlum system will not be effective we need to combine traditional breeding practices and gene modifications to continue to improve out yield per acre considering land will become less and less plentiful. As with any new technology there is risk but there are enough controls that we can verify its safety and impact.
Some people would say that we are restricting our gene banks by limiting the diversity of plants but in actuality we are creating new diversity as we breed new plants and we also have a USDA program that is a literal Noah’s arc of germplasm for many commercial plants that we grow today. The reason that the government has so much influence on the research and protection of ag species is because it is long term has little profit potential in it starting stages making it difficult to be supported by the private market place.

The debt crisis everyone one is talking about it. In reality it will affect us all drastically in some way as students and as future agricultural leaders. Being behind the scenes while all this is going down is exciting and confusing. You see there are two sides of the debate one saying we need to cut and balance our budget stopping the spending of our money that doesn’t exist. This is more of the small business look at the government saying if we don’t have it we can’t spend it. On the other hand there is the idea that we can’t cut things Americans are used to and that once the economy stabilizes it will fix and we need a more timely approach to fixing it.
The issue is we are currently standing still, to me that the answer seems obvious. You can’t continue to run a country on debt it won’t last. You have to look at this from a purely business situation. For example you can’t run any successful business for ten years without any profit. I feel we need to look at the Government the same way the American government is living beyond it means. We see on the news everyday families living on credit cards and then losing it all. We are at this point our government is living on credit.
It seems to me that working here you get a mix of views. Some middle ground Americans would say we need a compromise that has been tried and did not pass through the senate. The debt ceiling cannot keep rising somehow we have to slow it down to a stop this is not going to happen through more spending. I cant believe that balancing the budget and reducing our debt is a controversial issue.

Working in a congressional office is an interesting experience and coming down to the last week here, I look back on my days in the office. I started working the day after Memorial Day and was put into an interesting situation from the start helping do everything I could in the office from taking constituent opinions and giving tours, to researching topics and sharing data with staff so they could stay informed on the issues. I worked on issues from immigration to dairy regulations, invasive species, ethanol, the debt ceiling, etc. It has been a good experience being on the leg-end side of the Hill.  Being one of the cogs in the big wheel has given me greater appreciation for the men and women in Congress. It also opened my eyes to the waste of Washington and the government in general. The problem lies in what I believe are the views of a good majority of Americans. We believe we can’t keep spending money, but feel almost entitled to.  To cut spending, we need to restructure and accept the consequences of having less. I believe we need to change and go back to our fundamental American ideals; pulling ourselves up to become more independent.

Since ethanol was invented, it has taken up a good portion of the renewable resources spotlight and created a movement of people backing it from environmentalists, to corn farmers, to the auto industry. In reality the ethanol industry has no “legs” to stand on, so to speak.  The current industry relies on government programs to allow it to be competitive in the current market. Without these programs, it would not be economical. Currently regulations make ethanol cheaper than gasoline, when in reality, it costs more. Because of this, we have created a false market through the use of subsidies and other government influences.

Ethanol is a product created from plant components. Today corn is the prime crop used to produce ethanol. This makes it a very attractive product for corn farmers, allowing them to sell corn at a higher price.  The disadvantage is that ethanol creates a lack of crop diversity and it raises the price in corn, which directly affects the price of food and the price of animal products, due to the increased cost of feed.

Without these government regulations that basically chose ethanol as their sponsored alternative fuel, I think you would see a shift in the market place to be more innovative and find a fuel source that is not an inferior product to gasoline.

To me it seems simple that we could save money by cutting programs that help artificially hold up ethanol. This might lead to more innovation for new fuel sources and realistic prices for corn.