Newsflash: The United Nations and The Wall Street Journal just agreed on something: With this summer's brutal drought, America needs to stop using so much corn to produce ethanol for fuel, and start using it in the food chain.
America's food chain has lately produced a bumper crop of scary news, but the worst food-related threat to our health was being caused by U.S. energy policy: Here's how the corn ethanol subsidy was making us fatter, and why to be glad that Congress finally killed it.
Once unknown to most U.S. investors, Syngenta has blossomed as one of the world's leading agribusiness companies, with a hefty 19% global share in the multibillion-dollar crop-protection market and 11% in seed production. Its stock is near a record high.
It has become clear to politicians and scientists that corn-based ethanol isn't the solution for creating a home-grown fuel source. Enter "cellulosic ethanol," made from wood chips, weeds or algae. Could it be the fuel of the future?
If you've been to a supermarket lately, you've probably noticed that food prices are soaring. And that spells an opportunity for investors. Asset-management expert John Stephenson offers tips for small investors aiming to tap into the agricultural market.
Could caffeinated alcoholic drinks, which the FDA deemed unsafe for human consumption in November, turn out to be good for cars? A Virginia-based ethanol recycler, MXI Environmental Services, is turning those soon-to-be-banned beverages into fuel.
Strikers in France shut down refineries that ship gasoline to U.S. East Coast, and the proportion of corn-based ethanol the government will allow in gasoline is rising from 10% to 15%.
Besides the unemployed, nobody is getting hurt worse in this economy than seniors. Prices on many commodities are skyrocketing, but the Consumer Price Index, which is the yardstick used to adjust Social Security for inflation, is virtually unchanged.
Smithfield Foods beat Wall Street's fourth-quarter earnings estimates Thursday, its report noting that signs are emerging to indicate the beginnings of a turnaround in the battered and beleaguered hog industry. The company's adjusted results showed a profit of 18 cents a share.
Lines for gasoline could start getting a little shorter on the West Coast, where startup Propel Fuels has raised $20 million to expand its network of biofuel stations. The financing comes just after the Feds set a new renewable fuel standard.
A severe food shortage is on its way, according to famed investor Jim Rogers. Food inventories are the lowest in decades and "[m]any farmers cannot get loans to buy fertilizer now, even though we have big shortages developing," he said.
