Corn Prices Rise, Pitting Chickens Against Ethanol

The Washington Post
By Cindy Skrzycki
Tuesday, May 13, 2008; Page D02

Taking corn from the mouths of chickens to put into the gas tanks of U.S. cars and trucks is causing feathers to fly in Washington.

The $40 billion chicken industry, along with livestock producers, oil interests, grocers and some environmental and anti-hunger groups are hoping to put up a regulatory blockade to stop the diversion of corn stocks into the brewing of billions of gallons of ethanol for vehicles this year.

"It has never gone up this far, this fast," Richard L. Lobb, a spokesman for the National Chicken Council in Washington, said of the jump in corn prices to $6 a bushel and more, triple what they were two years ago. "We are competing directly with the people who make ethanol, and they are outbidding us for corn."

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