| Subject: O.k., now I think I have a problem with ethanol subsidies... |
Author:
bubba
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Date Posted: 13:50:36 06/02/07 Sat
In reply to:
DE
's message, "The price of beer rises..." on 02:56:51 05/29/07 Tue
...well, another one to go along their distortion of the markets. But that's a different thread.
Btw, Ayinger is a damn good beer!
>German Euro Trash Eco Freaks get what they deserve....
>
>
>Trouble Brews in Germany as Biofuel Boom Jacks Up
>Price of Beer
>
>
>
>
>AYING, Germany -- Like most Germans, brewer Helmut
>Erdmann is all for the fight against global warming.
>Unless, that is, it drives up the price of his beer.
>
>And that is exactly what is happening to Erdmann and
>other German brewers as farmers abandon barley -- the
>raw material for the national beverage -- to plant
>other, subsidized crops for sale as
>environmentally-friendly biofuels.
>
>"Beer prices are a very emotional issue in Germany --
>people expect it to be as inexpensive as other basic
>staples like eggs, bread and milk," said Erdmann,
>director of the family-owned Ayinger brewery in Aying,
>an idyllic village nestled between Bavaria's rolling
>hills and dark forests with the towering Alps on the
>far horizon.
>
>"With the current spike in barley prices, we won't be
>able to avoid a price increase of our beer any
>longer," Erdmann said, stopping to sample his freshly
>brewed, golden product right from the steel
>fermentation kettle.
>
>In the last two years, the price of barley has doubled
>to euro200 (US$271) from euro102 per ton as farmers
>plant more crops such as rapeseed and corn that can be
>turned into ethanol or bio-diesel, a fuel made from
>vegetable oil.
>
>As a result, the price for the key ingredient in beer
>-- barley malt, or barley that has been allowed to
>germinate -- has soared by more than 40 percent, to
>around euro385 (US$522) per ton from around euro270 a
>ton two years ago, according to the Bavarian Brewers'
>Association.
>
>For Germany's beer drinkers that is scary news: their
>beloved beverage -- often dubbed 'liquid bread'
>because it is a basic ingredient of many Germans'
>daily diet -- is getting more expensive. While some
>breweries have already raised prices, many others will
>follow later this year, brewers say.
>
>Talk about higher beer prices has not gone unnoticed
>by consumers. Sitting at a long wooden table under
>leafy chestnut trees at the Prater, one of Berlin's
>biggest beer gardens, Volker Glutsch, 37, complained
>bitterly.
>
>"It's absolutely outrageous that beer is getting even
>more expensive," Glutsch said, gulping down the last
>swig of his half-liter dark beer at lunch. "But
>there's nothing we can do about it -- except drinking
>less and that's not going to happen."
>
>A meager barley harvest last year in Germany and
>barley-exporting countries such as France, Australia
>and Canada has compounded the problem. The price rise
>is squeezing breweries -- many of them smaller,
>family-owned enterprises that can ill afford it.
>
>The Ayinger Brewery, which has 65 employees and has
>been family owned since its founding in 1878, produces
>7.5 million liters (1.98 million gallons) of beer each
>year and purchases most of the ingredients from
>farmers nearby.
>
>Eventually, Erdmann and other brewers say, it is
>drinkers who will bear the brunt of the higher costs
>for raw materials.
>
>Already, at the annual brewery festival in Aying this
>week, prices for Erdmann's Ayinger beer were up at
>euro6.40 (US$8.60) from last year's euro6.10 for a
>one-liter (34 fluid ounce) mug. That's no small matter
>for Bavarians, who are among the world's heaviest beer
>drinkers. They put away about 160 liters (42 gallons)
>of beer a year -- well above the already high German
>average of 115 liters (30.38 gallons) per person.
>
>And organizers of the world-famous Oktoberfest in
>Munich have announced a 5.5 percent price increase: A
>one-liter mug will cost up to euro7.90 (US$10.70) at
>this year's autumn beer festival -- the highest price
>ever.
>
>Brewers predict that higher barley prices will add
>about euro1 (US$1.35) to each 10-liter case of beer,
>but the German Farmers Association disputes that,
>saying the figure is about 33 cents (45 U.S. cents).
>Other factors like higher salaries and energy prices
>are also jacking up prices.
>
>"The financial pressure on Germany's small and
>medium-sized breweries is immense," brewers
>association head Walter Koenig said. "The increasing
>costs of raw materials may become a serious threat for
>many breweries."
>
>"Beer drinkers across the country will get upset when
>beer prices will rise even further in the fall," said
>Koenig. "We are therefore demanding that government
>stop its subsidies for biofuels immediately."
>
>However, in its first major report on bioenergy, the
>United Nations tried to temper enthusiasm over
>biofuels last week, warning that the diversion of land
>to grow crops for fuel will increase prices for basic
>food commodities.
>
>That is what happened in Mexico, when increased demand
>for corn to make ethanol in the United States pushed
>up the price of tortillas.
>
>The German government subsidizes biofuel crops at the
>rate of euro45 per hectare (US$24.60 per acre),
>according to the Agency for Renewable Energies, part
>of the Agriculture Ministry.
>
>Barley production in Germany went down by 5.5 percent
>-- from 542,000 hectares in 2006 to 514,000 hectares
>in 2007, according to the Bavarian Farmers
>Association. On the other hand, the production of corn
>for biofuel more than doubled last year and the
>production of rapeseed for biofuel grew by 3.4
>percent.
>
>Biofuels, which reduce the emission of greenhouse
>gases believed to cause global warming, have been seen
>by many as a cleaner and cheaper way to meet the
>world's soaring energy needs than with greenhouse-gas
>emitting fossil fuels. European leaders have decided
>that at least 10 percent of fuels will come from
>biofuels by 2020.
>
>Germany leads in the consumption of bioenergy in
>Europe with an annual usage of 4.3 percent of overall
>fuel consumption, according to figures by the Agency
>of Renewable Energies. Germany also is among the
>leaders in producing wind energy and recycling
>garbage.
>
>Beer prices are serious business in Bavaria, which has
>some 615 breweries and gave Germany its famed beer
>purity law, which dates back to 1516 and in its
>current form permits only four ingredients: malted
>grain, hops, yeast and water.
>
>Farmers say the brewers share some of the blame.
>
>"For years there was an oversupply and we couldn't
>make any profits with barley and that's why we
>switched to biofuel crops," said Anton Stuerzer, 43,
>who grows barley and rapeseed at his farm in the
>neighboring village of Hoehenkirchen.
>
>"It serves the brewers right that they have to pay
>those high prices now -- they should have paid us fair
>prices even when there was too much barley available."
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