Friday, May 2, 2008

Barnes calls on Media to Stop Blaming Farmers

Kay Barnes, 6th District Congressional candidate, called on the national news media to stop unfairly blaming farmers and ethanol for the high price of food.
"I shop for groceries every week and see almost everything going up in addition to corn. The price of eggs, apples, and even bananas have gone through the roof, and we don't use these foods to make biofuel. Farmers receive very little of the eventual cost of food we buy at the market (see article below). The real culprits are the big oil companies. The national media needs to do their research and leave our farmers alone," said Barnes in a statement from her office in Clay County.
Barnes said that that just this week when she drove to Chariton County to meet with a group of residents in Keytesville, that the price of diesel was over $4.00 per gallon at gas station after gas station. The big oil industry, middle men, and Wall Street speculators are driving up the price of oil, gasoline and diesel. Members of the national media are not reporting what the truck drivers and farmers of Missouri know: that the increasing costs of food and other goods are a result of high fuel costs. Instead, they publish off-base articles and editorials which wrongly single out farmers.
Barnes concluded, "If the editorial writers from newspapers like the New York Times would come down from their ivory towers long enough to talk to real family farmers, they would know that they are working hard to make a living. Now, in addition to coping with high fuel prices, our farmers unfairly have to take the brunt of criticism for what the big oil companies have done to food prices."

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