Iowa Farmer Claims AP Report is Misleading

Cindy Zimmerman

apLeroy Perkins is an Iowa farmer who will be featured in an Associated Press “investigative report” being released this week about ethanol and the environment. He claims that his comments were taken out of context and reporters who interviewed him never told him it was for a “story to put down ethanol.”

“I think the AP folks wrote a little different story than they told me they were going to write,” said Leroy during a Fuels America press call today about an advanced draft of the report which was circulated on the internet last week. He says he was contacted by the reporters to talk about “the county fair, along with absentee out of state landlords and of course, water quality.”

Leroy says one of the reporters asked him what he thought about ethanol. “I told them I was for ethanol, I believe in it and we use it in our vehicles and equipment all the time … because it’s a product of the land,” he said.

Leroy is described in the article as “a white-haired, 66-year-old farmer in denim overalls” who is “agonizing” over whether he should put the “91 acres that he set aside for conservation years ago” into corn production. Much of the pre-released article is focused specifically on Wayne County Iowa, where he lives, to illustrate how ethanol policy is “raping the land” by encouraging more corn acreage.

“The AP article tried to paint Wayne County as a poster child for cropland expansion under the RFS but they … omitted some key facts,” said Geoff Cooper, Vice President of Research and Analysis for the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA). “Farmers in Wayne County Iowa planted far more corn in the past than they do today,” he added, noting that 88,000 acres were planted in 1985 compares to 58,000 last year. “Cropland is not expanding in the United States.”

Listen to a conference call on the AP article here:AP ethanol story fact check

RFA has composed a
Counterpoint Fact Sheet on AP story and we also have spoken to RFA president and CEO Bob Dinneen who was interviewed for the article. Ethanol Report with Bob Dinneen on AP story

Audio, Corn, Ethanol