US ethanol industry needs to control message - expo

16 June 2009 14:46  [Source: ICIS news]

DENVER, Colorado (ICIS news)--The US ethanol industry must do a better job of  communicating the benefits of biofuels to win greater support, an industry official said at the Fuel Ethanol Workshop & Expo (FEW), which opened on Tuesday.

“We have not done a good job at controlling the message,” said BBI International chief executive Mike Bryan on the sidelines of 25th edition of the event, which drew some 2,300 delegates to Denver.

BBI International has owned and operated the FEW since 1995.

Bryan said attendance for the 2009 workshop had dropped from about 4,000 delegates in 2008. He blamed the fall on the weaker economy and woes faced by the ethanol industry, including a well-funded campaign to discredit biofuels.

That campaign was most evident in the fuel-versus-food controversy, which Bryan said drove a “stake through the heart of ethanol”.

“It has been a frustrating year,” the official said, adding that “ethanol in America had become like a bad word”.

The official blamed that on “negative press” and also lack of public awareness of the benefits of the product.

“This industry is more than 25 years old, but we have never really taken the time to educate the public,” he said.

Bryan dismissed the notion that ethanol was to blame for higher food prices.

However, he said the ethanol industry had failed in communicating that message to the public.

“It is shame on us for doing that,” he said, adding that part of the problem was divisions within the industry itself.

Bryan planned to call on delegates to be more proactive and unite behind a “common agenda” in support of ethanol.

“We need to bring this industry together,” he said.

The 2009 FEW closes on Thursday.

For more on ethanol, visit ICIS chemical intelligence
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Bookmark Simon Robinson’s Big Biofuels Blog for some independent thinking on biofuels

By: William Lemos
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