Food prices hitting you hard in the pocketbook? Agriculture giant Archer Daniels Midland feels for you, it really does — but gee, its profits jumped 42 percent this quarter, so it can’t really empathize. ADM’s grain-processing division is doing lively business keeping up with the bumper corn crop. And, they’ll have you know, high food prices are due to high oil prices, not to the ethanol push. Backing away from biofuels would be “foolish,” “dangerous,” and an “empty gesture,” says ADM CEO Patricia Woertz, adding, “It won’t fill anyone’s stomach. It won’t fill anyone’s gas tank.” It won’t fill ADM’s jones for profits, people. You wouldn’t want that, would you?
