I've heard and know of some beef farmers that have gave it up, said there not going to fight it anymore. 
I know of only 2 dairy farmers left in my area, most took the Gov, buy out and went to beef farms and some of them gave that up and sold out. With a 700 lb. steer bringing $1,000.00 + it sounds like farmers are getting rich, but with the price of fuel,gas, feed,fertilizer, seed, Vets. just to name some of the expense, farmers are still scraping by, the only difference is there just handling larger amounts of money that they don't get to keep. 
Jack
There is more truth to that than most people know Jack. My wife asked why I didnt farm the family ground instead of cash leasing it.. So I set up a list of expenses JUST to get started with good used equipment. Field prep with anhydrous etc, etc... She decided maybe cash rent was better. We already have tractors and some equipment to boot.
There IS money to be made, but you have to have money to make that money. All it takes is a series of ANY events that drain the reserves and your out of business.
As far as ethanol and a shortage of supply.prices for corn etc...
We have the production in this country to supply half the world with ethanol and still have plenty of corn for feed/etc, IF the govt didnt send most of it overseas. Keeping what we produce will never happen though. The Govt makes too much money in exporting our produce.
Alternative fuels will NEVER happen so long as our current form of government continues to control so much of our lives.
Alcohol in gasoline (Gasahol) is pointless. It takes more alcohol to run a gas engine than it does gasoline. the only thing alcohol does in fuel is tear up our engines and fuel systems.
In a standard engine designed for gasoline. alcohol is not fuel efficient because it takes so much MORE of it to produce the same power.
IF.. engines were designed to run specifically on alcohol, they would be even MORE fuel efficient, produce more power, and run cleaner, but they don't want people to know that. We won't even begin to talk Hydrogen anyone can make from water...
