Earlier this year, flooding in the Midwest kept farmers from planting their crops on time, which caused the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to predict lower yields, and had some experts worried that a bad season could lead to high food prices and threaten the ethanol industry.

But farmers seem to have recovered. The latest crop production statistics from the USDA, released this morning, predict that this year will boast the second best corn crop on record. That could be good news for biofuels. This year, biofuels, which had enjoyed large popularity, were linked to rising food prices and hence were widely criticized. A bad year for corn, the source of ethanol in the United States, could have led to higher food prices and exacerbated the backlash against biofuels.