I don’t know about you, but I’ve been stockpiling pasta:
Dec. 17 (Bloomberg) — Wheat rose above $10 a bushel for the first time, bolstering prices for other grains and oilseeds and stoking inflation.
Chicago wheat futures rose as much as 30 cents, or 3.1 percent, to $10.095 as dry weather threatened crops in Argentina, adding to concern the world’s farmers may not be able to grow enough to meet demand for bread, pasta and livestock feed. Rice also jumped to a record, while soybeans reached the highest in 34 years and corn was its costliest in nine months.
Kellogg Co., the maker of Frosted Mini-Wheats cereal and Eggo waffles, and General Mills Inc., the maker of Cheerios cereal, already have raised prices. Kikkoman Corp., Japan’s biggest maker of soy sauce, is planning its first price increase in 18 years, while Sara Lee Corp. said Dec. 13 it will increase bread prices for a second time since September.
“We are seeing a broad-based increase in cost pressures,” Brian Redican, senior economist at Macquarie Group Ltd., said in an interview from Sydney today. “The increase in soft commodity prices is really the next stage in that process.”
I know that dry weather in some regions is feeding in to this but what I also wonder how much the diversion of corn and switch to growing corn on more acres for ethanol production is having on the prices. I’m not trying to knock ethanol as a substitute for oil based fuels but it’s use has many negative side effects and just points to the fact we need to find a better clean alternative energy source.
Actually, John, it is a very good idea to knock ethanol as a substitute
for oil based fuels, because growing it consumes about as much energy
as it produces, as well as displacing more valuable foodstuffs.
It’s a fake green technology, promoted by agribusiness lobbyists and
the politicians in bed with them.
Anything made with corn, corn by-products and corn sweeteners is subject to the massive supply and demand surge created by the corn fuel crop industry to supply corn for ethanol plants.
About 20% of the nation’s corn crop currently goes to corn fuel and that amount is expected to rise: good for farmers, but makes your dinner table expensive to set. Add higher oil prices, to the mix and you have further degradation of your food dollar: oil is fuel, as well as a component of fertilizer, so, we have oil and oil by-products creating higher food prices, then we add food crops competing with fuel crops, and the end result is that the consumer is screwed more ways from sun down.
I have several books out on the subject–see my website. Happy Holidays