Global food prices spike 10% in July

brianlux

A rough year for weather related incidents. Maybe a good time to share ideas for stretching our food dollars.

http://grist.org/news/global-food-price ... o-drought/

Global food prices spike 10% in July, thanks largely to drought

The drought that desiccated the Midwest severely reduced the quality and quantity of this year’s corn harvest. This isn’t news in and of itself. The international impact of the drought, however, is.

Yesterday, the World Bank announced that global food prices went up substantially in July.

Global food prices soared by 10 percent in July from a month ago, with maize and soybean reaching all-time peaks due to an unprecedented summer of droughts and high temperatures in both the United States and Eastern Europe, according to the World Bank Group’s latest Food Price Watch report.

From June to July, maize and wheat rose by 25 percent each, soybeans by 17 percent, and only rice went down, by 4 percent. Overall, the World Bank’s Food Price Index, which tracks the price of internationally traded food commodities, was 6 percent higher than in July of last year, and 1 percent over the previous peak of February 2011.

Here’s why. The Department of Agriculture’s weekly weather and crop bulletin [PDF] tracks corn harvest and quality in the 18 states that last year produced 94 percent of the nation’s corn acreage.

At left is the percentage of the corn crop that has already been harvested. Last year at this point, 2 percent of the crop had been harvested, same as the five-year average. To date, 6 percent of this year’s harvest is in, three times as much.

What remains to be harvested is in bad shape. At right, the condition of the corn crop. The column headers are very poor, poor, fair, good, excellent, in order. As of August 28, fully 78 percent of the crop was fair or worse. Last year at this time, 81 percent was fair or better.

The good news is that corn futures prices have finally stabilized.

December corn futures data from CME Group.

The bad news is that they’ve stabilized at a near-record price. Meaning that the international spike in food prices isn’t likely to come down any time soon.

chadwick

i can't buy food all the time anyway so........ wtf'ever

we still have a crap load of food in this country. did i ever tell ya, Brianlux, how much i love iowa & the green coutryside where i live amongst farming; cows, hogs, chickens, grains, & hay are endless here. oneday i'm gonna raise honeybees & have jars of golden goodness. yummers

you can tell the corn has been damaged; the soybeans are green though. we've had rain throughout the summer & it's rained more often here than in other places. hard avoiding humidity and rain along this mississippi river valley

good luck, world's people lookin for grub
move your asses to iowa

brianlux

chadwick wrote:

i can't buy food all the time anyway so........ wtf'ever

we still have a crap load of food in this country. did i ever tell ya, Brianlux, how much i love iowa & the green coutryside where i live amongst farming; cows, hogs, chickens, grains, & hay are endless here. oneday i'm gonna raise honeybees & have jars of golden goodness. yummers

you can tell the corn has been damaged; the soybeans are green though. we've had rain throughout the summer & it's rained more often here than in other places. hard avoiding humidity and rain along this mississippi river valley

good luck, world's people lookin for grub
move your asses to iowa

Yes, Chadwick, I've been through Iowa a few times and it was beautiful!

Grant Wood country:



(Saw this one with several others at a Grant Wood exhibit and knew I had to see Iowa!)

riotgrl

Quit eating processed food which is made primarily with corn and soybeans which are being hit so hard this year because of the record drought - at least here in KY. Eat local, eat less meat. I'm not trying to diminish how difficult it will be for the consumer to buy food this year but we spend less than 10% of our income on food, compared to most other nations that spend anywhere from 15-25% of their income on food. We need to make drastic changes in what we eat in this country.

unsung

I thought about picking up something take-out the other night but since I'm really trying to eat better and I'm becoming more afraid of GMO's each day I decided to go buy ingredients for making stir-fry. Just enough veggies for two people, two heads of broc, two green peppers, one orange pepper, one pkg pea pods, one pkg of baby portabello shrooms, a pkg of noodles, all organic, grand total almost $40.

Eating well is expensive.

inlet13

Why should we be worried about "prices", Brian? Economic aspects are meaningless, unless we have a good environment, right? Or is it you do care about prices - ... - when you think a rise/decline support your message of global climate change? Which is it - prices matter all the time, or only sometimes?

For me, I'd say the economy, and in particular prices, are a concern. And I certainly agree that the drought played a part in rising prices... no doubt that's true - but, there are other reasons:

1) Monetary Policy is a huge reason. Ask yourself, why are gas prices AND food prices hitting peaks? Further, why aren't either of these included in our gauges of "inflation"? Answer: The Fed printed boatloads of new dollar bills. Each dollar in your pocket is worth less. The most volatile items will have price rises first. The "rational" for not including energy and food in core inflation is - they are too volatile. Now, of course, we're seeing the prices of both of these rise... couldn't be the Fed's also to blame though. Nah, never.

2) Fiscal Policy is another reason. Stupid ideas like ethanol based gasoline - which enforce us have 10% of corn based petrol - in each gallon of gas, adds to the problem. Let's explain - first, droughts restrict supply of corn - causing prices to rise. But, dumb policies like this one also cause prices of "corn" (for example) to rise. Why? Well they "MAKE" us purchase corn within our gas. That artificially increases demand causing prices to rise further. Ironically, this also impacts gasoline prices. Meanwhile, the biggest laugh is that it was the pro-environmentalists who pushed for this sort of policy at it's origin. Now, of course, they want it reversed. :fp:

DriftingByTheStorm

the price of gold and silver are both up *well* over 10% in one month as well,
and I promise you that it had nothing to do with drought or failure of gold and silver crops.