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Food Prices Will Rise
I have repeatedly argued that - even if deflation continues - food prices might rise dramatically. See this, this and this.
In March:
Wholesale food prices ... rose 2.4%, matching the biggest gain in 26 years. Prices of fresh and dried vegetables soared 49.3%, the most in 16 years. Prices of seafood, meat and dairy goods also rose.
In addition, the oil spill will cause higher food prices. Initially, there is the loss of substantial portions of the fisheries and shrimping in the Gulf Coast. See this and this.
Moreover, the disruption of shipping lanes will drive up prices.
As AP notes:
Besides the immediate impact on Gulf industries, shipping along the Mississippi River could soon be limited. Ships carrying food, oil, rubber and much more come through the Southwest Pass to enter the vital waterway.
Shipment delays — either because oil-splattered ships need to be cleaned off at sea before docking or because water lanes are shut down for a time — would raise the cost of transporting those goods.
"We saw that during Hurricane Katrina for a period of time — we saw some prices go up for food and other goods because they couldn't move some fruit down the shipping channels and it got spoiled," PFGBest analyst Phil Flynn said.
The oil spill is not the only environment catastrophe which could increase prices.
Bee colonies are also collapsing worldwide. As the Guardian notes:
Disturbing evidence that honeybees are in terminal decline has emerged from the United States where, for the fourth year in a row, more than a third of colonies have failed to survive the winter.
The decline of the country's estimated 2.4 million beehives began in 2006, when a phenomenon dubbed colony collapse disorder (CCD) led to the disappearance of hundreds of thousands of colonies. Since then more than three million colonies in the US and billions of honeybees worldwide have died and scientists are no nearer to knowing what is causing the catastrophic fall in numbers.
The number of managed honeybee colonies in the US fell by 33.8% last winter, according to the annual survey by the Apiary Inspectors of America and the US government's Agricultural Research Service (ARS).
The collapse in the global honeybee population is a major threat to crops. It is estimated that a third of everything we eat depends upon honeybee pollination, which means that bees contribute some £26bn to the global economy.
As the Guardian notes, the problem might be a combination of pesticides and nutrition:
US scientists have found 121 different pesticides in samples of bees, wax and pollen, lending credence to the notion that pesticides are a key problem. "We believe that some subtle interactions between nutrition, pesticide exposure and other stressors are converging to kill colonies," said Jeffery Pettis, of the ARS's bee research laboratory.
Indeed:
- While being trucked around, bees are fed a diet of high-fructose corn syrup (and soy protein), not real pollen (see also this).
To recap: bees are fed junk food totally different from what bees naturally eat with very little nutritional content, taken out of their normal natural environment and shoved into trucks, and then driven all over the nation.
The poor nutrition, exposure to numerous pesticides (and genetically modified foods), and stressful condition of being constantly trucked all over the country are hurting the bees. Why do beekeepers do it? Because high-fructose corn syrup and soy protein are cheap junk, and because the widespread use of pesticides coupled with trucking bees around the country is the low-cost industrial farming business model.
The bottom line is that raising and using bees to pollinate crops in a way that won't kill so many bees will be more expensive ... thus driving up food prices.
- advertisements -
bankrupt governments-->less money spent on ag subsidies-->higher food prices. any questions?
Too much logic in that chain...
bankrupt governments -> more money spent on ag subsidies->higher food prices
how does your garden grow?
I just finished "Organic Manifesto," Maria Rodale's new book, which is a pretty cogent summary of why we should switch to organic, and fast. All the health stuff was old hat to me, but what I didn't know is that organically farmed soil is so good for sequestering CO2. It's easy reading and doesn't take more than a few hours.
http://www.pbs.org/pov/foodinc/photo_gallery_watch.php
watch this video if you get a chance - mind blowing what food giants are upto!!
As another farmer who enjoys ZH...Dairy farmers have been receiving less than cost of production for their milk for over 24 months . For along time Wells Fargo,Bank of Am. and other regionals have been valuing milk cows at pre economic collapse prices. (cooking the books). Low milk prices have hurt our quality alfalfa prices..down 45%. Why aren't these low milk prices being passed on to consumers? Concentration of buyers, just as in the beef poultry hog and grain markets. Monopoly...politicians say you can't prove collution...all you do is follow your competitors lead only pay what they are paying. My ex Senator Craig told me that the anti-trust laws of the 1920's just don't apply today. I'm thinking lets write some new ones!
There now are so many factors that will be working against food prices and availability that I can guarantee we will not come out of this unscathed in some way.
Here's one of my bookmarks for your reading enjoyment:
http://www.marketskeptics.com/
And if it gets really bad, gold wont save you either. If some guy came up to me to buy some food or medicines from me and all he had to offer is a couple of ounces of gold, I will tell him to either help me plant some vegetables or tell him to eat his gold. What will I do with the gold? Gold is a really great investment now, but I cant tell you how pissed I get when some fool who cant think beyond the economy we live in today, comes out and screams about gold like some maniacal TV preacher, as if it will be my salvation in a full-on collapse. And does anyone think that the government will not try to take it from you one way or another when push comes to shove? Nobody will stand up for you and your gold because they will be starving too.
Nothing wrong with gold, great investment, but its not medicine, its not food, its not a skill or a trade that you can trade for food and I wont have enough in my stash to give you a good trade for it.
I read Eric de C as well.
Re gold and if TSHTF, well I am stocking up on various medicines as well... And ammo for my guns.
I think that in the SHTF scenarios it is preparation AND mind-set that will carry one through.
Living in a condo does have its limitations though, LOL.
+1000
If you have a couple of cases of Advil or Tylenol in your condo, or even better, antibiotics, you will have a line of people trading food with you. Your neighbor holding gold will still have a toothache and hunger to go along with it.
cigarettes and alcohol will be great in-demand bartering items also
Yes, Advil and Tylenol should be in my kit.
Antibiotics go bad in the heat (S. Fl.) if TSHTF though. On the other hand, I can trade more stable xanax and hydrocodone which I imagine would be in equal demand.
Stockpiling has its virtues!
Re: bees - Some hoby beekeeper friends reported to me they were losing bees and they stopped using the commercial - crap I forget the term - the board you slide in that holds the honeycomb. The cells were too big in the commercial boards and the bees could not get out of them. Trouble is I don't remember what they did to fix it.
Part of the increased food cost can come out of a special, inflation adjusted 'food cost supplement' from the Govt Annuity you'll have from what used to be your 401k/IRA....they buy treasuries (your New Annuity...a lot like the current annuity plan) and the govt promises to keep very close track of the food situation....you know...they have lots of experience with this as they keep really really close track of the CPI and everything else. Don't worry about the food, just sign over your cash.
The record cold and snow this year didn't help East coast beekeepers, either. My dad's usually got bees out the wazoo, but he lost a number of hives this past winter. Gonna be a thin year for the honey.
doesnt matter if food prices rise lol
the government excludes it from any meaning
Meanwhile, here in India, food inflation is running in the high double digits (close to 20-23%). And these are government stats, I leave the real numbers to your imaginations.
I believe they will leave you feeling..... number.
Another staggering development to note is that western money has been forcing Indian farmers off their land (heavy hand of the government involved) to develop Special Economic Zones to manufacture crap for export/crap software/industrial crap.
Also, and again foreign money (mostly American unfortunately) is doling out cheap loans (teaser) to farmers to buy tractors they don't need. Small farmers, but the tractor, have a single crop failure and cannot pay their loan back. So they use the tractor for transporting soil (from their farm) and sand (from their local river-bed) for construction in near-by cities, again being funded by.... you guessed it, western money (read dollars).
The push to change India from an agrarian to an industrial economy is a sad sight to behold.
India is highly unstable, regardless of what reports you might read about Bricks and crap like that. It is a time-bomb that will be conveniently exploded along one of many fault lines (religious/social/linguistic) when the handlers feel it necessary.
End of India report!
That is too bad that India is not doing as well as we had been led to believe.
With an impressive history and culture (not to mention a partial counterweight to China in Asia), it is indeed sad to hear that India may fracture along whatever fault lines.
Well that may happen to us in the USA too if that might cheer you up!
That is too bad that India is not doing as well as we had been led to believe.
With an impressive history and culture (not to mention a partial counterweight to China in Asia), it is indeed sad to hear that India may fracture along whatever fault lines.
Well that may happen to us in the USA too if that might cheer you up!
Lets not forget the bats, they are minor but important pollinators for fruit and have been dying off in droves.
I've been doing beekeeping with my dad for most of my life, and CCD is mainly happening to the commercial beekeepers not the backyard natural beekeepers. If you have room, even a roof top, keeping one beehive will give you up to 100 lbs of honey or more. It doesn't go bad and is great for barter.
Soylent green may not be that far off. This is what happens when corporations are allowed via govt. to manipulate our food supply for profit without knowing or caring about the consequences.
Good summery. Buy canned salmon and silver coins and pray.
yes, buy salmon now while they still exist... if the newly tapped volcano in the Gulf isn't capped in a month or two...
Revelation 16:3:
The second angel poured his bowl into the sea. It became like the blood of a dead body, and every living thing in the sea died.
+1,000
Going to rise? It costs nearly $3.50 for a Big Mac. Chocolate bars are going for a buck and a half.
At this rate, I'll have to become a veternarian and eat carrots, and beets.
The base of our food pyramid is showing cracks and what are we being fed by our media? iPods, of course! This is very frightening. I cannot even imagine how this country would react to real life food shortages... no virtual way around FOOD!
The Corporate Approved USDA 4 Basic Food Groups:
1. Sugar (Now Replaced by High Fructose Corn Syrup).
2. Caffeine
3. Alcohol
4. Artificial Color and Preservatives.
Note: A King Cobra 40oz and Hostess HoHo provide 100% of the USDA minimum recommended daily nutritional requirements...
Note: As of 2013, Obamacare will place Big Pharma psychoactive
meds at #2...
Ok, let's have a reality slap.
I read with interest what I thought would be a par for the course article on the financial reason why food prices are going up and I get...bee fear-mongering. Lord.
For the record, coming from obviously one of the few farmers (and I don't mean 10 acre farmer) that frequents this blog, there are bees out there. On my farm there are two separate bee hives put there by someone who is in the bee business. Yes, there has been a major reduction in bee population, but one of you got it right...Mites. Bees do get moved to more temperate climates in the winter, usually a 2 day journey. Their populations are slowly coming back.
This Monsanto bashing is truly getting old. Yeah, they are truly the corporation that we farmers love to hate. But...first soybeans selfpollinate (that means no need for bees). Second, those of us who farm are already moving away from GMO.
2 reasons: The expense of the seed and the reduction of control (both herbicidal and insecticidal) with GMO's.
I love this site, but sometimes....
nobody, are you doing any polyculture at all to attract beneficial insects?
yes agreed, if the bees are dying off, help make more....
http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/ent/notes/Other/note109/note109.html
Monsanto = Pirates.
Varroa mites are one of the factors. But the bees' immune systems have been weakened by other factors, and so the bees can't fight the mites and other stressors like they used to.
In addition, it's not just the bees ...
First the frogs started disappearing.Then the bees started disappearing.
Now, its birds. According to CBC, tens of millions of birds are disappearing across North America.
According to the Seattle Times:
Is it pollution affecting all these species? Disruption of ecosystems?
I don't know.
But mites aren't affecting all of them, which is circumstantial evidence that pesticide use is at least partly to blame ...
Get it?
Um, George, if by the CBC you mean the Canadian TV network, that's an unreliable source, particularly their Green Whacko Suzuki.
I'm a birder, for about 50 years, and all I can say is that there is so much BS out there about bird (and other wildlife) crises that its getting realy, really stupid.
Unless you are some eco-crisis corporation out to raise money. Even the good old Audubon Society has jumped on the fear-mongering bandwagon.
Some species do have problems. But since there are about 700 species in North America (north of Mexico), and each one has different habitats and circumstances, anytime you hear "birds x" you know its a gross overgeneralization, and almost always BS.
Well except for "birds fly" or "birds lay eggs."
And if we had penguins here, you couldn't even say the former.
Washington Is As Dead On as Anniston, Alabama When It Comes to Bees
Mites, constant antibiotic treatments to control mites, stress of constant moving, herbicide, pesticide, GM pest and roundup resistant Monsanto crap... and like Nobody "Joe Farmer" above... lack of diversity and over reliance on monoculture all are factors in colony collapse.
Studies show taking 5% of your land out of production in strategic locations, attracting native pollinators to complement European bees will up production greater than the land you took out of production. Providing habitat and forage through lupines, pollinator and wildflower pasture seed mixes is an excellent investment.
Want More Information?
Want to donate to a worthy nonprofit doing some of the best pollinator research in the US and Canada?
Xerces Society and Farms.
There Are Mites in Every Hive.
A strong active healthy hive keep mites to a minimum.
My hives rarely move, they are well fed with honey and nectar, cared for, queens replaced, frames and bodies cleaned and maintained, colonies kept strong and replenished over the winter and my bees pollinate organic crops and orchards and cruise the above described pastures...
Conagra Corporate Farm Subsidy WELFARE
If you want to eat Monsanto GM soy beans and high fructose corn syrup in every product... go Nobody "Monsanto Joe's" way. You want a diverse diet of seasonal fruits and vegetables?
There is a better way than Conagra corporate industrial petrol chemical soil eroding monoculture that needs/wants massive tax payer funded corporate ho farm subsidy WELFARE...
Support your LOCAL farmer...
chem trails may be a factor. I like being sprayed like a vegetable as much as i like being ripped off and lied to by the government.
I live in the midwest (USA) & I know a bee keeper. Three years ago, he was worried about the decline in his hives & honey production.
This last season, he said things were looking up - more bees & more honey.
Who knows? V, W or \.....?
I blame cell phone towers.
that was my theory on the bee problem
Hey, everyone's not a financial analyst, nor a farmer.
Thank you for your insights.
appreciate the insights as well, nice to see people breaking away from Monsanto and GMO.
Well, Bernanke expects you to burn your VCRs for heat and eat your ipods for nourishment. So, don't expect him to give a shit.
To recap: bees are fed junk food totally different from what bees naturally eat with very little nutritional content, taken out of their normal natural environment and shoved into trucks, and then driven all over the nation.
Sounds like what happened to African Americans.
Hey now, plenty of Americans of every possible hyphenation also resemble that comment.
In the US the bee die off is caused by mites. I have seen no honey bees this spring, but there are plenty of other types of bees to take their place. My apple trees are still buzzing with activity.
We used to live in a grove area of Black Locust trees , about 7 yrs ago, in spring , when the trees were in their wonderful smelling yellow bloom , you could hear the hum of the 10,000's of bees in the grove . Now NONE !!!!! Location -West Michigan. I have read that cell phone signals are theorized to be causing the problem . Bees lossing signal from hives , wander aimless , never return too hive, queeen dies . end of game.
This problem has been growing for years, yet I have not seen any shortage or major price rise for natural honey sold in grocery stores. I would think that stationary honey-producing hives would at least protect their residents from travel stress. Do they also receive different diets than their fellows in the pollination industry? Or are they a different breed altogether? Hope someone out there can relieve my confusion.
GW, have you seen the PBS video on how the Chinese hand pollinate their fruit trees due to the honeybee collapse?
Gene Logsdon reports that other species of bees and other flying critters end up pollinating his crops/trees. Not trying to minimize the honeybee collapse...
Oh great. First it's goats in Florida. Now we need laws to prevent perverts from perptrating acts of obscenity against their geraniums.
/sarcasm -off
I saw that too, and one thing that struck me is that the slow, careful, painstaking labor involved would be unimaginable to most Americans.
At least so far...
Not GW, but, yes they do, but they do not produce honey...........
GW,
The thought for the past 2-3 yrs for me on this,is the INCREASED use of hybrids.
(You know Monsanto,ADM, want to make sure you have to buy new seed every year).
This coupled with the crap being fed, and the toxins, to me seems like a recipe for disaster.
Hopefully we are raising NEW hives, in controlled enviro's.....
If the bee's continue to die off...WE will die off.
Period.
Nothing edible that grows in nature, can do without Bees, or insects.
This topic goes back to the reported LACK of inflation, from several days ago..........
The Gv't reported (excluding fuel/food), less than 2% inflation...
My trips to the major food chains, staples have risen anywhere from 10%-200% increase over a year ago, or less.
Add the cost of foodstuffs, and the price of Achmajacenoff's militarization and upgrading of weapons in the Gulf straits, we could see some VERY serious increase in fuel, and even more so food.
I strongly suggest folks pack it in...........as much as you have room for, that will not spoil, at least 2-3yr shelf life................