This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
Soaring Food Inflation Full Frontal: Beef, Pork And Shrimp Prices Soar To Record Highs
We previously noted that both beef and pork (courtesy of the affectionately named Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus) prices have been reaching new all time highs on an almost daily basis. It is time to update the chart. Below we show what a world in which the Fed is constantly lamenting the lack of inflation looks like for beef prices...
... pork
... and shrimp.
More from Bloomberg:
Prices for shrimp have jumped to a 14-year high in recent months, spurred by a disease that’s ravaging the crustacean’s population. At Noodles & Co., a chain with locations across the country, it costs 29 percent more to add the shellfish to pastas this year, and shrimp-heavy dishes at places like the Cheesecake Factory Inc. are going up as well.
Restaurant chains, already struggling with shaky U.S. consumer confidence, are taking a profit hit as prices climb. Even worse, the surge is happening during the season of Lent, when eateries rely on seafood to lure Christian diners who abstain from chicken, beef and pork on certain days.
“It’s coming at a tough time for the industry,” said Andrew Barish, a San Francisco-based analyst at Jefferies LLC. “With the Lenten season, what you’ll see out there is a lot of promotions with seafood, and usually shrimp is a big part of that.”
In March, shrimp prices jumped 61 percent from a year earlier, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The climb is mainly due to a bacterial disease known as early mortality syndrome. While the ailment has no effect on humans, it’s wreaking havoc on young shrimp farmed in Southeast Asia, shrinking supplies.
***
James Johnson, a Jewel-Osco supermarket shopper in Chicago, has noticed the price increase. He’s been cutting back on one of his favorite dishes -- shrimp and potato soup -- because of the cost.
“I haven’t made it in a while,” the 29-year-old said. “Shrimp looks expensive.”
***
At Noodles, it now costs $3.34 to add the shellfish to a meal of pasta or pad thai, compared with $2.59 last year.
“We still want to at least offer it as choice,” Chief Executive Officer Kevin Reddy said in a phone interview. “As soon as the costs begin to normalize, we’ll return to the regular price.”
Ah yes, because retailers are always so willing to lower costs...
So for all those whose sustenance includes iPads and LCD TVs, or heaven forbid the pink slime known as fast food - you are in luck: the BLS' hedonic adjustments mean the rate of price increase in your daily consumption has rarely been lower. For everyone else: our condolences.
* * *
Update: Eggs too.
»
- 101605 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -
Really becoming noticable in supermarkets around here. Garbage food is the same price, while anything even remotely healthy or "real" has been going steadily up.
The BLS' hedonic adjustments are yet another way for the government to rip off the sheep. By using these adjustments, they (both the gov as well as the US corporations) can reduce the amount they pay to people in retirement.
Inflation should be measured via a basket of BASIC Necessities (Milk, Gas, Toothpaste, toilet paper, ... and TAX)
Just another disguised TAX.
BTW - Did anyone else notice how close the Nasdaq Comp $COMPX came to its 200 Day Avg? Do you think someone at the Fed's office gave someone in Japan a call and said; "release the news NOW."
Let them eat cake......
I forgot to include LEAD in my list of BASIC Necessities
Food?.... Who needs food?.... when you can eat fonestar...... meats tough.... but all those bitcoins are filling!
Now that's food for thought
Gota freezer or two full of shrimp...glad SC let's people bait for them. trolling for pelagics is firing up now, too....Mmmmmmm
Get used to it:
http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00629/news-graphics-2006-_62...
http://www.skepticalscience.com/ocean-acidification-global-warming-inter...
Probably Global Warming, right ?
Probably Global Warming, right ?
Nah, all merely coincidental. I looked out my window, still snow on the mountains = no agw.
http://www.news.uwa.edu.au/201308286012/research/sea-floor-microbes-may-...
I was just speaking with a fellow ZHer who let me know that he just happened to see ABC World News Tonight against his will (it was on in a diner he had to grab a quick meal at) and Dianne "Socket Puppet" Sawyer (the anchor woman) made it a HUGE deal to point out that although beef, pork, seafood, fruit & vegetable prices were soaring, many edible food-like substances were either flat or declining a little bit in price.
I naturally assume the same point was expressed on the other MSM outlets (network news, cable news, newspapers, magazines, radio, etc.) since they're all owned by just 6 KronyKapitalistKorporations.
Eat your melamine!
Yup,
as said yesterday I have no idea how MSM is going to spin a 40% increase in basic food products is somehow good for the average middle class globalist tax asset (aka: citizen in fed-speak). But I really look forward to watching those Harvard guys bend words like subprime swaps in 2006 to con people it's a good thing.
How are they going to spin it? That's obvious, they'll blame it on the weather and all these "new diseases" that are affecting pigs and ummm... now shrimp too!
How are they going to spin it? Michelle Obama's new "Diet America" consists solely of wish sandwiches....
The middle and lower class will suffer the most from this. Tough times
Layoffs / Closing List:
http://www.dailyjobcuts.com
-
No room for "middle class" in the commie zone. You want sweet or sour poke (pork)?
Just rototilled the garden today. Hopefully it won't be snowing here (Pacific NW). My Vegetable Garden feels more valuable than my few OZEEs of AU.
Snow season is over. You'll be fine.
My favorite:
Current concerns over increases in food prices and fears of inflation are largely overstated. Current increases in food prices in developing nations can largely be attributed to the citizens of those nations seeking more sophisticated diets.
- Bernocchio, June 2011
If people don't like higher food prices they should just stop eating.
- Janet Yellen, June 2014
Eat Ipads.
Not like printing press, stolen value dollars are coming home to roost? Nah.
So first Bernanke/Yellen steals your savings to zero, then devalues via inflation and lies about it, and there are no jobs.
Going to have to get a forth EBT!
Forward!
I eat more chicken any man ever seen
many edible food-like substances were either flat or declining a little bit in price.
see Soylent Green, made fresh daily and shipped direct to your grocer from exotic places like Africa, the middle east, Southeast Asia and China.
Here's where approximately 93% of the seafood purchased by Americans comes from, and how it is raised/fed, whether at the store or in wonderful in-restaurant dining experiences, btw.
Bon Appétit, bitches:
Where "Endless Shrimp" & Most of the Seafood in Most Restaurants & Grocery Stores Comes From & How It's Raised & Processed: Bon Appetit, Bitchez
Nice post, TIS. I saw that nasty info awhile back and stopped eating shrimp then. Now, with Fuki radiating the Pacific I stopped eating stuff outta there. The only fish [relatively] safe is from off the coast of Norway [King Oscar Brands] or off New Brunswick from what I can gather.
I ingest most of my omega-3 things via plants.
If others have suggestions pls post.
Hate to break it to you but Brits and French have dumped thousands of tons of nuclear waste in the Atlantic and even the English Channel. The Atlantic is a radioactive shit hole. Just google around about it. There was a great documentary on it on youtube, look for it.
Beer. At least good beer is safe. right?
Define "safe"
Beer GMO links:
http://foodbabe.com/2013/07/17/the-shocking-ingredients-in-beer/
I ate my first can of tuna in 3 years last week. It's a roll of the dice.
I live in a pristine part of the world.
I have seen "foreign" vessels offshore. Violating boundaries. But what chokes is that crab legs were washing up on our beaches. Just the legs. So these "foreign" vessels, clearly violating boundaries and "open season dates" were also taking every crab available, Ripping off the legs.
Kinda like shark fins.
Nobody can blame a hungry person. But this is not that. This is rape of a resource, against all treaty and against all conservation, Coming to an endless "buffet" near you.
Means nothing that local fisheries restrict the season and size of seafood taken.
Coming to a seafood buffet near you. Via Viet Nam or other Asian boats. (absolutely no racism intended).
But it is a fact. Take the baby crabs. Net every species. Rip off the legs. Few dollars landed and the profits go to big business that does not give a frig.
Big business truly DOES NOT give a frig...this was shocking...
http://aadivaahan.wordpress.com/2014/04/15/the-pharmacopic-scam-lies-exp...
And while you are on the subject.
Beware of the latest? seafood rape. Now pharma in disguise is touting the "new" "pure" source of omega. Let us all go down and gather all the krill in Antartica.
Anything for a buck.
ABC News have any word on what's going on with the chocolate ration?
Forget GOLD, buy BEEF!
Forget beef, buy COFFEE!
Jack Daniels?
MSM eat out. They have caterers, I suppose they will complain when the cost of a catered party rises by 40%
They will lash out by cutting back on tipping in their local eatery,
I KNOW. Little story. I watch the price of every single food substance coming into my home. Includes pet food. My grocery bill. What $100 bought in 2005 is now double, at least.
HAVE MY WAGES doubled? Hydro is up. Interest rates are down. Gas is up. My disposable income is shrinking every month.
I am sick of supporting the 1 %. Because that is what we are all doing. MSM seizes on entitlement payments to the unemlployed, homeless and disenfranchised. BUT I am sick and tired of the more legitimate viewpoint whereby I am supporting the MSM, and 1%. My pain results in their food vouchers (wage increases, profits).
All the poor and sinking wage earners are paying for this. I am taking myself out of the system.
Are you accusing MSM of parroting the same prepackaged horseshit? No way....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbAXfnxjCL0
WARNING: Painfully Awkward Bush dissembling at 2:17
"...many edible food-like substances were either flat or declining a little bit in price."
Can anyone tell "Socket Puppet" that Russia is leading:
http://www.zengardner.com/official-russia-completely-bans-gmos/
oh, btw, where is the guy with helicopter when he's needed(?)
Or George Bush's fault? Just say'n
Ding ding ding ding,
America, this is your wake-up call. Beef is expensive, can you imagine? The horror!
Shrimp is a luxury food BTW. If you drill baby drill you can bring the price of oil down and the price of beef will come down as well, so you can slab it on your monstrous barbie. Good luck with that though,
Sincerely,
The rest of the world
Get used to it:
You can take yur global warming, tax the air we exhale, loot the masses fraud and the oceanacidification bullshit and stick it up your ass, bitch!
There is a simple, easy solution to all this:
Hunt giant sea squids.
The biomass now exceeds that of humanity. And ...you can probably find them off the coast of Japan. Reports suggest young, Japanese schoolgirls are excellent bait.
Well, its just a thought.
Sounds like low hanging fruit, until Gozira, or what you call Godzilla, locks on the end of the line.
Well, sure, that's always a risk. However, one should always have a contingency plan:
Head fake Gozira with Mothra, then send in Destoroyah (or Mechagodzilla II ... its a toss up), and while the carnage ensues activate The Oxygen Destroyer.
Then go back to fishing.
That's raciss!
Or you can eat rice and beans.
Insects for meat.
"They" want you & I to eat insects, I keep finding this shite being promoted by the Ag21 crowd from the UN to ICLEI and their various so-called green cohorts. They say gormet insect burgers etc will save the planet from cattle gas and land use and will give uselesseaters their protein requirements.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com.au/news/2013/13/130514-edible-insects...
I'm sick of the food control corruption erradicating property rights, food soverignty and family farms.
Fuck eating insects.
.
Me too. Just finished filling my belly with shrimp I caught in January and then sat down to this article. Tough luck, sheeple. And the pelagics are running like crazy here in Florida too. I've got at least a dozen 1/2 pints canned up. Had a mackerel salad sandwich for breakfast. Better than tuna and no cost (other than fuel, etc., but those are costs that get incurred regardless).
Can't bait in Georgia, but sinking catfish food pellets work the treat. I'm just saying. wink wink
Ya'll better add medical supplies to your list of " BASIC Necessities"
Ya'll better add medical supplies to your list of " BASIC Necessities"
Don't forget brass and edged steel.
Out here in farm country, what pigs get is the Bloody Scours.
Ein Volk, Ein Barack, Ein Reich!
PEDv, up to now, only affects pigletts. This, of course, puts a big dent in getting a volumes of animals to market weight (impacts price).
Biosecurity IS necessary. It's one thing that just scares the shit out of me. Pigs are susceptable to most things that humans are susceptable to: kind of sucks when you're a small farmer because you really can't get sick with colds/flu lest you pass it to your pigs (nothing like trying to recover from colds/flu and having extra work to do in catering to sick animals).
"Let them eat cake......"
....or Facebook.
Farmville!
This one makes me laugh, and cry, every time I see it:
http://www.someecards.com/flirting-cards/farmville-facebook-virtual-farm
Let them eat euthanized, radioactive Desert Tortoise.
Glowing Fuku-Shrimp Cakes are on Sale!
Thank God they started making Twinkies again.
...Or, better stated: "Let them eat FAKE..."
Let them eat IPads......
Paying less on entitlement programs was the outcome they wanted from the Boskin Comission
Theys a lot of people wiping BP oil off all that shrimp before you eat it
Enjoy y'all
Agreed. And once again, the sheep didn't pay attention.
But wait a second? Obama says there is NO inflation!? /end sarcasm
http://ericsprott.blogspot.ca/
Only time I really spend any $ on food is to restock my freezers and shelves and only, only when they are having store-wide sales here.
Last month the sale price of lean ground beef was 1/2 of the NEW price 3 days later when the sale was over. Tell anyone who shops regularly, over the past 2-3 years that inflation is not present. I will call them liars.
Lean ground beef.....maybe I should get some pics of the cull cows going through the sale barn...you know...those choice 12 year old bony assed cows that are on their last leg.....heading to a Supermarket near you as Certified Angus.
We just buy whole cows and hogs from small farmers. You spend a lot at one time but seeing freezers full of hundreds of pounds of payed for meat is very reassuring..... Some times I just go to bask in the glow of future rib eyes.
Filled our freezer last fall with our own raised pigs and beef. Delicious! We know what the animals ate (and what didn't go into them) and people really appreciated the Christmas baskets we gave out with a variety of different cuts of meat.
I was in the store last weekend and for fun looked at what the cost of various cuts of meat were going for....it's amazing. Glad we still have several hundred pounds left....and an 19 month old steer who we'll butcher this fall after the grass dies back.
Everybody who can should plant a garden. I'm helping a buddy at work with his first raised garden bed (4X8). He's 1) shocked at how much work is required to actually get it up and going, and 2) not believing me about the last frost date and why we don't plant tomatos/peppers on the first day the weather hits 60 degrees. (60 last weekend, 19 this morning!) Anyway, it's been fun helping him out.....get started yourselves. It's harder and more rewarding than you can imagine if you've never tried before.
60 last weekend, 19 this morning, you would not be in North Dakota by any chance
Wisconsin!
My boss paid for the shop to go on a hog hunt in a couple of weeks. I am planning to bring back as much as I can. I just need to buy a freezer, and borrow my friends grinder.
https://www.lehmans.com/p-2863-unique-freezer-refrigerator.aspx
small, but note the potential DC 12V power option.
I'm with you, hobbyFarmer. I've got two beeves, three hogs, twenty sheep and seven dairy goats on the hoof and about fourty various barnyard fowl roaming around. Also, got several large gardens growing. Makes me feel better than my Kruggies.
just like small organic and permacultue vegetable farms, small organic farms that integrate animals are exponentially more productive and nutritious than what passes for agriculture today. These small systems work because that is how nature works. Who would have known. Those other systems are not only corrupt and poisononus, they are destined to fail dramatically for they are built on the chemical and oil systems that are also failing dramatically, eradicating topsoil, destroying and depleting groundwater and creating genetic monster plants and animals.
As long as the power stays on, it's all good.
Power costs are going to go through the roof as well.
Just bought an inverter in prep of buying the battery banks and solar panels. Every little bit that I can take control away from the utility and from agri-business and from GMO. Every little step.
I'm fairly late to this party (just getting out of school), but I'm teaching myself how to solder solar modules + LEDs. It's not expensive to cut your light bill to 0 once you learn how to do rechargeables. Smaller modules are very cheap to buy/stock up on, if you are reading this, broke, and looking for something to get started on. 1-2 months of food comes first though.
Like you said, step by step. The more you can do yourself in a pinch the better.
As long as the power stays on, it's all good.--Lord Koos
Not a problem if your meat is live on the hoof. And/or you have photovoltaic systems in place.
Know the butcher and have asked. This is AAA Alberta Beef he buys for all cuts.
Other option locally here is our prize winning local Hereford rancher. I see the animals out each and every day; being rotated around free range grass fields. Of course it is more expensive than supermarket.
At least Canada has, for now, laws regarding antibiotics and beef. Milk supply etc.
Also I have local farmer for free range hens and turkeys. Mennonites.
May be more expensive but I think it is coming to my tipping point regarding quality of food. Grow 90% of my veg organically. Now I will pony up for the ability to access reputable, humanely raised meat. My choice is that I will spend more on the quality and consume less in quantity.
This is a choice I think we are all going to face.
Last night? CBC Canada aired yet another undercover video showing the treatment on chicks at a large Maple Leaf facility. This is after a previous undercover video showing the treatment of turkeys ar the #1 industry supplier in Canada.
Backlash from the public is long overdue. So what to do? Keep prices cheap and subject sentient life to continuous cruelty? Or become more vegetarian in meal planning.
White face Hereford cattle is my personal favorite breed of beef cattle.
The most humane way to dispatch a large animal is still with a heavy caliber rifle round to center of the brain.
Vegetarians think this is cruel, but as I once (but no longer) tried to explain to them, humans are omnivores per biological fact, we need essential amino acid chains that can only be found in animal protein, an animal harvested by a large caliber rifle round well placed feels no pain, and if they ever witnessed pack animals "harvest" large animals in the wild, which often end up getting partially eaten while still alive ("Nature red in tooth & claw," and such...), I'm a GD Saint by relative standards.
Just wait till the shit hits the fan and the economy tanks...
There'll be a lot of ravenous "pack animals" (free shit army)...
Roaming about trying to "harvest" us, our children, and our stuff.
Be sure to thank Obozo as you consider this immenent future...
The true zombie apocalypse?
Yep. I trap my food, and I control every aspect of what my family eats. Best thing is, I get paid to catch supper.
Tonight it's venison backstrap sauteed in butter and coconut oil, topped with a fried egg raised from a customers chickens.
Venison backstrap, especially when the deer has been feeding on corn, apples and such, is one of the most underappreciated, healthiest, cleanest tasting cuts of meat in the universe.
The other relatively unknown jewels of the animal protein world:
Elk - it's better than beef when prepared properly, IMO.
Quayle - butterflied, marinated for a day, and roasted over open flame or pan seared.
Buffalo - I never understood the spiritual connection Native Americans had with the Bison until I met a real deal Native American Bison rancher, who insisted that I take several dozen pounds of genuine free range Buffalo meat from his herd (as a thank you for a favor) that grazed on grass freely (unlike cattle, Buffalo do not eat the roots of the grasses, and so they don't cause the soil erosion problems that grazing cattle do) and drank some of the cleanest water any animals have access to (both flowing above ground and below, in aquifers filtered by sandstone, limestone, etc. that ended up in wells).
Being something of a city boy, I don't normally care much for wild meats, but have had free range buffalo and was absolutely amazed at how delicious and lean/clean it was. Heartily recommended, and can now appreciate the connection plains Indians had for the animal and its place in their cycle of life.
All well and fine if you can afford to have freezers (take space [I do chest freezers because of their superior efficiency- even use them as chillers, temp controllers to moderate within a higher temp range], take electricity and break down).
Sadly, for many people it's not an option. I'm fortunate to not be one; my wife, however, is from the Philippines and I can assure you that freezers are a luxury...
I know, it's getting nuts and everybody is starting to notice.
I was in Costco this Sunday .... baby back ribs have gone from $2.99 / pound to $4.49/pound. USDA Prime sirloin went from $7.99 to $8.99 / pound. (And yes USDA Prime is MUCH better than USDA Choice)
Shrimp is still at $5/pound. Chicken is pretty much flat as well.
Investment idea : Buy a deep freezer and spend 500-1000 bucks on meat. The freezer will pay for itself this year.
29.99 for Chilean Sea Bass
I was in Costco this Sunday .... baby back ribs have gone from $2.99 / pound to $4.49/pound. USDA Prime sirloin went from $7.99 to $8.99 / pound. (And yes USDA Prime is MUCH better than USDA Choice)
Shrimp is still at $5/pound. Chicken is pretty much flat as well.
Investment idea : Buy a deep freezer and spend 500-1000 bucks on meat. The freezer will pay for itself this year.
...sounds familiar....mmmmm
time for america to import some good ol' river pig from china. lots of protein to keep the average american healthy and buying stawks!!
Wait, is it porcine diarrhea for beef and pork and early mortality for shrimp? Or is it the Fed? Or is Tyler saying the Fed is causing those diseases ?
"Sell your soul to the company store".
That is the plan.
Low wages. Captive renters. No savings. Just a dollar shy of feeding the family. At this point no person has a choice anymore. Back to serfdom.
Fuel costs goes up, food goes up. Health insurance goes up, food goes up. Taxes go up, food goes up.
This isn't rocket science.
We know why fuel, healthcare and taxes are going up, Progressives.
You will have you're chance to fix that in November, or not.
i eat lamb and fowl; like the gods; beef fat is undigrestable and shrimp (seafood in general) is either polluted by oil (gulf coast), or radioactive (fukushima)... so, fuck you.
I wonder what the Corexit/Cesium shrimp spread is???
Time to buy half a cow.
Even worse, the surge is happening during the season of Lent...
Wtf?? Who in 2014 does Lent? Nobody of my 400 contacts all across Europe/USA/Russia/Africa does Lent.
Bloomberg is becoming shit as CNBC
Blame Bush and the Weather instead.
My friend ran out of money at the bar, so I Lent him a few bucks.
Who says religion is dead...?
Lent for everybody...
My girlfriend has True Religion jeans. They look kinda nice.
Funny you mention, Cesium, I just measured some Alaskan king crab shells for radiation with my ultra low background germanium detector. Zero radiation due to nuclear waste. I found the usual k40 peak and that was it. I was really expecting to start seeing something.
lemon, -- that's right! Eat more lamb, 40,000 coyotes can't be wrong, can they?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZdAI3pMcgU
had to put one down last weekend, he was eyeballing my turkey decoys and stuck around too long, they are hell on ground game and I'm at the top of the food chain sooo, he's gone cause I said so.
Love lamb, fantastic red meat.
This is all very bearish for Chickens too.
I will award a brownie point to whomever knows that the finest lamb in the world comes from the USA, and can name the Midwest state that said lamb hail from.
Best lamb in the world is in Iceland, but my guess of which state is WV?
Wrong!! The best Lamb Chops are in Jamaica, I know this for a fact!
Perhaps. I just know there is no happier lamb than the ones I saw in Iceland. Drinking glacial waters from waterfalls and the greenest untouched grass as far as you could see.
Ohio, bitchez!
Can you believe it?
This comes straight from the mouth of a bona fide Greek butcher friend of mine, who does a great deal of business with one of the best known wholesaler of quality meats, including lamb.
He swore up & down that this is true.
So, not b/c I don't believe him, but just for the hell of it, I'm eating baby lamb chops on the bone, French cut, at my favorite Chicago Greek restaurant a few years ago. A plate of 6 of these lamb lollipops costs $38.
I grab the waiter (who has worked there forever) and ask him to find out where the lamb is sourced from.
15 minutes later, he comes back to tell me he asked the maître d' AND went and looked in the walk-in, and confirmed that the best lamb chops I've ever tested -
- BOOM! Ohio, bitches!
Well I live in Ohio and didnt know that. I know the local butcher touts Ohio spring lamb, so looks like ill be buying some this week.
Barb and Patty's bitches!
http://barbandpattys.com/shop/custom.aspx?recid=3
Something about the grass near the Kentucky border, the altitude, air, dew point, Mennonite farming there, and the lineage of the breed of lamb flocks first imported there...
...and other things I most likely forgot.
But here's this true Greek (by ancestry), telling me the best lamb in the world comes from Ohio, and then so years later I find out in a whim question that the best lamb chops I've ever eaten...
...are purchased by the restaurant from an Ohio purveyor.
2 + 2 moment.
Tregaron cliffside and a pair of velcro gloves are all you need, just sayin.
BTW guys, the big announcement today of poor Japan results?
Y'all realize it was made at 2 AM Japan time?
undigrestable
LOL, thanks for that.
You don't have the land for chickens or rabbits? Hit up eatwild.com to find grass fed beef.
Bought half a cow from some Amish dude, and I can assure you it is digrestable.
grass fed is good. in olden days, beef taro (grease) was for machinery (gears). Its harder to digest than lamb/goat.
The cost of beef has only started its ascent. The tribunal that while it will result in an initial flood of profits for the large ranch operations, it's going to do irreparable harm to their fundamental business model.
This is NOT like the great beef price shock during the 80s, which receded relatively quickly. It's being driven by insane policies on multiple fronts, mostly emanating from the inept interference of federal government agencies, and made worse by Mother Nature.
drought in cali, most likely will continue til the sun comes back to life.
I live in North Dalota and day old calfs are selling for $400.00 dollars, because south Dakota lost all there cattle last fall with that man made snow storm. 100,000 head i belive.
So severe drought in half the world has nothing to do with it? Funny.
Beef producers (talking industrial level here) were losing on a per-head basis a couple years back. This went on for some time, and you have to wonder how long they could have kept that up. I saw this and realized that this sort of thing was going on all over the place, that producers were taking margin hits in order to not lose market share, hoping to just outlast a competitor so that eventually they could raise prices back up w/o have price pressures from competition: of course, there's the issue of whether the consumer can actually afford your product, but most are thinking in terms that this is all cyclical and that they'll ride the storm out and come out on top.
So... after this we get various weather disturbances which put a big bite into the industry. Lots of cows get sacrificed. Hard culls to cow herds means that your ability to produce replacements is affected-> higher beef prices. Takes many years to build cow herds back up.
Toss into the mix higher fuel prices (lots of transporting of animals-> lots of weight!). Nearly all feedlots are situated well away from populated areas because of cheaper land, with the distance from markets made up in cheap transport.
Add into the mix growing demand from China (though I do not know whether the demand exceeds the drop from existing consumers cutting back).
First it was feed costs (and they're still up, though they've dropped back down from their highs), then (and still) fuel costs, then China demand, droughts, and now, with pigs, epidemics (somewhere in this mix was BSE in cattle).
The livestock business doesn't have the subsidy support that agriculture does.
I don't follow seafood, so no comment there.
Grass-fed producers have been more resilient. They tend to be closer to markets. Land costs, however, ARE a biggie (now that development pressures have dropped off from the insane levels that it was at I'd figure that we can see more folks enter into grass-fed).
Most people have no clue how difficult farming and ranching really is (ALL producers, big AND small, have LOTS of issues to deal with).
Everyone WILL be paying more (as a percentage of their income) for food. This has more to do with a rebalance toward normalcy/historic norm than conspiracy...
Thank you for bringing some sanity to the topic. I live in Iowa and remember that drought, seeing one dead field of corn after another in August. The farmers were slaughtering en masse back then to get ahead of the feed corn increases, and now the effects are really setting in. Inflation didn't make the situation better.
Thanks for the site.
Mmmmm....lamb. Ever notice that baby animals taste better?
Actually, younger animals tend to be more TENDER. But... in the end it's really about how animals are FINISHED. And then there's the slaughter, which can really un-do everything: stressed animal at slaughter = compromised meat quality.
Quality + good cooking = good eating, regardless of age (mostly).
That which cannot be sustained, won't be.
Personally, I am just happy to see my bee population wintered well.
CCD is still a real problem in most parts. I'd love to have some hives of the busy buggers on my property but I'm afraid the bears would love to have them even more...
I am not sure about other places, but here, top bar hives haven't had any problems. Less honey but very healthy. Just think; bear steaks marinaded in wild honey and wild rosemary.
great news Laws.
best wishes for a fruitful season.
Great job, Laws. I can't tell if it's luck or what....of the several beekeepers I know, only 1 (out of 7) didn't lose any hives. Most lost about 50%...1 lost all of his six.
Damn winter was brutal.
Are you harvesting honey? If so, then that means you're having to feed those bees in the winter. I've struggled with this one, leading me to be stalemated over obtaining bees for honey: and, frankly, I've got WAY too much on my activity plate as it is (just not enough time to do all the things that I'd like to do- lots of things I'm interested in but not enough time).
Sell gold, buy beef.
Beef bullion?
Well played, sir.
Don't have to refrigerate gold. just saying.
Salt that shit up!
Don't have to refrigerate beef, either, if it's walking around eating hay on your pasture.
And also, unlike gold, it produces more beef when you add some female beef to it.
Don't have to refrigerate my Gold either, and unlike beef I can hide it until I can pay off some Rustler (BLM) to steal your cow.
If one could only get that 'boy gold' and 'girl gold' thing to work out...
Down-arrowed?
Apparently people aren't aware of what the future is going to be like.
There's a reason why I'm a grass farmer...
I see a constant parade of deli made fried shit and soda going out the door EBT style at the local Huck's Convenience Store....with a side of cigs, lotto tickets, and beer. Party on dude. Price is no object....the same folks with a cart load of steaks at Wal-Mart....on SNAP Certificates and EBT.....and then jump in a new 4x4 and head home....to their subsidized housing.
TROLL
That's a strange way to spend your free time, db51.