A couple of thoughts. The extreme drought in Australia has severely impacted that large producer of wheat. The US boom in ethanol has driven US corn prices soaring. And the switch to corn raised soybean prices. Having acknowledged that, I would add that actual agricultural commodity costs are not the most important component of what we call "food" prices at the supermarket.
Gene Coyle On Feb 17, 2008, at 9:47 PM, Sandwichman wrote:
A guy came into the food co-op today to pick up his four 25-pound sacks of wheat. He advised me to "pick up a couple of sacks of wheat for yourself and store them in your basement." So I took a look at recent news stories on agricultural commodity prices. Prices are soaring. Every kind of planted crop has increased in price by 30% to 50% over the past few months. This will have a huge impact on food prices. Things are going to get very interesting. -- Sandwichman