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Wheat surpasses $10 a bushel
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
USAToday reports that the price of wheat just passed ten dollars a bushel. Those Midwest radio announcers who tack on the spot prices for six or eight agricultural commodities at the end of each 30-minute newsbreak will probably be just a little less reserved today.
[Listening to the radio for hours and hours and hours while driving cross-country, as we did a few months back, provides all kinds of insight into what life is like in the vast U.S. interior.]
But aside from the Midwest, where the developing recession probably feels far, far away for many of those who are now getting ready for spring planting, does anybody know or care?
Does anybody know or care that the cost of food around the world seems to be spiraling out of control?
Earlier today, on Monday's post Subsidies, dollar pegs, and price controls, Sooyoung left the following comment:Greetings from Singapore, where virtually all of the food (and fuel) is imported. Just yesterday the prime minister, Lee Hsien Loong, urged fellow citizens to buy generic brands as a way to stave off inflation. As an American, I tried for a moment to imagine George Bush making such a desperate plea on TV and, well, I couldn't. The rising cost of food is probably the single biggest news item of the week here on the eve of the Lunar New Year. No wonder really, since housing is subsidized and no one drives thanks to a 100% tariff on cars.
Governments, central banks, and their gaggles of crack (smoking?) economists all around the world appear to be making quite a mess of things.
3 comments:
That's the futures price. If you're a flour mill needing to buy wheat today to sell to a baker of hard rolls, the price is a nifty $16.15 - $17.35, plus freight.
And if you're a pasta maker looking for your primary wheat ingredient, it'll cost you $5.50 a pound versus 15 cents a pound year ago.
So glad to hear inflation's under control !
My reference 25 pound bag of flour at Smart and Final had climbed to $7.99 the last time I checked (a week or two ago). This is quite a bit higher than the $4.79-$5.25 range I regarded as normal for the last few years.
From William Engdahls seeds pf destruction
-- by 2004, the four largest beef packers controlled 84% of steer and heifer slaughter - Tyson, Cargill, Swift and National Beef Packing;
-- four giants controlled 64% of hog production - Smithfield Foods, Tyson, Swift and Hormel;
-- three companies controlled 71% of soybean crushing - Cargill, ADM and Bunge;
-- three giants controlled 63% of all flour milling, and five companies controlled 90% of global grain trade;
-- four other companies controlled 89% of the breakfast cereal market - Kellogg, General Mills, Kraft Foods and Quaker Oats;
-- in 1998, Cargill acquired Continental Grain to control 40% of national grain elevator capacity;
-- four large agro-chemical/seed giants controlled over 75% of the nation's seed corn sales and 60% of it for soybeans while also having the largest share of the agricultural chemical market - Monsanto, Novartis, Dow Chemical and DuPont; six companies controlled three-fourths of the global pesticides market;
-- Monsanto and DuPont controlled 60% of the US corn and soybean seed market - all of it patented GMO seeds; and
-- 10 large food retailers controlled $649 billion in global sales in 2002, and the top 30 food retailers account for one-third of global grocery sales.
When cartels control the pricing, prices go up.
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