News items: These will affect food supply

First: there is massive flooding along the Mississippi River.  If trucks can't get through, the stores won't get supplied.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110505/us_nm/us_weather_flooding_levee "U.S. to Blow Third Hole in Levee"

Arkansas closed a 15-mile stretch of westbound lanes of one of the busiest road arteries in the nation, Interstate 40, for the time ever due to flooding, according to the state's transportation department. More than 31,000 vehicles travel daily through the section of road closed, and 65 to 70 percent of those are trucks, said Glenn Bolick, Arkansas Transportation.




Second:  Food shortages and inflation, both making food more expensive.  I'm just making you aware, in case you don't read the news very much.


http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-05/food-prices-approach-record-high-as-grain-prices-fuel-inflation-worldwide.html "Food Prices Rise to Near Record as Inflation Accelerates"

Corn has almost doubled in the past 12 months on speculation that more planting in the U.S., the world’s largest grower, won’t be sufficient to rebuild global stocks. Wheat surged 57 percent over the same period and soybeans gained 39 percent as flooding ruined crops in Canada and Australia and drought reduced harvests in Russia and Europe.

Of the grains, corn “is the most worrisome,” Abbassian said in a statement. “We would need above-average, if not record, yields in the U.S.,” however, “plantings so far have been delayed considerably due to cool and wet conditions on the ground,” he said.