Another article on the drought

This article gives me incentive to get MORE FOOD STORAGE and gardening supplies and seeds.

http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/usda-alert-half-of-u-s-counties-designated-primary-disaster-areas-financial-fallout-intensifying_08022012

Food prices going up because of the drought

Here are some quotes from this article:

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/07/17/historic-drought-conditions-can-lead-to-higher-food-prices-experts-say/?test=latestnews
"Prices are going to go up",

"that means across the board higher food prices",

"Since corn goes into so many food products for both humans and livestock, its effect on overall food prices is massive."

"If you like bacon and pork, you should buy it now, because by the fall you are going to be stunned at what it will cost."

Ranchers can't feed their cattle in Texas

"Texas driving its cattle north amid drought", LA Times, Oct. 9, 2011

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-texas-cattle-20111009,0,1766138.story

This story tells about the ranchers in Texas, who are trucking their cattle north to Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, and Minnesota.

In Texas, the drought is so bad they can no longer feed or provide water for the cattle.

"By January, about 12% of Texas' roughly 5 million head of cattle will have disappeared since last year — shipped, slaughtered or sold, according to David Anderson, an economist with the Texas AgriLife Extension Service, an agriculture education agency based at Texas A&M University.

"Swenson has paid about $70,000 to ship 1,200 head — two-thirds of the herd — to Tryon, Neb., and Lusk, Wyo. They are all cows, the precious breeding stock they have cultivated since Swedish immigrants staked out the territory in the 1860s."


"Texas, with the nation's largest cattle industry, provides 16% of America's beef. U.S. beef prices are expected to increase this year as much as 8%, twice the increase in overall food costs, according to the Department of Agriculture."

Jif Prices going higher in November

Do you have your year's supply of peanut butter?  Reports say that the price of peanut-products will be going up,

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903285704576556911392341024.html

"J.M. Smucker Co. is raising prices on Jif peanut butter products 30% starting in November due to a weak peanut crop that has sent costs higher, President and Chief Operating Officer Vince Byrd .."

Southeast Farm Press reports Peanut Shortage

Here are some excerpts from the Southeast Farm Press article, August 15, 2011:

http://southeastfarmpress.com/peanuts/will-there-be-peanut-shortage-next-spring

"A perfect storm  is brewing,  consisting of a poor quality in 2010 crop, a lower than expected planting acreage in 2011, a poor growing season in 2011 and growing demand for peanut products.

If all these factors come together, it could be a devastating storm for the peanut industry to weather."

"Leek says from his perspective, there is better than a 30 percent chance that by the time this year’s crop is dug, we will run out of peanuts.

As of mid-July, there were less than 550,000 tons of peanuts in the U.S. pipeline. It takes 150,000 to 160,000 tons per month for the U.S market. Even with ideal harvest time weather, it will be a tight fit to get 2011 peanuts into the pipeline before we run out."

Pumpkin Shortage

I turned on the TV the other day, and caught the end of a news item.  They were saying that there will be a pumpkin shortage for Halloween because such a large number of pumpkin farms were wiped out by Hurricane Irene.  (I didn't hear which states' farms were affected the most.)

So I can't tell you if canned pumpkin (the food items) will be in short supply, or if they were mainly talking about Halloween pumpkins (the decorative items), but I thought I would pass it on.  I'm assuming BOTH kinds were damaged by the storm.

Beef prices according to CNBC

Record Drought in Texas Could Mean Lower Beef Prices

Published: Friday, 16 Sep 2011 | 4:26 PM ET

By: Jane Wells

"Even though a glut of beef coming to the market could help consumer prices now, the concern is that next year hamburger prices may rise after so many cows are taken out of the system."


Read more at:  http://www.cnbc.com/id/44553897

Interesting observation on the food supply

I read this on http://www.iceagenow.com/US_Food_Supplies.htm :

"I spent about thirty years working in commercial agribusiness. My main job was to purchase ingredients, mainly grain, for flour mills and animal feed mills. As a part of my job I was forced to understand the US food supply system, its strengths and weaknesses. Over the years I became aware of some things that nearly all Americans are completely unaware of. I am going to make a list of statements and then you will see where I'm going.

            --1% of the US population grows all of the food for all
               Americans.

            --Nearly all Americans know essentially nothing about where
               the food they eat every day comes from. How it gets from the
               ground to them. And they don't want to know about it. It's
               cheap, as close as their local store, and of high quality. So
               no worries.

            --The bulk of the food we eat comes from grain. Although
               they raise a lot of fruits and vegetables in California, Arizona,
               Florida, Oregon and Washington, those things don't compose
               the main part of the average diet. Half of what a meat animal
               is raised on is grain so when you eat meat you are really
               eating grain. And, of course, we eat grain directly as bread,
               bagels, doughnuts, pasta, etc. Milk (and milk products like
               cheese) comes from cows that eat grain. A lot of grain. And
               the grain they eat is not produced where the cows are located.

            --The lion's share of grain produced in the US is done in a
               concentrated part of the US Midwest (Illinois, Iowa, Kansas,
               Missouri is the center of this area). The grain is moved to the
               coasts (where 70% of the population live) by only two (2)
               railroads.

            --Nothing is stored for very long in a supermarket. One day
               grain travels (by rail) from Kansas to Seattle to a flour mill.
               The next day the flour mill makes the flour and sends it to a
               bakery. The next day the bakery makes it into bread (and
               other baked things) and the next day it is at the store where
               it is purchased that day. Nobody stores anything. The grain
               is produced and stored in the Midwest and shipped daily in
               a single pipeline to the rest of America where the people live.

            --Up until the 1980's there was a system that stored a lot of
               grain in elevators around the country. At one time a whole
               year's harvest of grain was stored that way. But since tax-
               payers were paying to store it, certain urban politicians
               engineered the movement of that money from providing a
               safety net or backup for their own food supply in order to
               give the money to various other social welfare things. So
               now, nothing is stored. We produce what we consume each
               year and store practically none of it. There is no contingency
               plan.

(From Amy:  Reading this makes me feel very vulnerable.  Any disaster could cut off the transportation of our food.  And we have no backup plan for droughts or any type of crop failure.  Doesn't this make you want to have food stored in your own house? )

Hay expensive, grass gone, cattle getting sold

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-25/drought-withers-smallest-u-s-hay-crop-in-a-century-to-boost-cost-of-beef.html

"The smallest U.S. hay crop in more than a century is withering under a record Texas drought, boosting the cost of livestock feed for dairy farmers and beef producers from California to Maryland.

The price of alfalfa, the most common hay variety, surged 51 percent in the past year, reaching a record $186 a short ton in May, government data show. Hay and grass make up about half of what cattle eat over their lifetimes, so parched pastures are forcing ranchers to find alternative sources of feed, pushing some spot-market corn to the highest ever.

Farmers in Oklahoma and in Texas, the biggest producer of hay and cattle, may harvest only one crop from alfalfa and Bermuda grass this year, compared with three normally, said Larry Redmon, a state forage specialist at Texas A&M University."

"Rising feed costs are prompting a reduction in cattle herds and eroding profit for milk producers. The USDA yesterday forecast retail-meat prices may increase this year as much as 7 percent and dairy products may jump 6 percent, more than the rate of overall food inflation at 3 percent to 4 percent."

More news on the beef sell-off

The drought in the central plains states is making conditions untenable for raising cattle.  Ranchers are selling off their cattle so fast, slaughterhouses are now at capacity.  So that means beef might be much cheaper for awhile, but watch out, the prices will be much higher later.

Beef Prices May Jump As Drought Creates Cattle Surplus

July 18, 2011 5:35 PM

 http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2011/07/18/drought-creating-surplus-of-cattle-at-auction-beef-prices-may-jump/

"Ultimately, the drought will affect what customers will pay for beef at the grocery store, cattle owners said.

Since a mature cow only has one calf per year, it will take years for the ranchers to rebuild their herds. That could cause the price of beef go up as early as the end of this year."

Drought cripples southern US farms

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/dc615ace-b056-11e0-a5a7-00144feab49a.html#axzz1ST52fqPe

July 17, 2011    By Gregory Meyer in New York

While you read the following quotes from this article, think of the implications for your food storage.  

"The Lone Star state is at the epicentre of a once-in-a-generation drought stretching from Arizona to Florida. The US’s southern underbelly is scorched like meat on a grill....

The drought has spawned wildfires, turning grasslands to ash. In Texas, the leading cotton producer in the US, 59 per cent of the cotton crop is in poor condition or worse. Harvests of hard winter wheat, prized for yeasted breads, have plummeted in Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas as yields and acreage contracted. Ranchers cannot feed their cattle on parched pastures....

The state has more than 13m cattle, more than any other. But the size of the herd, dwindling for years, may shrink faster as ranchers are forced to sell calves and breeding cows they cannot feed.....

The USDA estimates the just-harvested domestic hard winter wheat crop will this year total just 791m bushels, down from 1bn last year. Wheat prices, which took off last year after a grain export ban was declared in the Black Sea, have remained supported by the dismal US outlook...."

Doesn't this make you want to buy more food, while it is still available in the store?

Cattle Sell-off

http://www.reporternews.com/search/?q=cattle+auctions&t=&sortby=date&image.x=42&image.y=10

(I hope that link shows you all the news headlines about cattle auctions.)

I have heard from several sources that cattle ranchers in Texas are selling off their cattle because of the drought.  That means that there is will be a glut on the market for a short while, and beef prices may go down temporarily.

But beware, because after all those cattle are butchered, there will be a huge shortage of beef, because there won't be many more to sell.

I am going to get a lot of beef and can it in the next fews weeks.

Our Food Supply is Fragile

Grocery stores don't stock weeks of food anymore.  Most keep only 72 hours of food on the shelves.  They re-stock based on just-in-time delivery of food supplies.  


If the trucks stop rolling in your part of the country during a crisis, the store shelves will be emptied almost immediately.  In fact, expect a shortage of mainstay items like milk and bread to occur similar to what happens before an approaching hurricane or ice storm hits.  


Those who are aware of the problem but who haven't already made preparations will engage in a last-minute rush to buy a few extra supplies.


Don't be one of those people!  Have your food supply already inside your own house.  Be prepared!

Article warns "No Food at Any Price"

http://www.moneynews.com/Headline/Jim-Rogers-Crop-Production/2011/06/30/id/401962

Here are the first and the fourth paragraphs in the article:

"The global agriculture supply situation has worsened and a failure to boost food production fast enough to meet demand may lead to shortages, said investor Jim Rogers, chairman of Rogers Holdings."


"Monthly food prices tracked by the FAO have surged nine times in the past 11 months and last month stayed near a record reached in February, as global demand for corn and wheat outstripped production and drought and flooding ravaged harvests. "

Read more: Jim Rogers: Boost Crop Production or ‘No Food at Any Price’ 

Low global wheat supply leads to higher food prices

Read the article:

http://www.ktvb.com/home/Low-global-wheat-supply-leads-to-higher-food-prices-123435209.html

Wheat: Doing poorly all over the world according to Bloomberg.com

Here are excerpts from an article which was published on Bloomberg.com today.  News like this makes me want to go to the cannery and buy more wheat.


http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-05/wheat-fields-wilt-in-drought-as-parched-earth-spreads-from-china-to-kansas.html

Wheat Fields Wilt in Drought as Parched Earth Spreads From China to Kansas

By Luzi Ann Javier, Madelene Pearson and Whitney McFerron - Jun 6, 2011 7:17 AM ET

The worst droughts in decades are wilting wheat fields from China to the U.S. to the U.K., overwhelming Russia’s return to grain markets and driving prices to the highest levels since 2008.

Parts of China, the biggest grower, had the least rain in a century, some European regions are the driest in 50 years and almost half the winter-wheat crop in the U.S., the largest exporter, is rated poor or worse. Inventory is dropping 8.8 percent, the most in five years, .....

.....“In 32 years, I’ve never seen so many problems in so many places,” said Dan Basse, the president of AgResource Co., a farm researcher in Chicago.....

....France had its driest spring in 50 years, and April in the U.K. was the hottest in 352 years, forecasters in those countries have said.

“I’ve been farming here for 30 years and it’s the worst I’ve ever seen,” said Robert Law, 53, who cultivates about 5,000 acres of grain in Hertfordshire, England. “The drought has definitely gone on longer than we’ve ever had before.”.....

...About 44 percent of the U.S. winter-wheat crop was in poor or very poor condition by May 29, the USDA said. Rainfall in the previous two months was less than half of normal in much of Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas, the biggest producers of winter varieties, the National Weather Service estimates.

“On these windy days, there’s just dirt in the air and the sky is brown,” said David Cleavinger, 53, who farms 3,500 acres in Wildorado, Texas, and already lost about half of his 1,200 acres of wheat....

....Rain is delaying the planting of spring wheat in North Dakota and Montana. Plantings may be more than a million acres below what the USDA estimates,....

CNBC says Wheat and Corn crops look bad this season

Look what this article says about this season's wheat and corn crops. 

http://www.cnbc.com/id/43196125

Dennis Gartman: Wheat, Corn Facing Amber Waves of Pain

Published: Friday, 27 May 2011 | 1:35 PM ET

Text Size

By: Lee Brodie
Producer

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Wheat futures [WCV1  819.75  ---  UNCH    ] are up more than 75% over the past year and continued higher Friday on concerns that a perfect storm may be brewing.

Specifically, a drought in Europe and flooding in the U.S. are crushing this year's crop sending supply expectations considerably lower.

WHEAT JUL1 (WCV1) 819.75  --- Chicago Board of Trade

”It’s making for bullish conditions in the grain market,” says strategic investor Dennis Gartman.

“The hard red winter wheat crop may not be made at all. Also we may not get corn into the ground in time. And we’re not getting the spring wheat crop planted in time. It’s a perfect storm,” he says.   

Flooding may affect us directly

http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/factbox-oil-refineries-near-swollen-mississippi-river/

Barge traffic is facing difficulties on the Mississippi River, many barge terminals are closed.
Ships have to turn back because they are no longer able to fit under bridges.
Oil refineries may have to close because of flooding.

Transportation of food supplies, and production of gasoline may be jeopardized.

These are just two of the reasons it is always smart to have your food storage.

Flooding the Wheat, Corn, Rice, Cotton, and Soybean Crops

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/05/10/southern-flooding-poised-wreak-havoc-economy/

Some more bad news for the food supply:

Fox News reported today that because of the flooding,

"the vital grain crops in the region are in peril. In some places, the floodwaters are swamping or bearing down on wheat that is almost ready for harvest and corn that has broken through the ground, as well as plantings of rice, soybeans and cotton. "


"Arkansas, the largest rice producer in the country, probably lost 300,000 acres of rice in the floods..."

"Irwin said 1 million acres or more of cropland could be completely wiped out from the flooding in the southern states. But he said the delayed planting in the northern Midwest, in his neck of the woods, could have even more of an effect on food prices nationwide....

Underscoring how far behind farmers in the water-logged region are, Irwin said Ohio has only planted 2 percent of its corn crop, compared with 74 percent by this time last year; Indiana has planted 4 percent of its corn crop, compared with 80 percent by this time last year, he said. "

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/05/10/southern-flooding-poised-wreak-havoc-economy/#ixzz1LzV2xwCD

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.