It’s Not Just The U.S.: Food Inflation will Affect Entire Globe in 2013!

• It’s not just the U.S. – Food inflation will affect entire globe in 2013! 
  by J. D. Heyes, http://www.naturalnews.com/
  Grocery prices in the United States have risen steadily for months now, but  because of the drought here at home and other global market forces, food costs  are set to skyrocket around the world as well, say experts.
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  In addition  to parched farmland throughout much of the U.S. and near the Black Sea, weak  monsoons in India and ongoing hunger across wide swaths of Africa will all  combine to drive food prices higher next year.
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  “We have had quite a few  climate events this year that will lead to very poor harvests, notably in the  United States with corn or in Russia with soja,” Philippe Pinta of the French  Farmer’s Federation warned recently.
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  If conditions persist beyond  this year, analysts note, it could be a repeat of 2007-2008, when food prices  soared more than six percent to a 25-year high, according to industry analysts  and reports at the time.
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  A year later, the UN said, prices had peaked to  30-year highs and in December 2010 the food price index rose above its 2008 peak  before dropping to an 11-month low in October 2011.
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  Memphis,  Tennessee-based Informa said a study based on 20 years’ worth of food price data  blamed soaring non-farm costs such as “record oil prices and soaring consumer  demand from the world economy, notably the emerging middle class in Asia,” were  largely at fault, Reuters reported.
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  We’ve seen this  before
  Today, a similar combination of things, combined with a  weather element, is once more affecting world food prices. While  oil has retreated in recent days, prices remain high despite lower demand,  especially from the U.S., the world’s largest oil consumer. That has translated  into higher costs for fuel that farmers must pay to harvest and transport their  crops.
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  A drought continues to grip much of the Midwestern United States,  where corn production has fallen to its lowest level in six years, according to  the Department of Agriculture, where diminished corn and soybean  production will likely contribute to higher costs.
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  In India, meanwhile,  monsoon rains fell more than 15 percent below normal by mid-August, meaning  Asian rice prices are likely  to increase by as much as 10 percent in the coming months.
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  Drought  conditions have also hit parts of Africa’s Sahel region, causing food shortages.  In fact, the relief agency World Vision Australia said 18 million people  need food assistance in  Niger, Mali, Chad, Mauritania and Senegal.
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  If conditions don’t change, it  “could affect the crop prospects and may have an impact on prices of essential  commodities,” Kuruppasserry Varkey Thomas, India’s agriculture minister, told  the Bangkok Times.
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