US food prices to post biggest rise since '90:USDA

[UpInArms]

Source: Reuters

WASHINGTON, Aug 20 (Reuters) - U.S. consumers should brace for the biggest increase in food prices in nearly 20 years in 2008 and even more pain next year due to surging meat and produce prices, the Agriculture Department said on Wednesday.

Food prices are forecast to rise by 5 percent to 6 percent this year, making it the largest annual increase since 1990. Just last month, USDA forecast food prices would climb between 4.5 and 5.5 percent in 2008.

"It's a little bit of a surprise how strong some of the numbers were in July," USDA economist Ephraim Leibtag, who prepared the forecast, said in an interview.

"We've been waiting for some moderation, but especially with some of the meat prices and how much has come through relatively recently (at the retail level) leads me to believe the overall number may be a little bit higher for the year," he added.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/economicNews/idUSN2047383220080820?sp=true

[boomerbust]

1. It's funny

all of these massive price hikes always come towards the end of a puke regime.

[UpInArms]

2. it took RayGun and Poppy 12 years to destroy the economy

Dimson did it in less than 8

[phantom power]

3. Do you ever wonder why these wizards are always "surprised?"

Nobody who's spent any time in a grocery store in the last two years would be "surprised" by those inflation numbers, unless it was surprise that they aren't even higher.

[boomerbust]

4. And McCain

will probably finish it off with His four years of destruction.

[dipsydoodle]

5. Interesting tv program in the UK last night.

An odd bi-product of the rapidly escalating food prices of "normal" food that we are both experiencing is that locally grown organic food is now less expensive in comparison partly because they don't use oil based fertilisers to grow such stuff.

[trthnd4jstc]

6. How can we trust the USDA's Numbers.

I read a commodities report that listed the wholesale prices of basic grains, and listed a 20% increase there. Bread, cereal, and all other foods are not increasing as high as the commodities, Why?

[pipoman]

10. Just my opinion

Commodity grain prices at the wholesale level have not, in recent history, increased at a rate equal to inflation. This is largely due to increased yields due to hybrid science, irrigation and chemical land management. Yields increased at a rate which exceeded demand for the product for so long that while the cost of a loaf of bread increased from $.10 to $1.00 over a 50 year period, yield increases held the wholesale prices of the wheat static. Suddenly the yield increase is unable to keep up with the demand, combined with energy/petroleum cost increases, wholesale market prices have raised exponentially. The cost of the raw materials in a loaf of bread has historically represented a very tiny portion of the cost of production. Labor, energy and equipment have been the real expenses. Thus the cost of wheat has had little to do with the cost of bread, until now.

[trthnd4jstc]

11. Thanks that helps. n/t

[OhioChick]

7. K&R

:kick:

[anitar1]

8. K & R n/t

[redistributer]

9. Bad news for McCain

The more economic news are published in newspapers and covered in TV and radio/internet, the worse it is for the establishment candidate.

[dysfunctional press]

12. too bad they don't figure food or energy into social security cost-of-living-adjustments...

it's fucking CRIMINAL that they can call it a "cost of living adjustment" when they exclude the two main costs of living from the arithmetic.

[Sherman A1]

13. My job is to put up the price increase tags each week

in the store where I work. It has been absolutely nuts since the start of the year and last week went over the top. I started on Sunday and we still had a guy working on it on Tuesday. Last year at this time, I could finish in about 30 minutes to an hour at the most.