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Cleveland
Plain Dealer...
Drought
could push food prices up by 3 to 5 percent next year, USDA warns
By Shaina
Cavazos
Thursday,
July 26, 2012
CLEVELAND,
Ohio -- This summer’s record-breaking heat could push food prices up by
3 to 5 percent
next year, nearly double the normal rate, according the latest
projection from
the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Expect to
pay up to 5 percent more for beef, 4.5 percent more for dairy, 4
percent more
for eggs and poultry and 3.5 percent more for pork because of soaring
animal
feed costs.
“It’s all
contingent on corn prices, and here in Ohio, corn is just now starting
to come
in,” said Nate Filler, president and chief executive of the Ohio
Grocers
Association in Columbus, which represents more than 400 food retailers.
“If
corn prices head higher, you can expect higher prices.”
As the hot,
dry weather dries out fields and withers crops across 60 percent of the
mainland U.S., the largest area since the epic droughts of the 1930s
and 1950s,
prices have risen for corn, soybeans and other crops used to feed
livestock.
“It’s a
disaster,” said Rick Tolman, chief executive of the National Corn
Growers
Association, according to the Associated Press.
Farmers
started out anticipating a record 14 billion bushel corn crop this
year, but
the drought could cut production by roughly 3 billion bushels.
Steve
Prochaska, an agronomy systems field specialist with the Ohio State
University
Extension, said that while drought conditions across Ohio vary from
farm to farm,
some growers are already seeing losses.
Henry and
Wood counties in Northwest Ohio have some of the better growing
conditions in
the state, Prochaska said, but some of those farms have already lost up
to 50
percent of their yield potential. If there isn’t rain, it will continue
to
decline.
“Sadly, we
can start to get some idea of where we stand,” Prochaska said.
“For some
farmers, there’s just no way you can make up for the lost kernels
that’s on
those ears. We’re going to need timely rainfall to bring the rest of
the crop
in.”
Depending
on the farm, crops could still need up to 6 inches of rain to finish
out the
season.
Read the
rest of this article at the Cleveland Plain Dealer
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