Food Price Watch Thread

[caltrek]

Droughts, Complicated by Climate Change, Result in U.S. Beef Herd Hitting Historic Low
by John McCracken
March 13, 2024

Extract::

(Investigate Midwest) The size of the overall U.S. beef cattle herd has continued to decline since 1975, a trend largely attributed to an increase in global beef production and cattle imports. But at the beginning of 2024, the nation’s inventory of beef cattle hit a 61-year low, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

In the nation’s top 10 beef-producing states — responsible for nearly 60% of the country’s beef production — half reported the lowest number of cattle since 1995 as of the beginning of this year, according to an Investigate Midwest analysis of the USDA’s data.

Droughts starting in 2020 are a contributing factor in the nation’s historically low beef inventory, according to USDA research. Nebraska and Missouri — two of the top 10 beef-producing states — experienced the largest decline in the quality of June pastureland since 2020 compared to the other top states, according to an Investigate Midwest analysis of USDA data.

Finding land with plentiful grazing for cattle is difficult in drought years. An analysis of USDA pastureland data shows that grazable Nebraska pastureland shrunk by a third since 2019 during the month of June.
…
Current research shows climate change has caused more frequent large rainfall events coupled with months of zero precipitation. This volatility has made relying on typical weather patterns and grazing conditions difficult for the nation’s beef producers.

Read more here: https://investigatemidwest.org/2024/03 ... eef-herd/


Source: USDA

[caltrek]

Extreme Heat Drives Up Food Prices. Just How Bad Will It Get?
by Kate Yoder
March 27, 2024

Introduction:

(Grist) Sometimes climate change appears where you least expect it — like the grocery store. Food prices have climbed 25 percent over the past four years, and Americans have been shocked by the growing cost of staples like beef, sugar, and citrus.

While many factors, like supply chain disruptions and labor shortages, have contributed to this increase, extreme heat is already raising food prices, and it’s bound to get worse, according to a recent study published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment. The analysis found that heatflation could drive up food prices around the world by as much as 3 percentage points per year in just over a decade and by about 2 percentage points in North America. For overall inflation, extreme weather could lead to anywhere from a 0.3 to 1.2 percentage point increase each year depending on how many carbon emissions countries pump into the atmosphere.

Though that might sound small, it’s actually “massive,” according to Gernot Wagner, a climate economist at Columbia Business School. “That’s half of the Fed’s overall goal for inflation,” he said, referencing the Federal Reserve’s long-term aim of limiting it to 2 percent. The Labor Department recently reported that consumer prices climbed 3.2 percent over the past 12 months.

The link between heat and rising food prices is intuitive — if wheat starts withering and dying, you can bet flour is going to get more expensive. When Europe broiled in heat waves in 2022, it pushed up food prices that were already soaring due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (known as the breadbasket of Europe), researchers at the Europe Central Bank and Potsdam Institute in Germany found in the new study. Europe saw a record-breaking 9.2 percent inflation that year, and the summer heat alone, which hurt soy, sunflower, and maize harvests, might have been responsible for almost a full percentage point of that increase.

To figure out how climate change might drive inflation in the future, the researchers analyzed monthly price indices for goods across 121 countries over the past quarter-century.

Read more of the Grist article here: https://grist.org/economics/heatflatio ... - prices/

For results of the study as published in Nature: https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-023-01173-x

caltrek's comment: Aside from some plans of dubious benefit to plant trees, Republicans ignore global warming while Democrats recognize it as a threat and seek to actively mitigate the problem. Yet, Republicans are credited with better managing the economy. Go figure.

[caltrek]

World Food Price Index Rebounds from Three-year Low, Says UN Agency
April 5, 2024

Introduction:

(Reuters via The Economic Times) The United Nations food agency's world price index rebounded in March from a three-year low, boosted by increases for vegetable oils, meat and dairy products.

The Food and Agriculture Organization's (FAO) price index, which tracks the most globally traded food commodities, averaged 118.3 points in March, up from a revised 117.0 points the previous month, the agency said on Friday.

The February reading was the lowest for the index since February 2021 and marked a seventh consecutive monthly decline.

International food prices have fallen sharply from a record peak in March 2022 at the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of fellow crop exporter Ukraine.

The FAO's latest monthly reading was 7.7% below the year-earlier level, it said.

Read more here: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/n ... gn=cppst