Thursday, February 3, 2011

Food price inflation


It seems that almost every commodity on the planet is rising in price, and foodstuffs are no exception. This chart shows the price of an index based on hides, steers, lard, butter, soybean oil, cocoa, corn, wheat and sugar—pretty basic stuff. Since hitting bottom in Aug. 2000, food prices according to this index have risen almost 300%, or a little more than 10% per year. The dollar has lost about one-third of its value since the low in food prices, so food prices have risen by less than 10% a year for most other currencies, but regardless, food prices are hitting new highs these days in almost every currency in the world, with the exception of the Japanese yen and the Australian dollar.

9 comments:

Colin said...

Sounds like a good time to eliminate farm subsidies.

Benjamin Cole said...

Good times globally for farmers in free markets...but commodities booms usually lead to busts. If prices stay up, look for huge supplies coming.

J said...

It's helping me lose weight, bah.

Public Library said...

This is the quickest way to facilitate regime change.

The banksters and politicos are in a heap of trouble if the trend stays as the friend.

Lori said...

I've eliminated hides, steers, and lard from my discretionary purchasing habits. Working on the sugar too.

In effect, cutting my personal pain of inflation to the bear minimum.

You'd be surprised what choices we have.

brodero said...

Haven't you heard QE2 is the reason
for the bad winter harvest in China??

honestcreditguy said...

forced inflation leading to global unrest and food wars.

Ben B is full of folly, his experiment will backfire and people all over the world will suffer and die....

Thanks Ben..

Banker shill

Trenton Ulysses Rock said...

How come this graph looks so different?

http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2011/02/theres-no-food-inflation-in-us.html

Scott Grannis said...

Trenton: Good question, and I don't have a solid answer. I'll guess that spot commodity prices (my chart) are leading the way, and that the sharp, recent rises will soon start finding their way into the CPI.