anybody noticed food prices

[luckyleftyme2]

has anyone noticed that food prices rise as quater winds down? Is this to show economic
good times? I think that inflation is right around the corner.

[Angsty]

1. Major Factor: Ethanol

As corn is being used to make Ethanol, it's raised the price of feeding livestock. Therefore, pork, beef, chicken, eggs, milk... have all gone up. Almost EVERY baked good has eggs and milk, so those prices goes up, too. Starbucks has raised prices to compensate for cream prices. Same with ice cream.

Using corn to make fuel is ridiculous when so many people are starving.

[luckyleftyme2]

2. you sound like a non-liberal

do you think making war for oil is the answer? well more people are dying from war than
real starvation. africa is a man made starvation,again for greed.
we have so much corn in the world that we are letting it rot or not planting acres.
I'll bet global warming is a farce in your way of thinking.
the real rise in food prices is not from using bulk corn for ethanol,but from gasoline and diesel prices that are being price fixed!
sorry but I think your definitely wrong on this one!

[Angsty]

6. Wow - jump to conclusions much?

I don't think we should be in Iraq at all - for oil or any of the other multitude of BS reasons that they told us we had to go there. This war was unconstitutional, unnecessary and it has made us LESS safe in the long run.

I also don't happen to be convinced that global warming is a man-made issue OR that it's a crisis. What does climate change have to do with liberal principles? I've seen photos of the ice caps on Mars melting. If humans are responsible for it getting hotter in any way, it's that we've made the air so clean that there are fewer particulates providing a filtering effect on sunlight. Lastly - we know that the earth's temperature has fluctuated for millions of years. Who is to say that we need to lock it in where it is right now? Maybe this is NOT the optimum temperature for many species of animals and plants to flourish? I wish all the "energy" (pun not intended) being wasted on fighting global warming could be put to better use on other things like curing cancer, AIDS and all of the other diseases that plague us and ACTUALLY AFFECT OUR LIVES!

Anyway... this is way off-topic.

[Angsty]

7. By the way

This is a site for Democrats, as I understand it.

My grandfather is a life-long Democrat, but I'd hardly call him liberal. I don't expect him to warm up to the idea of gay marriage any time soon. Being liberal doesn't mean that I should chastise him or call him a fool or bigot for feeling that way. I respect his right to have his own opinion, even if I disagree with it.

[MaineDem]

8. Welcome to DU

Many of us use the ignore function for certain posters. You'll probably find it of use from time to time.

:hi:

[mainegreen]

9. Plenty of us liberals think ethanol fuel is a big fat joke.

There are other and better solutions than burning coal and natural gas to generate electricity to turn biomass into ethanol to drive our cars. That's not even really a long-term solution. Just an extremely short term measure to try and get through the next few years and keep prices at the pump low and political capitol high.

Edited to remove quotes that really did not belong

[luckyleftyme2]

12. since you always choose the other side

since you always choose the other side prehaps you could address the orginal post.
My feeling is like oil companies food companies are raising prices to get higher profits. since the oil companies are reaping record profits;they are paving the way for business to rip off its customers.
all we need now is shore bound! or langley

[mainegreen]

13. As I get my food from an Organic CSA, and pre-pay in January, I have no idea what food prices are.

I do know that what I spend on my organic CSA food (10% of all crops donated to the poor, it's a teaching farm) is cheaper and tastier than anything I would get at the grocery store. Grocery stores are usually the most expensive places to get things like meat and veggies. I have no idea why, as you would think that through volume and size they could gain a certain efficiency and lower prices, but I guess that's not the case.

At what point would you think 'the food companies' are ripping us off? We can discount the farmer as robbing us blind, so that leaves about two layers of distributors and the grocery store.

[crim son]

3. Interesting. Could you post a link

supporting this idea? I'm not a huge fan of ethanol as a substitute fuel yet haven't heard anybody speak of its production causing a general shortage.

[luckyleftyme2]

4. i'm no expert -but

in june you could buy oakhurst 1% in my convince store for $3.25 a gal. or you could buy it at shaws and hannaford for $4.25 a gal. and no we did not sell it at a loss.
this kind of makes the corn shortage a hoax.
I believe if you use your computer you will find out their is an abundance of corn,rice,
potatoes and yams world wire.
the real fact is that small farmers world wide are getting out of the market because of this surplus.
also corn is not the only crop we can plant to get sugar (ethanol) for fuel.
hydrogen is 50 years down the road; ethanol is now.
have you read anything about brazil? did you hear gmc say that they had not produced an engine that could run on ethanol while they had been selling their vehicles to brazil.
you don't want to believe everything business puts out. and to convert your engine will cost less than $200. of course once business gets a whole of it with the standard 1000%
mark up it will cost more.
lets face it if you let them business will rip you off-fair practices no longer exist!
heres a prime example,lettuce in calif can be bought for less than .25 cents a head,watermelon for less than $1.oo a mellon. to ship a trailer truck load from calif. or texas to maine is approx $3000 dollars. the product will fetch approx $50,000.
I KNOW A TRUCKER WHO BOUGHT A TRUCK LOAD OF WATERMELON LAST YEAR FOR TEN CENTS A MELLON
HE HAD TO LOAD THEM HIMSELF. HE HIRED TWO KIDS FOR $100 BUCKS TO HELP HIM.
HE SOLD THESE MELLON'S FOR $3.00 A PIECE. HE MADE TWO TRIPS AS QUICK AS HE COULD.

[Angsty]

5. Links

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/14/AR2007061402008.html">Washington Post: The Rising Tide of Corn

Here's one about how the rising price of corn is affecting the Mexican economy:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=aPnypWQGFPKQ&refer=latinamerica">Bloomberg:Tortillas Spark Inflation, Drive Down Mexico's Peso

Lucky - you can say we don't HAVE to use corn to make ethanol, but the bottom line is that whatever they choose will be some bio-mass that is being grown on farmland that could have been used to grow some kind of food. You can also say that nobody in the world is starving for lack of food, but everybody's food bill is going through the roof right now, and that's affecting the poor more than anybody else.

I don't have a solution, but I know that Ethanol is not the answer.

[luckyleftyme2]

10. AND WHATS YOUR SOLUTION

Its obvious you have none,and that lets the dinosaurs hold on and prevent new sources of energy. now you have spun the thread completely off course.
the thread was about high food prices,you claimed it was because of corn being used for ethanol. yet you can't back up your claim.
how many acres in the usa are getting subsidy's not to plant? I think your off course and simply disruptive.
but you have a right to your opinion-i'll stick to mine. and i voted for MUSKIE I Hope your grandfather did.
several crops besides sugar cane,corn,sugar beets,beans rice,greens and etc that are being used along with reprocessed cooking oils,used motor oil and who knows what else
will help to wean us from fossil fuel and mid-east oil.

[luckyleftyme2]

11. your the one that mentioned ethanol

sorry your out of context and I know you know it!

[Shorebound]

14. Crim son

In 2006 Iowa, the nation's largest corn producer, harvested 2.2 billion bushels of corn. When all the ethanol plants now being expanded or under construction there are finished, they will consume the state's entire corn crop. Out of the total of 11.2 billion bushels of corn grown in the U.S. last year, 1.6 billion (14.3 percent) went into ethanol production. Ethanol producers are expected to make at least 5.4 billion gallons this year -- double what was produced in 2003 and less than half of what is projected in 2009.

http://www.iowacorn.org/cornuse/cornuse_3.html

http://pewresearch.org/pubs/529/ethanol-demand-outgrows-corn

You can't have that much corn going into ethanol production without seeing the effects in the human food chain. Corn is used in an amazing variety of ways in almost every processed food in the supermarket -- if not in the food itself, then in the bioplastic packaging surrounding it. So between the increase in the price of corn -- $3.64 a bushel and more earlier this year, although it has dropped back into the $2.81 range lately -- and the overall rise in fuel prices -- still high despite the recent dip -- it's inevitable that food prices in general would go up.

Which helps explain why companies are scrambling to scale up industrial production of ethanol from wood chips, switch grass,and other materials. Cellulostic ethanol is probably the future for ethanol production. Using corn and other food crops is, I hope, just a stop along the way.

Edited to add: The political part is this -- under our current administration, the cost of living index is regularly "adjusted" so that these increases in food and fuel don't show up in the "official" number and spoil one of Tony Snow's news briefings with the truth.

[luckyleftyme2]

15. true to a point

you can't keep acres unused,pay subsidies not to plant or limit planting and add a new use for any product without an increase for demand and a method to meet it.
you can play on words,like Reagan cutting taxes increased the overall tax yield; but thats a lie because the rest of the equation was skillfully omitted. which was we went from the richest nation in the world to the largest debtor. in other words we didn't balance our budget,stop spending or borrowing. as a matter of fact we are still doing this,we done it with bush sr. and bush junior. and fools are still saying we're the richest nation on earth.
the fact is our borrowing has about reached it's limit. our dollar has deflated to about
50% of its value when bush took office.
we owe china far to much money and inflation will raise its head next year.
as far as ability to produce corn,we still have a surplus which we sell overseas for peanuts.
pull up the whole story and you will see the same people putting out the same propaganda to prevent alternative fuels.

heres a link that is not put out from oil money:"
www.Iowacorn.org/ethanol
click on link and go to grower opportunities- kinda backs what i'm saying- i'm sure that you realize the oil companies give millions to media outlets to stop all alternative methods of energy.
now lets get back to why the milk farmer gets squat the wholesaler gets rich and the customer
finds he in the same boat as the farmer-he can't afford to stay in the game!

[luckyleftyme2]

16. milk export debunked

the news net work yesterday said the increase in milk prices was because of the increased demand world -wide.
well heres the latest on our exports=68,201 tons of non-fat dry milk,21,097 tons of butterfat,3,030 tons of various cheeses.
a mere drop in the bucket,doesn't even come close to the farmers yield we are paying not to have a dairy farm due to the glut.
heres a link: took one try and their are at least a dozen more.and the exports are subsidized to compete in foreign markets.
http:www.fas.usda.gov/excredits/deip/deip-newasp.
sounds like the oil shortage,the coffee shortage,the sugar shortage etc always when people start questioning prices you get this response from republicans.
i'm sure we're being ripped off,and i'm sure you have the capabilities to research the truth.
oh by the way ck out how much china is exporting,and is their american money invested?