[Ferretlover]

Relief group rejects $46 million in U.S. food aid It says American government distribution policies hurt poor farmers
NAIROBI, Kenya - A humanitarian group has turned down $46 million worth of U.S. food aid, arguing that the way the American government distributes its help hurts poor farmers. CARE said wheat donated by the U.S. government and sold by charities to finance anti-poverty programs results in low-priced crops being dumped on local markets and small-scale growers cannot compete. …

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20310600/

[nocar]

This article mentions a new 'all time high' for wheat prices

http://www.reuters.com/article/consumer ... 3420070903


While I really doubt it is an 'all time high' in real prices (after all, Adam Smith in the 18th century analysed wheat prices from the previous centuries) the two wheat prices given on Bloomberg ranged from 760s to 800 today, Sept 4.


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[nocar]

Wheat prices are still rising. KCB was 791, CBT 835 at 4 am EST, sept 5. Yet no comment by the columnists on Bloomberg.

http://www.bloomberg.com/markets/commod ... tures.html

nocar

[Offshore]

http://www.thestreet.com/_yahoo/markets ... ;cm_ite=NA

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')heat prices were soaring yet again Wednesday as anxious buyers scrambled to secure supplies of the grain.
Benchmark wheat contracts were ahead by 3.7% at nearly $8.36 a bushel in recent action, hitting a record level for a most actively traded contract.

"There is panic among international buyers," says Mike Woolverton, a grains economist at Kansas State University. Earlier in the week, India was reportedly buying 795,000 tons of the wheat at a price of $10.45 a bushel, including the cost of delivery, he explains.

"This was kind of an unusual transaction, and so it is driving the market."

[nocar]

Kcb is 807
CBT is 843

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[Ferretlover]

Hunger and World Poverty About 25,000 people die every day of hunger or hunger-related causes, according to the United Nations. This is one person every three and a half seconds ...

Poverty.com

[flametree]

I was talking to a friend who is a grain farmer in Eastern Australia. He said if the rains don't come in the next two weeks the crop will fail. Also the soil is dry because of the failure of last years rains. This is not good news.

[nocar]

Wheat is still rising.

KCB is 829, CBT is 865


http://www.bloomberg.com/markets/commod ... tures.html

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[nocar]

Still rising:

KCB is 874,0, CBT is 899,8



http://www.bloomberg.com/markets/commod ... tures.html

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[dorlomin]

With a falling dollar, rising oil and comodities prices as well the increases in wheat, corn and meat prices is surely starting to hit the worlds very poor countries in the belly now.

What we think of as the nation state has not really existed in much of the world anyway with states stradling ethnic lines with no regard for the peoples they encompass.

Afghanistan, Somalia and Iraq have shown that in such artificial states, when the pressure is on, people turn to the groups they can instintively trust:The family, the clan and the tribe. As food become unafordable many more states will begin to disintegrate.

Far from the headlines and far from the center of the Empire, peak oil will begin pushing countries over an Olduvain cliff....

[nocar]

A new wheat record as far as I can tell ( I have could have missed some developments):

KCB 903
CBT 917


http://bloomberg.com/markets/commodities/cfutures.html


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[nocar]

Another record today:

KCB 918
CBT 934


Same link to Bloomberg. If there is commenting text on the new record, I could not find in a prominent place.


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[Denny]

What is peculiar about this is that in our grandparents time, it would be the top of the news. Everybody logically linked the cost of wheat tot he food on their table. And, of course, many or most families made a lot more directly from flour.

But, we've become so urban, and so dumbed down, that people won't complain until they see the price of the loaf of bread hit $1.80 or the box of cereal hit $5. The, there will be a newspaper story that links it to the raw material, etc.

[wisconsin_cur]

This is almost why I almost threw my coffee cup at CNBC yesterday. Talking about inflation and the falling dollar the talking head was talking about how the damage of a falling dollar is limited because it doesn't apply to the things we produce here (wheat is my example and the reason for including this discourse in this thread).

The problem is that (for the time being at least) we have to compete with the prices other people are willing to pay for wheat. It doesn't matter if it is produced here or not, our price will go up if Italy's Euro's are worth more than our dollars it still drives prices up.

Not that you all don't know that...

Just needed to vent.

[Specop_007]

Havent read all 3 pages but I'll put in my 2 cents.

Wheat is finally where it needs to be price wise. I can remember when it was around 2-3 a bushel, damn near wasnt worth running the combine through the field. The .gov gave a lot of farmers alot of money to keep the grain prices down. If grain prices go up food prices go up.

I'm glad to see farmers finally making money. While it hurts a bit more to buy food its nice to know the guys workin for it are finally making a decent living.

I noticed someone mention ehtanol, that has a big play in it too. Those plants are goin up as fast as they can find welders to put them together. And they use a lot of water and a lot of grain to make ethanol.

But the thing I could never understand, we send all our wheat abroad then turn around and buy wheat from China?

[nocar]

Well, finally Bloomberg commented:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')heat Rises, Extends Rally to Record, on Smaller U.S. Supplies

By Tony C. Dreibus

Sept. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Wheat rose, touching a record high for the 23rd time in the past three months, after the government said U.S. production and supplies were smaller than analysts expected, reducing already-low global inventories.

About 1.717 billion bushels of wheat were in storage as of Sept. 1, down 1.9 percent from a year earlier, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said. The average estimate of 11 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg was for 1.839 billion. The total U.S. harvest was 2.067 billion bushels, the USDA said, down 2.2 percent from its August estimate.

``We were actually expecting an increase and they came out with a little bit less,'' said Jason Britt, an analyst at Central States Commodities Inc. in Kansas City, Missouri, referring to the wheat inventory number. ``The demand has been excellent for wheat.''

Wheat futures for December delivery rose 6 cents, or 0.6 percent, to $9.39 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade, after earlier touching a record $9.6175. The price jumped 7.4 percent for the week and 21 percent for September, the sixth straight monthly gain.

Most-active futures have more than doubled in the past year on expectations for smaller global supplies. Wheat was the fourth-biggest U.S. crop in 2006, valued at $7.7 billion, behind corn, soybeans and hay, according to government data.

Wheat consumption in the first quarter of the marketing year that started June 1 was 806 million bushels, up 28 percent from a year earlier, the USDA said today in its report.

Food Costs

Rising commodities prices have added to costs for companies such as Kellogg Co. and General Mills Inc., the largest U.S. cereal-makers. Both have passed on the increases to consumers.

General Mills' fiscal first-quarter profit rose 8.2 percent and Kellogg's second-quarter net income climbed 13 percent, partly on higher retail prices, the companies said.

Kraft Foods Inc. Chief Executive Officer Irene Rosenfeld said this month that commodity costs are ``a significant challenge.'' Rosenfeld said she would respond by cutting jobs, tying executives' pay to profit and buying back shares....

[nocar]

Already a new record:

KCB 940
CBT 949

http://www.bloomberg.com/markets/commod ... tures.html

no comment this time at Bloombergs

Specob and Denny, you both express my thinking very well. In the oilrich last century, food has become unnaturally inexpensive. And that is also why people are moving into cities, all around the world. Now - what will happen when the process goes in reverse?

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[nocar]

After wheat prices made a two-month dip, they are now at record levels again: CBT is 938; KCB 966 cents per bushel. And it is commented on by Bloomberg


http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... ty_futures

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[nocar]

Wheat is still rising: CBT at 979.5
KCB at 999


http://www.bloomberg.com/markets/commod ... tures.html

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[strider3700]

1000 wheat before 100 oil? I wasn't expecting that.