[Falconoffury]

What I find just fascinating is that we are seeing food prices rise in the USA in the face of a rising dollar index. That demonstrates that rises in food prices have nothing to do with the money supply. The rising dollar index is technically lowering prices of everything, but other factors are causing food to overcome the effects of the rising dollar and continue to rise in price regardless.

The deflation and dollar strength is being caused by the destruction of asset values, credit tightening, and bankruptcies of large investment firms. Meanwhile, the USA is spending 10 billion dollars per month fighting wars in the Middle East. We are seeing a very odd mix of inflation and deflation right now.

My prediction is that the inflation will win out given time. Give it a few years, and there won't be many banks left who haven't been either rescued by the Fed, or gone bankrupt. Meanwhile, global trade will be heavily eroded, causing commodities to increase in price due to lack of supply. We'll also see the New Deal come back, and the government will try to rescue everyone and throw ever increasing amounts of money at their problems. When all that comes to pass, we will be seeing food price rises never before seen in the past 2 to 3 generations.

[Don35]

My brother farms 600 acres. Last year DAP (fertilizer) was $200 a ton, this year it was $500 a ton. Next years projection is $1400 per ton!! That price increase should reach consumers in 2010 as those crops hit supermarkets.

[mattduke]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'F')ears that scores of supermarket suppliers will go bust next year have led the country's major chains to draw up emergency plans to replace them, The Observer can reveal.

[vtsnowedin]

Good luck finding an alternative supplier that isn't facing the very same problems that are driving the present supplier out of business.

[idiom]

Aw .

I thought this was going to be about Supermarkets filling spare warehouses up with Rice, vitamin pills and bottledwater.

[vtsnowedin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('idiom', 'A')w .

I thought this was going to be about Supermarkets filling spare warehouses up with Rice, vitamin pills and bottledwater.

[bratticus]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('idiom', 'A')w .

I thought this was going to be about Supermarkets filling spare warehouses up with Rice, vitamin pills and bottledwater.

[Sixstrings]

I went to get cocoa powder the other day (plain cocoa, as in for baking) and found the shelf empty except for a single can of Hershey's dark chocolate. I didn't think anything of it at the time, but then tonight I read this Financial Times article:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')b]Cocoa prices on Tuesday surged to a 23-year high as speculative investors poured into the market amid concerns about dwindling supplies from Ivory Coast, by far the world’s largest producer.
The International Cocoa Organisation said in its latest monthly report that cocoa bean arrivals until the end of November at ports in Ivory Coast, which provides almost 40 per cent of the world’s supplies, were the lowest in years.
“Only 251,000 tonnes of beans are estimated to have reached the local ports during the first two months of the current season, a level around 40 per cent below average for the four preceding seasons,” it said.
The problem has continued in December – the traditional peak of the harvesting season – because of the impact of cold weather and heavy rains earlier this year, the so-called black pod disease, reduced use of fertiliser because of high prices and a spate of strikes among farmers and customs personnel, traders said. They added that cocoa supplies from Ivory Coast’s west African neighbour Ghana, the second largest producer, were also lower than last season.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1f48a1b8-d129 ... 07658.html

[ReverseEngineer]

So is this enough yet to send you into the Doomer Camp? You have said that when you started to see shortages on the shelves that would be the Clarion Call for you. MAybe Chocolate isn't enough though?

"Ask not for Whom the Bell Tolls, it Tolls for THEE, Sixstrings.

Reverse Engineer

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'S')o is this enough yet to send you into the Doomer Camp? You have said that when you started to see shortages on the shelves that would be the Clarion Call for you. MAybe Chocolate isn't enough though?
"Ask not for Whom the Bell Tolls, it Tolls for THEE, Sixstrings.

[smallpoxgirl]

Peak oil I can live with, but peak chocolate is just too horrible to contemplate.

[ReverseEngineer]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'S')o is this enough yet to send you into the Doomer Camp? You have said that when you started to see shortages on the shelves that would be the Clarion Call for you. MAybe Chocolate isn't enough though?
"Ask not for Whom the Bell Tolls, it Tolls for THEE, Sixstrings.

[blukatzen]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('smallpoxgirl', 'P')eak oil I can live with, but peak chocolate is just too horrible to contemplate.

[Narz]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') noticed a shortage in the grocery store

[InToWishin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', 'A')s for the cocoa.. perhaps I'm raising a false flag. I just googled "cocoa shortage," and I'm seeing articles going back a few years.

[Quinny]

on a more serious note cocoa is one of the things i've got in my preps

[pedalling_faster]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ReverseEngineer', 'S')o is this enough yet to send you into the Doomer Camp?

[misterno]

After reading this therad, I decided to read a research report or book that deals with the psycho analysis of doomers.

You guys make me suspicious about your peak oil theories. Damn, I was just about to believe with my whole heart.

[ReverseEngineer]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('misterno', 'A')fter reading this therad, I decided to read a research report or book that deals with the psycho analysis of doomers.

[TommyJefferson]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', 'S')o, to sum up the article.. supply is short because of farmers' strikes, not using enough fertilizer due to cost, and a cocoa bean disease.