Food Costs Rising Fastest in 17 Years

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The U.S. is wrestling with the worst food inflation in 17 years, and analysts expect new data due on Wednesday to show it's getting worse.

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U.S. food prices rose 4 percent in 2007, compared with an average 2.5 percent annual rise for the last 15 years, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. And the agency says 2008 could be worse, with a rise of as much as 4.5 percent.

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For the U.S. poor, any increase in food costs sets up an either-or equation: Give something up to pay for food.

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For some, that means adding an extra cup of water to their soup, watering down their milk, or giving their children soda because it's cheaper than milk, DiChiara said.

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USDA economist Ephraim Leibtag explained the jumps in a recent presentation to the Food Marketing Institute, starting with the factors everyone knows about: sharply higher commodity costs for wheat, corn, soybeans and milk, plus higher energy and transportation costs.

The other reasons are more complex. Rapid economic growth in China and India has increased demand for meat there, and exports of U.S. products, such as corn, have set records as the weak dollar has made them cheaper. That's lowered the supply of corn available for sale in the U.S., raising prices here. Ethanol production has also diverted corn from dinner tables and into fuel tanks.

Soybean prices have gone up as farmers switched more of their acreage to corn. Drought in Australia has even affected the price of bread, as it led to tighter global wheat supplies.

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For the poorest U.S. families, the higher costs may mean going hungry. A family of four is eligible for a maximum $542 a month in food stamps, which never lasted the whole month before, Food Bank of New Jersey's DiChiara said.

"Now food stamps go fewer and fewer days of the month," she said.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5j141xpQ...P-eZ6gD901RJLG1

[Trompe le Monde 1,107]

The cost of rice has gone up something like 40% in the last year - that is just crazy

[metta 0]

The cost of rice has gone up something like 40% in the last year - that is just crazy

This is another big crisis looming in the horizen. I think 3 billion people in the world has rice as staple.

India, China , Vietnam had stopped ricew exports to make sure their people don't go hungry.

So net rice importers like bangladash and African countries are facing real threat of widespread unrest.

I believe, food riots have already taken place in haiti and Ivory Coast.

India has 300 million people who are dependent on government subsidized rice.

If the crisis deepens, many governmnets are going to fall and unrest in the regions become widespread.

very worrisome.

[simple_male 1]

The cost of rice has gone up something like 40% in the last year - that is just crazy

Yes, it is a bad news. In some poor countries, people spend upto 80% of their income to buy foods according to a recent report.

[Kevin and 10]

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/04/...ld.food.crisis/

http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/blog..._and_the_g.html

I went to the local Asian Market yesterday and noticed they are limiting bags of rice to 2 per customer.

[Nagishkaw 510]

I suspect it will only get worse.

[Dr. A ♥ O 203]

As a college student $20 barley buys me a morsel of food. We did a "very small" protest on hunger and the wastage of food here and we showed what $20 of food can buy. A lady came by and said she remembered when $20 of food would fill a whole grocery cart and that this was just sad. Then she asked if she could take our box of stuffing we had in our display. #######?

To see what we did look at: Donut Give Away

[almaty 19]

it is terrible...riots in some parts of the world