15 Reasons Why Your Food Bill Is Going To Start SOARING
Feb 17, 2014 | ECB | Michael Snyder
Did you know that the U.S. state that produces the most vegetables is
going through the worst drought it has ever experienced and that the
size of the total U.S. cattle herd is now the smallest that it has been
since 1951? Just the other day, a CBS News article boldly declared that
"
food prices soar as incomes stand still",
but the truth is that this is only just the beginning. If the drought
that has been devastating farmers and ranchers out west continues, we
are going to see prices for meat, fruits and vegetables soar into the
stratosphere. Already, the federal government has declared
portions of 11 states
to be "disaster areas", and California farmers are going to leave half a
million acres sitting idle this year because of the extremely dry
conditions. Sadly, experts are telling us that things are probably
going to get worse before they get better (if they ever do). As you
will read about below, one expert recently told National Geographic that
throughout history it has been quite common for that region of North
America to experience severe droughts that last
for decades. In fact, one drought actually lasted for about 200 years. So there is the
possibility that the drought that has begun in the state of California may not end
during your entire lifetime.
This drought has gotten so bad that it is starting to get national
attention. Barack Obama visited the Fresno region on Friday, and he
declared that "this is going to be a very challenging situation this
year, and frankly, the trend lines are such where it's going to be a
challenging situation for some time to come."
According to
NBC News,
businesses across the region are shutting down, large numbers of
workers are leaving to search for other work, and things are already so
bad that it "
calls to mind the Dust Bowl of the 1930s"...
In the state's Central Valley — where nearly 40 percent
of all jobs are tied to agriculture production and related processing —
the pain has already trickled down. Businesses across a wide swath of
the region have shuttered, casting countless workers adrift in a
downturn that calls to mind the Dust Bowl of the 1930s.
If you will recall,
there have been warnings that Dust Bowl conditions were going to return to the western half of the country for quite some time.
Now the mainstream media is finally starting to catch up.
And of course these extremely dry conditions are going to severely
affect food prices. The following are 15 reasons why your food bill is
going to start soaring...
#1 2013 was
the driest year on record for the state of California, and 2014 has been exceptionally dry so far as well.
#2 According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, 91.6 percent of the entire state of California is experiencing "
severe to exceptional drought" even as you read this article.
#3 According to
CNBC, it is being projected that California farmers are going to let
half a million acres of farmland sit idle this year because of the crippling drought.
#4 Celeste Cantu, the general manager for the
Santa Ana Watershed Project Authority, says that this drought could have a
"cataclysmic" impact on food prices...
Given that California is one of the largest agricultural
regions in the world, the effects of any drought, never mind one that
could last for centuries, are huge. About 80 percent of California's
freshwater supply is used for agriculture. The cost of fruits and
vegetables could soar, says Cantu. "There will be cataclysmic impacts."
#5 Mike Wade, the executive director of the California Farm Water Coalition, recently explained which crops he believes will be hit the hardest...
Hardest hit would be such annual row crops as tomatoes,
broccoli, lettuce, cantaloupes, garlic, peppers and corn. Wade said
consumers can also expect higher prices and reduced selection at grocery
stores, particularly for products such as almonds, raisins, walnuts and
olives.
#6 As I discussed in a
previous article, the rest of the nation is extremely dependent on the fruits and vegetables grown in California. Just consider
the following statistics regarding what percentage of our produce is grown in the state...
-
99 percent of the artichokes
-
44 percent of asparagus
-
two-thirds of carrots
-
half of bell peppers
-
89 percent of cauliflower
-
94 percent of broccoli
-
95 percent of celery
-
90 percent of the leaf lettuce
-
83 percent of Romaine lettuce
-
83 percent of fresh spinach
-
a third of the fresh tomatoes
-
86 percent of lemons
-
90 percent of avocados
-
84 percent of peaches
-
88 percent of fresh strawberries
-
97 percent of fresh plums
#7 Of course it isn't just agriculture which will be affected by this drought. Just consider this
chilling statement by Tim Quinn, the executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies...
"There are places in California that if we don’t do
something about it, tens of thousands of people could turn on their
water faucets and nothing would come out."
#8 The Sierra Nevada snowpack is only about 15 percent of what it normally is. As
the New York Times recently explained, this is going to be absolutely devastating for Californians when the warmer months arrive...
Experts offer dire warnings. The current drought has
already eclipsed previous water crises, like the one in 1977, which a
meteorologist friend, translating into language we understand as
historians, likened to the “Great Depression” of droughts. Most
Californians depend on the Sierra Nevada for their water supply, but the
snowpack there was just 15 percent of normal in early February.
#9 The underground aquifers that so many California farmers depend upon are being drained
at a staggering rate...
Pumping from aquifers is so intense that the ground in
parts of the valley is sinking about a foot a year. Once aquifers
compress, they can never fill with water again. It’s no surprise Tom
Willey wakes every morning with a lump in his throat. When we ask which
farmers will survive the summer, he responds quite simply: those who dig
the deepest and pump the hardest.
#10 According to an expert interviewed by National
Geographic, the current drought in the state of California could
potentially last
for 200 years or more as some mega-droughts in the region have done in the past...
California is experiencing its worst drought since
record-keeping began in the mid 19th century, and scientists say this
may be just the beginning. B. Lynn Ingram,
a paleoclimatologist at the University of California at Berkeley,
thinks that California needs to brace itself for a megadrought—one that could last for 200 years or more.
#11 Much of the western U.S. has been exceedingly dry for an extended period of time, and this is hurting
huge numbers of farmers and ranchers all the way from Texas to the west coast...
The western United States
has been in a drought that has been building for more than a decade,
according to climatologist Bill Patzert of NASA’s Jet Propulsion
Laboratory.
“Ranchers in the West are selling off their livestock," Patzert said.
"Farmers all over the Southwest, from Texas to Oregon, are fallowing in
their fields because of a lack of water. For farmers and ranchers, this
is a painful drought.”
#12 The size of the U.S. cattle herd has been shrinking for seven years in a row, and it is now the smallest that it has been
since 1951. But our population has more than doubled since then.
#13 Extremely unusual weather patterns are playing
havoc with crops all over the planet right now. The following is an
excerpt from a recent article
by Lizzie Bennett...
Peru, Venezuela, and Bolivia have experienced rainfall heavy enough to flood fields and rot crops where they stand. Volcanic eruptions in Ecuador are also creating problems due to cattle ingesting ash with their feed leading to a slow and painful death.
Parts of Australia have been in drought for years affecting cattle and agricultural production.
Rice production in China has been affected by record low temperatures.
Large parts of the UK are underwater, and much of that water is sea
water which is poisoning the soil. So wet is the UK that groundwater is
so high it is actually coming out of the ground and adding to the water
from rivers and the sea. With the official assessment being that
groundwater flooding will continue until MAY, and that’s if it doesn’t rain again between now and then. The River Thames is 65 feet higher than normal in some areas, flooding town after town as it heads to the sea.
#14 As food prices rise, our incomes are staying about the same. The following is from a CBS News article entitled "
Food prices soar as incomes stand still"...
While the government says prices are up 6.4 percent since
2011, chicken is up 18.4 percent, ground beef is up 16.8 percent and
bacon has skyrocketed up 22.8 percent, making it a holiday when it's on
sale.
#15 As I have written about previously, median household income
has fallen for five years in a row.
So average Americans are going to have to make their food budgets
stretch more than they ever have before as this drought drags on.
If the drought does continue to get worse, small agricultural towns all over California are going to die off.
For instance, consider what is already happening
to the little town of Mendota...
The farms in and around Mendota are dying of thirst. The
signs are everywhere. Orchards with trees lying on their sides, as if
shot. Former farm fields given over to tumbleweeds. Land and cattle for
sale, cheap.
Large numbers of agricultural workers continue to hang on, hoping
that somehow there will be enough work for them. But as Evelyn Nieves
recently observed, panic is starting to set in...
Off-season, by mid-February, idled workers are clearly
anxious. Farmworkers and everyone else who waits out the winter for work
(truckers, diesel providers, packing suppliers and the like) are
nearing the end of the savings they squirrel away during the season. The
season starts again in March, April at the latest, but no one knows who
will get work when the season begins, or how much.
People are scared, panicked even.
I did not write this article so that you would panic.
Yes, incredibly hard times are coming. If you will recall, the 1930s
were also a time when the United States experienced extraordinarily dry
weather conditions and a tremendous amount of financial turmoil. We
could very well be entering a similar time period.
Worrying about this drought is not going to change anything. Instead
of worrying, we should all be doing what we can to store some things up
while food is still relatively cheap. Our grandparents and our
great-grandparents that lived during the days of the Great Depression
knew the wisdom of having a well-stocked food pantry, and it would be
wise to follow their examples.
Please share this article with as many people as you can. The United
States has never faced anything like this during most of our
lifetimes. We need to shake people out of their "
normalcy bias" and get them to understand that big changes are coming.
