Posted on 09/22/2010 8:33:43 PM PDT by DeaconBenjamin
The Moscow bank Uralsib said half of Russia's potato crop has been lost and the country's wheat crisis will drag on for a second year, forcing the Kremlin to draw on world stocks.
Wheat prices have risen 70pc since June to $7.30 a bushel as the worst heatwave for half a century ravages crops across the Black Sea region, an area that supplies a quarter of global wheat exports.
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"It is not yet a crisis but things are precarious. If there is another bad year in Russia and Ukraine, this will leave us prone to shocks. All it takes then is one piece of bad news," a UN official said.
Uralsib's chief economist said Russia's wheat harvest will be 60m tonnes this year, far short of the 75m consumed. The country has intervention stocks of 9.5m. "We think Russia faces shortfall of 17m tonnes and will have to import next year," he said.
Moscow has already imposed an export ban until late 2011, but markets have not discounted the risk of Russia becoming a substantial importer.
Luke Chandler at Rabobank said the drought has gone on long enough to hit winter wheat planting and damage yields for next year's spring wheat. "At this stage there is no substantial recovery in subsoil moisture levels in Russia," he said.
A corn crunch is also creeping up on the world. Global stocks are at their lowest level for 37 years, at a stock to use ratio of 13pc. "This is getting extremely tight," said Mr Chandler.
Corn prices have jumped 40pc since June, reaching $5 a bushel. This was first blamed on lower US crop yields due to bad weather, but China has since revealed that it imported a record 432,000 tonnes in August.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
And we’re still making ethanol out of corn???
Great.
The world is in massive debt and the food crop is failing.
Brilliant isn’t it?
We’re all just hopelessly indebted and bankrupt children of the corn.
Man, I finally got a decent ear of corn today.
Mmmmm corn...
Stop making ethanol with corn and eliminate the tariff on sugar and stop using corn as a sweetener. We’ll kind two or three birds.
Next to go flying through the roof is oil prices...
Farmers in the USA, Australia and Canada should be increasing market share right now. Great opportunity.
Their people will be starving this winter as our Russian is wanting to spend Billions on weapons from the U.S.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2594128/posts
Hmm..how about:
“Time to plant more corn”?
America and Canada are nowhere near the full productive capacity in the Agricultural Industry this is an opportunity not a dilemma.
And also impoverish some major RINO campaign contributors.
Wait, make that four birds. :)
Hopefully this isn’t the beginning of a worldwide famine but our own government no longer keeps emergency food stocks.
You’re lucky. Been terrible around here.
Yes and no, where are you going to find the farmers and how are they going to get financed. There are few young farmers taking the place of those who have retired. We’ve gone from 340 farmers to less than 20 in our county in 35 years and from what I hear it isn’t much better in other areas.
It is hard enough for an older farmer with equity to get financed much less some young guy with nothing.
This is an attempt to disguise deflation.
“our own government no longer keeps emergency food stocks.”
dirty little secret isn’t it?
That’s OK, I’ve got my own ;-)
What county is that?
The idea just keeps getting better.
And?
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