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"thanks to a combination of poor weather, increased demand and virus-mangled global supply chains." Seems like a lost opportunity to create so much anxiety wit

"thanks to a combination of poor weather, increased demand and virus-mangled global supply chains." Seems like a lost opportunity to create so much anxiety with a long piece like this, to then only have this single line to hint at a reason for the rise. Can anybody more economically minded clarify if this is just post-covid rebound supply chain prices or is this food prices adjusting closer to their 'real' cost? Also what events do they refer to regarding 'poor weather'?

a_bonobo 6y ago
Here in Australia, some food prizes are up because the farming industry relies on cheap backpacker labor. Borders are shut so no backpackers come in, so a lot of fruit died on the field. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/02/world/australia/agriculture-backpackers.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/02/world/australia/agricultu... It should be noted that the entire industry is notorious for doing every dodgy thing they can get away with, wage theft, rent theft, extreme conditions, so local workers stay as far away from these jobs as they can. Other industries have done OK though. Wheat grain, for example, is predicted to be pretty average: https://research.csiro.au/graincast/wheat-yield-forecasts/ https://research.csiro.au/graincast/wheat-yield-forecasts/
- Uberphallus 6y ago
  Most cereal, corn, and even some fruit harvest is highly mechanized, whereas many other types of produce require manual labor, so it's really not surprising. In Europe, there are seasonal harvests that require surges of workers, who are sometimes legal and sometimes not. For example loads of foreign workers flock to the vineyards in France, Italy or Spain to collect the grapes for winemaking. It's around 3 weeks of work, obviously not worth a permanent contract. There were very few restrictions in those countries by the time of harvest (September) so wine prices, to my knowledge, have remained largely unaffected, but if it happened otherwise, winemakers would have been, without doubt, lobbying against the restrictions.
  - babesh 6y ago
    It’s amazing to me that the EU behaves a lot like the US in this regard. Same with Australia. I had no idea.
    - inglor_cz 6y ago
      Well, it is still somewhat tricky to pick strawberries etc. with robots. There is R&D going on, but humans still win. You need to take into account that income differences within the EU are enormous. Badly paid job in Germany still translates into very paid job in Bulgaria or Romania. That is why a lot of the seasonal workers come from the Balkans. Within a month they make enough money to live off for several months back home. No qualification needed.
    - michael1999 6y ago
      Modern capitalism usually moves the capital to labor. But you can’t move sunshine or soil, so modern agriculture moves the labor to the capital.
- Glawen 6y ago
  I knew backpacking was a thing, but I thought it was quite confidential. I didn't know that the farmers heavily relied on them to harvest
  - elyobo 6y ago
    Not sure that we're operating on the same definition of "backpacking" here, it's just low cost travel[1]. On certain visas in Australia you can extend the duration by working in a specified area[2], which is where that form of travel intersects with the food production issues. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backpacking_(travel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backpacking_(travel) [2] https://immi.homeaffairs.gov.au/visas/getting-a-visa/visa-listing/work-holiday-417/specified-work https://immi.homeaffairs.gov.au/visas/getting-a-visa/visa-li...
  - bpcpdx 6y ago
    I strongly suspect that it might be their flavor of our "traditional" migrant workers that involved some temporary work visa.
- lupire 6y ago
  That's amazing. Australia's farm labor is primarily relatively-wealthy vacationers who need a boost while they are far from home?
  - blaser-waffle 6y ago
    Working Holiday visa. If you're under 30 it's a rubber stamp thing. Pay the 400 bucks and you're good for a year. You can work legally as long as it's no more than 6 months anywhere, and it's pretty easy to get around that. You can extend your visa for another year if you do 88 days (~3 months) of "farm work" -- doesn't have to be on a farm per se, I know a guy who worked in a hyper-remote rural gas station ("road house"). I worked on a very remote cattle farm digging watering trenches and welding cattle pens. Then hitchhiked across the country.
DrBazza 6y ago
There's an additional article that was on here the other day, that says there's a world-wide shipping problem. Many containers are abandoned in countries that aren't on major routes because they took PPE to those countries, but never bothered to bring the empty containers back. Also lots of boats moored off the US East and West coasts, plus Europe, waiting of loading/unloading because of delayed supply chains due to COVID. It's a butterfly or ripple effect of high optimized supply chains being affected by small changes caused by nature/the government throwing a virus shaped spanner in the works.
mjevans 6y ago
Pure speculation: Texas. (also central US crops? but it's probably too early for that) I wonder how many warehoused things that require power and integrity got damaged.
- TimSchumann 6y ago
  They don’t really grow much but cattle in Texas. Doubt there’s a correlation.
  - ryanmarsh 6y ago
    Please research Texas agriculture. Cattle does account for half of ag commodities. However it’s such a large state that it is the top US producer of several non-livestock ag commodities.
    - thechao 6y ago
      My 42 years in Texas has taught me that out major export is bullshit; we’ve got a record crop coming in this year.
adflux 6y ago
Sure, almost all central banks over the world have printed an astronomical amount of money. Even though they may state there is no significant inflation, I dont buy it and neither do many other economists. Stock prices, house prices and now, at last, commodity prices have gone through the roof... But you're probably earning about as much as you were a year ago, or less, if your industry was affected... It's not just food. Lumber, Steel and Oil aswell. https://www.ft.com/content/6a7c232e-9c63-420c-ac05-40aea84a9504 https://www.ft.com/content/6a7c232e-9c63-420c-ac05-40aea84a9... EDIT: noticed link is paywalled (but not when you access via google) alternative article here: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-markets-idUSKBN2AM014 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-markets-idUSKBN2AM... "World shares slide on inflation fears, commodities surge"
- mistermann 6y ago
  Asking for investment advice in a forum is probably not the best idea, but does anyone have any advice for someone who's been sitting almost entirely in cash for over 2 years (including missing the covid rebound)? I have a fair amount of experience in the market but from an intuition perspective, I feel like I have alzheimer's or something, I haven't a clue what a person should do in this situation.
  - dominotw 6y ago
    Same. I think market bubble is going to keep going atleast in near future because of the new stimulus money that is going to start flowing to the market soon. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/08/how-the-young-plan-to-spend-stimulus-checks-deutsche-bank.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/08/how-the-young-plan-to-spend-...
    - oceanplexian 6y ago
      The market != The Economy. The market trades on multiples that represent asset prices in the future, and the stimulus was priced in months ago. The recent movement in the market was a reaction to the possibility that inflation shows up 6-12 months in the future, and the Fed doesn't raise rates. Subsequently high inflation will erode the value of bonds (Corporate debt). Who is holding them? Banks. If the banks fail lending tightens and the whole thing implodes. People can't get mortgages, corporations can't pay employees, home prices crash, etc. It's possible something could set off the market today that accelerates the whole process, like the upcoming supplementary leverage ratio change. Or, the bubble could continue inflating until doesn't. But either way the whole thing is incredibly fragile and much more complicated than the "Stimulus is good for the economy" talk politicians are peddling.
baybal2 6y ago
Last year we had: 1. Biblical scale locust infestation in much of Africa, and Asia 2. Floods in East Asia 3. Early winter in Russia, Ukraine, and North China 4. Failed, and missed sowing of grains in much of above regions 5. Shipping disruptions, and resulting food spoilage, and waste 6. Granaries busted, and people burning through many months worth of grain, and flour in much of third world due to initial COVID panic 7. Financial speculators having the best field run on agriculture in decades 8. Anxiety about point 6 repeating runs on food wholesalers again https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/12/10/nobel-winner-wfp-warns-of-a-hunger-pandemic-worse-than-virus https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/12/10/nobel-winner-wfp-w...
- imtringued 6y ago
  That aljazeera link doesn't sit right with me. I mean, just look at that first picture. It's a small child sitting in a sandy place with a stainless steel bowl with porridge like food inside. There is no civilization in sight. Maybe some village houses, which represent the bare minimum shelter needed. So now you get to ask yourself, should I feel pity or should I recognize that this child is not living in an environment that is conductive to escaping poverty? If I do take pity, will people pity me if I do a hike without food and end up starving on some forest path far away from civilization? I somehow doubt they would pity me. My point is, this problem is fundamentally unsolvable without either bringing civilization to these people or bringing the people to civilization. Taking pity on them doesn't do anything except maybe convince yourself that you did your part. Fighting against world hunger feels like a worthy goal that is fulfillable but it isn't. You don't solve world hunger by feeding people, you solve it by restructuring society.
  - kingkawn 6y ago
    You gotta feed people to be able to do the restructuring. Your logic is hollow to someone starving. Also impressive you’ve attempted to resurrect the idea of “civilizing” people.
    - brongondwana 6y ago

a_bonobo 6y ago

Here in Australia, some food prizes are up because the farming industry relies on cheap backpacker labor. Borders are shut so no backpackers come in, so a lot of fruit died on the field. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/02/world/australia/agriculture-backpackers.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/02/world/australia/agricultu... It should be noted that the entire industry is notorious for doing every dodgy thing they can get away with, wage theft, rent theft, extreme conditions, so local workers stay as far away from these jobs as they can. Other industries have done OK though. Wheat grain, for example, is predicted to be pretty average: https://research.csiro.au/graincast/wheat-yield-forecasts/ https://research.csiro.au/graincast/wheat-yield-forecasts/

Uberphallus 6y ago
Most cereal, corn, and even some fruit harvest is highly mechanized, whereas many other types of produce require manual labor, so it's really not surprising. In Europe, there are seasonal harvests that require surges of workers, who are sometimes legal and sometimes not. For example loads of foreign workers flock to the vineyards in France, Italy or Spain to collect the grapes for winemaking. It's around 3 weeks of work, obviously not worth a permanent contract. There were very few restrictions in those countries by the time of harvest (September) so wine prices, to my knowledge, have remained largely unaffected, but if it happened otherwise, winemakers would have been, without doubt, lobbying against the restrictions.
- babesh 6y ago
  It’s amazing to me that the EU behaves a lot like the US in this regard. Same with Australia. I had no idea.
  - inglor_cz 6y ago
    Well, it is still somewhat tricky to pick strawberries etc. with robots. There is R&D going on, but humans still win. You need to take into account that income differences within the EU are enormous. Badly paid job in Germany still translates into very paid job in Bulgaria or Romania. That is why a lot of the seasonal workers come from the Balkans. Within a month they make enough money to live off for several months back home. No qualification needed.
  - michael1999 6y ago
    Modern capitalism usually moves the capital to labor. But you can’t move sunshine or soil, so modern agriculture moves the labor to the capital.
Glawen 6y ago
I knew backpacking was a thing, but I thought it was quite confidential. I didn't know that the farmers heavily relied on them to harvest
- elyobo 6y ago
  Not sure that we're operating on the same definition of "backpacking" here, it's just low cost travel[1]. On certain visas in Australia you can extend the duration by working in a specified area[2], which is where that form of travel intersects with the food production issues. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backpacking_(travel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backpacking_(travel) [2] https://immi.homeaffairs.gov.au/visas/getting-a-visa/visa-listing/work-holiday-417/specified-work https://immi.homeaffairs.gov.au/visas/getting-a-visa/visa-li...
- bpcpdx 6y ago
  I strongly suspect that it might be their flavor of our "traditional" migrant workers that involved some temporary work visa.
lupire 6y ago
That's amazing. Australia's farm labor is primarily relatively-wealthy vacationers who need a boost while they are far from home?
- blaser-waffle 6y ago
  Working Holiday visa. If you're under 30 it's a rubber stamp thing. Pay the 400 bucks and you're good for a year. You can work legally as long as it's no more than 6 months anywhere, and it's pretty easy to get around that. You can extend your visa for another year if you do 88 days (~3 months) of "farm work" -- doesn't have to be on a farm per se, I know a guy who worked in a hyper-remote rural gas station ("road house"). I worked on a very remote cattle farm digging watering trenches and welding cattle pens. Then hitchhiked across the country.

DrBazza 6y ago

There's an additional article that was on here the other day, that says there's a world-wide shipping problem. Many containers are abandoned in countries that aren't on major routes because they took PPE to those countries, but never bothered to bring the empty containers back. Also lots of boats moored off the US East and West coasts, plus Europe, waiting of loading/unloading because of delayed supply chains due to COVID. It's a butterfly or ripple effect of high optimized supply chains being affected by small changes caused by nature/the government throwing a virus shaped spanner in the works.

mjevans 6y ago

Pure speculation: Texas. (also central US crops? but it's probably too early for that) I wonder how many warehoused things that require power and integrity got damaged.

TimSchumann 6y ago
They don’t really grow much but cattle in Texas. Doubt there’s a correlation.
- ryanmarsh 6y ago
  Please research Texas agriculture. Cattle does account for half of ag commodities. However it’s such a large state that it is the top US producer of several non-livestock ag commodities.
  - thechao 6y ago
    My 42 years in Texas has taught me that out major export is bullshit; we’ve got a record crop coming in this year.

adflux 6y ago

Sure, almost all central banks over the world have printed an astronomical amount of money. Even though they may state there is no significant inflation, I dont buy it and neither do many other economists. Stock prices, house prices and now, at last, commodity prices have gone through the roof... But you're probably earning about as much as you were a year ago, or less, if your industry was affected... It's not just food. Lumber, Steel and Oil aswell. https://www.ft.com/content/6a7c232e-9c63-420c-ac05-40aea84a9504 https://www.ft.com/content/6a7c232e-9c63-420c-ac05-40aea84a9... EDIT: noticed link is paywalled (but not when you access via google) alternative article here: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-markets-idUSKBN2AM014 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-markets-idUSKBN2AM... "World shares slide on inflation fears, commodities surge"

mistermann 6y ago
Asking for investment advice in a forum is probably not the best idea, but does anyone have any advice for someone who's been sitting almost entirely in cash for over 2 years (including missing the covid rebound)? I have a fair amount of experience in the market but from an intuition perspective, I feel like I have alzheimer's or something, I haven't a clue what a person should do in this situation.
- dominotw 6y ago
  Same. I think market bubble is going to keep going atleast in near future because of the new stimulus money that is going to start flowing to the market soon. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/08/how-the-young-plan-to-spend-stimulus-checks-deutsche-bank.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/08/how-the-young-plan-to-spend-...
  - oceanplexian 6y ago
    The market != The Economy. The market trades on multiples that represent asset prices in the future, and the stimulus was priced in months ago. The recent movement in the market was a reaction to the possibility that inflation shows up 6-12 months in the future, and the Fed doesn't raise rates. Subsequently high inflation will erode the value of bonds (Corporate debt). Who is holding them? Banks. If the banks fail lending tightens and the whole thing implodes. People can't get mortgages, corporations can't pay employees, home prices crash, etc. It's possible something could set off the market today that accelerates the whole process, like the upcoming supplementary leverage ratio change. Or, the bubble could continue inflating until doesn't. But either way the whole thing is incredibly fragile and much more complicated than the "Stimulus is good for the economy" talk politicians are peddling.

baybal2 6y ago

Last year we had: 1. Biblical scale locust infestation in much of Africa, and Asia 2. Floods in East Asia 3. Early winter in Russia, Ukraine, and North China 4. Failed, and missed sowing of grains in much of above regions 5. Shipping disruptions, and resulting food spoilage, and waste 6. Granaries busted, and people burning through many months worth of grain, and flour in much of third world due to initial COVID panic 7. Financial speculators having the best field run on agriculture in decades 8. Anxiety about point 6 repeating runs on food wholesalers again https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/12/10/nobel-winner-wfp-warns-of-a-hunger-pandemic-worse-than-virus https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/12/10/nobel-winner-wfp-w...

imtringued 6y ago
That aljazeera link doesn't sit right with me. I mean, just look at that first picture. It's a small child sitting in a sandy place with a stainless steel bowl with porridge like food inside. There is no civilization in sight. Maybe some village houses, which represent the bare minimum shelter needed. So now you get to ask yourself, should I feel pity or should I recognize that this child is not living in an environment that is conductive to escaping poverty? If I do take pity, will people pity me if I do a hike without food and end up starving on some forest path far away from civilization? I somehow doubt they would pity me. My point is, this problem is fundamentally unsolvable without either bringing civilization to these people or bringing the people to civilization. Taking pity on them doesn't do anything except maybe convince yourself that you did your part. Fighting against world hunger feels like a worthy goal that is fulfillable but it isn't. You don't solve world hunger by feeding people, you solve it by restructuring society.
- kingkawn 6y ago
  You gotta feed people to be able to do the restructuring. Your logic is hollow to someone starving. Also impressive you’ve attempted to resurrect the idea of “civilizing” people.
  - brongondwana 6y ago