Get ready for high food prices this summer

The climate is cooling due to low solar activity and crops are not doing well. Food prices this summer are going to be much higher than usual. From AgWeb News Service:

Today's Top Ag News -- Ugh! More Rain
'Never seen anything like this.' That's a common refrain in portions of Iowa and no doubt other areas of the Midwest which have been deluged by rain and flooding this week. And, there's more rain falling across a broad portion of Iowa this morning, including areas north of where flooding is already severe. The National Weather Service has even shifted their terminology in some areas, going from "major" to "major severity" in terms of flooding in some locations.

Another article at AgWeb:

Iowa Floods Claim Significant Acres
Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey says Iowa needs sunshine for the crop already planted and to dry fields so farmers can at least salvage some soybean acres. Iowa, traditionally the top corn-and-soybean-producing state has lost significant acreage this year due to flooding and wet weather that is crippling farmers across the entire state.

Northey says 2% of the anticipated acres have not been planted in the state and an additional 7% were lost due to flooding, �so we�re down about 9% of what our expected acres were.�

And a bit more:

Soybeans are in worse shape, though there is still time to plant that crop if the weather cooperates. Northey says 14% of the Iowa crop is still not planted and 6% of the state�s crop has been lost due to flooding.

NASS expects Iowa to allocate 9.8 million acres to soybeans. The roughly 20% of non-planted/ruined soybean acres could result in a 1.96-million-acre loss.

�Some of those bean acres can still get planted, but you�d have some decreased yields,� Northey says. �If you got in and got those, you could still get 2/3 of a yield. But most of those areas right now are very wet, and they didn�t get planted because they were wet. They�re even wetter now than what they were before they didn�t get planted the first time.�

We sure could use a little of that Global Warming right about now. It is even impacting business at the store as fewer people are coming out for the weekend. Business is off about 30%.