A soaring food price fear

I think central banks will do the same thing they have been with inflation in recent times – ignore it (A soaring food price fear, July 20). You speak of unrest, there's plenty of that in our household since our monthly grocery bill went up by over 10% approximately four months ago.
What's behind it? Consumer demand? Carbon Tax anticipation? Global pressures? One thing's for sure, those retail executives telling us about deflation need to tell us why the rest of their product range is more than cross subsidising their 'heavily reduced' bread and milk lines. Where our supermarkets are concerned, the hand that taketh away still heavily dominates that which giveth.

Wow. That's probably the most terrifying add in to the Nuriel Roubini 2013 is going to be a bad year I've yet seen, simply because it flows through so much (A soaring food price fear, July 20). Thank you Karen. You really do pick things up early.

Food security is the biggest factor and the most important we should be concerned with (A soaring food price fear, July 20). We can live without oil, gas. iron ore and the rest even if it means going back to a very basic existence but we cannot live without food.

Robert Gottliebsen seems to be well ahead of the pack with his prcis 'A bumper crop for investors' in the Eureka Report 13/07/12 and his heads up for Ruralco Holdings ASX: RHL. Thanks mate (A soaring food price fear, July 20).

Central Banks allowing a higher level of inflation while pursuing an accommodative monetary policy is probably the best solution from a poor selection of alernatives. Is stagflation bad? Yes, but it beats a global economic depression by a country mile (A soaring food price fear, July 19).

The real cause for soaring soft commodity prices such as corn and wheat, is the debasement of all major currencies (A soaring food price fear, July 20). The higher Australian dollar is what is cushioning the impact of higher prices for Australians. My real fear is if the Australian dollar loses popularity and falls back to 50 cents US. This is when inflation is going to hit hard on prices. Even though food and energy maybe volatile, they should be included in the inflation figures.

As the current solar grand minimum progresses mankind is learning more about how previous grand minimums caused food shortages which led to economic and political upheavals (A soaring food price fear, July 20).
This grand minimum is teaching us how atmospheric Rossby waves, which are the pathways of jet streams, change as a result of significant changes in the sun's normal output of short-wave (extreme UV) radiation. This radiation provides heat to the upper layers of the atmosphere and the energy needed to keep the Ozone/Nitrogen Oxide balance in the so-called Ozone layer. Without getting too technical the Rossby waves are looping much further south in the Northern hemisphere (and conversely in the Southern hemisphere) and their rotational rate around the Earth is slowing. This means that the weather patterns they cause can last much longer. Some call this climate-change but when the sun resumes its normal mode in a few decades the Rossby waves will return to their more normal patterns. I guess the first big demonstration of the changes in the Rossby waves occurred when the floods in Pakistan and drought in the Russian Wheat belt were attributed to a "locked" jet stream.
Currently the stalled Rossby waves are causing the dreadful weather in the UK, droughts in the Eastern US and cold weather in the Western US (they are still skiing on Mt Barker and Alaska is having a very cold summer). Now that scientists are learning what happens to the Rossby waves they can better understand why the previous so-called "little ice-ages" sometimes produced freezing cold winters in the UK when the Thames froze but other years the winters were reasonably mild. Some years the Hudson also froze but other years it didn't.
Mankind will learn over the next few decades just how much the sun is responsible for.
The world could have been much better prepared for this had it not been so pre-occupied with the notion that mankind had caused the global warming that occurred in the lead-up to this grand minimum.

Thank you, Brent Walker, for a fascinating and well informed post about a very important subject. Hopefully the message you give will receive wide publication at some point (A soaring food price fear, July 20).

Don't suppose Brent Walker was asked his opinion re " Global Waming."Any chance this contributor could be given a larger space as he seems to know things that the IPCC does not along with the science is settled crowd (A soaring food price fear, July 20).

Australia really needs to fill this gap. We have the capacity to grow vast areas of crops (A soaring food price fear, July 20).
Perhaps our indigenous brothers and sisters would like to be involved in large scale food production.

Great news for Aussie farmers (A soaring food price fear, July 20).

Remember the rigged LIBOR rates? (A soaring food price fear, July 20)
The same goes for the rigged "futures" industry.
Next the london "LME" will come up with some "shocking news".
Bad luck for our farmers as the dollar is at $1.02 but good for the US farmers....and the futures market is where? Chicago, USA.

There has been so much concern on our need o energy the health of our farmlands has not been a considered factor by the Aussie government and gas shale mining and sales to overseas conglomerates makes the threat of looming food and what has not bee mentioned fresh water shortages even more ominous for our future (A soaring food price fear, July 21).

An increase in food prices would normally be a market signal for our farmers to grow more food (A soaring food price fear, July 20).
Australia now has two big market distorting factors.
One, the government Environmental Water Buybacks have removed so much productive water from our food producing farmers.
Two, the two buyers of food in Australia, Coles and Woolies, have such a strangle hold on food prices they pay farmers that there will be no market signal to increase production.

Too bad Aussie Labor have led the charge to allow the selling of prime Aussie farmland to China, Dubai and other overseas interests (A soaring food price fear, July 20). Uncapped until $244 Million. No bumper for Aussie economy or farmers. Pity the media so caught up with do-gooders of insulation, solar, BER, set top Box, Murray stupid Darling tax, Qld Labor inept no insurance levy... It only takes less than $2 billion to buy out those prime farm already sold and ready for the harvest. Yet no one can see the waste of Labor's spend thrift of $60 billion. More jobs losses coming...enjoy!

Brent Walker (July 20, 12.51pm) is drawing a remarkably long bow.
He dismisses anthropogenic forced warming and blames all on the Sun.
We are the mercy of factors we can control and factors that we cannot.
The literature he has drawn on does not give the picture he has drawn (A soaring food price fear, July 20).

The present price of wheat is approximately A$300 per tonne 9A soaring food price fear, July 20).
This is lower than the real (inflation adjusted) price in any year from 1964 to 1988. For instance, in 1973 the real price was A$980 per ton.
Wheat has been too cheap for too long- so production (supply) is prone to decrease. It's called the Law of Supply and Demand. It's not going away.