Gas prices have been in a moderate flux so far this summer, but they remain below last year’s level.
Thanks to the brutal drought covering more than half the nation, we are not going to be able to say the same about food prices.
An analysis released on Thursday by the United States Drought Monitor showed that 88 percent of corn and 87 percent of soybean crops in the country were in drought-stricken regions, a 10 percent jump from a week before. Corn and soybean prices reached record highs on Thursday, with corn closing just over $8.07 a bushel and soybeans trading as high as $17.49.
This is likely to mean not just higher prices for produce, but for meat and milk, as well, even as their quality decreases.
The withering corn has increased feed prices and depleted available feeding land, putting stress on cattle farmers. A record 54 percent of pasture and rangeland — where cattle feed or where hay is harvested for feeding — was in poor or very poor condition, according to the Department of Agriculture. Many farmers have been forced to sell their animals.
Because feed can account for nearly half of a cattle farmer’s costs, consumers could see a rise in the price of meat and dairy products, experts said. The high sustained heat has led the key components in milk, like fat and protein, to plummet more than usual, said Chris Galen, a spokesman for National Milk Producers Federation.
The drought appears to be caused by natural weather patterns, though man made climate change has sped its spread and deepened its impacts. The natural defenses that have mitigated past droughts have been eroded, leaving us far more susceptible to weather shifts than in the past.
Richard Seager, a professor at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University, and a prominent drought researcher, told Climate Central that the drought’s “origins can be traced to the tropical Pacific Ocean, where a periodic cooling of sea surface temperatures — a phenomenon known as La Niña — helped reconfigure global weather patterns during the past two years.” Global warming, however, has played a major role, as well.
Unlike the droughts of the 1930s, this one is occurring in a much warmer climate, a byproduct of manmade global warming. Seager said that although it most likely didn’t trigger the drought, it’s possible that global warming is making this drought worse than it would otherwise be.
“I think what we’re seeing is largely a naturally occurring event, but it’s occurring against the background of a warming environment,” Seager said.
Mark Svoboda, at the National Drought Mitigation Center in Lincoln, Neb., said soil has been dry and, because of that, there is little evaporation. This can help accelerate warming and droughts. Essentially, he says, it is the drought “feeding on itself.”
Kevin Trenberth, at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., points the finger at climate change, saying “global warming helps make droughts hotter, and therefore drier, than they would be without a human influence.”
Manmade global warming, he said via email, “. . . means more energy that has to go somewhere. In dry conditions it amplifies drying and goes into heating, creating heat waves. It is small on a day-to-day basis, but is always in one direction and it creates stronger, more intense, and longer-lasting drought. No doubt about it.”
Our failure to address climate change — and even to acknowledge it as one of the greatest threats we face — is not just an environmental problem. As the impact on he food supply and prices makes clear, it is an economic one, as well.
Hank Kalet 