Grocery shoppers will pay record-level prices for beef and pork through 2015, says a University of Missouri think tank. Consumers will satisfy their appetite for meat by eating more chicken and turkey, which costs less, said the think tank, the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute in a mid-year update of its agricultural baseline.
“Higher retail meat prices contribute to an uptick in consumer food-price inflation in 2014 but the projected rate drops below 2 percent again in 2015,” said FAPRI. Pork and poultry prices will fall in 2015 but beef prices are expected to climb to an average $5.95 per pound, up 10 cents from this year.
Farmers could see the lowest prices since 2009 for corn and soybean crops that are forecast to be the largest ever. After hitting bottom at $3.89 a bushel for this year’s crop, corn prices would remain around $4 a bushel for the next three years. Soybean prices, forecast for $10.30 a bushel for this year’s crop, would drop to $9.64 for the 2015 crop. While farmers are headed for an era of lower commodity prices, corn and soybeans still would be twice as high as they were before the agricultural boom began in 2006.