food prices

Two-thirds of the way through 2017, the government says grocery prices are headed for a barely perceptible increase of 0.25 percent this year, thanks to lower red meat, egg and fresh produce prices. This year's marginal increase follows the first instance of retail food price deflation in half a century, the 1.3-percent year-on-year decline in grocery prices in 2016.

Hurricane Irma, which could become the costliest storm in U.S. history, is threatening $1.2 billion worth of agricultural production in Florida, the No. 2 produce grower in the country and “the top ... grower of fresh tomatoes, oranges, green beans, cucumbers, squash, and sugarcane,” says AgWeb.

A University of Missouri think tank says the season-average price for this year's soybean crop, forecast at a record 4.381 billion bushels, will fall to $9.07 a bushel. The 43-cent a bushel drop from the average price paid for the 2016 crop will encourage growers to plant somewhat fewer acres of soybeans and more acres of corn in 2018, says the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute.

The mid-summer count of the U.S. cattle inventory was the largest in nine years, which means more beef production and lower beef prices in the supermarket for the second year in a row. "Lower beef prices are most likely adding pressure to lower pork prices," say USDA economists in the monthly Food Price Outlook.

People who shop at Whole Foods expect to get higher-quality food in exchange for paying significantly higher prices. But when it comes to poultry and meat, at least, consolidation in the industry and broadly rising standards mean the same products that Whole Foods sells are increasingly available at conventional supermarket chains for a lot less money, reports Bloomberg.

The government lowered its forecast of grocery inflation this year to a barely noticeable 0.25 percent, due to ample meat supplies, and in its first forecast of the coming year, estimated grocery prices would rise by 1.5 percent in 2018. It would be the fourth year in a row of lower-than-average growth in retail food prices.

The FAO Food Price Index, based on prices of five groups of commodities - meat, dairy, grains, sugar and vegetable oil - has been on an upward trajectory since the start of 2016. Pushed by higher wheat and dairy prices, the index now has a reading of 175.2, the second time this year that it is on par with prices in February 2015, said the UN agency.

Some 646 million people are food insecure, with diets of less than 2,100 calories a day, in the 76 low- and middle-income nations that are current or traditional food-aid recipients, says the USDA in forecasting a dramatic improvement in the decade ahead.

For the third year in a row, Americans can put on a backyard barbecue for less than $6 a person, based on a survey of grocery prices across the country, says the largest U.S. farm group. To feed 10 people, the 14-item shopping list would cost $57.70, or about $5.70 a person, down marginally from last year.

In August 2015, U.S. district judge Ralph Erickson blocked the Obama administration's Waters of the United States rule from taking effect, the first injunction against the clean water rule. Now the North Dakota judge would be elevated to the U.S. appellate court under a nomination announced by the White House.

The United States is headed for its fifth year in a row of lower-than-normal food inflation, with prices forecast to rise by a marginal 0.5 percent this year.

Tyson Foods is the second U.S. poultry processor to report contact by the Florida attorney general's office in an investigation of the former Georgia dock pricing system, reports the news site Just Food. The wholesale chicken price index was abandoned last year after reports indicated it set prices higher than other indices, "suggesting there may have been over-inflation at the supermarket prices for chicken," said the site, based in Britain.

People will eat more healthy food if prices are lowered and consume less unhealthy food and fewer sugary beverages if they cost more, say researchers who performed a meta-analysis of 30 studies on the issue. Co-author Ashkan Afshin said the meta-analysis demonstrated causality: "Our results show how 10 to 50 percent changes in price of foods and beverages at checkout could influence consumers’ purchasing behaviors over a relatively short period of time.”

The FAO Food Price Index surged by 2 percent during January to its highest level in almost two years, fueled by fears of tightening sugar supplies, a downturn in U.S. wheat plantings and uncertain prospects for grain crops in South America. The index fell for five years in a row through 2016 but now has risen for six consecutive months.

Grocery prices are forecast to rise marginally this year, following the first year of food-price deflation since 1967, said USDA’s monthly Food Price Outlook. Supermarket food prices fell by 1.3 percent in 2016, pulled down by lower prices for beef, pork, dairy and eggs, products that account for one-fifth of grocery spending.

Bumper 2016 grain harvests were a leading factor in the decline of the global Food Price Index for the fifth year in a row, said the Food and Agriculture Organization. The UN agency was less sanguine about the outlook for this year.

President-elect Donald Trump, who recently told an interviewer, “I won on groceries,” said in a Time magazine transcript released on Thursday, “It’s hard to bring things down once they’re up.” Meanwhile, a Purdue University poll found that consumers have lowered their expectations for food inflation.