Rural Americans are less optimistic about inflation than the rest of the country
There is an urban-rural split as well as a partisan split in how Americans view inflation, one of the driving issues in this fall's elections, said three analysts on the farmdoc daily blog on Monday. Rural Americans are less optimistic than urbanites that inflation will ease, and rural Republicans are the least optimistic of all.
Food prices are not going to decrease, says analyst
Despite the attention the cost of food is getting in the presidential campaign, “food prices are not going to decrease,” said Aaron Smith, a University of California professor of agricultural and resource economics, in a blog on Thursday. “In a healthy economy, the prices of individual products go up and down, but the general price level only goes up.”
One in three consumers expect inflation to worsen this fall
The U.S. inflation rate is the lowest in three and a half years, but six of 10 consumers say inflation affects them more now than it did three months ago, and more than one-third of them expect inflation will be worse in November than it is now, according to a University of Illinois survey. Republicans held the gloomiest views.
Third year of farm income decline is on the horizon
Lower market prices for many crops and for poultry will pull down farmer income in 2025, bringing the third year in a row of declining net farm income, said the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute (FAPRI) on Monday. Net farm income, a gauge of profitability, would fall by 6 percent in 2025 and rebound modestly in 2026, said the University of Missouri think tank.
Harris: ‘I will go after the bad actors’ who unfairly drive up food prices
At the same time that she pledged "the first-ever federal ban on price gouging on food," Vice President Kamala Harris said she would help the food industry become more competitive. "As president, I will take on the high costs that matter to most Americans, like the cost of food," she said during a speech in North Carolina.
Food inflation rate is lowest since May 2021
Food prices rose by a modest 2.2 percent in the past year, and while hamburger and pork chops cost more than they did last July, cheese, rice, and potatoes cost less, said the Labor Department on Wednesday. It was the sixth month in a row of low food inflation, and a Purdue survey indicated that inflation-wary consumers believe food prices are moderating.
Consumers: Prices are fairer at the supermarket than at restaurants
Although frustrated by high prices, most Americans feel grocery prices are “somewhat” or “very” fair while they are more likely to label prices at restaurants as unfair, according to results released on Monday. Fast food restaurants got the lowest ratings and 52 percent of respondents said …
India uses wheat stockpile to fight inflation
India is drawing down its government-held wheat reserves more rapidly than expected as it tries to control inflation, said the monthly Wheat Outlook on Monday. USDA analysts lowered by 2.1 million metric tons their estimate of India's wheat supply at the end of this marketing year.
Americans expect high food inflation to persist
Despite the recent slowdown in the rise of food prices, many consumers believe high food inflation will persist for a year to come, said Purdue researchers on Wednesday. Republicans were far more likely than Democrats to predict higher food prices, suggesting a partisan tint in expectations.
As food inflation rate falls, consumer optimism rises
The U.S. food inflation rate, on the decline since August 2022, shrank to an annualized rate of 2.7 percent at the end of 2023, said the monthly Consumer Price Index report on Thursday. A Purdue survey said Americans’ expectations of food inflation are the lowest in two years, suggesting consumers are more optimistic about prices this year.
Farmers’ inflation fears fade
Seven out of 10 farmers expect a U.S. inflation rate below 4 percent this year, a sharp turn in sentiment from the start of 2023, when half of producers expected inflation to exceed 6 percent, said a Purdue University poll released on Tuesday. The most recent Consumer Price Index report pegged inflation at 3.1 percent.
After a bobble, grocery inflation trends downward again
Retail pork prices soared last year, part of an overall 11.4 percent increase in grocery prices, but they will decline this year by 1.1 percent, said USDA's monthly Food Price Outlook on Monday. The report forecast a grocery inflation rate of 5.1 percent this year and a below-normal 1.6 percent in the new year.
Food inflation rate is lowest in two years
Although the U.S. inflation rate is up for the second month in a row, the annualized food inflation rate of 4.3 percent is the lowest since the 3.7 percent rate in August 2021, said the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Wednesday. The food inflation rate has fallen each month since peaking at 11.4 percent in August 2022.
Inflation and weather cloud global cotton outlook
Although world cotton production is forecast to be the highest in six years, there are “some concerning dark clouds on the horizon” as the 2023/24 season begins, said the International Cotton Advisory Committee.
Grocery inflation rate in 2024 forecast as lowest in five years
In its first forecast of 2024 food costs, the government said grocery prices would climb by a modest 0.9 percent next year. If so, it would be the lowest annual grocery inflation rate in five years and mark the end of the period of high food inflation that followed the pandemic. Also on Tuesday, USDA economists lowered their forecast of grocery price inflation for this year for the fifth month in a row.
Summer cookout costs ease a bit
Chicken breasts and pork chops cost less at the supermarket than a year ago, and that will slightly bring down the price of a summer cookout, said the largest U.S. farm group on Tuesday. Still, the price tag for the groceries needed to feed 10 people lemonade, ice cream, burgers, potato salad, and other cookout fare would be the second-highest in the 11 years of the unofficial survey conducted ahead of Independence Day.
GOP senators eye climate bill funding as way to fatten farm bill accounts
Farm-state senators will try to move $37 billion into the farm bill that originally was earmarked for a handful of USDA activities, including climate mitigation, in the climate, health and tax law last summer, said a Senate Agriculture Committee senior staffer on Monday.
Farmers face sharply higher interest rates on loans
The financial outlook for many farmers is favorable, thanks to high commodity prices, but higher interest rates are an ongoing concern, according to ag bankers surveyed by the Federal Reserve. Interest rates on loans to farmers were 3.5 to 4.5 percentage points higher in the opening months of this year than they were at the end of 2021.