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The US Department of Agriculture has predicted that global corn stocks will
fall to a 33-year low of just 7.5 weeks of consumption, while global wheat
stocks will plunge to their lowest level in at least 47 years at 9.3 weeks.


http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/03de75c4-ac22-11dc-82f0-0000779fd2ac.html

World food price rises set to hit consumers

By Javier Blas and Chris Giles in London and Hal Weitzman in Chicago

Published: December 16 2007 22:08 | Last updated: December 16 2007 22:08

Global food prices will come under further pressure on Monday as benchmark
prices for cereals at much higher levels come into operation, making it
almost inevitable that a second wave of food price inflation will hit the
world’s leading economies.

In Chicago wheat and rice prices for delivery in March 2008 have jumped to
an all-time record, soyabean prices are at a 34-year high and corn prices
at an 11-year peak.

Knock-on price rises are set to hit consumers in coming months, raising
inflationary pressure and constraining the ability of central banks to
mitigate the slowdown in their economies.

A first wave of surging cereal prices hit the wholesale market during the
summer and has fed through the supply chain and contributed to rising
inflation.

The increase of eurozone food price inflation to 4.3 per cent in November
was one of the main reasons for the jump in the zone’s annual inflation
rate from 2.6 per cent in October to 3.1 per cent, the highest in six
years. In the US, annual food price inflation of 4.8 per cent in November
contributed to a rise in the inflation rate to 4.3 per cent.

In the UK, food inflation was already running at an annual 5.1 per cent in
October and analysts expect higher food prices to push overall inflation up
in November. The UK figures are due to be published tomorrow.

In trading on Friday, the new benchmark price of wheat for March delivery
rose 26 cents to $9.795 a bushel, more than 4 per cent higher than the
expiring December contract of $9.39.

Benchmark prices for corn are also more than 4 per cent higher than
previously.

The benchmark prices for soyabeans delivered in January rose on Friday to a
34-year high of $11.64 a bushel.

Rice, also for January, has jumped to an all-time high of $13.310 a
hundredweight.

Bill Lapp, analyst at US consultancy Advanced Economic Solutions, said:
“We’ve already seen food prices increase this year at their fastest
pace since the early 1980s, but the full brunt of those increases will
begin in earnest in 2008.”

The agricultural commodities price rises are the result of high demand,
poor harvests and low stockpiles of food. Emerging economies, where rising
incomes are boosting consumption of meat and dairy products, have added to
pressures already generated by the biofuel industry.

Cereal supply was this season lower than expected as several countries
suffered weather-related losses. Jean Bourlot, head of agriculture
commodities at Morgan Stanley in London, said: “High cereals prices are
here to stay.”

The US Department of Agriculture has predicted that global corn stocks will
fall to a 33-year low of just 7.5 weeks of consumption, while global wheat
stocks will plunge to their lowest level in at least 47 years at 9.3 weeks.