From: http://www.urbansurvival.com/week.htm
 
 
Despite the oh fishy - I mean offishal word on the balance of trade, I did not steer you wrong about where grain prices are going based on the green death from the big Midwest storm a week or so back.  This reader note attests to my momentary encounter with financial sanity:

George,

I work for a large Farm Mutual Reinsurance company in the MidWest. It intrigued me to hear the prices that farmers are saying they have to pay for corn seed and other items. So, being the type of person that checks facts and figures, I decided while visiting a farm mutual in South East Iowa to see what the farmers there were saying...

First off, the gentleman who wrote in and stated that 50 pound bags of corn were going for around $150. was right on the money. The second statement he made stating that if farmers didn't already have their corn seed or at least have it ordered, probably wouldn't get it, was right on the money as well. My sources tell me that some farmers who already have it ordered may not get there's as well. Prices of corn commodities will start to climb this fall.

To make matters worse, with little corn seed to go around, that is less feed for the cattle and other livestock to eat.

Which brings us to my next point. With the Winter storm that swept the Upper Midwest on April 11th of this year (Yesterday for those who don't watch the news), most of the Alfalfa crop is lost, along with most of the fruit trees for the upper Midwest. That alfalfa is used as hay, to feed cattle and other livestock.

So, we will not only have a shortage of hay and corn, (there is your 'shortage' coming up again), it will drive the market cost on beef, pork and chicken to where some people will not be able to afford it. Which in turn will probably lead to rioting in some places.

Just a thought to cheer you up for planning ahead.

Please, if you reprint this and use my name, just use James.

I love your site, by the way.