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Politics : Rat's Nest - Chronicles of Collapse -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (4577)	8/15/2006 11:26:37 PM
From: Wharf Rat	Respond to of 24213

2006 ag losses worst single-year total ever Betsy Blaney, Associated Press via Dallas Daily News Texas agriculture officials on Friday estimated this year's crop and livestock losses were the state's worst ever in a single-year, totaling $4.1 billion. "And we're not through with it," Texas Cooperative Extension drought specialist Travis Miller said. In the first seven months, crop losses were estimated at $2.5 billion and the livestock industry's at $1.6 billion, officials said. The previous worst agriculture loss was $2.1 billion in 1998. Rural areas businesses that provide equipment and services to farmers and ranchers also are being hit hard, said Carl Anderson, a Texas Cooperative Extension economist. The projected economic loss for that sector is an additional $3.9 billion, Anderson said. "This is such a dismal, bleak situation," Anderson said. "We are seeing that the losses are mounting far beyond what we experienced in 2005 because it's widespread." Early this year agriculture officials estimated losses from April 2005 through this spring would be $1.5 billion. That only accounted for a nearly nonexistent winter wheat crop, high hay prices and the cost for extended supplemental livestock feeding. The span of the current drought equals the multi-year dry period of the 1950s. It could go down as the worst ever without substantial rainfall by the end of the year, extension officials said in a news release Friday . (11 Aug 2006) Contributor Dave Mandot writes: "I realise that no one occurence can be laid to global warming, but we have had a drought in Texas for the last seven years. It's making some people think." Related: Drought in Texas staggers farmers (Houston Chronicle) Texas drought losses estimated at $4.1 billion (SW Farm Press) Rice Prices May Double by 2008 Hurting Kellogg, Busch Bloomberg The world may soon pay more than ever for its most abundant food: rice. A record crop this year in a market anticipating rising production costs will do little to slow the rally for the staple of 3 billion people. As China, the No. 1 consumer, and Vietnam, among the biggest exporters, continue to plow under their paddies, rice will double within two years to almost $20 per 100 pounds from $9.90 now, according to Stephan Wrobel, chief executive officer at Diapason Commodities Management SA in Lausanne, Switzerland, which oversees $5.5 billion... ``You have more and more people in the world and yields are not rising as quickly as the increase in population,'' said Mamadou Ciss, 45, managing director at Ascot Commodities NV in Geneva, which traded 1.3 million tons in 2005, or almost 5 percent of the international market. ``World stocks are very, very tight.'' Ciss expects prices to double in three years... Falling Output In the U.S., which ranks 11th in world production, rice output is falling. Costs for irrigating rice have gained $1.75 for each 100 pounds in the past year, said Milo Hamilton, president of First Grain Advisory Services in Austin, Texas. U.S. production will fall 12 percent this year to 197.2 billion pounds from a year ago because of fewer plantings and hot weather, the government said Aug. 11. ``Farmers have cut back fertilizer and mined the soils, which will show up as lower yields,'' said Hamilton, former head buyer for 18 years at Uncle Ben's Rice, a subsidiary of Mclean, Virginia-based Mars Inc. ``Prices are too cheap to prevent acreage cuts in 2007.''... A developing El Nino weather pattern threatens to reduce rice harvests. The last strong El Nino event in 1997 and 1998 led to record global imports by Indonesia, the third-biggest producer and consumer of rice. (14 Aug 2006) energybulletin.net