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June 11, 2022 - Epoch Times
24:06
Farmer Warns of Looming Food Shortage, Cost of Operating Farm 300% Year-Over-Year
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With the raging inflation in this country and the cost of food just skyrocketing in supermarkets across the entire nation, well, I wanted to see what we can expect in the near future, in the summer as well as in the fall.
And so I took the opportunity to speak with both a U.S. farmer as well as the CEO of one of the largest food distributors in the entire country.
And to be frank with you, they both painted a fairly grim picture, not only in terms of the future price of food, but even the future availability of food.
However, before we dive into what they actually said, let me set the stage for you.
This right here is the current annual rate of inflation here in the U.S., a staggering 8.6%, the highest that it's been in the last 40 years.
Earlier today, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the official Consumer Price Index numbers, and according to their data, which you can see up on screen for yourself, The rate of inflation rose by an additional 1% in the month of May.
And as you can see from this chart, this makes the new current rate of inflation of 8.6%, the highest that we've seen in this country since the year 1981.
You can also see at the bottom there that the rate of inflation has been rising for 24 consecutive months.
Furthermore, some of the key drivers of inflation, things like food, energy, and housing, they showed absolutely no sign of slowing down last month.
Let me give you a quick breakdown.
Food prices overall, they soared by 10.1%.
The cost of energy overall increased by 34.6%.
Fuel oil went up by a staggering 106.7%.
The price of gasoline was up 48.7%.
The cost of electricity jumped by 12% year over year.
The price of airline tickets rose by 37.8%.
The price of a new vehicle was up 12.6%.
Used cars and trucks were up 16.1%.
The cost of clothing rose by 5%.
And so on and so on and so on.
Inflation has hit almost every single sector throughout the entire nation.
Which kind of begs the question, one year ago, how come there weren't any quote-unquote serious economists advising the White House on the possibility of this raging inflation?
There's nobody suggesting there's unchecked inflation on the way.
No serious economists.
However, regardless of whether they saw it coming or not, these new inflation numbers, they led to an immediate tumbling in the markets.
In fact, right now as we're filming this program, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has fallen by over 800 points, while the NASDAQ has dropped by over 3%.
However, that is now what I want to discuss today, because today I want to focus specifically on food.
Because at the end of the day, while things like clothing, cars, and even gasoline are important...
There is, quite frankly, nothing more important than food.
And the cost of food is skyrocketing just like everything else.
In fact, within this latest report, it showed that across the country, the price of beef is up 10%, pork is up 13%, chicken is up 17%, eggs are up 32%, milk is up 16%, fruits and vegetables are up 8%, coffee is up 15%.
You get the picture.
And so, in order to map out what might be coming in the near future, I spoke with two people, two people who are at different ends of the food supply chain.
I spoke with an American farmer named Mr.
John Boyd Jr., as well as with the president and CEO of Goya Foods, one of the largest food distributors here in America.
And quite frankly, they painted a rather grim picture of not only the future price of food, but also, as I mentioned at the beginning of today's episode, even the future availability of food.
Here's, for instance, what the American farmer and also the president of the Black Farmers Association, Mr.
John Boyne Jr., here's what he had to say.
And by the way, just as a super quick aside, if you're enjoying this video, take a quick moment to smash that like button and also consider subscribing to this channel as well.
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And now here's what the farmer had to say.
You know, you have three major commodities that the United States still happens to do better than most parts of the world.
And that's corn, wheat, and soybeans.
We still produce those crops probably just as good or better than anyone.
And when farmers don't have crops in the ground, it's a risk that we're going to have a food shortage.
Yes, we import certain commodities in this country, but we're still the number one producer for cornweed and soybeans, and we have to do all we can to make sure that farmers get those crops in the ground and have the resources readily available at the time of planting and harvest in order to do what we do.
We may not need a doctor or a lawyer or a scientist, you know, right now as I'm speaking to you.
But every single day in America, we need a farmer.
Because at some point, we're going to eat.
And we take for granted that we can just walk into the supermarkets and grab things off the shelves and they're automatically going to be there.
But there's a process by which a farmer produces that commodity and they wind up in other things such as cornflakes and corn syrup and Can you give us an idea of how much it's costing you to operate your farm right now this year compared to the same time last year?
Well, right now things have tripled as far as cost for my own farming operation and for many farmers across the country.
For a ton of 15-15-15 fertilizer, it's $1,040 right now.
And last year this time it was maybe $300-400 bucks a ton.
So the price have tripled.
Diesel fuel is at $5.70.
And last year, this time, about $2.70.
My upfront costs have doubled.
The price of seeds have went up.
And all of these costs, so people that are watching can understand, have to be paid up front.
So when that diesel truck goes up to my farm, I have to be able to write a check for the diesel fuel.
I have to be able to pay for the fertilizer.
I have to be able to pay for the seed.
So all my upfront costs have pretty much doubled, and there hasn't been enough help from the administration to address it.
President Biden spoke about federal crop insurance.
If I have a choice between buying diesel fuel and seed and fertilizer and federal crop insurance, I'm going to buy my fuel and seed and fertilizer, and if there's anything left, I'll buy a federal crop insurance policy.
That's not the type of upfront needs that farmers have.
We have an urgency of now for farm operating loans, and we have an urgency of now, a short window of opportunity to plant our crops.
So we're looking at maybe June 15th.
Anything after that is considered late, and you pretty much take more of a risk putting your seeds in the ground.
Let me ask you, you said that a lot of these inflated costs are upfront costs, right?
So I can imagine that some of the bigger farms, they can probably take that hit, right, of the upfront costs and just keep producing at maybe a loss.
But if 89% of these small farms are mid-sized farms, can they take that hit?
And if not, do you foresee a situation where, just like we saw during the pandemic, a lot of small shops had to close and Walmart and Amazon got bigger?
Is the same thing going to happen?
I think you're going to see a lot of smaller guys not making cut this time.
And you're going to see empty shelves like you did with baby formula and some other things.
There's going to be other things missing off the shelves.
Go for bread and other things that farmers, that we need those commodities.
You know, wheat makes bread and corn makes all of these other things and feeds chickens and cows and all of these things.
We're really looking for granted.
Arbitrarily, these things are just going to show up there if we don't invest in America's farms.
And that's my message to the Biden administration.
And I want to say this.
The plea for help isn't Republican or Democrat.
You know, food is independent.
You know, land knows no color.
Land knows no politics.
You have to make sure that we have the ready resources that we need right now to get those crops on the ground.
So there's an urgency now, and the administration isn't moving quick enough.
And these are things that I have shared with the White House.
You're going to have to do something to bring some aid here.
You know, we sent $50 billion of aid to Ukraine.
I'm certainly not against helping those displaced families and people in the time of need of war.
You also have to do something for your own people, you know, that are hurt right at home, too.
And I urged the administration to put some beef in there, some farm operating funds for farmers and farmers of color.
But that didn't happen.
So the example there is, you have to take care of home, too.
And no one is against helping those victims of the war.
I want to be clear there.
I'm just using that as an example.
The farmers need help now, but we provided $50 billion in aid to Ukraine.
John, if you look ahead, let's say one month, two months, three months, even six months down the road, if we continue down the way we're going now, what do supermarket store shelves look like?
They're going to look scarce.
That's the first thing.
And the prices are going to continue to rise.
Someone has to pay for price and demand.
Anybody who's taking economics cannot understand what I'm saying here.
You're going to have a price and demand problem here, and you're going to see the cost of these goods rise.
So you definitely have to look at that right now.
And it's an urgency of now, the plays that I'm making to the administration.
Someone has to bring Congress together, Republicans and Democrats, you know, because food, like I said, is a neutralized We've got to have it, and we've got to have farmers, and we need the support.
And, you know, they need to put their Republican and Democrat hats down and say, you know what?
Every time farmers need in this country, America always rises to the occasion.
And this shouldn't be any different, regardless of how divided America is.
Politically right now.
Let's say several months down the road, is everything going to be higher and more expensive, or will some products be hit harder?
And if so, which products are?
I think you're going to see across the board higher food prices because of the examples that I explained.
You need grain to feed to beef cattle, the poultry industry, the hog industry, all rely on some portions of grain to feed for feeding of these livestock.
And also all of the elements that corn and soybeans and wheat are used in all these other byproducts.
You're going to see a high cost of food across the board, America.
Yeah.
Let me ask you this a bit.
Besides the inflation, there was something regarding the weather that I read.
I want to read it to you and get your opinion.
So this came from a wheat specialist at Kansas State University.
He said...
Quote, minimal rainfall and freezing temperatures in early April could have damaged crop yields.
And though there are some bright spots due to recent rains, a mega drought continues to consume large swaths of farmland.
So is that still the case?
That is the case.
And just the Kansas released their numbers.
I think we're somewhere about 36 bushels to the acre.
That's down about 25% from last year.
So that's another example there.
We have a wet spell that we had out in Illinois and other surrounding states that prevented farmers from getting in the field quick enough to plant during harvest season.
And so as you can see, a number of different factors, including raging inflation, bad policy, as well as even bad weather, leading to a potential disaster within the coming months.
And then likewise, Mr.
Robert Anunu, the CEO of Goya Foods, he told us about the skyrocketing cost of actually getting the products from the farm onto our supermarket store shelves.
Take a listen.
So I'd like to start by asking you this.
How much is it costing you right now to run your business this year as compared to the same time last year?
Well, thank you, Roman, for having me on.
What it's costing us is, if you look at cans, for example, cans have gone up 64%, half the price of a case of beans.
Fertilizer for crops coming out of talk to farmers have grown up fourfold.
Inflation with fuel and transportation is through the roof.
The cost of labor, we took the wealth of this country to put a big dividend out to incentivate people to stay home and not work.
And now you need to almost beg, borrow and steal to have people who want to work.
President Biden projected when he said, they're going to put you all in chains.
He's put us all in chains by giving away our natural resources of oil, where we have it free here in the ground.
We can transport it in pipes by buying fuel outside at retail prices much higher and ship it much higher.
The cost of transportation is through the roof.
We've given away our natural resources.
Fertilizer, like I said, have quadrupled.
And so this is a tremendous tax on the people.
So, Robert, you know, when I go to the supermarket every week and I see the price of the same things I buy go up and up and up and up, what you said is astonishing.
So fertilizer is four times.
The cost of the cans is 64 percent higher.
What's leading to the cost of the can itself getting 64 percent higher than before?
Oil runs everything.
The cost of operating the labor, the same labor issues that we have, but also the supply Chain shortage.
People not working created a big void in production.
And so, because we weren't producing things, we're sitting at home taking the wealth again of our country and giving it out in a big dividend and say, hey, you all, sit home, don't do anything, and don't worry about working and we'll take care of you.
No, we're gonna put you in chains, like I've said.
And so, everything has gone up.
We take oil, which we have in the ground, We put limits on drilling, disconnect Canada with the Keystone pipeline, and instead of having the oil, which we can run in a pipe, let's go out and buy much higher and ship it much higher.
So, and fertilizer, which is also oil-based.
So all these things, you know, you cannot change from one day to the next, and you always are going to need fossil fuels.
But the extreme left, the squad, and all these people, They want to control us and they want to tax us.
At the end of the day, they want to move away from God.
Because in communism, there is no God.
And that's where we're heading.
We're heading to a few controlling the many.
And guess what?
The majority of us are not the few.
But the few are going to control the many.
And they don't give a crap about us.
They don't value things.
Look at the cities that are burning.
They've already...
Threat and violence for this summer again.
You know, because people that don't do anything, that don't work, they destroy.
When they're handed things, it has no value.
We're not valuing things and we're not valuing life.
The trafficking that is taking place around the world.
We're like living in medieval times, exploiting the children, harming our children.
We're harming our present and our future.
Robert, since you have such a keen insight, you have the pulse of this giant company, one of the biggest food manufacturers in America, what is your projection?
Where do you see this country going in the next six months, eight months, a year, in terms of, let's say, the price of food?
Or even, is it the case that we're going potentially to a food shortage?
You know, we're already experiencing a little bit of that.
Part of it is, I think you're going to see a little bit of panic.
With Ukraine, And Russia, between Ukraine and Russia, they have 30% of the world's wheat, 20% of the world's corn, 50% of the world's fertilizer, 2.5 million acres in sunflowers.
But farmers have turned into soldiers.
And Russia has cut off Ukraine's access to the sea.
I was reading something this morning where there's about 400 million people who will be affected just by Ukraine's production.
In the wealthy countries, they say you can tell the wealth of a nation by the amount of garbage that you throw away.
And guess what?
We're very wealthy.
We're gluttonous, actually.
In the UK, I read another thing this morning about a quarter of the Brits cutting out one meal.
They're eating a little bit less.
But the people in Africa and Asia and Europe and some other countries, they are not going to have a meal to cut.
They will not have food.
And this is the effect.
The wealthy countries will do fine.
But we are going to see the inflation.
And we are going to see shortages.
We're going to have to eat less.
We're going to have to eat more nutritious.
So you're saying that the countries directly affected, like the African countries, Eritrea, Niger, etc., the Middle East countries that directly import most of their grain, most of their wheat, most of their oils from Ukraine and Russia, they'll be very heavily affected.
But here in America, we'll be slightly affected, with the biggest effect being the rise in prices.
How high do you think these prices will go here in America?
I think you're going to see a bad fall, because You know, you're planting now.
Unfortunately, it's a planting season in Ukraine.
They're planting some, but they say 30 to 50 percent less.
And by the way, they also supply Peru and countries in South America with fertilizer.
You know, we have the natural resources.
We're selling a lot of our food to China with the futures.
And we have all these incredible natural resources, but we're giving it away.
We've given away our oil.
And so fertilizer goes up.
Transportation goes up.
There's people like China and other countries that are going to come in and buy our food.
But we need to, and we're big consumers.
We're the biggest consumers of everything.
Even child trafficking.
You know, we are consumers of everything.
We need to not be so gluttonous.
We need to eat healthy.
We need to love each other.
We need to Get closer to God so we're not exploiting our children because, again, our children are present and our future.
Let me ask you this.
When you were talking about the situation, it made me wonder if those countries in South America and Africa and in the Middle East that rely so heavily on Ukraine and Russia, if they suddenly stop getting that food in those shipments, What would happen here in the U.S.? Because I could imagine that some farmers begin to ship out to those countries to meet that demand.
What would happen to the food supply in that scenario?
Would the government almost have to step in to stop exports?
What's your opinion on that?
Well, you know, we're a democracy.
We're a free country.
There's futures.
So people come in and buy our soy and buy our grains.
And so that's open to the market.
Historically, we have not been huge exporters in certain grains.
For example, Europe shuns us with corn because it's GMO or whatever.
So I think they're going to be a little bit less demanding, and you'll see more exports going out.
We are going to be exploited.
Like I said, President Biden said they're going to put you all in chains.
When you give away your resources, our food, we used to be the protector of the world.
We abandoned the children in Afghanistan.
We've abandoned the children and women in Ukraine.
We are no longer the protectors and the strength, you know, protecting people around the world.
We are weak.
We're projecting weak.
And I think that's why we have a war in Ukraine to begin with.
But there will be shortages.
We got to get back to being a country that loves, protects, builds, And stands up for the most innocent and vulnerable.
Or we're going to become vulnerable ourselves.
We're not going to be able to help ourselves if we give our natural resources away.
This is not good.
You know, you're going to see the plantings from this summer in the Northern Hemisphere, in Ukraine here.
You're going to start to see a poor crop In the fall because, again, the fertilizers quadrupled.
People are going to plant less fertilizer, yes, less yield.
And then we go to 23.
So this goes through 23.
Unless we get our act together by the next plantings in the spring of 23, we're in for, you know, let's tighten our belts and we're going to be with high inflation.
It's just going to...
I think it's going to keep going.
Now, if you'd like to go deeper into this inflation report, or if you'd like to watch the entirety of those two interviews, I'll throw all those links down into the description box below this video for you to check out.
And all I ask in return is that if you haven't already, take a quick moment to smash, smash, smash that like button so this video can be shared out to ever more people via the YouTube algorithm.
And now let's...
Sorry.
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And now, I'd like to mention that the U.S. Congress, at this moment, they're holding hearings.
However, the hearings are not about the raging inflation in this country, which everyone is worried about.
They are rather about January 6th.
However, there are many things that will, very likely, not be discussed during those hearings, such as, for instance, why Nancy Pelosi declined President Trump's offer of 10,000 National Guard troops ahead of the January 6th event.
And so, in order to make sense of it all, over on Epic TV, we just published a phenomenal interview between myself and Ms.
Julie Kelly, who is the author of an investigative book called January 6th, how Democrats use the Capitol protests to launch a war on terror against the political right.
If you'd like to check out that interview in its entirety, you can do so over on Epic TV. The link will be right there at the very top of the description box.
I would love to show you a teaser for that episode, but frankly, well, YouTube is not very friendly to anything that questions the January 6th narrative.
In fact, many of our videos of January 6th, even when I was there, I had some live footage.
Well, it was taken down.
And so, if you want to check out that interview, you have to click on that link and head on over to Epic TV, where you can watch it uncensored.
Then, until next time, I'm your host, Roman from The Epoch Times.
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