Food Inflation Run Amok!

Agricultural commodity prices continue to rise sharply. This is the price of corn over the past several days. Other agricultural commodities are rising as well. I wonder when food prices in the stores will begin to reflect this sharp rise. Flooded farms are the cause! Much of the United States has had a very wet spring this year, and many farms are flooded. Planting is only at 30%. It is typically more than double that amount by this time in May.
This first chart is the 4 hour chart:

This second chart is the daily one. It shows the magnitude of the price increase over just a limited number of days!

Will Food Inflation Leap This Year?

From Successful Farming website:
"Mired by a rainy and chilly spring, U.S. farmers may soon give up on planting corn in rain-soaked parts of the Farm Belt because it is getting too late for money-making yields, said economist Scott Irwin of the University of Illinois. “I truly believe we are in ‘black swan’ territory as far as late corn planting is concerned,” he said over the weekend, using a term popularized during the financial crisis a decade ago." 
The US Department of Agriculture reported last week that only 30% of U.S. corn acres were planted as of May 12; that's the fourth-slowest in records back to 1980 -- way behind the five-year average of 67%. 
But perhaps there's still hope for a good crop this year. Reuters also had this:
"Rain-driven planting delays for U.S. corn have been dragged out long enough to cause a noticeable rally in Chicago-traded futures, but speculators were not yet ready to shed their enormously bearish positions as of early last week."

Food Commodity Prices Skyrocket!

The weather-related events in North America are keeping farmers in the United States from planting their crops. One article I read last week indicated that corn planting by mid-May was only at 30%, whereas it typically is at 66% most years. This has caused the price of corn to leap higher and higher! The chart below shows the price of corn, but is similar for other food and grain commodities also!

The following quote is from Reuters this morning:

   "The talk between traders is that "prevented planted" acres
for corn may be as high as 5 million acres," said Ole Houe,
director of advisory services at brokerage IKON Commodities. 
    "Whereas in the past, we have never seen it above 3.6
million acres and then there is the debate over "yield drag"
from later planted corn."
    Showers over the next 10 days are threatening to further
slow planting from the Dakotas to Illinois, regions that have
endured torrential rain this spring, the Commodity Weather Group
said.