US Farms hit hard as floods kill 24 in US midwest
Pastor Dale Morgan
*US Farms hit hard as floods kill 24 in US midwest*
·Corn prices at record high after crops destroyed
·Bush and McCain travel separately to region
* Ewen MacAskill in Washington and Daniel Nasaw in Cedar Rapids
* The Guardian,
* Friday June 20, 2008
Devastation caused by week-long flooding in America's farm belt is
threatening to push up food prices which are already at record highs.
The cost of corn and soya beans has peaked on the US market amid concern
of a shortfall in production. The midwest, one of the world's biggest
corn-growing regions, has been hit by the worst flooding for 15 years.
An estimated 16% of Iowa's grain crop has been destroyed.
Five other states have also been hit, with residents along the
Mississippi in Illinois and Missouri frantically building up sandbag
barriers yesterday to prevent further losses.
President George Bush and the Republican presidential candidate, John
McCain, visited the devastated areas yesterday. Bush flew to Cedar
Rapids, Iowa, which has suffered its worst ever flooding after the Cedar
river overflowed, and then planned to continue by helicopter to view the
farmland and small towns still under water.
Higher food prices, combined with a public outcry over a huge rise in
petrol prices, will add to general disillusionment with the Bush
presidency, and McCain, as the Republican candidate, could suffer from
the association. McCain, who has been distancing himself from Bush,
travelled separately to the flooded areas.
Twenty-four people have been killed and 148 injured. There have been at
least two dozen breaches of the levees intended to prevent such flooding.
The army corps of engineers, which is responsible for the levees,
predicted waters could flow over 20 or more levees over the next few days.
LeRoy Lippert, mayor of Danville, Iowa, said that after the floodwater
receded, stricken farmers would have to work through until the autumn to
clear silt, tree limbs and other debris before planting. "There's going
to be absolutely no farming this year," he said. "They've lost it. It's
gone. Nothing at all. No beans, no corn this year."
The prospect of smaller crops jolted the markets. Corn prices in the
midwest have crept closer to an unprecedented $8(£4) a bushel, a
fourfold increase.
World corn prices have risen to record highs and are 90% higher than
they were a year ago. Estimates are that 2m hectares (5m acres) across
the midwest have been ruined and will not produce a crop this year.
Farmers on land outside the affected areas said that the traders were
panicking but that, so long as there were no more heavy rains, 90% of
them would deliver their crops.
Corn and soya beans are used in processed food and are fed to cattle for
meat production.
Some analysts said the reduction in grain output could force food prices
even higher, or at least lock them in, at a time when many countries
around the world are already struggling with the rising cost of basic foods.
Vic Lespinasse, a grain analyst at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange who
produces a daily blog, said much depended on what happened next with the
weather. "If the weather continues to be a problem, we could see $9 or
even $10 a bushel corn, we could see $20 a bushel soybeans, so it all
depends upon the weather."
Lespinasse also blames the weak dollar for pushing up the price of corn
because other countries have more spending power in the international
markets.