cereal grain prices

so what's going on here? i've been noticing food prices rising a bit over the last six or seven months...milk, bread, butter, cheese...staples in my house...even macdonald's is mulling a price hike...you know when fast food raises its prices somethig must be going on...but what? have a look at cereal grain prices and many things may become clearer...let's just look at price rises in the last seven months since july of 2010 ( and here's where i got the data
http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=wheat )
barley went from $156.36 a tonne to $189.60...okay barley is not a big time staple so who's going to notice except, maybe, beer drinkers or those who like barley in their soups ( which is what it gets used for here)...maize was $163.92 and is now $284.06 ( all these are prices per tonne) wheat went from $195.82 to $348.69 ( that explains the cost of a bunch of things at the local supermarket).. rice was $470.68 and is now $536.98 ( clearly the most expensive of all the cereals...for want of a better explanation[and i am open to hearing better ones] i have to think demand is the key here...more people eat rice as a staple so the demand keeps prices up) finally sorghum went from $132.40 to $221.58...not the steepest price rise, but it is the fifth most important cereal grain grown in the world and feeds the poorest of the poor in south america and especially in africa...any increase in its price is going to financially squeeze those who can least afford it and who already expend most of their income on food...so why the spike in prices? well...the hacks at the national corn growers association are for ever gushing about the wonders of ethanol and biofuels and how corn is great raw material for those processes...which it may be...but in the food system we live in corn is feedstock for the processd and fast food industries...from high fructose corn syrup to feed for beef it is the raw material that makes fast food work...every kernel of corn that goes into the fuel tank doesn't go into hot pockets or big macs...just competes with them...so the dollar menu is up for inflation...wheat? well some big wheat producers like russia and australia have been having some climate issues that have impacted their crops ( brazil too)...climate change..la nina...wild fires...just bad luck...whatever you want to put down as the cause the fact is the price is up because supply is down and demand is probably steady...you might want to ascribe sorghum prices as being subject to poor production methods, bad transport systems, corrupt governments, and a host of other third world ills..and that could be part of it...globalitarian export model economics and austrerity measures crammed down the throats of debtor nations ( debtor nations without thermonuclear weapons and advanced militaries, that is )by the world bank, imf, and archer daniels midaland, doing their part to destroy tarditional cultures and their agricultural systems may play a less than minor part as well...things are a bit unsettled around the world right now...people are unhappy with many facets of life and they are disinclined to be quietist any longer...lots of people in the streets...mostly in the, to use unforunately industriocentric definitions, "developing" and "underdeveloped" world...i have to wonder how much of that unrest is the result of an ominous rise in food prices...whatever the cause of that increase might be...to paraphrase orwell..."if you want to eat your christmas dinner in peace you'd do well to insure everyone else has one too." we need to take a close look at how we do business and how we treat the ecosystems we are a part of ( despite our human exceptionalism that tells us we just happen to live on the planet and don't have to take it seriously) before the ecosystems show us exactly how dependent we are on them.

the photos, incidently, are of hard red winter wheat in the half barrel ( and a few beds) in my back yard, and in the garden on campus...i will be planting spring wheat at home and on campus as well, and, if we can keep the starlings off it ( i am told the bird tape will do the trick...and it won't harm the starlings...just distract and unsettle them) we'll see how it does...it is such a small crop that i can water it so the vagaries of climate should not be an issue for it...but who knows what will go on between now and harvest.