– One of the predictions I’d be willing to stand strongly behind now is that food prices from here on out are going to rise.
– The subject of rising food prices is just one of the aspects of The Perfect Storm hypothesis. But it is one that is beginning now to manifest, like rising oil prices and shrinking glaciers.
– These ‘theoretical’ problems are beginning to transition into tangible problems.
– I’ve been seeing the odd article here and there now about food stocks being guarded or being stolen. I’d predict these are going to increase, as are articles describing food riots.
– I’ll be watching for these and reporting on them from here on out.
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The high cost of corn, wheat and soybeans is leading to a rash of thefts from grain elevators in western Kansas.
The thieves have driven big rigs to the grain elevator, filled the truck with cash crops and then sold the grain somewhere else.
“There’s incentives there for the wrong people,” said Adrian Derousseau, who runs the Ottawa Coop grain elevator.
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Derousseau said he suspects the grain thefts are inside jobs.
“Some of the people that are actually stealing the grain probably know how to run the elevator as well as our own people. And that’s where it becomes very scary,” Derousseau told KMBC’s Martin Augustine.
Augustine reported that a thief could fill up a semi-trailer with 1,000 bushels of corn in about five minutes. That load would be worth $5,000.
The owners of grain elevators are the ones whose profits are swept away.
“When you start losing a $12,000 load of soybeans, it takes a lot of bushels to make up for that,” Derousseau said. “It all comes out of our bottom line. It hurts us.”
Derousseau said he’s so concerned about the grain thefts that he’ll hold a meeting later this week with staff from 14 elevators around Ottawa, encouraging them to be on alert and to review security measures.