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As the drought continues, food and raw material prices will go up
Photo of a barge with a tug boat transporting West Virginia coal. The photo was taken at Point Pleasant, WV. Date is 4/17/2012 / 1:48:40PM.
Author: Brian D. Hill
Source: USWGO Alternative News
The Midwestern and parts of the west of the United States is in a drought that is destroying crops, bringing up the cost of raw food, bringing up the cost of supplies, and further sinking America into a depression. Even the Mississippi River has been officially closed down to barge and boat traffic due to the water level being so low that boats can and have ran aground while a more recent news report says that the Coast Guard has partially reopened the river for the transportation of raw goods. Transportation of goods by truck is the most expensive, then shipping by train is cheaper then by truck but shipping goods by barge is the cheapest alternative, so the drought will cause the rise of everyday costs in grocery stores and any stores that get any products made by the raw material that needs to be transported by the Mississippi River.
Click here to view the embedded video.
Even West Virginia’s economy is centered around it’s rich coal mines and reserves. Coal is usually transported by two ways in WV, train and barge through the rivers that cross in and out of the state even into Ohio.
Another photo of a barge with a tug boat transporting West Virginia coal. The photo was taken at Point Pleasant, WV. Date is 4/17/2012 / 2:12:14PM.
Coal just like any other raw mineral is important not just in the economy but for the power plants to generate electricity and also coal is used for grills to cook up steaks and hot dogs. Just like with the Mississippi River, raw materials are cheaply transported by boat and require the river be a certain length and pretty deep so that the tug boats and barges won’t run aground.
Around the Mississippi River it is so low in water, and starting to thin out that the river has to be redone with modern tools just to be able to get barges through and other boats in the economy. Now with the River connected to Point Pleasant is pretty big and will not thin out nor will tug boats or even barges have any trouble going through the river like a highway.
So as out west crops are dying, droughts have formed throughout the Midwest, and cows are now having to be fed candy instead of corn to cope with the rising grain costs for cows that are fed grains such as corn instead of grass. Corn prices are already gone up and since corn syrup is in almost every processed food, juice, drinks, TV dinners, and even food cooking dinner packs, prices of food throughout the U.S. will all go up to be able to meet with demand. Even eggs will go up since chickens that are fed corn and other grains also have to deal with the rising costs due to the drought.
Even in “The Tennessean” newspaper website they reveal that the drought will drive the food prices and gas prices high and here is why, so much for using ethanol to make the country more dependent. They reveal that “Drought stunted the corn crop, leading to cobs with fewer fully developed kernels. There was less field corn to use as animal feed, and prices started to rise,” that “Corn is the human food chain’s basic building block. It’s used to feed chickens, pigs and cows. But it also goes in 75 percent of the food on supermarket shelves,” and that “Corn prices are up more than 60 percent since June. Fuel prices are rising, too, since corn is a major source of ethanol.”
That being said it is essential that water be used on the crops but what if the rivers are drying up and water beings so scarce that the cities and towns have to put restrictions on water usage, those limits will also apply to farmers and ranchers but those municipal governments will also have to take into account the bad effects having less crops would have, how bad the economy would get as a result of the limits on water usage, and other factors as well. It ain’t easy for the whole Midwest to go into a drought and even have wildfires. Of course those wildfires are not helping the drought situation and is adding fuel to the fire.
The importance of the river for both economical transportation of goods and even services such as boat restaurants, and for the source of all life which is water. The longer days the Midwest has to deal with of rain water and worsening droughts, eventually it will cripple the economy, shorten the entire Americana food supply at grocery stores, force many residents to move to the eastern states as if they were refugees coming from a war zone, and would endanger the U.S. economy as a whole and possibly end the western states that have more and more deaths related to lack of water. The drought cannot continue on without consequences on the population, government, and even the structure of the economy.
2012-08-27 00:01:25
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