Less corn= Higher grocery bills

Some research.. As oil prices go up, the cost for fertilizer (derived from oil) goes up. This would make corn more expensive to grow. Meanwhile, the cost of cooking oil has, apparently, gone up recently so that farmers have an incentive to grow soybeans with which to make cooking oil. Apparently, poor countries have been hit hard by an increase in the cost of cooking oil. Corn, meanwhile, is used as a feed for livestock. Less corn will mean higher prices of meat products. Corn is also being used for ethanol, so increasing corn prices will increase the cost of ethanol. As ethanol is required to be put in gasoline in some states, less corn may mean an increase in gas prices. Of course, this would be partially solved if the ethanol companies switch to products other than corn to produce ethanol with. The cost for growing corn (which is fertilized with products taken from oil processing) might encourage them to find a different starting crop for the ethanol process -- which seems like a great idea to me. Certainly, I can see the connection between corn prices and food prices. I think you can partially offset the rise in price by selecting foods which do not use corn. Less meat, for instance. Naturally, if corn prices rise, then companies will look for non-corn using ways to provide their product. As such, I guess I'm expecting manufacturing to be cunning enough to work on this problem from their end. Perhaps I have over estimating the savvy of the business world.

Our family budget has alrady snbapped a long time ago. The prices of everything have skyrocketed but not our wages. We can barely afford to pay our bills now and put food on the table. It takes every nickel we make to do so now. I hope it doesn't get any worse but I am sure it will.

I have heard this. We are seeing less corn fields and more soybean fields in our corner of Northwest Ohio. We used to see all kinds of corn fields but not now. Our budget is stretched as far as it will stretch without breaking. I wonder why farmers are doing this? Maybe the corn prices are lower?

The problem with the equation of less corn = higher grocery bills revolves around the fact that how the government subsidizes corn should be inserted there somehow. And, again, if Corn Syrup is more expensive, then perhaps we will have less of it added to stuff -- which isn't such a bad idea. I haven't, otherwise, read and article about less corn being produced next year. I have, for several years, been under the impression that we were producing more corn than we needed -- that subsidies or some government action was keeping stockpiles of grain hanging around rotting. I guess, my obvious lack of knowledge in this area should inspire me towards a bit more research on the topic.