Boy, the way food prices are increasing these days, folks are going to need to start clipping dog food coupons!
No joke, that; worldwide, the price of dietary staples are soaring.
Even in the West, and even in America, of all places.
What’s up with this?

Well, dog food coupons notwithstanding, part of the answer is because of feeding animals – as in livestock, poultry, and so forth.
It takes several pounds of grain to produce one pound of beef, to consider but an example.
By the laws of supply and demand, the prices of grain are going to rise; there’s only so much to go around to begin with, after all.

There is also competition for foods like corn from industry.
That’s right, industry.
No, nothing to do with dog food coupons this time – not even remotely – but everything to do with biofuels and other industrial uses for corn, soy beans, and the like.
Add to that the still increasing use of corn and soy in our foods as additives and again it isn’t hard to see how demand outpaces supply.

A whole host of additional factors are also engaged.
One of the greatest ones – according to many, the main reason – is the price of energy.
As in oil.
Petroleum.
The way things are in our modern world, everything depends on oil.
Industry depends on it, not forgetting every other sector of the economy and every other element of our lives.

And it is not just physical transport but production and processing.
Even growing standards of living around the world, or else a good thing, is to blame.
For more affluent people naturally wind up eating more meat, driving up demand and prices.
Another big variable is the climate: droughts have afflicted Australia, among the world’s top producers, six years in a row.
Forest fires last year lead Russia to withhold its grain from export.
This year, China may in fact have to import wheat; normally, it is really the world’s top producer of the grain.