The under-developing world needs food while the developed world is full.

US crop yield reports sunk commodities prices as the U.S. Agriculture Department’s Prospective Plantings numbers showed that farmers are having a record year. The Wall Street Journal reports that “Based on its survey of 86,000 farmers during the first half of March, the USDA said corn growers intended to plant 88.8 million acres this spring, up 3% from last year.” Wheat and soybean numbers are nearly as good.

The figures for US agricultural yield come from better-than-expected weather for crops and the ongoing increase in the quality of seed, some of it due to controversial bio-engineered products . But, in the eye of consumer and farmers who have to use seed as feed, the food is fine, no matter what the origin, as long as no one is poisoned.

American consumers have all the food they need, it seems. Rising demand, though,  is certainly not up enough to help farmers sell their crops.

The tragedy about the bumper crop year is that the part of the world that has too many people and not enough farmland or seed to produce an agricultural bounty will watch some of its population die or at least become malnourished. And, there is no mechanism to send US food abroad in great enough volume to significantly address the problem. Poor nations cannot afford to buy American food and other agricultural by-products.  U.S. international aid dollars  are being stretched by a rising US deficit.

The US will have a record crop yield this year, at least in some regions. And, some of the food that might have been made from that yield will have nowhere to go.

Douglas A. McIntyre

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