Touch the Soil News #382 Every month, the USDA puts out numbers on what grain farmers – around the world – are going to produce for the current farming season. Remember that grains (corn, wheat, rice, etc.) are the backbone of the world’s diets both for human food and livestock feed. The USDA numbers quickly become the fodder for speculators – gambling on which way the price of commodities will go. Unfortunately – these financial gambling mechanisms – often drive the prices farmers receive artificially above or below what would happen without speculative pressures. These gambling mechanisms operate in disregard to the almost 1 billion starving people and hundreds of…
