TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — Already high inflation has increased, particularly for food items in the livestock and feed industries. Ahead of the latest Consumer Price Index release from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics on April 12, reports from the U.S. Department of Agriculture said the conflict in Ukraine adds some uncertainty to the mix. With the CPI now out, inflation hit another record.
The USDA says it’s made the global dairy outlook particularly concerning. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has added to supply issues for “feed, fuel, energy and fertilizer prices,” adding to cost increases in the industry and transferring higher prices to shoppers.
The report from the department said the immediate impact on consumers would be higher prices and smaller quantities in products purchased, even with rising demand.
According to the USDA, exports from Ukraine and China of meat products are slowing down, so Brazil “will increase production substantially to backfill global demand.” Additionally, the U.S.’s higher prices are expected to reduce competitiveness in the second half of 2022, while export levels remain unchanged.
“Much of the drop in global exportable supplies spurred by the absence of Ukraine will be fulfilled by Brazil which is one of the few major exporters able to service a wide array of markets,” USDA reported.
The latest “Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza outbreak” is also complicating trade, due to restrictions in place from U.S. trading partners, according to the USDA. Generally, Ukraine’s decrease in exports due to the conflict with Russia is expected to affect the global supply of pork and chicken, while Russia’s exports of beef and pork are also contributing factors. Both countries’ reductions contribute to market fluctuation.
The CPI released April 12 showed how those prices have risen compared to last year. Gasoline prices were already up, adding to increases in transportation and energy costs in the agriculture industry and the transport industry itself. While crude oil’s costs were up 70% compared to March 2021, the costs of key protein products, like beef or pork, were up, though not nearly to the same severity.
Beef prices were up 16%, while pork was up 15.3% and chicken was up 13.4% compared to last year. However, going back to the cost of feed, which the USDA says is typically made of things like soybean, hay and other grains, those same base items are also growing in cost, playing into a slowdown of recovery.
“For most countries, higher feed prices are expected to stymie expansion despite forecasted economic recovery buoying modest demand growth,” the USDA reported.
For people, products made from similar types of materials such as grain and wheat got more expensive, too. Flour and prepared flour mixes rose 14.2% in the past year, according to the CPI.
The effect on agricultural products is big as a result of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine due to Ukraine’s status as a major exporter of wheat and corn, as well as dairy products, fruit juice and vegetable oils, according to the U.S. Trade Representative.
The Observatory of Economic Complexity, a data visualizer that analyzes global economic factors, reported Ukraine’s top exports for 2020 included $4.89 billion in corn, $4.61 billion in wheat and $5.32 billion in seed oils. While the site reported most of those exports were sent to China, Poland, Russia, Turkey and Egypt, with China a major manufacturing center in the global economy, delays or reductions in Ukrainian economic outputs are a factor of concern for the market and inflation.
The USDA reported in March that the amount of red meat and poultry consumption in U.S. markets is expected to increase due to higher demand, with price rises to follow.
On April 13, the Producer Price Index comes out from the BLS, showing what the materials costs are for the products used to make the goods we buy, eat and build with.
