US: Heavy rains cause price hike for fruit, veggies
After a Summer of nonstop downpours, Lane has lost a full one third of his yield, he said. "We were picking in water for most of the Summer,” Lane said. “And so that’s a problem for the peaches — not being picked in the proper time.”
Though the peaches are larger because of the rain — softball size rather than baseball size — the numbers are down, and the excessive amount of water make them less sweet and tasty.
And Lane isn't the only farmer suffering, either. Across the Southeast, the ground is too soaked to cut wheat, and cotton and peanut crops are drowning, growers say.
Indeed in Georgia, rainfall totals are 34 percent higher than normal, and in North and South Carolina they are up 25 percent, and Alabama is 22 percent above normal precipitation. And the outlook doesn’t look any drier.
The excessive rain in the Southeast means billions of dollars of damaged crops, according to some estimates. Add a drought in the West, and that could mean higher prices at the grocery store for staples such melons, tomatoes and cucumbers.
“I would expect to see average prices for fruits and vegetables maybe 10 percent higher this fall than they were in the Spring or where they are right now just because there’s going to be less supply available,” predicted Bernard Weinstein, an agricultural economist at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.
Source: usnews.nbcnews.com