By Michael Snyder

For a long time I have been warning that global food prices would rise dramatically, and that is precisely what we have witnessed over the past 12 months. Unfortunately, global wages are not rising nearly as quickly as global food prices are, and so this has pushed millions and millions more people into poverty and hunger.

Here in the United States, nobody is currently in danger of starving to death, but many Americans have been getting a severe case of sticker shock when they go to the grocery store. Not since the Jimmy Carter era of the 1970s have we seen prices escalate like this, and people are starting to get angry.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, global food supplies have been getting tighter and tighter. When I first started writing about this, certain individuals derisively dismissed what I had to say, but now the truth is becoming apparent to everyone.

Very tight supplies and growing demand have pushed global food prices 32.9 percent higher over the past year…

Central banks and mainstream media continue to peddle the notion that soaring food inflation is temporary and the average Joe and Jane should not worry about it. But in a new report via the Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), global food prices are on the rise, once again, and back to near-decade highs.

FAO released a statement Thursday that detailed after two consecutive months of declines, world food prices in August jumped due to solid gains in sugar, vegetable oils, and cereals.

FAO’s food price index, which follows international prices of globally traded food commodities, averaged 127.4 points in August, up 3.9 points (3.1%) from July and 31.5 points (32.9%) from the same period last year.

Unfortunately, experts are telling us that food prices are going to continue to climb.

In fact, one is estimating that food prices will continue to go up like this “for the next two years or so”…

Grocery prices have been on an upward trend for most of the year, and some experts say that this will continue for at least the next several years.

“We’re going to continue to see price increases, probably for the next two years or so,” says Phil Lempert, an analyst and food trends expert perhaps best known as the Supermarket Guru.

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This is really bad news.

So why is this happening?

Well, the Biden administration is blaming the greed of the meat processing industry…

During Wednesday’s press briefing, National Economic Council Director Brian Deese and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack spoke about the actions the administration was taking to help alleviate what Deese called ‘pandemic profiteering’ from the top meat processing companies.

‘One of the interesting findings of the report that we put out today, is that about half of the overall increase in grocery prices can be attributed to significant increases in prices in three products – in beef, in pork and in poultry,’ Deese said from the podium.

Certainly greed is playing a role, but as Zero Hedge has pointed out, a whole host of other factors are contributing to this crisis as well…

A combination of global droughts, volatile weather, labor shortages, and supply chain disruptions persisting from COVID, among others, have contributed to the rapid rise in food prices over the last year.

Heading into fall, soaring food inflation shows no signs of abating and may worsen. This may cause socio-economic turmoil in emerging market economies, mainly because people in those countries allocate more of their daily budgets to food.