The California drought and the price of food

The California drought and the price of food

I think many have to pay more than even a year ago for food to feed themselves and their Family. Conventionally it is called “inflation”, and any excuse to raise prices may be real or may be just an excuse. Inflation usually has elements of both.

Now keep in mind most places are not in drought, and food will continue to be grown for us to eat. It just may cost more for the same thing now and in the future (or even take more effort to get it or grow it yourself) that was less expensive as recently as a year ago.

And depending on your situation, some of your food may well have come from California in the past, but probably not so in the foreseeable future.

And like all droughts, it will end eventually.

But will the market have shifted permanently?  Probably. Said another way after any shift and the end of the California drought, will consumers come back to California supplied food at the old levels?

Only time will tell.

In the meantime people have to live, and so will do so as best they can. Other humans somewhere else will probably grow the food so many enjoyed and in the past and was coming from California.

I can personally remember when the beer Pabst Blue Ribbon was a national brand in the USA as recently has a half-century ago. Then the workers went on strike and now Pabst Blue Ribbon beer never recovered after the strike ended, like few people even know the name any more. The consumers just moved on and never came back.

I can also remember my first time in Okinawa (circa 1973/1974) when during the summer we had day on day off water supply. There was plenty of water in the north, but where we mostly lived in the south depended on water from the north, and there was no pipe to transfer the water in 1973. So what did we do? We survived just fine to make a long story short. And in the end a pipe was built to transfer the water, too. In this example, the local water consumers put up with day on day off water until a pipeline could make it “all the time” water. Of course they had little choice.