Via Businessinsider.com
Remember the snow in Dallas on Super Bowl weekend? It was part of the worst cold spell in 60 years in Mexico and the South West.
U.S. grocery stores have already seen a double or triple hike in produce costs.
Get ready to pay double or even triple the price for fresh produce in the coming weeks after the worst freeze in 60 years damaged and wiped out entire crops in northern Mexico and the southwestern U.S.
The problem started less than a week ago, when our nation was focusing on the Superbowl and sheets of ice falling from Texas Stadium.
Farmers throughout northern Mexico and the Southwest experienced unprecedented crop losses. Now devastation that seemed so far away, is hitting us in the pocketbooks.
“We’ve had to double and triple some prices and consumers come in and it’s quite a shock to them,” said Rusty Peake, GM of Food4Less in Southeast Portland.
“Increase, increase, increase,” said produce manager Troy Winterhalter as he watched urgent messages coming across his laptop computer. “Peppers, zucchini, cucumbers, asparagus, the entire asparagus crop was wiped out,” said Winterhalter.
Roma tomatoes have more than doubled in price since Thursday and very soon they may not be available at all.
About the only produce not impacted by the freeze in the coming weeks are things grown right here in the Northwest like potatoes, onions and apples.
The situation is so dire, some stores can’t honor certain advertised prices, which were ordered in local newspapers long before the freeze.
“Now I’m in a tough situation where I can’t really support ads and I try to do the best I can letting the consumers know what’s going on in the markets,” said Peake.
He said this is the worst produce situation he’s seen in 25 years in the business.
Next week, lettuce and spinach prices are expected to rise. Normal prices likely won’t return until new crops in Mexico start producing again in late March and early April.
Global food prices were already at record highs.
Just because the world temperature is rising doesn’t mean everything is supposed to get warmer. Places can get colder too. Melting ice can be affecting the major ocean belt that generates warm weather for the northern hemisphere, thereby causing a new ice age (a la the movie “The Day After). But the general result of global warming is erratic weather. That’s why weather is crazy, and increased water in the atmosphere gives us an increase in storms, floods, and tornadoes.
This winter from late November onwards has been very extreme at times, here in the UK, and in diverse parts of the northern hemisphere. Late November through to January saw Britain have the coldest and snowest weather in 120 years or since records began.Many temperature minimums were broken. The same happened later in the USA and Canada and Mexico a month later.
Europe and Russia have been under very cold air all winter. In north Korea and northern India they were buried in snow as much as 3 feet in one day destroying many of the flimsy houses as they are not accostumed to snow, never mind 3 feet in one day.
Generally it has been extremely cold in many parts of the northern hemisphere this winter and the signs are according to many scientists contrary to the “global warming” camp, that each winter is going to be getting more extremely cold during the next 30 years. So this article about Mexico is not an isolated case! I did some research out of interest and was shocked to find out that last winter in the southern hemisphere was also extremely cold in Australia, South Africa and South America where also there was record amounts of snow and record minimum temperatures.