Chapter 1

Article - http://www.busrep.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=&fArticleId=3513088

This article basically talks about how scarce wheat have become around the world. This growing scarcity of wheat is causing lots of problems around the world. This reduction in producing wheat, in Australia, Ukraine and Unite States, the price will increase around 50 percent this year, causing a skyrocketing in price. Price in Chicago might jump 47 percent to $7.50 a bushel. If the scarcity of wheat continues to grow, the price might reach it’s highest in the next six months, which would threatening to spur inflation in China and India. Lots of companies are also affected because of this growing scarcity of wheat. For example, produces from Kellogg, the largest US cereal producer, and Kraft foods, the world’s second largest food maker would be affected. Also, consumers that buy products from this producer may stop buying it from them. This would cost the business to lose profits. Even though the price might seem high right now, the price might go even higher in the near future, because of global shortages. The price of agriculture has out performed the prices of energy and metals since September, and this is expected to go on till 2007. If the price continues to increase, people would end up buying less clothing or other stuff you need for food, creating hardship for some countries and people. World inventories of wheat would fall around 43 percent by June to 119.3 million tons, which is the lowest since 1982.

Scarcity is one the things we talked about in chapter 1, we mentioned how scarcity of the product will affect the price of that product. In this article, it talks about the scarcity of wheat around the world right now, and how countries and companies around the world are being affected because of this. This reduction of wheat is a great benefit for farmers, because of the price increase of wheat in these past few years. Although this scarcity might not seem so bad, what if farmers don’t produce enough wheat to make products for people around the world? Since products made from wheat are the cheapest thing you can get, most of the countries around the world rely on wheat. For example, poor families in Africa have bread for their breakfast, lunch, and dinner. If the price continues to skyrocket like this, poor people around the world may not even have any food left to fulfill their basic needs. If you put the negative stuff of how wheat is becoming scarcer than before. I would pretty much want to become a farmer and make tons of money.