John Boyd Jr., president of the National Black Famers Association, noting the problems American farmers are having because of inflation, slammed President Biden as he appeared on NewsNation.
“When you say there’s going to be food shortages, are we talking about things like what we see from Venezuela or from Cuba or from Russia, where if you go to the grocery store, is it that they’re out of Honey Nut Cheerios or are they out of all cereal?” NewsNation host Leland Vitter asked.
“Well, most people don’t know corn for instance is in Corn Flakes and corn syrup; soybeans are in all sorts of products that wind up in your local grocery stores,” Boyd Jr. said. “So when you don’t have enough corn and you don’t have enough wheat, when you don’t have enough soybeans, those things, those major items that we need to make all these other products are not going to be in your local grocery stores like we’ve been used to.”
“For so long we’ve had and enjoyed lots of food in this country,” he continued. “So we’ve never, ever faced a food shortage and I think that that’s coming in the coming months. The Biden administration, that I’ve been urging to take more swift action, still hasn’t taken the action that I believe that’s needed.”
National Black Farmers Association president: "We've never, ever faced a food shortage — and I think that's coming.
"The Biden administration, that I've been urging to take more swift action, still hasn't taken the action that I believe is needed." pic.twitter.com/xziga6dxZU
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) June 17, 2022
Last month Boyd Jr. warned, “Right now we’re in a crisis in America as it relates to farmers. We‘re facing an all-time high in diesel fuel; here in Virginia I’m paying $5.63 a gallon for diesel fuel. We‘re at an all-time high for fertilizer; I’m paying $900 a ton. … We just provided relief for Ukraine; we’re going to be looking at some lawsuits there in the form of wheat and other commodities.”
Roger Cryan, Chief Economist of the American Farm Bureau Federation, pointed out the danger for farmers because of inflation. He stated in May, “March’s inflation was the highest in 40 years. … Inflation is a problem because it creates a lot of price uncertainty. It really creates a disconnect between long term and short-term lending, and probably most damaging is that it raises long-term interest rates.”
“So, this raises the farmer’s costs of borrowing for expansion or for reinvestment on the farm,” he explained. “That was really the biggest trouble with inflation back in the 70s and 80s for the farmers, it created a very painful decade in the 1980s, and it’s really important to deal with this.”