Trust in Food

How to Calculate Your Personal Inflation Rate

Mon, 24 Jul 2023 20:30:45 GMT

See how rising costs impact you and your family

Yes, inflation is at a 40-year high, but you might not be feeling its sharp bite. It all depends on where you spend your money.

The Consumer Price Index is a basket of thousands of goods and services. In March, it marked a nearly 8.5% jump from a year ago. Categories such as gasoline, food and housing are the biggest contributors to the increase.

To analyze inflation’s threat to your farm and family, calculate your personal inflation rate.

Determine your monthly expenses for the following categories: food and beverages, housing, clothing, transportation, medical care, recreation, education, communication and other goods and services. Include big-ticket items you pay once or twice a year, such as home insurance.
Subtract your monthly spending a year ago from your current monthly spending.
Divide that sum by your monthly spending from a year ago.

For instance, if your spending last month was $4,500, and a year ago it was $4,250, the difference is $250. Divide $250 by $4,250 and you land at a personal inflation rate of 5.9%.

MINIMIZE INFLATION IMPACTS

Inflation is a growing risk for your farm and family. “It is also largely out of your control,” says Brent Gloy, economist at Agriculture Economic Insights. “What you can do is recognize prices are heading up and plan for it.”

This inflation calculation can be an eye opener about your family living expenses. If tracking your expenses is intimidating, start small, encourages Alex White, farm and financial management instructor at Virginia Tech University. For one month, track all personal expenses on paper or with an electronic tool.

Once you have current data, he says, you can see if you need to reduce expenses or set some financial goals.

You Are What You Spend

Some products and services have seen dramatic jumps in price. Luckily, a 13% jump in cracker prices isn’t felt as sharply as the nearly 40% increase in gas prices. Here are inflation levels for a few categories.

(Farm Journal)

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John Phipps: The Inflation We Expect

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Adios to the Ag Dollar: A Farmer’s Story on Inflation and Inputs

Is the Fed Behind the Curve in Battling Inflation?

Burger King Ditches TV Ad, Asks Leading Extension Scientist For Help

Wed, 03 Nov 2021 19:00:08 GMT

Burger King pushed a lot of animal agriculture’s buttons last week with its new commercial, released July 14, touting the use of lemongrass in cows’ diets to reduce methane emissions by “up to 33%.”

The company’s goal to reduce methane and produce a more eco-friendly Whopper is a positive, acknowledges Frank Mitloehner, University of California-Davis air quality Extension specialist, department of animal science.

The negative: much of the information the fast food giant touted in the advertisement is inaccurate.

Members of the livestock industry and Mitloehner reacted quickly.

“IT’S. NOT. THE. COW. FARTS. Nearly all enteric methane from cattle is from belching,” Mitloehner tweeted, after seeing the commercial. “Suggesting otherwise turns this serious climate topic into a joke. Reducing methane is a HUGE opportunity. That should be a goal. But we shouldn’t trivialize it for trendy marketing. #COWSMENU.”

During his conversation with Mitloehner on Tuesday, AgriTalk Host Chip Flory asked him to set the facts straight about the contributions of cattle to the methane issue.

“Beef production in the U.S. contributes 3% of all greenhouse gases,” Mitloehner says.

By comparison, he says fossil fuel use and production contribute 80% of the greenhouse gas to the environment.

“That (includes) transportation, power production use and the cement industry,” he says. “These three sectors have for the longest time been masterful in making people think that it is people’s eating habits that drive the climate (problems), and that is simply not true.”

Furthermore, Mitloehner says he doubts lemongrass, at the level the company will feed it, will have the desired effect. He cites two separate studies that have been conducted. The one by UC Davis was inconclusive. The other one, conducted at the Autonomous University of Mexico, has not been published yet.

“So this whole messaging was very premature,” he says. We don’t know yet what (lemongrass) does and how it works. But it’s likely that because the active ingredient is not very important that the effects will not be very high.”

Burger King officials contacted Mitloehner after seeing his response to the company’s commercial, saying they were surprised by his reception to their campaign.

“I educated them on the facts, and they made several changes,” Mitloehner says. “They took content out that was demeaning to farmers….and they pulled the content from all TV stations. So, to me, that is very positive and it is indicative that they ‘get it’ – that the mistake was made and that it needs to be corrected.”

The company also asked Mitloehner to work with them, moving forward. “They have asked me to cooperate with them in order to infuse science-based research on the one hand and get communication out -- and check it before it reaches the masses,” he says.

Listen here to get more insights on the story:

Read More:

Burger King Tells A Whopper!

New Research: 900 U.S. Farmers Weigh In On Water Management Practices

Thu, 19 Nov 2020 03:41:59 GMT

Kinsie Rayburn is a Conservation Knowledge Officer with Farm Journal’s Trust In Food. Learn more at www.trustinfood.com

“Without water there is no food.” –Nebraska farmer

Water challenges play a central role in five of the top 10 risks currently facing humanity. Of those top five risks, water challenges are central to four, according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks 2019 report.

Many of these challenges are human-driven: climate change induced increases in extreme weather events, poor public infrastructure management leading to breakdowns, and pollution derived from human society—including from agriculture. These challenges are complex, multifaceted and will take a systems-based thinking approach to solve.
One clear pathway to addressing and mitigating water challenges is to engage farmers to continuously improve water management practices.

In 2019, Trust In Food, in collaboration with American Public Media’s (APM) The Watermain, conducted research into farmer perceptions of water. This research yielded several key findings on what farmers know about water-related issues, their concern around water resources, and conservation actions they take to protect water resources that their operations unequivocally rely on. Overall, perspectives from more than 900 farmer-respondents, representing all nine farm production regions and 43 states, were analyzed.

The resulting report, U.S. Farmer Perspectives on Water: A communicator’s road map for engaging with U.S. farmers around water challenges U.S. Farmer Perspectives on Water: A communicator’s road map for engaging with U.S. farmers around water challenges, is meant to serve as a way for water communicators to strengthen relationships between farmers, the agri-food value chain and the public to secure clean water, in perpetuity, for everyone.

The report encourages communication towards engagement tactics that:

Strengthen the foundation farmers need to serve as solutions to water challenges.

Build awareness and understanding among farmers of the outsized positive impact they can have on the health and wellbeing of the nation’s water resources and infrastructure.

Engage with farmers through mitigation and resilience-building programs aimed at minimizing water challenges.

Build on the high baseline levels of concern farmers have for water issues to engage through geographically and culturally targeted tactics.

Empower farmers to maintain and improve their role as a solution to water challenges.

Equip farmers with the tools, education and systemic frameworks they need to continuously improve the concept of agriculture as a solution to water-related issues.
Acknowledge the challenges and celebrate the successful implementation of practices that improve downstream water quality to prevent farmers from being misunderstood or mischaracterized.

To learn more and read the full report, visit: https://bit.ly/Farm-Water-TIF .

While Trust In Food captured Farmer Perspectives on water, the APM Research Lab, The Water Main, conducted research into the nation’s connection to water. This is the first nationally representative survey of its kind and is a useful tool for researchers, journalists and advocates in gauging how in-tune the rest of the country is with the water-related challenges we face today. More information on data from the APM survey can be found at https://www.thewatermain.org/water-and-us