The average cost of a summer cookout for ten people is $69.68, which breaks down to less than $7 per person, according to Farm Bureau’s summer marketbasket survey. AFBF Chief Economist Roger Cryan says the overall cost for the cookout is up 17 percent or about $10 from last year, because of several factors.
“One of them is the general supply chain challenges that we’ve had as we’ve recovered from COVID. Another one is the Federal Reserve Bank’s expansion of the money supply which has caused general inflation,” he said. “It’s caused the prices of everything to go up. And another one of the big impacts, especially on food, is the war in Ukraine and the cascading effects from that.”
Cryan says the increased costs for consumers is not a windfall for farmers and ranchers.
“Farmers and ranchers in the U.S. are facing rising input costs and those rising input costs are cutting into the returns they’re getting for their product. In a lot of cases farmers are not even covering their increased costs with these higher prices. Livestock producers in particular are paying higher prices for feed while their own prices are not that much above last year if they are at all,” he said.
Cryan says the war in Ukraine is a reminder of the importance of agriculture.
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Sabrina Halvorson
National Correspondent / AgNet Media, Inc.
Sabrina Halvorson is an award-winning journalist, broadcaster, and public speaker who specializes in agriculture. She primarily reports on legislative issues and hosts The AgNet Weekly podcast. Sabrina is a native of California’s agriculture-rich Central Valley.