"On top of record-breaking rice prices and corn through the roof on ethanol demand, wheat is now rusting in the fields across Africa.
Officials fear near total crop losses, and the fungus, known as Ug99, is spreading.
Wheat prices have been soaring this week on top of already high prices, and futures contracts spiked, too, on panic buying.
Experts fear the cost of bread could soon follow the path of rice, the price of which has triggered riots in some countries and prompted countries to cut off exports."
David Kotok, chairman and chief investment officer of Cumberland Advisors, said the deadly fungus, Puccinia graminis, is now spreading through some areas of the globe where "crop losses are expected to reach 100 percent.”
Losses in Africa are already at 70 percent of the crop, Kotok said.
"The economic losses expected from this fungus are now in the many billions and growing. Worse, there is an intensifying fear of exacerbated food shortages in poor and emerging countries of the world,” Kotok told investors in a research note.
"The ramifications are serious. Food rioting continues to expand around the world. We saw the most recent in Johannesburg.
"So far this unrest has been directed at rising prices. Actual shortages are still to come.”
...read more
