High food prices will linger because the current crops that are coming in this fall are costing the nation's farmers much more than in the past because of skyrocketing costs for fuel and fertilizer, Goya Foods CEO Bob Unanue warned on Newsmax on Tuesday.
"I'm not an economist, but I just see the food prices are going to stick around because this new crop that's coming in September, right around the corner, in August and September is not going to be replaced until 2023," Unanue said on Newsmax's "Wake Up America."
He noted that fertilizer is costing farmers triple the price they had been paying, and fuel costs for the farm equipment and transportation of crops have doubled.
"You can't get people to work," said Unanue. "I'm here in Texas. We have very dry conditions. The rice crop, which is in Arkansas, Texas, and Louisiana, are very tight."
Meanwhile, the government is incentivizing farmers to grow corn for use in ethanol, which has tripled the price of grains, said Unanue. "[It] is ridiculous. We're trying to dilute our oil, which we have in the ground. It's crazy."
The Biden administration "created inflation" by declaring war on fossil fuels, stopping the Keystone pipeline, and going overseas for oil, said Unanue.
"In 2008 we saw grain prices triple because they decided to incentivize growing corn to make ethanol," he added. "It's very inefficient. It was great for Iowa but it's not good for the other grains and it's not good for inflation because we're growing food to burn it in our cars."
The war in Ukraine has also worsened the costs of fertilizer and food, said Unanue, as Ukraine and Russia produce 50% of the world's fertilizer, 30% of the world's wheat, and 20% of the world's corn.
The fertilizer cost, meanwhile, is not yet "baked into" the year's current crop, so "we're only beginning to see the inflation," Unanue said.
And with all the problems, the United States is "being run by a bunch of elites that are in candyland," said Unanue.
"They are living in an alternate reality," he said. "They don't care about the working class. They don't care about the people.
"They're so elite and don't realize that the United States is the second largest Latino country in the world. We're gonna be the biggest group by 2050. You know, we have the opportunity to make this country great by making God, family and work our goal, and it's not the goal of this administration."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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