I’m guessing the big food processors hedged against commodity price increases, much as the airlines did with fuel prices. That helped keep prices under control when food and fuel went through the roof, but now they’re stuck paying above market price for stuff they ordered last year.
And some of it might be plain old greed. Now that gas prices have come down, they figure they can squeeze a few extra bucks out of us.
But yeah water supply is the big ??? in all of this. We’ve taken farmland out of production and diverted water supplies to residential landscaping … in some cases homeowners can’t conserve because the CC&Rs prohibit anything but absurd expanses of lush, water-hungry Bermuda grass. I wonder if there’s anything the legislature can do to void such wasteful, environmentally destructive covenants.
