Tester: Food Prices ‘Are Going to Go up’

During an interview with CBS on Wednesday, Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) predicted that food prices will increase over the summer, but as long as there aren’t weather issues, there shouldn’t be shortages.

Tester stated, “Look, we’ve got our challenges out there with the drought west of the Mississippi last year and with the situation with Ukraine and Russia attacking that country that supplies the world, particularly the Middle East and North Africa with a lot of food. … I think that if we can get Mother Nature to smile upon us and give us a little bit of moisture, the American farmer can do some pretty darn good things as far as production in this country. But make no mistake about it, I do think that prices are going to go up. I think that’s a two-edged sword. Prices go up, everything else goes up with it, and we’re seeing that with the inputs tripling, prices have probably quadrupled since 2018, quite frankly. So, that’s good news in the grain business, if you’re in that business. But there are other sectors in agriculture that are not doing as well. Cow-calf operators are having a hard time surviving. And so, we need to be aware of this kind of stuff and we need to make sure that we’re empowering the American farmer to do what they can do to help supply the world with food that they’ve done so well for generations. And I think they’ll step up once again, if Mother Nature provides us an opportunity to get that job done.”

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