Pasta Price May Surge as Swamped North Dakota Cuts Durum Supply

[Purveyor]

Unrelenting rainfall may have slashed U.S. planting of durum wheat to the lowest level in more than 50 years, fueling a surge in the price of pasta and noodles as mills scramble for supply of the grain.

Farmers who normally are finished planting by now had completed just 44 percent as of June 19 in North Dakota, which produces more than two-thirds of U.S. durum, government data show. It’s too late to sow more without delaying the harvest to the winter-frost period, said Frayne Olson, an agricultural economist at North Dakota State University in Fargo.

Planting may drop 47 percent this year to 1.365 million acres, the lowest since 1959, Olson said. In the past month, parts of North Dakota and Montana, the second-biggest grower, had triple the normal rainfall, National Weather Service data show. North Dakota durum prices are up 52 percent in the past month, and U.S. pasta in May was the most-expensive on record.

“Basically, the selling has shut off in the U.S., because if you’re a holder of durum, there’s no point in selling it,” said Jim Kulp, a general manager at Philadelphia Macaroni, which makes pasta including the Alphabet Soup noodles for Campbell Soup Co. (CPB) “If you’re holding durum wheat, it’s like gold. So why would you sell it?”

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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-24/pasta-price-may-surge-as-swamped-north-dakota-cuts-durum-supply.html

[HereSince1628]

1. Well, that will certainly help us understand our relationship

to those fly-over states that never make much news.

[xchrom]

2. Recommend

[closeupready]

3. I've changed my diet so that I hardly eat pasta anymore, but for the hungry and poor, it's a staple

Any rise in prices will be a huge disaster. When health people get hungry, they don't just sit and take it.

[madinmaryland]

4. Where is the Flying Spaghetti Monster when you need her. I am going to pray

to her this afternoon.