Part of being a prepper and living providently is watching your surroundings. Not just keeping an eye out for strangers in your neighborhood or looking both ways before you cross the street. You need to keep an eye on what is happening in the world.

As I wright this there is drought in the mid west that is expected to increase the price of many grain based foods. This has caused ranchers who have large heads of cows to start taking their animals to market sooner then expected and in larger numbers. It is just to expensive to feed all those cows grain at an increased price. So meat prices may go down. Now to complicate things there is a fear of hoof and mouth disease in Utah and Idaho. Any cow that tests positive for hoof and mouth disease is destroyed. So meat could also go up because there is less meat reaching the market.

Whats a prepper to do?

Do not get in a panic and run out and buy a bunch of stuff.

First take innovatory, how much grain do you have? Do you need more?  If you have already got a year or two of grain for your family you have no need to go get more. Just keep replacing what you use.

Today grain is still not too expensive and if you shop around you can pay under a dollar a pound. I found it for about 59 cents per pound today. Meat is still reasonable and safe.

The worry for a prepper is what about next year. If the drought continues grain products will begin to increase in price. That could double in cost.

This has happened recently with peanuts. The drought in Texas caused a massive decrease in the peanut crop. About 18 months ago I was paying $1.00 to $1.25 per pound for peanut butter. Now when generic Peanut Butter is on sale it is $2.50 per pound. That is more than 125% increase in the cost of peanut butter.

So now would be a good time to pick up a little extra grain. Just in case. If you have the money on hand and a place to put it.