The food on your game day grill will cost you more next season and more than likely for at least the next five years. By 2013 beef prices could rise 76 cents a pound, pork by 61 cents and chicken by 30 cents, according to a new University of Missouri Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute study indicates there’s more at work than just inflation.
"The increase in cost of production this year kind of across all agriculture has been the most dramatic in recent history," said director Patrick Westhoff. "It’s almost all the production costs that are going into producing both crops and livestock have shot up very sharply over the last several months so that is indeed a very remarkable development."
Production costs include everything from feed to land.
"That pasture land often has to be fertilized and fertilizer prices have really increased dramatically this past year," Westhoff said. "That’s one cause of higher prices that you wouldn’t have thought much about, probably."
So far, as the price of meat increases there’s been a decrease in demand and Westhoff says that trend could continue.