ANSWER:

Since I first became aware of the severity of the drought of 2012, I have been waiting for my grocery bill to rise precipitously. But most of the negative effects of the drought will take some time for the average grocery SHOPPER to feel. In fact, you may FIND that the cost of your sirloin and pork chops has dropped recently.

This has to do with the economics of livestock FARMING. When a drought raises the price of feed, farmers need to find a way to make their herds economically sustainable. They do so by liquidating (that is, slaughtering) a portion of their breeding herds. That LEAVES them with fewer mouths to feed when the price of corn goes up, and gives them an extra influx of cash via the sale of that meat. What it means for consumers is that there is a short-term surplus of meat on the market, making prices lower.

However, we shouldn’t get used to those lower prices, since the reduction of herds means that there will be fewer animals available for slaughter in the coming months, driving the prices up again. The USDA, which tracks the changes in food prices from year to year, estimates that inflation of meat prices will be about 5% in 2013. To put that in perspective, the food inflation rate for all edibles in 2011 was 3.7% – which was already much higher than the usual annual inflation rate of 2%.