PRICE OF A LOAF OF BREAD

Three weeks since my last post!!!
Happy New Year to you all.
Here in Painted Post it continues quite cold with occasional snow. I have to admit that the cold gets to one's soul and I am emerging (I hope) from the mid-Winter slow down. The local squirrels appear to be anticipating Spring, getting quite chummy with each other and chasing each other around from tree to tree.
My local groundhog still hibernates in his hole alongside the front of the house where he benefits from the heat. Groundhogs are strictly lone individuals and I hope that ours does not have a mate as groundhogs sometimes get together to breed during Winter and I would not like to see four or so new members of the groundhog community in our yard. I will keep a look out for him, in case he sees his shadow this weekend and decides to get busy. I have to make plans to manage his activities before I plant this year's garden bed.
What has this got to do with the price of a loaf of bread? you may well ask.

Well, very little as a matter of fact...just some thoughts having to do with garden planning.
My favorite loaf of bread comes from the bakery of our local Wegman's Store (a bit like Safeway if you live over on the west side). It is a seven grain loaf with perfect texture and crust. I eat a loaf per week and just dream for the when I can bake a loaf as good as this one. I was amazed to discover that the bread is prebaked in Rochester and can be turned out at the local store in just 14 minutes! How can they do that? I ask.
The point is that the price of this loaf went from $3.75 to $4.00 last week, up almost 7%!
I suspect that this price rise was due to two factors both related to oil. First, the cost of transporting basic materials for bread and then the cost of transport from the bakery in Rochester (some 90 miles away) to Corning. Secondly, the cost of ingredients driven by the increase in corn and other agricultural products.
As an example, farmers can now get twice the price for their corn because of the demand for ethanol production, compared with selling their corn for food. Consequently they have hugely increased corn plantings resulting is less production of other agricultural products and a general increase in the price of food. The immediate effect on oil importation is minuscule and may in fact increase foreign oil dependence.
Consider this, from an article by D.A. Pfeiffer, "Eating Fossil Fuels", in Wilderness Publications::

"In the Unites States, 400 gallons of oil equivalents are expended annually to feed each American (as of data provided in 1994) broken down as:
· 31% for the manufacture of inorganic fertilizer
· 19% for the operation of field machinery
· 16% for transportation
· 13% for irrigation
· 08% for raising livestock (not including livestock feed)
· 05% for crop drying
· 05% for pesticide production
· 08% miscellaneous"

Notice that this does not include the cost of feed lot production, based on corn that in turn is based on oil.