Drought hits your grocery bill

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (WTHI) - The extreme dry weather will soon be hitting your pocket books at the grocery.

The price jumps will last for the unforeseeable future.

Corn that looks like what we have now causes a grocery bill to grow, even if you're not buying the Hoosier stalk.

"Corn is one of those base commodities that is in a lot of things in the US," ISU Professor of Economics Dr. Robert Guell explained.

The price of corn already went up this year, and it's expected to continue climbing.

It seems a new problem appears each day we go without rain.

"If you're a beef grower, you have a choice of sending herd to slaughter, or trying to ride it out with higher prices," Dr. Guell said.

"For a livestock farmer, your product is your paycheck," added Purdue Extension’s Jim Luzar.

Now, the farming product is leaving them with a tough decision.

In the end.. The decision won't fix the major problems created by this drought.

"A lot of that increase is compensated for in terms of total revenue because of less volume," Luzar said.

"There's going to be a lot of pencil pushing and evaluation."

Even then, a farmer’s creative talents will be pressed.

"I've got a field of corn that doesn't have any ears,” Luzar used as an example. “Maybe my neighbor will buy it and feed it to his cattle."

While the farmers work on their solution to make a paycheck, the rest of the Valley should prepare for a bigger hit at the grocery.

"We'll see the impact of this drought on into 2013."