That wasn’t the first call for the end of the commodities bull market, nor was it the most serious.

We heard it proclaimed that 2008 was the official end of the bull market – no ifs ands or buts.

“Bull Market In Commodities at an End, For Now” – New York Times

The proof? Well, you might recall that gold, oil and nearly every other commodity on the planet was on the receiving end of a huge uptrend until early 2008, when the “bubble” began to deflate a bit. As the New York Times said in October of that year:

“Since July, when prices for many commodities peaked amid fears of a permanent shortage, the prices of wheat and corn - two cereals at the base of the human food chain - have dropped 70 percent. Oil prices have dropped 55 percent. Important metals like aluminum, copper, nickel and platinum have declined more than half.”

Again, I’ll use a chart of gold as a proxy for the “commodity bubble”:

For the record, I actually am not a big fan of Monsanto on a personal level. As much as any other publicly traded company, Monsanto personifies the kind of big, bad corporation that’s in bed with big Government to the detriment of individuals and small business people.

This type of firm works hand-in-glove with the many and sundry regulatory bodies in this country to make it near-impossible for the little guy to get ahead. In effect, companies like Monsanto are a state-sponsored monopoly. If you’re familiar with Nobel prize winning economist George Stigler and his work, you’ve heard of “regulatory capture.”

Monsanto, and other huge companies in this country all benefit from regulatory capture – which in essence just means that regulatory bodies become dominated and controlled by the very sectors and firms that they’re intended to regulate.

Think: Dept. of the Interior employees sleeping, partying and drinking with oil company employees.

And it makes sense that companies like Monsanto would eventually come to control the regulators. If you’re a regulator, keeping a company like Monsanto in business means job security. You’re directly incentivized not to keep a close eye on the business operations, but rather, to make sure those business operations are protected, thriving and unthreatened.

Right now, we have crystal clear proof on the topic of the wages of reserve currency devaluation. We know, because we’re seeing those wages everyday.

Reserve currency devaluation results in higher commodity prices.

I don’t even think that Ben Bernanke himself would dispute the above statement privately.

Over the course of Bernanke’s tenure, we’ve heard some fancy banker speak. We’ve heard about increasing liquidity and backstopping the financial system and easing quantitatively.

But today, everything that you would expect to happen when a currency is devalued is happening – and more.

Before I get to the “and more” portion, we don’t have to look very far or hard at all to find the wages of currency devaluation.

But government can’t abide higher prices on food. So President Obama will institute price controls. If you think that we couldn’t possibly have food riots here in the United States, then you probably also believe that we couldn’t possibly have price controls in the United States.

But you’d be wrong on the second count, at least.

In 1971, President Nixon enacted wage and price controls - and the biggest reason he gave for these price controls was rising food prices. He also capped oil prices.

You might remember oil shortages during this time - that was a direct result of Nixon’s price controls.

Just to be clear, “lexicon” is a fancy word that means vocabulary – and “food riot” is a phrase that refers to a group of angry, hungry, violent people who destroy property because they feel (among other things) that food prices are too high.

And yes, to answer any questions from the peanut gallery in my office, I do believe we’ll see food riots in these United States of America sometime in the next year and a half.

I’m belaboring this point because I want to be crystal clear with this prediction, not because I especially like making predictions. Quite the opposite, actually – I detest making predictions because it’s so easy to be wrong on the scope, specifics, time-frame, location, etc.

In that vein, if I am wrong about this prediction, it will probably be a matter of my timing rather than anything else.

No one is following this story. The Great Lakes Seaway News actually wrote a story about how no one is following this story.

While Ben Bernanke continues to gift billions of dollars to the banking industry for no defensible or discernable reason, there are actual, real-life industries in the United States that are producing real-life stuff that we all need.

While President Obama wrangles with Congress to pay unemployed people $150 billion not to work over the next year, a small group of American farming and shipping firms are feeding the world from the sweat of their brow.

The problem isn’t that Ben Bernanke talks over our heads with his arcane banker vocabulary - where you say “quantitative easing” instead of “printing money.”

The problem isn’t even really the idea that being a Central banker is all that complicated. It certainly doesn’t have to be.

The problem is that Bernanke, and other central bankers cram so many lies, half-truths, obfuscations and red herrings into every single sentence they utter that making sense out of their words is like trying to sort out fact from fiction in a 10 car pileup - with 10 drunken drivers!

According to a recent report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, the world will require a 70% increase in food production in the coming years.

In order to grow food production fast enough to match population growth, agriculture markets will require an average of $209 billion in additional investment.

For some industries - like shipping - oil prices are one of the biggest cost inputs. Other industries, like...oh say, online publishing, are somewhat less dependent on oil.

But every sector of the economy does have an oil cost input.

That's why I'm extremely worried about oil prices, and where we all know they're going.

For a small taste of what's in store, Charles Maxwell, senior energy analyst for Weeden & Co. - a man with 50 years experience in the field - recently predicted that we'll see $150/barrel oil within the next five years, and $300 oil by 2020.

I'm a bit less optimistic - because I think we could easily break the $150 barrier in the next 18 months. It was only 24 months ago that we saw similar prices - so it's not out of the question.

Before I reveal the name of this stock, I want to point out that buying a company with farmland in the mix is a great diversification play - and doubly so when it pays a dividend.

That's because when you buy this type of company, you're getting exposure to the continued profitability of its underlying farm business, but you're also buying actual farmland that the company owns - and if you've been reading this letter, you probably know that I'm extremely bullish on farmland prices.

I also happen to be bullish on the commodities that grow on farms; corn, wheat, sugar, cattle, pigs, chickens, etc.

The dividend is just a small bonus, but I know there are readers out there interested in income, so it's worth a mention - even though it's only a 2% annual yield.

Okay, it's not news that Jim Rogers likes agriculture. He's taken every opportunity to tell anyone who will listen that he likes farmland, corn, wheat, rice - and just about every other agriculture commodity.

But unless you have a margin account on a commodity futures exchange, you probably can't follow his advice to a T.

In other words, if Jim shows up on CNBC and says he likes rice (as he did on August 28^th - you can watch the video by clicking here) it's frustrating to sit on the sidelines if you don't have a futures account.

And I'm not recommending that you should open a futures account and simply follow Mr. Roger's advice every time he's on TV. Even if you have a futures account, you know that it's almost a full-time job keeping track of the complicated options and futures contract strategies that would be considered entry-level for most traders.

But I do think your portfolio should have some exposure to agriculture, for reasons so simple that a kindergartner can understand them:

The biggest reason is population growth. According to a 2004 study from the United Nations, "World population is projected to grow from 6.1 billion in 2000 to 8.9 billion in 2050, increasing therefore by 47 per cent."

I hate falling into the trap of simply responding to the hottest news headlines - because very few people get rich by reacting to headlines and pulling the trigger on investments based on "hot" trends in the market.

At this point, computers can wipe the floor with most any day-trader, so if you think you can buy yesterday's news and still eke out a profit, you're probably wrong.

In the past couple weeks agriculture has been the hot topic on everyone's mind. First, fires in Russia caused wheat prices to double in less than a month as Vladimir Putin banned Russian wheat exports. In sympathy, many other crop commodities rose in price as well. Then yesterday, BHP Billiton (NYSE: BHP) the world's largest mining company, put in a failed bid to buy Potash Corp (NYSE: POT) the world's largest fertilizer company.

I'm back in Vermont after a week in Sea Isle City, New Jersey. And there's nothing like a vacation to make you appreciate the comforts of home. Even though Vermont isn't very far from New Jersey, geographically, the weather difference is pretty dramatic. Vermont does get hot (we broke 100 degrees a few weeks back) but I've never felt the urge to apply and reapply sunscreen here, like I did in New Jersey last week. I still managed to get a sunburn.

I hope you had a pleasant weekend and were able to get outside and enjoy the weather if it was amenable in your locale. We experienced some unseasonably warm weather here in Vermont, and I tried to stay outside as long as possible. I even fired up my new Weber charcoal grill, a birthday present from my wife. I grilled some sirloin steak, some mushrooms on a kebab and even some corn.

I’ve heard conflicting views on whether to grill the corn in its husk, or to grill it “naked.” This time I opted for naked, grilling it on the cob over indirect heat for about 10 minutes, and the corn had some nice caramelized flavors. I seasoned it ahead of time with salt, pepper and a little olive oil. If you have a bbq corn recipe (or any bbq recipe for that matter) please send it my way at editorial@resourceprospector.com.

Today’s article isn’t all grill recipes, though. I’ve wanted to write about corn, the commodity, for quite some time. It’s just tough to pull myself away from alluring topics like gold and energy. And I should apologize, because agriculture isn’t something that’s very exciting to read about – not like precious metals or oil. But commodities like corn, soybeans, wheat, pork bellies, cattle, sugar and coffee all fall into the realm of my purview.

Does your portfolio have exposure to the most inevitable bull market in the world? I’m talking about a long-term trend that has nowhere to go but up. It’s literally a life and death situation.

The alternative to a bull market in these commodities is something the world’s population has to strive to avoid at all costs. It’s more important than oil, more vital than coal, and way more serious than gold, copper, iron - or any other industrial metal or energy commodity.

Because if there’s not more production of this particular group of commodities every day, in perpetuity, most people on this planet will starve.

Yes, I’m talking about food. And I realize it’s not an “exciting” investment, not like some new oil discovery or a massive gold bonanza. But the world’s population is growing.