Corn prices are up 92% in the past year. The key driver of the surge in prices is demand from China. According to the U.S. Grains Council, China expects to import 9 million metric tons of corn this year. This is double its previous record of 4.3 million metric tons in 1995.

March corn futures jumped 16 cents to close at $6.785 per bushel, as reported by Bloomberg/Businessweek. This is the highest level since July 17, 2008.

Last year, Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) was included in my stock picks for 2010 and it lost 4.9%. I gave some consideration to keeping it in the mix this year but thought more highly of other stocks in 2011, so I cast it off.

The turning of a calendar page is arbitrary and investments have only modest correlation to it in most instances. However, two weeks into the year ADM is already up, closing Wednesday at $32.56.

Corn prices have been rising and when last I checked futures were up another 1.47% in early morning trading.

When we think corn, we think of the United States. True, the U.S. is the largest producer and exporter of corn. But next comes Argentina, the second largest exporter, and what happens in Argentina affects the price of corn worldwide.

There is an unusual heat wave in Argentina. Corn prices are sensitive to weather changes. The heat wave with temperatures above 90 degrees is causing worry over supplies and prices. On Monday, March corn futures jumped 12 cents per bushel to $6.07 per bushel. Today, corn prices are up another 5 cents.

What is the connection between feeder cattle and corn? Feeder cattle are placed on feed lots to fatten up before slaughter. Their weight gain is between 800 to 1,200 pounds each. The biggest expense for feedlot owners is grain. Corn is used as the main feed grain. Therefore if corn prices drop, feedlot owners pay less for feed and consequently will reap higher profits.

What kicked off the drop in corn prices was a report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) that inventories before harvest were the highest in four years, as reported in Businessweek. That news hit the corn market hard. December corn futures traded at $4.95 per bushel, down 9.4 cents.

Daryll Ray, University of Tennessee professor and director of the college's Agricultural Policy Analysis Center, spoke to a group of Kansas farmers to present his views on world agriculture production.

Ray cautioned farmers not to look to agriculture as a continuous source of economic prosperity. He cited the current economic crisis and warned that future corn prices, instead of near $4.00 to $5.00 per bushel, may go in the opposite direction. He noted that Brazil and Ukraine are expanding their agricultural production. For years, farmers looked to China as a big export market. China, however, has been a net exporter of grain since 1996. China does import, but they export more than they import.

Secretary of Agriculture, Adrian Polansky, also spoke at the meeting and pointed out the benefits of ethanol production. He said that ethanol plants were employing upwards of 235 people in small towns in rural Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa.

Do you expect food prices to decline this year?

You might think that since consumer prices have tumbled by near record percentages that this might lead to lower food prices. But much of that consumer price decline is attributable to lower energy prices -- after all oil peaked at $147 a barrel in July only to fall 63.5% to $53.63 yesterday.

Why won't food prices follow oil down? Many food producers panicked as corn and wheat prices peaked this summer -- locking in long term supply contracts at top prices. For instance, corn, which usually trades at $2 or $3 a bushel, pealed at $8 a bushel in June.

Although prices have since dropped to $3.50 a bushel, some food manufacturers locked in prices for corn and other commodities in the spring and summer, fearing that prices could go even higher. The result is that producers will pass on those higher costs in the form of food prices going up 7% to 9% in 2009.

Maybe ethanol is not such a good business after all. Stocks in the sectors were really darlings of the market a year ago. Now oil prices are back down and the price of corn is up, although not as much as it was in mid-summer.

One of the two or three largest ethanol companies in the U.S., Verasun (NYSE: VSE) is filing for Chapter 11. According to The Wall Street Journal, "VeraSun made bad bets on the corn market over the summer as grain prices reached record highs."

Shares in the firm traded as high as $17.75 late last year. They had dropped to $0.34.

The entire industry may face a restructuring now. It had built a tremendous infrastructure of new plants and shipping facilities assuming that ethanol would be "the next big thing" in the global fuel business. Corn prices moved up because farmers could not produce enough for food and fuel.

The real giant in the industry is ADM (NYSE: ADM). It has moved up from a 52-week low of $13.53 to almost $21.00. The Verasun news could move the shares south again.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 24/7 Wall St.

During the roaring 1990s, undergraduates aspired to be entrepreneurs who would someday start their own company, or aspired to be investment bankers.

If the initial data points of the 21st century are predictive, undergraduates may want to shift their career goals to farming and agriculture.

Meat and dairy prices, already forced higher by rising food demand in emerging markets and sky-high energy prices, are likely to move higher still, due to flooding in the Midwest U.S., The Associated Press reported Monday.

Already high corn costs had compelled farmers to reduce animal production, resulting in higher prices for these products. Now, beef, poultry, pork, eggs, cheese and milk prices are expected to rise even more, as owners are forced to slaughter more livestock to cope with the higher costs of raising their animals, or as they go out of business.

Livestock producers' costs soar

Economist Glen Langan told BloggingStocks Monday the livestock segment is facing its biggest transformation -- and highest costs -- in more than 30 years. "Corn costs have doubled, from $4 a bushel to $8, while energy costs have gone through the roof. This will force many producers out of the market," Langan said. "Only the most efficient, modern producers will survive, with a few exceptions. That will easily push meat and poultry prices 20% higher or more from current levels. Dairy is harder to predict, because it's more localized, but there will be dairy price increases, too."

The agendas of the G-8 meetings, gatherings of the finance ministers of the most powerful countries in the world, are still concerned about the credit crisis that has brought many financial firms to their knees and has caused chaos in the housing markets. Even so, they are now much more concerned about inflation.

According to Bloomberg, "Finance ministers from the Group of Eight nations said surging food and fuel prices have replaced the credit squeeze as the biggest threat to the world economy."

It happened fairly fast. At the beginning of the year, the world's credit problems began to accelerate. Mortgage-backed paper write-offs were so bad that many financial company stocks hit multi-year lows in March. Most had to go begging for new capital.

It was only as the first quarter ended that oil prices began huge run-ups and news turned to sharp increases in the price of corn and other agricultural commodities.

The "advantage" with inflation is that central banks can put money into commercial banks and brokerages, propping them up until the storm clouds pass. Getting oil and corn prices down is not quite as simple.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

This morning, better-than-expected earnings results at Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) eased investors' fears about the weak U.S. economy. Shares of food maker General Mills Inc. (NYSE: GIS) have been also rallying in early trading after posting a surge of 61% for its third quarter profit.

The company said its quarterly profit climbed to $430.1 million, or $1.23 per share due to higher demand for its products. Excluding one-time items, the company's earnings figures came in at 87 cents a share, exceeding analysts' forecast for a profit of 79 cents a share.

General Mills posted 12% growth for its third-quarter revenue, which surged to $3.41 billion from $3.05 billion a year ago. This was above analysts' predictions for revenue of $3.24 billion in the quarter, according to Thomson Financial.

Shares of food processor Archer Daniels Midland Co. (NYSE: ADM) are slightly lower this morning after the company posted a rise of 7% in its second-quarter profit, but missed analysts' earnings estimates.

The company said its profit increased during the second quarter as the company benefited from higher volumes and selling prices. Strong earnings from oilseed processing and higher feed grains demand helped ADM offset lower ethanol business margins.

Archer's profit climbed to $473 million, or 73 cents per share. These numbers are up from $441 million, or 67 cents per share, in the same period a year ago. Analysts, on average, expected the food processor show earnings of 74 cents per share.

The world's largest producer of corn-based ethanol also announced a respectable jump of 50% in revenue to $16.5 billion, up from $10.98 billion a year earlier. Sales during the period were helped by higher commodity prices, such as feed grains, wheat and corn. Analysts had forecast $12.75 billion in revenue, according to Thomson Financial.

Let me introduce my Yankee Doodle Dandy portfolio, a compilation of red, white and blue stocks for investors to consider as they celebrate our nation's independence.

Regardless of your views on the Iraq war, there's no denying that defense stocks including Lockheed Martin Corp. (NYSE: LMT), Northrop Grumman Co. (NYSE: NOC), Raytheon Co. (NYSE: RTN) and General Dynamics Corp. (NYSE: GD) are reasonably valued. This is especially noteworthy considering that defense spending will need to be maintained at pretty high levels for years to come in order to replace equipment that's been worn out from combat. President Bush is proposing to spend a record $439 billion in fiscal 2007 on defense and another $42.7 billion on homeland security.

Lockheed, the maker of the F-16, seems especially cheap, trading at a forward multiple of 14.6. Its shares have only gained 4.6% this year even though the company reported better-than-expected first-quarter results and raised earnings guidance. Missile and defense electronics company Raytheon, up less than 3%, is in the same situation.

Investors often overlook the huge businesses that Lockheed and Raytheon have in areas outside of defense, including computer systems and air-traffic control. The managements of both companies also have vastly improved over the past few years. Northrop and General Dynamics have always been pretty well run.

Boeing Co. (NYSE:BA), notably the second-largest defense contractor, also looks worth snapping up. Its stock is up less than 3% this year, which is surprising considering how well it's rebounded against European rival Airbus. The company trades at a forward multiple of 17.7.

It's pretty clear that the share price of food processing giant Archer Daniels Midland Co. (NYSE: ADM) is closely tied to corn prices. Must be good news for ADM then that corn prices are up as demand for ethanol is at an all time high, and corn syrup seems to be in everything these days. Of course, things are never that clear cut.

It seems the high price of corn syrup may have beverage makers and others reconsidering their choice of sweeteners. And the high price of corn appears to be leading to a surplus in the supply of corn, which of course is bound to drive prices back down.

So where does that leave ADM when it reports Q1 2007 earnings next week? According to Thomson Financial, the current consensus estimates are for revenue of $9.45 billion, or 62 cents per share. Last quarter the actual EPS was 67 cents; a year ago, 46 cents. The analysts' consensus recommendations is buy, with seven out of nine of them rating ADM a buy or strong buy. That's a change from the consensus recommendation of hold, just a month ago. The mean price target is $41.25. ADM closed Thursday at $39.03.

The share price has been trending upward this past quarter from a 52-week low of $30.20 in early January, and after slumping in 2006 after the 52-week high of $46.71 last May. The five-year growth rate is 34.2%, and the current PE is 14.68.

Cramer likes ADM, listing it as one of his ethanol picks. What's not to like? Thomson Financial also points out that ADM has offered upside surprises of more than 10% in its last four quarters, and the average return one month after ADM's positive surprises is 2.6%.

The question is, will the self-proclaimed Supermarket to the World offer up another positive surprise on Tuesday?

Ben Berkowitz is the business news editor at AOL. This is a new column that will run weekly, highlighting business stories with significant implications that were overlooked at first glance.

This week's story that no one read and everyone should have is about tortilla riots in Mexico. Yes, tortilla riots. In Mexico. Some 75,000 people protesting the rising price of tortillas.

Not to be overly blunt, but who cares, right? It's just a single grocery item in some other country. But the reason the people are up in arms is more important than anyone realizes.

Poor Mexicans rely on tortillas for their diet. And a lot of other poor people in a lot of other places rely on other foodstuffs made from corn.

The problem is ethanol. Ethanol, that fuel additive that reduces pollution and helps us wean our dependency on foreign oil and makes farmers rich and politicians look silly when they stump in Iowa. As the U.S. adds more ethanol to its gasoline, the price of corn is surging dramatically, leading to extreme market volatility.

President Bush wants to use a variety of sources to make ethanol as the government pushes increased use of the additive, but for now most U.S. producers seem to be eschewing sugar and other products in favor of corn. If that remains the case, corn prices will only go higher and the poor of Mexico and elsewhere will be further pinched.

Of course, publicly-traded corn companies like Archer-Daniels-Midland (NYSE: ADM), Bunge Ltd. (NYSE: BG) and Corn Products International Inc. (NYSE: CPO) can't and don't mind that much - their profits are soaring. Big multinationals like Wal-Mart Stores (NYSE: WMT) must be happy too -- higher prices on big-selling staples are always a happy thing.