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Expect higher prices for meat, poultry and dairy products at the grocery store in 2013 as the drought that has hammered U.S. agriculture plays out in the food chain next year.

The severe dry weather has decimated the corn crop, creating what could be the tightest domestic supply and demand situation on record, according to analysts.

Corn touches almost everything on the grocery shelves, including meat and poultry, so an increase in food prices could be expected as early as this winter.

But first, meat prices could drop as livestock farmers send large numbers of animals to the slaughterhouse because they're too expensive to feed grain, which has risen in price because of the drought.

It could be a financial disaster for the pork industry, said Bill Tentinger, president of the Iowa Pork Producers Association.

"Much of the media coverage has focused on crop producers who face large yield losses. However, the animal industries may ultimately fare even worse," he said.

For a while, at least, there could be a surplus of meat at the grocery store.

"This is your last chance to get cheap beef," said Walter Breitinger, a commodities futures trader in Valparaiso, Ind.

Once the surplus is gone and the marketplace adjusts, prices are likely to climb.

By the spring, expect to pay more for animal-based products.

Prices of dairy products are likely to rise as farmers get rid of milk cows that are expensive to feed, tightening milk supplies. Prices of poultry and eggs also could rise as farmers reduce their chicken flocks.

Higher dairy prices are likely to be noticed before rising meat prices, said Bruce Jones, an agricultural economist at University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Rising grain prices won't have much effect on some products, such as a box of breakfast cereal that only has a few cents worth of grain in it.

And while retail prices at the supermarket have increased modestly this summer, they haven't been affected much by the drought, the Wisconsin Farm Bureau said Tuesday.

The Farm Bureau's informal survey of prices for the past three months shows the total cost of 16 food items that can be used to prepare one or more meals was $50.32, up 77 cents from the first three months of 2012.

Items with increases of 7% or more were sirloin tip-roast, flour and vegetable oil. Six items on the Farm Bureau's list fell in price.

Farmers get only a small percentage of the retail price for food, and that percentage has fallen.

In the mid-1970s, they received about one-third of the consumer's dollar spent in grocery stores and restaurants. Now it's about 16%, according to the Farm Bureau.

Using that percentage, the farmer's share of the $50.32 grocery bill would be $8.05.

"I am not going to bad-mouth the middle man, but when you buy a box of cornflakes, or anything else made from grain, the percentage the farmer gets from that price is way down," Breitinger said.

Some of what happens with grocery prices will be determined by the demand for meat in China and India, as U.S. grain goes overseas for livestock production.

Currently, grain supplies are at some of the lowest levels in history.

"I think everybody has come to accept that we will have a substantial reduction in the corn supply this year," Jones said, and that will show up in the grocery store next year.

The U.S. needed a near-perfect year to rebuild its corn stocks after the last two subpar yielding crops, particularly with global demand continuing to climb, said Darin Newsom, an analyst with DTN/Progressive Farmer, an agricultural information service based in Omaha, Neb.

The ripple effect of the corn shortage might be felt by consumers in the late fall to early winter of 2012, Newsom said.