Food Shortages Coming, Buy Commodities: Jim RogersPublished:...

Food Shortages Coming, Buy Commodities: Jim Rogers
Published: Friday, 15 Jan 2010 | 4:48 AM ET Text Size By: Antonia Oprita
Associate Web Producer, CNBC.com

The financial crisis is likely to lead to food shortages in a few years because the agriculture sector is in dire need of funds, legendary investor Jim Rogers told CNBC Friday.


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Buying distressed commodities is a better way to make money than investing in stocks, according to Rogers.

"The fundamentals (for agriculture) have gotten better," he said. "The inventories are now at the lowest they've been in decades, not in years."


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"Sometimes in the next few years we're going to have very serious shortages of food everywhere in the world and prices are going to go through the roof."

Cotton and coffee are good buys because they are very distressed, while sugar, despite the fact that it has gone up a lot, is still down 70 percent from its all-time high, according to Rogers.

"I don't think that the problems of the world are behind us yet," he said.

Investors shouldn't bother with stocks because commodities are likely to win in both the optimistic and the pessimistic scenario, Rogers said.

If the economy rebounds, commodities prices will rise because of increased demand, while if the economy continues to be weak, central banks will keep printing money and commodities will be used as a hedge against inflation, he explained.

Rogers is holding on to oil and he is also holding on to gold, saying they are too expensive to buy but not worth selling.

"If you want to buy precious metals I'd rather buy silver and palladium, just because they're cheaper," he said.