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By wiping out corn and soybean crops across Iowa, Illinois and other states, the flood is driving up prices that were already at historic highs and increasing the cost of feed for cattle, hogs and poultry.

Economists say that will force livestock farms to cut back on production even more than they were, and that will eventually lead to higher prices for beef, pork, chicken, milk and eggs.

“I have no choice: going broke or increase prices,” said Heinz Kramer, who expects to have to charge more for the pork and beef that he processes at a family-owned company in La Porte City.

Pork prices could be up as much as 30 percent next year because of production cutbacks, said John Lawrence, an economist at Iowa State University. Prices of beef and poultry products are likely to be at least 10 percent higher by the end of this year, he said.

“The higher the corn prices go today the higher meat prices, milk and egg prices will go a year from now,” he said.

The Agriculture Department has said that food prices overall would rise by 4.5 percent to 5.5 percent that year, but those numbers are likely to be revised upward in July after analysts get a better idea of the impact on corn supplies.

The inflation estimate was made at a time when was selling for $6 a bushel, said USDA economist Ephraim Leibtag. Corn prices rose to $7.46 a bushel Wednesday on the Chicago Board of Trade.

Nearly half of 2007’s corn crop was used for livestock feed. Corn sweeteners and soybean oil are widely used as food ingredients, but they have a smaller impact on retail prices than feed costs have on livestock products.

Food prices are “absolutely a concern and something that we’re going to be paying close attention to,” said White House spokesman Tony Fratto. “It’s too early to say what the exact impact will be.”

Whatever it is, it is likely to be more significant in poor regions where corn and vegetable oil are staples. In some countries, people spend as much as 70 percent of their income on food. The United Nations has identified 22 countries that are especially vulnerable to rising prices because of hunger rates and dependence on imports.