{"id":10655,"date":"2011-03-04T16:20:51","date_gmt":"2011-03-04T22:20:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.sustainablog.org\/?p=10655"},"modified":"2011-03-04T16:20:51","modified_gmt":"2011-03-04T22:20:51","slug":"rising-global-food-prices-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/rising-global-food-prices-update\/","title":{"rendered":"Update On Rising Global Food Prices"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/files\/2011\/03\/FAO-Index-3-3-11.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/files\/2011\/03\/FAO-Index-3-3-11.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"450\" height=\"328\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Last month I started a <a title=\"The previous post in this series\" href=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/rising-global-food-prices\/\" target=\"_blank\">series of monthly updates<\/a> on the rising prices of food in international trade. \u00a0As you can see from the graph above, the trend is continuing so that it looks like we are likely to see prices as high as the previous spike. \u00a0It is important to note that these indicies do not reflect what prices consumers will pay in any particular country because that is also influenced by many other factors:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>How much of a nation&#8217;s food is produced domestically?<\/li>\n<li>Have reserves been acquired and stockpiled?<\/li>\n<li>Does the government subsidize food for its citizens?<\/li>\n<li>What commodities does the country tend to import in the largest volumes?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This trend is not an indicator of hunger. \u00a0That is a much more complex issue.<br \/>\n<!--more--><\/p>\n<h2>What Will This Mean<\/h2>\n<p>Those of us who live in major food exporting nations like the US, Canada, Australia&#8230; will see slightly higher food prices because <a title=\"A good article on grain prices\" href=\"http:\/\/www.businessweek.com\/news\/2011-02-09\/grain-prices-rally-toward-2008-records-on-shrinking-world-supply.html\" target=\"_blank\">grain prices are high. <\/a> Since we spend a very small part of our income on food, it won&#8217;t be that painful. \u00a0Many European countries are major importers of wheat for bread and pasta, so they are already seeing noticeable price increases. \u00a0Europeans also import a great deal of animal feed so their meat and dairy prices will rise. \u00a0Still, these are relatively rich countries that spend a small portion of their income on food. \u00a0Most people in the rich countries will feel the pain of high oil prices much more than food. \u00a0It is poor people in highly trade-dependent countries who will actually suffer from this phenomenon.<\/p>\n<p>One question is whether the current trend is another new spike like 2008 or actually a resumption of the first spike that was only postponed by the global recession. \u00a0Will the likely increase in farm production this season reverse this trend? \u00a0We really won&#8217;t know until this fall&#8217;s harvest.<\/p>\n<p>I plan to post updates like this each month as the data emerges from <a title=\"The source of this data\" href=\"http:\/\/www.fao.org\/worldfoodsituation\/FoodPricesIndex\/en\/\" target=\"_blank\">FAO<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>You are welcome to comment here or to email <a title=\"My own blog with links to other posts\" href=\"http:\/\/appliedmythology.blogspot.com\/2010_05_01_archive.html\" target=\"_blank\">me<\/a> at feedback.sdsavage@gmail.com<\/p>\n<p><em>Ready to upgrade the wardrobe for Spring? Check out our listings of <a href=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/categories\/clothing\/women-s\">women&#8217;s clothing<\/a>, including <a href=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/categories\/clothing\/women-s\/skirts\">skirts<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/categories\/clothing\/women-s\/shorts\">shorts<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/categories\/clothing\/women-s\/t-shirts\">t-shirts<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/categories\/clothing\/women-s\/jeans\">jeans<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last month I started a series of monthly updates on the rising prices of food in international trade. \u00a0As you can see from the graph above, the trend is continuing&nbsp;[ &hellip; ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":110,"featured_media":17689,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[904,3741,4557,4812,1717,4813],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Global Rising Food Prices Update<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Agricultural scientist Steve Savage continues his exploration of the causes and consequences of rising global food prices.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/rising-global-food-prices-update\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Global Rising Food Prices Update\" \/>\n<meta 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