On Apr 15, 6:58 pm, "Michael Tobis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Although drought is frequently listed among the causes of the sudden
> spike in food prices, world grain production was at record levels last
> year. So climate change as a factor is apparently small, at least as
> yet.
>
> A reader of my blog points to this interesting report on current world
> food supplies:
>
> http://www.fao.org/docrep/010/ai465e/ai465e01.htm
>
> mt
Here's George Monbiot's take on the food crisis:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/apr/15/food.biofuels
He confirms that the last year saw a record in cereal production and
points out that only half of that was eaten by humans.
>From my POV it seems that the economics of it are rather similar to
Peak Oil. Once the demand exceeds the supply the price goes sky
high. If any one of the factors which have altered that balance had
not happened then there would be no food crisis yet!
The factors are: on the demand side - the increase in meat consumption
by the Chinese, and the use of grain for biofuels. On the supply side
was - the Australian drought perhaps induced by climate change, and
the increased cost of oil. I have not seem how much the price of ooil
affects the price of food in the supermarket but it impacts the cost
of fertilisers, irrigation, farm machinery, and transport costs from
farm to market and from market to supermarket. What other costs to
farmers have?
Cheers, Alastair.
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