Notice lately that the price of food is rising even faster than usual? There's been quite a bit in the news about this lately, and it seems that the trend is going to continue to get worse.Writing in The New York Times, economist Paul Krugman notes that,
Over the past few years the prices of wheat, corn, rice and other basic foodstuffs have doubled or tripled, with much of the increase taking place just in the last few months. High food prices dismay even relatively well-off Americans — but they’re truly devastating in poor countries...Krugman then gives a quick list of the causes, which boil down to climate change, the rise of China, the war in Iraq, and attempts to use ethanol as an energy source. Ethanol, once heralded as a panacea for our energy woes, is less efficient than gasoline and has caused many farmers to plant corn in order to profit from the craze. That means they're not planting other crops and they are not growing crops as food.
"You might put it this way," Krugman writes, "people are starving in Africa so that American politicians can court votes in farm states." He concludes that "it’s not clear how much can be done. Cheap food, like cheap oil, may be a thing of the past."
4 comments:
Although there is indeed merit to the thought that the cost of food is rising due to, as described in your post, the rush for farmers to cash in on the 'craze' of ethanol production as a solution to fuel shortages, I am reluctant to take uninformed potshots at farmers or to discount other reasons. The most obvious of them being the steady rise in fossil fuel costs.
Lets not overlook the fact of how deeply entrenched our government is in the fossil fuel industry. The powers that be stand to lose a lot if there were a sudden mass movement to renewable fuel sources and they have everything to gain from minimizing the viability of these options. Imagine the massive, global power shift that would occur if suddenly everyone stopped using fossil fuels? If the farmers were finally given their due?
As for the rise in food costs, although I admit wincing at the inspection of my receipt after a recent trip to the grocery store - I think that a few dollars isn't too much to pay to have someone else, grow and mill the grain, bake and package the product then truck it, stock it, ring it in and bag it.
I know that my thinking in this area has a lot to do with my Grandparents' influence on me. Having worked all sorts of what we would describe as "blue collar jobs", they valued the work of every person. Often upon reviewing the weekly advertisements or visiting the grocery store my grandfather would exclaim "but how can the farmers live?". He was acutely aware of the amount of work that went into cultivating the ears of corn that the grocery store was so cavalierly selling at twelve for a dollar. He was also aware of how little of that was actual profit to the farmer.
The problem with most of us today is that we want to have the luxury of sitting at our desk jobs, perusing the blogs and discussing the fate of the folks that are really out there getting their hands dirty and breaking their backs so that we can eat. AND we want to have everything conveniently and cheap. We need to realize how good we have it. I'm not saying we shouldn't scrutinize why costs are rising, because it is important to know that the money is going to the right place - in the farmers' pockets, not that of some executive who wouldn't even deign to make his own toast.
With regards to people starving in other countries, setting aside for a moment that people are starving here, it has nothing to do with the cost of produce in the US and everything to do with how their countries are run and the interest of involvement on behalf of the US and the United Nations. If we could dedicate half of the funds and energies to fighting global hunger that we have dedicated to fighting wars certainly global hunger would be eradicated. Additionally, the factors are not as simple as buying food and shipping it to the hungry people. There are corrupt governments to contend with along with problematic climates that make it difficult to cultivate renewable food sources in the affected regions. No matter how many celebrities you have on TV handing out bowls of rice, it will take much more than that to solve the problem.
There is a reason why the term "solving world hunger" is used in relation to someone who is biting off more than they can chew with a given endeavor. It's because WORLD HUNGER IS A REALLY, REALLY, BIG AND DIFFICULT PROBLEM!
When we broach these subjects we should view them through the lenses of global responsibility and altruism.
Reflecting on my grandparents' philosophies about these things, they were very sensible and matter of fact, although I know for certain that their economies were much more harshly impacted by the rise in produce costs than any of us blogging here.
Thank you for those interesting and intelligent comments, Eastie Girl. I would say that, most unfortunately, many struggling farmers have been replaced by giant agribusinesses. There has been, in the past decade, a movement by some people to purchase their produce, meat and dairy products from small, family-owned operations, whether it is at farmers' markets, or through Community Supported Agriculture programs, or driving out to central Massachusetts to get the unpasteurized cider that I so enjoy.
The food cycle is a subject that I am interested in because I feel that we've destroyed the natural cycle, and this development -- some call it "progress" -- has doomed our species. My thinking is strongly influenced by Wendell Berry's book "The Unsettling of America."
Jim,
I'm with you in thinking that we have severely damaged the food cycle and to our own detriment. It seems that whenever you upset the natural balance of things, there are always repercussions. Because of our insistance of having what we want, when we want it as cheaply as possible, we are being exposed to all sorts of food bourne illnesses and even inferior products. It seems that grocery stores just ship in products from sources unknown, many with questionable processing and handling protocols.
I used to think the whole Organic food movement was driven by a segment of the population to prolong hippiedom and get rich doing it. Now I realize that organic is really a code word for safe food. How sad is that?
I am a huge fan of local business, particularly when it comes to food and produce. Shortly after I was married and returned to East Boston after a few years away (I promise never to leave again!), I was excited to patronize the same local vendors that my grandparents used - Phil's butcher shop on Havre St., Lombardo and Sons fish market on Porter St. and the 'Italian Guys' as my grandfather referred to them, on Bennington St. for produce. Sadly, Phil's has been closed for some years now and has been replaced by a series of seemingly unsuccessful stores. The 'Italian Guys' have sold their shop, or at least they rent it out, and sell mostly flowers in the adjacent alley to their storefront. I was encouraged when Joe D'Amelio took over the Lombardo & Sons storefront with Off The Boat Seafood and provided both fresh and prepared offerings. Unfortunately, lack of support made it challenging to be able to continue to provide the fresh seafood.
It is truly in all of our best interest to support local businesses.
To piggy back on Eastie Girl's comments, it may seem to us today that food prices are just too high, or are getting there. However, Americans pay less today for our food than we did 50 years ago. When the USDA did their early food studies in the 1940s and 1950s, they found that the average family spent about 1/3 of their income on food. Today, middle and upper income households spend less than 15% of our income on food. Only the poorest (bottom 40% to be exact) spend more than that.
I am also amazed at how much our food budget has increased compared to a few years ago. With that said, ours is a dual (well, really 1.5), professional income level household. Except for about 4-5 weeks of the year when we have family and friends visiting, we only have two stomachs to fill. Someone on a much more limited income with a larger family would probably have a more difficult time feeding themselves in a healthful manner, especially given the rising costs of gas and housing. If we were making half as much with two little ones to feed, I would be more concerned about feeding my family than feeding the farmer's family - especially given that there are so few family farms left in the US according to Farm Aid.
My husband and I have watched a number of documentaries recently about food production and the impacts of globalized agriculture. As a policy researcher, my concern is how government and corporate policies impact food growth and distribution. In one of the films (the name of which I can't remember right now but I can get it if you are interested), one of the things I learned is that farm land in South America is increasingly devoted to soy and corn crops to ship to Europe to meet their ethanol demand. At the same time, very little land is being used to grow food to support the people actually living in these areas and there are few jobs available for the poorest to purchase food that is imported largely from the U.S. Government farm subsidies have a lot do with this distorted system. Western countries heavily subsidize agriculture which makes our food cheaper than locally grown food in exported markets. It's a bizarre situation that tomatoes grown in Spain cost less in Eastern African markets than locally (meaning African) grown tomatoes. Our farm subsidies are actually involved in the destruction of local agriculture in places where people are literally starving. As I see it, addressing global hunger is less about being generous to places with "problematic climates" and looking at the impacts our own policies have in creating the conditions for starvation, both here and abroad.
Jim, you mentioned to me once doing a Socrates Cafe type thing. Maybe this is a topic that could be done for one. I can get a hold of some good documentaries on it and my husband can probably cobble together some readings for people interested in this issue. We couldn't do it until mid-May (classes are ending and we are both buried in grading). But something worth considering.
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