You are what you eat
Rising food prices
Key ideas:
- World food prices for many staple crops showed a steep increase in 2008 - 2009.
- The steep increase in prices caused more hunger and malnutrition in less economically developed countries.
- In more economically developed countries such as the UK, many consumers have been changing their food shopping habits.
Key questions
- How do rising global food prices impact upon people living in less economically developed countries?
- In the UK, how have rising food prices affected food shopping habits?
Key concepts:
Place
Space
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Diversity
During the last decade world food prices has risen considerably. A recent BBC news report highlights that the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) food price index is nearly 50% higher than it was in 2003 and the price of cereals is up eighty per cent in the same period. Cereals include wheat, corn and rice, which are staple foods for many people.
When food prices are high, the poor eat less or switch to lower quality foods, which can increase malnutrition. Between 130 million and 150 million people fell into poverty in the last 2 years due to high prices (Department for International Development). Over 1 billion people were living on less than $1 a day and over 900 million people were undernourished, even before the crises hit (data taken from the Millenium Project website).
Four plant species - wheat, maize, rice and potato - provide over half of the plant-based calories in the human diet and it has been the sudden and dramatic increase in the price of these products that has caused distress and in some cases, food riots, around the world. This interactive article offers a more detailed discussion of global protests at food price inflation.
Global food prices have been rising over the last three years; but in 2008 they spiralled considerably. Between 2007 and 2008 the average price of food rose by 56%, with wheat rising by 92% and rice, the staple of half the world, by 96% (article by economist Kaushik Basu BBC News).
The main losers have been poor people who live in cities in developing countries, who have faced higher prices for imported food on low incomes. The World Bank also warned that the high price of food could lead to developing countries missing international poverty targets. The recent dip in prices has provided some relief, but the FAO says 36 countries are still in need of external assistance because of continuing local high prices, crop failures or conflict. The main gainers have been farmers in rich and emerging market nations like the US, Brazil, Argentina, Canada and Australia, who are getting record prices for their harvests.
In the UK, where families spend about 20% of their income on food, compared to 60-80% in many poorer, less economically developed countries, there has been a noticeable change in many people's shopping habits. Changes have included less ‘impulse buying', more shopping around for food bargains, and greater efforts to avoid food waste. The recent ‘credit crunch' has also led to a notable decrease in sales of organic and fairtrade foods, which are often more expensive than non-organic and non-fairtrade products. These online articles in the Telegraph and the Times discuss this downturn, whilst this report suggests that sales of organic foods have been more negatively affected by the credit crunch than sales of fairtrade products.
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