Forgetting all the climate change blather, this is a very serious concern.
Food riots, geopolitical tensions, global inflation and increasing hunger among the planet’s poorest people are the likely effects of a new surge in world food prices, which have hit an all-time high according to the United Nations.
The UN’s index of food prices – an international basket comprising wheat, corn, dairy produce, meat and sugar – stands at its highest since the index started in 1990, surpassing even the peaks seen during the 2008 food crisis, which prompted civil disturbances from Mexico to Indonesia.
“We are entering danger territory,” said the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation’s chief economist, Abdolreza Abbassian.
Global food prices have risen for the sixth month in succession. Wheat has almost doubled since June, sugar is at a 30-year high, and pork is up by a quarter since the beginning of 2010.
As Christians, we need to be ready and act.
January 7, 2011 at 2:00 pm
It is happening here too, even now it is an ever increasingly difficult struggle for me personally to be able to buy enough food to feed my family as prices have skyrocketed in recent months while my family's income has not – and they just cut my husband's hours at his job AGAIN.
January 7, 2011 at 4:05 pm
Wonder what effect "animal rights" terrorists forcing folks with pigs to not use farrowing crates– thus getting many piglets killed by their mothers– had on the pork prices.
January 7, 2011 at 5:14 pm
From what I understand, its got some cause from farmers growing corn for ethanol, instead of as food (for both people and animals). And in some places people are using fertile fields for growing drugs instead of food crops, since drugs are more lucrative.
January 8, 2011 at 4:27 am
federoff9 . . . you got it!
This is what happens when (a) food production is consolidated in agribusinesses hands and (b) when earth-worshiping Greenies lobby and obtain subsidies for food that gets used for fuel.
But we need to lobby for important things, like universal health care that is SO universal, despite a government monopoly, 9% of the population is not being served by the ruse of guaranteed care provision.
Russia will spread her errors throughout the world. When will people, especially Catholics, wake up to the fact that Communism is alive and well on planet earth?
January 8, 2011 at 2:07 pm
There is also the factor of the QE2 and the trillions (yes, Trillions with a T) of dollars the Federal Reserve has ginned up electronically to monetize the debt. This is no small part of the problem as well.
This debt is going into the hands of Goldman Sachs and other big traders, who are using it (at full purchasing power; the dollars decline in values with each hand the money passes to) to hoover-up commodities, including food and oil.
These bubbles are a type of inflation, hidden in plain sight, and effectively kept off the official inflation numbers by being "volatile items".
And since the dollar is the reserve currency, for now, everybody that wants to buy oil and food has to pay in dollars. Thus, we make the whole world pay our inflation tax.