the global food price crisis

greenlagirl — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 16:57:33 -0500

Something that might interest you: The Washington Post put together a nice series about the Global Food Crisis
-- a more apt name for which would be a Global Food PRICE crisis, as Michael Tobis points out.

For a shorter primer, read Tom Philpott's quick rundown in Grist. I find these sorts of macro articles helpful in wrapping my head around the issue --

Emerald City
green LA girl

People are miffed...

nelle2nelle — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 18:46:54 -0500

about the cost of fuel. Concerned about the rising price and potential shortages of food...

but if you really wish to hear some noise, wait until the average 6 pack of domestic beer cracks $10.

There will be pictures of Che Guevara superimposed on images of beer popping up on telephone poles across the country.

;-)

nelle

about that rice...

kazari — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 18:30:29 -0500

we had a giggle the first time the australian drought was blamed for a global shortage of rice. but it's not silly any more.

the australian rice crop at it's best provides around 2% of global rice supply. if it collapsed in a heap, the price of rice IN australia would probably rise, but i don't think it would make a difference anywhere else. except for the rice farmers.

We talked about this a lot over the weekend

Denise — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 14:44:43 -0500

At some point during our travels, we heard something on the radio or saw something in the news about the "rice shortage" and then I saw something else about China and fuel and even more rice shortages. And there are people buying up all of the rice in Costco because of this shortage.

It's all crazy and I keep clicking articles trying to make sense of it all.

These links, they're feeding my need to sort all of this out. Thank you kindly for posting them.

~Denise
BlogHer Community Manager

Flamingo House Happenings

At a Loss for Words: The Global Food Crisis

Alanna Kellogg — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 14:07:14 -0500

Tea from the food blog Tea & Cookies is struggling to write about food. It's not that she's been too busy. It's not that she's uninspired. With poignance, Tea shares a writer's greatest agony, No Words.

"I was all ready to put up a post —- really I was. It was one of my usuals: some sort of cooking quest, a couple of foibles along the way, a recipe at the end. ...

I was all ready to do it, then I started reading the paper.

Food shortages are the news of the day—real, serious food shortages. There’s the drought in Australia that’s shutting down rice mills. The country of Japan has run out of butter. And then there’s Haiti. ...

How can I write about silly kitchen escapades when people are eating dirt, trying to calm their aching bellies?"

~ Keep reading No Words

The food crisis, rising grocery prices, food shortages, food rationing -- whatever you call it, whatever the words used to describe it -- concerns, worries and outright fear are beginning to appear amid the English-language food blogs.

At his column at Spot-On, personal chef Kevin Weeks of Seriously Good first noticed the rise in food prices two years ago.

"I was acutely aware of the trend because I was watching the average food costs for my clients climb from 30 percent to 40 percent by the end of last summer. Because I charge a flat rate for food and service I was also watching my income decline. So last August I bumped my prices up. I'm already almost back to a 40 percent food cost."

~ Keep reading The Cost of Eating

Back in January, The Jew & The Carrot expressed how difficult it is to believe that a food crisis is even happening.

"Many of us are very conscious of what we eat, where it comes from, and how it is produced. We do what we can in our communities by supporting CSAs, local farmers markets, buying not toxic household cleaning products etc. While we are aware on some level of why these choices are important, I find that it is often hard to see the big picture. It’s difficult for me to wrap my head around the extent to which there is a global food crisis emerging all around us. Because we live in one of the wealthiest countries in the world, in many ways this reality has not yet hit home."

~ What New York Times piece provoked the question? Keep reading The Big Picture.

Sarah at The Real Potato compares what's happening worldwide to her experience when switching to a gluten-free diet.

"A few years ago, when I started eating a strict gluten-free diet, my grocery bill tripled. I was shocked at having to pay $6 for a loaf of bread, and began using a bread maker to try to cut costs. Gluten-eating friends and family were invariably horrified when I told them how much gluten-free bread cost. Today, a $6 loaf of bread isn’t uncommon. The price of flour has risen 40.6% this quarter ..."

~ Keep reading Up, Up, and Away: Food Prices Soaring Worldwide

U.S. Food Policy loves the intellectual challenge of rising food prices.

"Nothing makes a geeky food policy student like me more excited than seeing the NYTimes writing about cross-price elasticities of demand ..."

~ What is the cross-elasticity of demand? Keep reading Will global food prices keep us healthy?

Luisa from The Wednesday Chef moaned about keeping track of fish, then gave herself a comeuppance.

"The forces of food politics, nutrition and food safety, and environmental responsibility are feeling insurmountable these days. ... the moment I start to complain about this, I want to punch myself squarely in the face, because food shortages are looming the world over, not to speak of general impoverishment and hunger, and am I really whingeing about the fact that we have abundant food that's not entirely up to my (picky, though I prefer to say exacting) standards at our disposal?"

~ Keep reading Madhur Jaffrey's Baked Cod in Yogurt Sauce

Karen Coates is the Asia correspondent for Gourmet but is now attempting to reclaim a piece of land in New Mexico.

"It’s hard to feel optimistic about the Earth these days, what with all the news of climate change, toxic bottles, biofuel, a worldwide food crisis and contaminated blood thinner made from Chinese pigs. I feel like I’m never going to win this battle to respect this Earth and all its living creatures. I ride my bike along the Rio Grande, marveling at the season’s first whiptails, sniffing the sweet cottonwoods that haven’t been crowded out by invasive elms. I watch birds ducking through the trees. Then I sadly look to the scummy residue along the riverbank—evidence of so much fertilizer and pesticides dumped on nearby farms."

~ How does Karen resolve her pessimism? Keep reading Earth Thoughts from Rambling Spoon

Stacey from Just Braise isn't overwhelmed, she's mad.

"... a few pages of my adult That Makes Me Mad! would cover rising food prices, global warming / the environmental crisis, and other current chatter – That Makes Me Mad! D forwarded me this article ... about rice shortages in Haiti and how the country could once feed itself – before the U.S. stepped in to 'help'. It’s happened in other countries and well, That Makes Me Mad!"

~ What childhood book inspires Stacey's expression of anger? Keep reading Some Food Makes Me Mad.

A Lucid Spoonful thinks higher prices are just fine.

"I say it's about time we paid more and expected better quality. Unfortunately what is feeding the masses are mono-crops like wheat, corn, soy and rice. In being so reliant on pockets of producers, we've put all of our eggs into one basket and we are crossing our fingers."

~ What movie helps this New York writer recommend for concerned world citizens? Keep reading Worldwide Food Crisis

Writer Jennifer Jeffrey moves fluidly from food to garbage.

"... the garbage problem is deeply sobering. ... all of us instinctively understand that our garbage doesn’t magically disappear. I know this. You know this. But writing about it and talking about it is a bummer; we'd all rather think about something else, like ice cream. Or chocolate. But somehow, acknowledging the garbage - talking about it, smelling it, watching the rats scurry over it - is strangely liberating. I'd rather live in a world where the nasty, smelly stuff is talked about. Hidden, it is toxic. Hidden, it seeps into waterways + dinner plates + arteries and rots us from the inside out. Exposed, we can figure out a way to clean it up."

~ Keep reading The Garbage You Can't See from Jennifer Jeffrey

Finally, on a lighter note, the bark for calm from the Resident Dog at Foodgoat

"I have heard a great deal of anxious talk in the last few days among the humans about food rationing. Now, this is not a new issue among dogs. I have known several dogs who advocated the food hoarding lifestyle, including a husky who insisted on burying every bone in the backyard. It's understandable, after all, a dog has to have contingency plans. However, it's messy, the humans for some reason get generally displeased by the digging and stashing away, and there are freshness issues."

~ Keep reading The Pack Will Provide

And what about you, your food choices, your food blog?
How are skyrocketing grocery costs changing your choices, your habits and your blog? For most of us, this is brand-new, something we've hardly thought about before, let alone faced head-on. How are you coping? How are you coping?

UPDATE Are you wondering how the food crisis has erupted so suddenly? So are lots of people. Economists blame a 'perfect storm' both unpredicted and shocking in its rapid onset: the increasing wealth in China and India, spurring the adoption of a Western-style diet and especially the consumption of meat; the transfer of corn-production resources to biofuels from feed for cattle, hogs and poultry; drought and other weather conditions across the world but especially in Australia which is the #2 exporter of wheat. This Paul Krugman editorial entitled Grains Gone Wild is a good introduction to the economic thinking.

BlogHer food editor Alanna Kellogg thinks about grocery costs every single day and believes that a good place to start is to Never Buy Salad Dressing Again.

BlogHer - At a Loss for Words: The Global Food Crisis - Comments

the global food price crisis

People are miffed...

about that rice...

We talked about this a lot over the weekend

At a Loss for Words: The Global Food Crisis