Global food prices spike 10% in July, thanks largely to drought
grist.orgYesterday, the World Bank announced that global food prices went up substantially in July.
Global food prices soared by 10 percent in July from a month ago, with maize and soybean reaching all-time peaks due to an unprecedented summer of droughts and high temperatures in both the United States and Eastern Europe, according to the World Bank Group’s latest Food Price Watch report.
From June to July, maize and wheat rose by 25 percent each, soybeans by 17 percent, and only rice went down, by 4 percent. Overall, the World Bank’s Food Price Index, which tracks the price of internationally traded food commodities, was 6 percent higher than in July of last year, and 1 percent over the previous peak of February 2011.
Beef price AVG compared to Everyday Plant food price AVG
According to the USDA, the average prices of beef products per pound is as follows:
Ground Chuck: $3.46
Ground Beef: $3.08
Lean & Extra Lean Ground Beef: $4.21
All Uncooked Ground Beef: $3.82
Chuck roast, graded & ungraded not choice or prime: $4.06
Chuck Roast, USDA Choice, Boneless: $4.54
Round Roast, USDA Choice, Boneless: $4.70
Round Roast, graded/ungraded not choice/prime: $4.37
All Uncooked Beef Roasts: $4.74
Steak, Round, USDA Choice: $4.70
Steak, Round, Graded/Ungraded not choice/prime: $4.94
Sirloin Steak, graded/ungraded, not choice/prime: $5.78
Steak, Sirloin, USDA Choice boneless: $6.78
Beef For Stew Boneless: $4.62
All Uncooked Beef Steaks: $6.30
All Uncooked other Beef not Veal: $3.95
Short ribs, any primal source, bone-in: $4.67
AVERAGE PRICE FOR BEEF PER POUND: $4.63
According to the USDA, the average prices of these everyday plant foods per pound is as follows:
Plant food per pound
Black Beans canned: $.79
Black Beans dried: $1.07
Spinach fresh boiled: $3.92
Spinach Frozen: $1.51
Spinach Canned: $.84
Mushroom Sliced: $4.02
Lettuce Romance: $1.95
Kale Fresh: $2.19
Lentils Dried: $1.02
Avocado: $2.50
Oranges Fresh: $.57
Apples Fresh: $1.07
Bananas Fresh: $.45
Strawberries Fresh: $2.28
Corn Fresh: $1.80
Green Peas Frozen: 1.34
Broccoli Frozen: $1.47
AVERAGE PRICE FOR EVERYDAY VEGETABLES AND FRUITS: $1.69
HAITI : Soaring prices of basic commodities in Haitian street markets
albared.orgSoaring Food Prices in Haiti
By Ricardo Pierre Placide, Le Matin
translated from the French by Dady Chery, Haiti Chery
http://www.dadychery.org/2012/08/14/soaring-food-prices-in-haiti/
The two carnivals organized by President Martelly seem not to have brought any “well being” to the population, which continues to see its living standard deteriorate. Now Haitian households face soaring prices for essential commodities while more than ¾ live below the poverty line.
An open-air market in Port-au-Prince, Haiti on January 26, 2010
(Photo credit: Thony Belizaire/AFP/Getty Images).
For over two months, many Haitian households, especially the poorest, have faced an unprecedented increase in the prices of essential commodities: a situation with negative effects on both the budget they allocate to feed their families and their standard of living. Bienheureuse Lucienne, a 47-year old mother of three says that nowadays she has to increase by nearly 40% the budget she allocates to food so as to maintain the same diet for her children.
This statement is supported by a young vendor Marietta Etienne at Cross bouquets Market who explained that:
- A crate of eggs that formerly sold for 1,500 gourdes now costs 2100 (from $35 to $49), an increase of 40.0%.
- Same situation for a 25-pound bag of rice that sold for 850 gourdes and has already reached the level of 1000 gourdes (from $20 to $23).
- While the price of sugar increased from 1850 to 2450 gourdes (from $43 to $57).
- In addition, the bag of flour that was selling at 1350 now costs 2,100 gourdes (from $31 to $49, a 58% increase).
[Haitian unemployment is currently 80%, and those employed earn about $3.50 per day, although the official minimum wage is $5.00 per day. DC]
This price boom has created a situation of poor sales for the vendors.
“Before the price increase, business wasn’t the best, but the situation became worse in recent days,”
reported Marietta Etienne.
“For two days, my products can no longer find any takers, and I know that the price increase has a lot to do with it. Before, we used to sell a few cans of rice [about 2 cups] and other products daily, but now selling a can has become a real challenge for vendors,” she added.
Although for most vendors, this observed increase in the price of goods dates from only two weeks, the last two reports published by the Haitian Institute of Statistics and Information (IHSI), reported this upward trend months ago.
Indeed, during the month of May the cost of line item “Food, Beverages and Tobacco” was thought to increase by 0.3% , with the main products being rice (0.7%), millet (0, 9%), corn grain (1.7%), beef (1.1%), pork (1.4%), ham (4.4%), fresh fish ( 1.2%), dried fish (3.4% on average) and potato (0.4%).
And during the month of June, the increase in the consumption line item went from 0.3% to 0.9% per month. Again, the main products that contributed to this significant increase were rice (0.6%), bread (6.0%), red herring (5.1%), salted herring (9.0%), cod (4.3%), unsweetened evaporated milk (3.1%), onion (3.1%), tomato (4.6%), yam (3.3%), breadfruit (2.0%), raw sugar (1.9%), and refined sugar (3.4%).
This comes while the country recently organized two carnivals within the year: one in Cayes, the other in Port-au-Prince. The organization of this cultural event was attacked by various sectors of national life, which criticized the head of state for not addressing the priorities of the Haitian people, who are unemployed and hungry.
Commodity prices may continue to climb, given the prevailing global trends.
First there is the political climate that continues to deteriorate in the Arab world: major oil producer. This could contribute to a rise in oil prices and make imported products much more expensive for smaller countries such as Haiti.
Second, it is customary in Haiti for every rainy season to cause huge losses of certain products, which would not work in favor of Haitian agriculture and even less for households. As the return to school approaches, many people are asking what strategy will be adopted by team Martelly to make the lives of Haitians “rosier”.
[A Martelly campaign promise. DC]
Pattern Recognition - Food Crisis News - June 22, 2011
It’s been a month or so since I did an environmental scan on food prices, shortages, and commodities. Let’s see if anything has changed.
Ummm, nope.
Food Prices will remain high
Agencies See Decade of High Food Prices- June 17, 2011
LONDON—Food prices will be up to 30% higher on average over the next decade as slowing grains production fails to keep pace with rising demand, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said Friday.
High Food Prices Here To Stay - June 17, 2011
The report predicts that prices will be 20 percent higher for cereals and up to 30 percent higher for meat in the coming decade compared to the past ten years.
It will specifically hit poor people who now already spend up to 80 percent of their income on food. “People are going be forced, either to literally eat less, or find other sources of income,” Gurria said.
Record prices linked to bio-fuels…yet again - June 17, 2011
The biofuels industry is being blamed for record food prices and high price volatility. Earlier this month a report from the World Trade Organization and other international agencies recommended that governments cut support for biofuels to ease that volatility. On the heels of that report, the U.S. Department of Agriculture issued its corn forecast; it suggested that corn supplies will be very tight this year because bad weather has limited planting and because the share of corn going to ethanol is increasing. After the report, corn prices shot to record highs, reaching $8 a bushel. Then on Friday, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development released a report predicting that food prices will remain high for the next decade.
Many experts say the unprecedented prices are at least partially driven by government subsidies and mandates that have led to fourfold increases in production of ethanol biofuel and tenfold increases in production of biodiesel between 2000 and 2009 worldwide.
Governments scramble for solutions
Volatile Food Prices Grab G-20’s Full Attention - June 22, 2011
David Nabarro, a food security expert with the United Nations, says that for decades governments thought they didn’t have to worry about agriculture, because prices stayed even or dropped. But 2008 changed all that.
“Food became an issue that was of central political importance to presidents [and] heads of governments,” Nabarro says. “In addition, we found that food production systems were getting intertwined with environmental issues and climate change. So food and agriculture has now become a big political issue.”
Food Reserves Could Come Back Into Vogue- June 16, 2011
Facing increasing hunger, market unpredictability, and food price volatility, world leaders have shown interest to resuming the practice of food stores.
At the G-20 meeting last month in Rome, leaders discussed developing an emergency reserve system, aimed at servicing the most vulnerable countries.
Uganda struggles with plans to reduce inflation and food shortage - June 16, 2011
IMPLEMENTATION of the National Development Plan (NDP) and the Agriculture Sector Investment Plan will not solve food shortage, low income and inflation. To deal with inflation, you need to stabilise agricultural supply and control food prices.
Studies on Uganda’s food supply predict a food deficit by 2030. Countries that experience food insecurity experience high levels of poverty.
U.S. Agency for International Development hosts 300 researchers for “Feed the Future” forum - June 22, 2011
Is this a food crisis? Are we in a crisis?
SHAH (Administrator of USAID): It’s absolutely a precarious situation. We know that food security is critical to our national security, and I will build on David’s point and suggest that the food riots and famines and failed states that are the consequences of a lack of access to food are far more costly and problematic to deal with over time than making smart targeted investments and helping countries develop their agricultural systems, become real trading partners and move big huge proportions of their population out of a condition of poverty and hunger.
Climate Change continues to wreak havoc with crop production
China food prices spike as floods ruin farmland - June 20, 2011
(Reuters) - Torrential rain across southern and eastern China which has killed more than 100 people and triggered the evacuation of half a million has left large areas of farmland devastated as food prices surge, state media said on Sunday.
KENYA: Severe drought, high food prices hit pastoralists - June 16, 2011
NAIROBI, (IRIN) - Successive poor rains coupled with rising food and fuel prices are leading to a worsening food security situation with alarming levels of acute malnutrition being recorded in drought affected parts of Kenya, mainly in the north of the country, say experts.
Extreme weather moves on to agenda at the 21st World Conference on Disaster Management (WCDM)- June 17, 2011
the 21st World Conference on Disaster Management (WCDM), to be held in Toronto Sunday, June 19, through Wednesday.
Nearly 1,500 government officials, scientists and businesspeople from 40 different countries will participate.
Top of mind will be the expected world food crisis that all this extreme weather is already causing, driving harvests down and prices up to record levels.
“When the major networks become weather networks, and when other news becomes sort of secondary, we are facing disaster,” says Lester Brown, founder and president of the Washington-based Earth Policy Institute, who will be the WCDM’s opening speaker. “When you have a lot of local disasters, droughts and floods and heat waves as we’re now having, reducing the food supply, then you have a global disaster.”
Extreme Circumstances require Extreme Measures?
Long held rumors of North Korean cannibalism sparked by food shortages appear to have been confirmed:
Leaked North Korean files reveal citizens selling human flesh for food - June 19, 2011
Notably, five cases related to cannibalism were also included in the manual. Stories about starving North Koreans eating human flesh have been considered rumors, but recent discoveries in the manual may prove otherwise, triggering more speculations about the food shortage crisis in North Korea.
One case involved a guard named Lee Man-sung, who killed his roommate with an axe when he was sleeping, ate part of the corpse and then sold the rest on the market describing it as lamb meat.
But WAIT, there’s good news. Corporate funded Japanese scientists may have found a solution.
Let’s feed them “shit burgers”. There’s never any shortage of feces right?
Japan scientist synthesizes meat from human feces - June 15, 2011
Japanese scientists have actually discovered a way to create edible steaks from human feces.
Mitsuyuki Ikeda, a researcher from the Okayama Laboratory, has developed steaks based on proteins from human excrement. Tokyo Sewage approached the scientist because of an overabundance of sewage mud. They asked him to explore the possible uses of the sewage and Ikeda found that the mud contained a great deal of protein because of all the bacteria.
The researchers then extracted those proteins, combined them with a reaction enhancer and put it in an exploder which created the artificial steak. The “meat” is 63% proteins, 25% carbohydrates, 3% lipids and 9% minerals. The researchers color the poop meat red with food coloring and enhance the flavor with soy protein. Initial tests have people saying it even tastes like beef.
That’s it folks. North Koreans are resorting to eating each other and “Big Sewage” seriously wants to feed us our own shit. Mission accomplished.
Global action plan aims to rein in surging food prices
theglobeandmail.comAgriculture ministers representing both the world’s advanced and emerging economies have agreed on an action plan to combat out-of-control global food prices, which have been growing steadily more volatile since 2008.
Here’s what the plan includes:
- a system to track food stock holdings by governments, big agribusiness, and other large commodities holders, to improve transparency and reduce misinformed speculation
- emergency humanitarian food reserves to be handled by the (highly competent) World Food Program
- a pledge to remove food export restrictions and most taxes on food purchased for aid purposes
- risk management programs to help countries with very undeveloped economies engage with global food markets
These are all great ideas. The first one will hopefully limit speculative bubbles, the second one will prevent people starving to death, and the third and fourth ones will ideally help producers in poor countries produce more and get paid more for it. So if this is implemented, it should make a serious difference.
Here’s what the plan doesn’t include:
- action on massive subsidies to biofuels production from food crops, which economists widely agree has driven up food prices (and created dangerous linkages between food and energy prices)
- any adaptation to address climate change
- details on how private companies will be involved with disclosure of their food stocks to the centralized system
This is probably inevitable, because it’s a political compromise. Maybe some future plan will address these issues, but hopefully we can get there without more massive food price spikes.
Dining at the dollar store might be cheap, but you can feel the effects on more than just your pocketbook
thestar.comA friend sent this link along — a Toronto Star reporter spent a week eating nothing but food he could purchase at Dollarama.
If Spurlock could make an entire documentary out of eating Big Macs for 30 days, I figured I could at least spend a week solely eating at my favourite store, Dollarama. What better place to shop during a recession?
Bank of Canada Gov. Mark Carney has said we have taken on too much debt as consumers are retrenching their spending habits.
Eating only Dollarama food would be a commentary on the stock market downturn, of food banks and the need for a living wage, the globalization of the food product industry, trans fats and poverty and the rise of chronic disease. At least that’s what I pitched to the editor.
Have a look at the photo with the article: that is a LOT of sodium.
Apparently, for some people, the dollar store is increasingly subbing in as a grocery store.
The food selection though has exploded over the years. The dollar store always had a five-star snack-food aisle. But now it’s stocked with enough ready-to-eat meals to keep 2012 apocalypse types happy.
The variety is incredible. And there are even brand names like Snapple and E.D. Smith. But mostly it is a bunch of stuff made in Egypt and Portugal with names I’ve never heard of. I marvel at the miracle of the supply chain that something that could be made in Egypt can still be sold for a buck in Canada. I also wonder what the heck they put in it.
Wong points out that for some people, Dollarama food is not an experiment; it’s just what they can afford.
The Dollarama in downtown Toronto’s Moss Park neighbourhood is in one of the more destitute areas of the city. About a third of households are designated low income.
Here you become acutely aware that while I’m eating Dollarama food for a week, some people have no other choice. Or some are lucky if they can afford Dollarama at all.
Dylan, a 32-year-old panhandler on the sidewalk, says he sometimes goes in for a treat when he’s got enough in the orange plastic beach pail he uses to solicit loose change.
“I like their biscuits and chocolate bars, but I’d rather go to Tim Hortons for real food,” he says.
That makes me really sad.
As Wong found, his Dollarama diet was good for his budget but bad in other ways. First casualty: taste.
The picture on the box looks great. Inside, there is a foil pouch with toppings and a plastic pouch with noodles.
The toppings look nothing like the picture. More like a salty brown gravy sludge. The noodles taste like Play Doh.
I offer it to my wife, Sharon. “Seriously, I’m going to throw up,” she says.
Next casualty: a reasonable fat intake.
I’m indulging in some butterfly cookies, about 18 of them for $1.25.
They’re not bad, but a serving of just two cookies equals almost a quarter of my saturated fat intake at 2 grams. It also has 5 grams of trans fat.
Springle says trans fats are the devil. She suggests 2 grams max.
I forget to tell her that I have already eaten eight of them.
And then, the irritability comes.
Sharon is eating a spinach salad. So much for team spirit. She says I’m getting cranky and moody eating all of this processed food.
“I wouldn’t eat your stupid salad if you offered it to me,” I tell her.
“You’re stupid,” she says.
“No, you’re stupid,” I reply as I plow into my Mr. Moo Chips ‘N Cheese Ready To Eat Fun Snack.
Hooray, now it’s time for constipation!
But despite the fibre in the noodles, my bowels are completely blocked. Springle warned me that a lack of fibre means that you can lock up at any time.
Note to Dollarama: Stock Metamucil. You’ll make a killing.
Wong concludes that you can actually find some decent-tasting food at Dollarama — good news for those who shop there out of necessity. But the lack of fresh produce, the high sodium and saturate fat counts, and the near-total absence of fibre is not a happy story for those who have to eat like this a majority of the time. There’s got to be a better alternative.
Extreme Weather Means Extreme Food Prices Worldwide, Aid Agency Warns
npr.orgReducing greenhouse gases and saving the polar bears tend to dominate discussions on climate change. But to the booming world population, one climate change issue may be even more pressing – hunger.
A new report by a leading international relief agency warns that climate change will increase the risk of large spikes in global food prices in the future, and lead to more hungry people in the world. That’s because extreme weather like droughts, floods and heat waves are predicted to become much more frequent as the planet heats up.
“Our planet is boiling and if we don’t act now, hunger will increase for millions of people on our planet,” says Heather Coleman, climate change policy adviser for Oxfam America, which released the report today.
