Will there be food shortages in the next decade?

[bruce]

Food cost increase adds £750 to annual bill

Food prices are accelerating at their fastest rate since records began, fuelling a rise in the average family's shopping bill of £750 a year.

Official figures showed wholesale food prices rose by 7.4 per cent in the past 12 months - more than three times the headline rate of inflation.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...5/nfood115.xml

Certainly interesting times ahead.

[screener]

Interesting and curious as well. If food prices have gone up by 7.4 % and that amounts to 750 pounds increase in the average families food bill then the average family is spending in the neighbourhood of 10,000 pounds for food in a year. Tell me it ain't so.

[bruce]

Originally Posted by screener

Interesting and curious as well. If food prices have gone up by 7.4 % and that amounts to 750 pounds increase in the average families food bill then the average family is spending in the neighbourhood of 10,000 pounds for food in a year. Tell me it ain't so.

That's wholesale prices. The average retail price has risen by around 12%, thus making the average food spend around the £6,000 mark. That in itself is quite a rise as the average household spent just £3497 per year on food in 2005 according to http://statistics.defra.gov.uk/esg/s...efsstatnot.pdf

[Besoeker]

Originally Posted by Richard

The European agricultural sector is massively subsidised via the CAP (Common Agricultural Policy). I can't remember the exact figures but the EU spends about half it's budget on the CAP, a total of several tens of billions of £. There have being attempts at reform but these are always blocked by groups with vested interests, especially French farmers who recieve a disproportionate amount of the CAP funding.

I totally agree.
It is the single best reason for UK to get out of the EU.
I posted this elsewhere about a year ago:
"The CAP is just daft.
Pay farmers a guaranteed price to produce stuff regardless of a market for it.
Then, 20 years down the line, realise that supply exceeds demand.
Then pay farmers for NOT producing it.
And this madness consumes nearly half the EU budget.
You'd be hard pressed to invent anything to rival such stupidity.
It's the single best reason to get out of the EU."

Perhaps I should add that I was a farmer's son. The family still has a lot of land. My father and my uncle made out pretty well from the guaranteed market. Both were of the view that it was a flawed idea but made the most of it.

[Haanu]

People don't mind food getting expensive, wait until beer doubles in price. Then the revolt will come

[bruce]

Scarcity of water and arable land means that the boom in food prices could last longer than most expect, a new study has warned.

The report, to be published on Tuesday by the UK-based consultants Bidwells Agribusiness, said the boom – until now fuelled by rising demand from emerging countries and the biofuels industry – would be exacerbated by supply constraints.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/99d5d860-c...0779fd2ac.html

Crops in China are taking a real battering from the cold winter they're having.

But the winter weather is likely to add to the inflationary pressures as damaged crops and hampered distribution push up food prices. The government has already reported 32.7 billion yuan ($4.5 billion) in losses from damage to crops and homes.

http://www.economist.com/world/asia/...ry_id=10608937

[screener]

A couple of interesting comments on some of the reasons why there is high grain prices at the moment.

http://www.busrep.co.za/index.php?fS...icleId=4210449

That farmers have been forced out of growing grains,

Ferreira said the drop in wheat price after deregulation in 1997, and increasing input costs, forced local farmers to downscale or discontinue wheat production.

Eleven years ago, South Africa gathered 2.5 million tons of wheat on 1.3 million hectares, but this season's wheat - planted on just 632 000 hectares - is expected to be just 1.77 million tons.

And that farmers may not be interested in jumping back in because of the costs of production.

According to the Fertiliser Society of South Africa (FSSA), the world price of urea (nitrogen) increased by 46 percent over the past 12 months, diammonium phosphate by 230 percent and sulphur by 700 percent.

[forfi]

Using South Africa is not on.The farmers there ,the good ones anyway,can see a repeat of Zimbabwe just a short way down the road.Starvation is creeping across Africa and it has nothing to do with climate or bio-fuels or world markets.Corruption and ignorance rule that Continent.