Era of cheap food ends as prices surge

[phantom power]

Families have been warned that the prices of basic foods will rise steeply again because of acute shortages in commodity markets.

Experts told The Times yesterday that prices of rice, wheat and vegetable oil would rise further. They also forecast that high prices and shortages — which have caused riots in developing countries such as Bangladesh and Haiti — were here to stay, and that the days of cheap produce would not return. Food-price inflation has already pushed up a typical family’s weekly shopping bill by 15 per cent in a year.

(...)

John Bason, finance director of Associated British Foods, one of Britain’s biggest food producers, said that wheat prices had doubled in a year and supermarkets would have to raise the price of bread again. Vegetable oil was also likely to soar in price because the price of corn oil in the US had almost tripled, he said.

Poor harvests and fierce competition for food supplies has already meant the price of eggs, rice, bread and pasta in supermarkets has rocketed.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/consumer_goods/article3799327.ece

[lapfog_1]

1. We don't eat food... we are eating cheap oil. Welcome to the end of cheap oil. - n/t

[liberal N proud]

2. Will we hear the term "Peak Food" like we have Peak Oil?

On second thought, I think I will Copyright that

Peak Food - copyright

Peak Food the point where people starve the world over because they can no longer afford the food they need to eat. This can be directly contributed to the Peak Oil that had driven the prices out of touch.

[phantom power]

3. I regret to inform you that we have prior art on "peak food"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=266&topic_id=2074&mesg_id=2078

[liberal N proud]

4. Oh well

[eleny]

5. Great minds..... you know!

[liberal N proud]

17. Yup!

And besides, it's not like some lawyer wouldn't steal it anyway for some mega corp

[eleny]

6. The first news story on the radio at the top of this hour was about rice

On the radio news they said that Walmart was going to limit sales of certain types of rice like basmati to 4 bags per customer. And then they said that there wasn't a shortage here in the U.S. Sounds like they're anticipating a shortage at some point.

[phantom power]

7. It's been interesting, reading some reactions to this.

There's been a flurry of angry denial, along the lines of "This isn't rationing!!!!1!111!"

I beg to differ. When people are being limited to buying a certain amount of something, that's rationing. The fact that it's being done on an individual basis by certain stores, as opposed to a central govt, doesn't seem that relevant to me. Particularly our govt, which mostly defers to corporate rule anyway, thus blurring any possible difference.

[eleny]

9. Stores often put a limit on sale items, as you know

I found it curious that Wally would start limiting the sale of specialty rices. It's made me suspicious that it's just another gimmick to cause a rush on a product. Then they get people in the stores who will buy other items.

I never shop there since it's not the only store in our area. But even I had that split second thought that maybe I ought to go get some rice. And I rarely use rice in my cooking! So now I'm getting squinty-eyed suspicious about this no matter how very real the issue is right now. Maybe because the issue isn't a food shortage around the world but the fact is that the prices are beyond what the poor can pay.

[phantom power]

11. I consider these stories in context of...

recent crop failures world-wide, and the often-discussed decline in grain reserves since about 2000, which shows a zero-intercept sometime, errrr, this year.

The world's food supplies are failing. Just like the world's oil and gas supplies are failing. My own take is that people would prefer to believe that it's just some kind of enron-like agricultural scam, because that's less scary: that would imply there is a solution.

[eleny]

14. Thanks for that

I appreciate your clarification and take a serious lesson from it.

If things made sense, then Walmart ought to be storing staples and anticipating a distribution in the near future that took the well being of people into consideration. But this current limit on rice sales in their stores seems to me that they might just be trying to create a run on it thereby garnering a fast profit. And be damned what happens later this year and on into the future. A sort of "get while the getting is good" mentality. That could be in keeping with their greedy policies.

[phantom power]

16. I think there are a lot of moving parts...

Corporations can and do price-gouge, or run Enron-like scams. There is commodities speculation, which for sure adds something to the prices of oil, food, etc. And of course we have our borrow-and-spend fiscal policy coming home to roost, devaluing the dollar. So, people are understandably upset about that kind of thing.

But still... underneath all of that, resources are failing. That's going to continue driving all those other things on the surface.

[depakid]

33. Oh yeah, they do -especially in Britain and Australia

The British oligopoly: Sainsbury & Tesco along with Asda and Safeway are notorious for price fixing as well as paying local producers a pittance, and then passing along huge mark ups to the consumer.

The Competition Commission occasionally fines them- but that's about it.

In Australia there are basically two who control most of the market: Coles and Woolies do much the same (food prices on some items will just blow you away). There's also a bit of trouble with corrupt middlemen- Italian mafia in fruits and vegetables and Greeks with fish.

See: Major Supermarket giants force higher grocery prices

http://retailnu.wordpress.com/2008/03/26/majors-supermarket-giants-force-higher-grocery-prices-association/

The Rudd government's Competition and Consumer Commission has also launched an inquiry, though my cynical view is that they're not likely to much about the fundamental problems, either.

Interestingly enough, I just read an ethanol apologist in the Portland Tribune, who offered up this bullet point:

"Corporate profits can be an excuse to hike prices. Kroger: fourth-quarter 2007 sales up 10 percent and profits up 18 percent. Safeway: sales up 3 percent, profits up 12 percent."

http://www.portlandtribune.com/opinion/story.php?story_id=120881696082388100

Seems to me that the consolidation in the supermarket business portends several very pernicious trends that hampers community food security nearly as much as the ill conceived (and subsidized) rush to biofuels.

[Dogtown]

12. A nice distinction, pp

Your definition clarifies the issue completely.
:toast:

Another 1st Bush brought us: privatization of rationing.

[Shoelace]

20. Costco too, just heard on tv this am

they are going to limit how much flour, rice, various other staples people can buy because there's been a recent run on these staples.
With these news blurbs coming out, watch everybody rush to buy staples, drive prices way up.
We've already stocked up as much as we can reasonable keep from going bad.

[eleny]

23. Yeah, there's just so much that can be stocked up

Flour doesn't have all that long a shelf life unless it's frozen. And that's limited, too. The long haul is going to be interesting.

[Shoelace]

29. here's a really good site to check out shelf life of grains, legumes, etc.

just found it and think I'll hang out there, see what I can learn. In my Hippie days, we stored Lentils, dried peas, etc., with success even in warm temps.
Rice and beans as they say in - hmmm, I guess that's everywhere now eh?lol.

http://standeyo.com/News_Files/Food/Extend_Shelf_Life.html

[eleny]

31. Thanks!

Sorry for the delay in responding. I needed to get to the grocery and to drop off the recycles, too (they were stacking up around here!).

I want to make a printed chart out of the info at that site. It would be good to tape to the inside of a cabinet door. Very helpful. Thanks again.

[angstlessk]

8. SO, the logical thing is for WAGES TO RAISE to meet the new food prices

now that NOT A SINGLE PERSON ON EARTH can subsist on $1.00 per day...we must raise the GLOBAL WAGE AND KICK CAPITALIST MANTRA THAT GROWTH IS THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS!!!

[The2ndWheel]

13. So the answer to capitalist mantra that growth is the only thing that matters

is growth?

[angstlessk]

25. From everything I have ever read, if you do not grow as a corporation

you fail. Are you saying growth (in sales-profits) is not required of a capilitistic society??

[The2ndWheel]

34. No way, absolutely not

I was saying that growth in wages for a growing number of people is growth. How is growth and answer to growth?

[GliderGuider]

27. It's not just a capitalist mantra

Name one economic ideology that has operated in the last few hundred years that didn't have growth as its core assumption. Communism, socialism, capitalism (free market and regulated), even feudalism -- all bow to the god of growth.

The only economies that don't seem to are tribal economies.

Read Daniel Quinn (Ishmael, Story of B) to find out why.

[kentauros]

10. Sounds like it's past time for vertical farms...

The Vertical Farm Project

:)

[eleny]

18. Do you remember that BBC tv program "Good Neighbors"?

A couple in an upper middle class neighborhood till up all the grass in their yard, bring in some small animals and grow their own food. The program was shown on U.S. PBS stations back in the 80s.

Btw, thanks for the link. I've saved the page. I can see building those kind of agricultural structures here in Colorado on the eastern plaines with all the sun and wind.

[kentauros]

30. I'm not familiar with the show..

You'd never be able to do that in this country due to Home Ownership Associations. Perhaps progressives will get into those organizations and ammend the rules so people can use their land for growing food, too. Maybe even win awards from the association for the most profitable use of available land ;)

You're welcome for the link. I originally learned about it over on Treehugger.com sometime last year :)

[eleny]

32. Or maybe community gardens built into a development

There's a senior living place that I pass when I go to the supermarket. Apartment living with the meals offered in the dining room. You've probably seen those. Anyhow, this one is on a nice piece of ground. One section of the greenery that surrounds the place was set aside as a huge garden plot for residents to grow what they want. It could easily have been made into parking but they tried something different. Nice to see what's planted from year to year.

[orangerevolution]

15. How do people in other countries afford

to buy food. Was on one of the islands in the Bahamas this spring and food prices are DOUBLE to what we pay in the USA.

People were still eating well. What are food prices in other countries and how do the people afford to buy food.

[eleny]

19. I guess, in part, the food riots tell us that they can't all afford it

Interesting that you mentioned the Bahamas. Somewhere around here at DU I read about the Bahamas in the past couple of days. The article pointed out that visitors to the Bahamas don't see the underbelly. Many only see the tourist areas and don't see the intense poverty that does exist there.
:shrug:

[orangerevolution]

21. Bahamas are made up of many islands

we stayed on an island less travelled. So I am speaking from first hand experience.

While there, we saw no food riots, nor heard of any.

Are there food riots in the USA or Bahamas I have not heard about?

What is it that you speak about?

[eleny]

22. I didn't mean to say that there were food riots in the Bahamas

Sorry that it sounded that way. Just that there was poverty. I guess that wherever you were, you didn't see the poverty that was touched on in the article someone posted here at DU.

Here is an article from last month that illustrates issues of poverty in the Bahamas. ---> http://www.jonesbahamas.com/?c=45&a=16462

[orangerevolution]

24. Like I said, an Island less traveled

no high rise tourist hotels, no tourist stuff made in china.

Food was bought at an american equivalent of a convenience store. Prices were double what we pay here in the USA.

Is this reflective of food prices in other countries. So I ask again, how do people survive in other countries if they are paying double for the same thing we have here in the USA?

[eleny]

26. I have to suppose that people buy less and eat less unless they grow their own

If that's not it I guess one would need to ask those people directly. By that I mean no sarcasm. You ask a serious question.

Living here in Colorado I can't answer your question and can only rely on articles like the one I posted for you. Perhaps a DUer like "malaise" can shed light on this since she lives in Kingston, Jamaica.

[NickB79]

28. Still waiting for the Invisible Hand to come along and drop off those bags of rice

Any day now.....

[hatrack]

35. So, still waiting for an Invisible Hand-job?

:evilgrin: