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Mon, 07 Apr 2008

World Wide Food Crisis - Grains Gone Wild, by Paul Krugman

Published on Monday, April 7, 2008 by The New York Times

"These days you hear a lot about the world financial crisis. But there's another world crisis under way - and it's hurting a lot more people."

"I'm talking about the food crisis. Over the past few years the prices of wheat, corn, rice and other basic foodstuffs have doubled or tripled, with much of the increase taking place just in the last few months. High food prices dismay even relatively well-off Americans - but they're truly devastating in poor countries, where food often accounts for more than half a family's spending."

"There have already been food riots around the world. Food-supplying countries, from Ukraine to Argentina, have been limiting exports in an attempt to protect domestic consumers, leading to angry protests from farmers - and making things even worse in countries that need to import food."

How did this happen? The answer is a combination of long-term trends, bad luck - and bad policy.

SV Note: Food doesn't yet cost half my income, but it is by far the biggest expense in my budget. That's with eating simply, cooking most of my own food from scratch, buying bulk, buying local whenever possible, and keeping a garden. But we still eat far better than most people in the world, mainly because of all the cheap imported food that's available - cheap relative to the actual social, environmental, and economic costs of producing and transporting it.

Read Paul Krugman's article, Grains Gone Wild, to find out why cheap food, like cheap oil may be a thing of the past.