Still cheap food

[HiHo]

Was having one of those in car discussions about how how little food costs have gone up over the years (well none taxable items anyway).

It's staggering to think that my Dad used to sell tomatoes at 40p per pound 30 years ago and that was the going rate. Cucumbers were 50p each.

Today you can buy tomatoes in any of the big supermarkets for 60-70 pence per pound. That's on average an inflation rate of 1.6%.

There's an interesting article here which has some figures on prices

www.statistics.gov.uk/articles/economic_trends/ET626_CPI.pdf

Basically on average since 1970, tomatoes as an example have increased by a factor of 4.2 in cost compared to a factor of 18 increase in wages.

No wonder many farmers and small holdings have gone out of business.

[Happy]

well it looks as though the price of food is on the way up and many retailers who sell 'premium' products are feeling the pinch

of course many farmers are now not in that market and are busy selling crops for bio-fuels. yum yum fuel for lunch 

[Webmaster]

Bio-fuels only make up 5% of the crops grown in the world, and even then most of it is now from things like wheat husks that are discards from food crops. What do you suggest we do? Price of food is up because oil prices are up and we like to ship our food halfway around the world instead of buying local, not because a small portion of the land is used for bio-fuel. 

[Happy]

This year ethanol production is forecast to consume 30% or more of 2008's entire US corn crop.

source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jul/03/biofuels.usa

Hardly a trifling and its likely to increase.

the point i was making was that years of low prices for food and the sudden emergence of a cash crop with a almost bottomless money pit has meant a dash for producing bio-fuels for farmers - why wouldn't they? they have faimilies as well.

in order to reduce the oil price we need to replace or find new mineral oil supplies. if we replace them with bio-fuels thats an awful lot of prime land gone.

hell if the price of grain doubles or triples would I starve - no. but millions of people around the world will.

this is also interesting reading

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/13/science_biofuel_reports/

[Webmaster]

how susbstiated are these guardian 'facts'. Having read another 'fact' filled newspaper article about food prices I have no clue what is true or not. This article was talking about how food prices have been ridiculously low for years (think of all those UK milk farms that sold milk at a loss...) and now the market is just catching up. With some crops being good 'cash crops' more people will start to grow them, thus bringing the price down again.

Another fact I heard is that all the wheat, grain and pulses that are grown in the world are done so on an area the size of the UK. Russia for example has about 50% of its land mass suitable for intensive farming, yet only around 2% is actually used. Why is more not used? Cos it hasn't been economically viable in the past. With higher prices maybe this will change?

[Happy]

its true that all media (even the sun    ) have their own 'views' on topic which manifests itself as an agenda. Facts get reported differently highlighting negative rather than positives for example.

That other great bastion of facts http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture#Environmental_impact suggests that 43% of the worlds land area is used for agriculture but mostly cattle.

This is the UN report
http://www.virtualcentre.org/en/library/key_pub/longshad/A0701E00.pdf
Says 26% in the report?! This is non-ice cap maybe Russia is considered perma-frost?

Although I am not a vegetarian surely one of the problems is the inefficient use of land for producing meat rather than fruit and vegetables? Worse than that:

It is one of the largest sources of greenhouse gases—responsible for 18% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions as measured in CO2 equivalents

I don't have the facts to hand but even bio-fuels are not carbon neutral. The carbon required in producing them will add to the problems we have though I would imagine at a slower rate than mineral oils. However, changes in land use can have un-predicted effects on the environment. What would happen to the worlds eco-system if 50% of 'huge' Russia became intensively farmed? Where would all the water come from? I start thinking about space mirrors and directing light at this point and go all Star Trekky...

[Happy]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7493482.stm

the government must have read this thread and determined their policy from it. 

You see Webmaster if you'd have been more against them, all those poor orangutans would have been saved. As it is they are still looking at the issue whilst converting rain forest to palm oil plantations and the US is still making ethanol. Nevermind I can pop down Tesco and get a ready meal (which I will throw half-away) and a toy monkey.

You do wonder how much governments world-wide actually think through policies before implementing them?

[Webmaster]

that orangutang comment is insane!! Okay conservation is important, but we are talking about the possible end of civilisation due to the increase in oil, food and other natural resources. Hopefully if we make sure the orangutangs are okay they will look after us come the downfall of mankind...

[Happy]

planet of the apes, planet of the apes man...of course Charlton Heston is dead.

seriously, the point is that we are potentially swapping Hitler for Stalin. Suddenly the world political establishment is waking up to the fact that mass-production of bio fuels has massive impacts on the environment - duh why does changing rain-forest into palm tress (burning it in doing so) alter the eco-system and hence the environment it is in?

Yes we have to do something (fast) about oil plus other resources but is growing the fuel a better alternative?

Orangutans et al are merely casualties of these changes.

[Webmaster]

biofuels are the only way forward. period. FACT.

Oil is like Lenin, biofuel is like Jack Bauer, with only 24 hours to save the world. Wake up and smell the palm oil plantation!