Hungry world: Economic pressures raise prices for food worldwide, even in developed countries

[AlphaCentauri]

Source: AP

If your grocery bill is going up, you're not alone.
From subsistence farmers eating rice in Ecuador to gourmets feasting on escargot in France, consumers worldwide face rising food prices in what analysts call a perfect storm of conditions.
Freak weather is a factor. But so are dramatic changes in the global economy, including higher oil prices, lower food reserves and growing consumer demand in China and India.

The world's poorest nations still harbor the greatest hunger risk. But food protests now crop up in Italy, as well as in Burkina Faso and Cameroon. While the price of spaghetti has doubled in Haiti, the cost of miso is packing a hit in Japan.

"It's not likely that prices will go back to as low as we're used to," said Abdolreza Abbassian, economist and secretary of the Intergovernmental Group for Grains for the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, or FAO. "Currently, if you're in Haiti, unless the government is subsidizing consumers, consumers have no choice but to cut consumption. It's a very brutal scenario, but that's what it is."

No one knows that better than Eugene Thermilon, 30, a Haitian day laborer who can no longer afford pasta to feed his wife and four children since the price nearly doubled to 57 cents a bag. Their only meal on a recent day was two cans of corn grits.



Read more: http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/business/stories/2008/04/09/fighting_for_food_2_2.ART_ART_04-09-08_C8_G49S65E.html?type=rss&cat=&sid=101

[kestrel91316]

1. A perfect storm of tipping points.......

sigh

[The2ndWheel]

2. We're going to have to pay the bill at some point

I'm not sure we have any restaurants left where we haven't skipped out on the check. They all have "do not serve" signs on the front doors. Each time, we have to come up with a different disguise to get in. Each time, that disguise is more elaborate. If we haven't already, we might have to cut off our leg just to prove that the wooden one is for real this time. The sex change won't be far behind. Not sure where we go after that.

[jwirr]

3. This should not be a surprise to any of us who know about global

warming and oil peak. This is exactly what we have been saying will happen. While it is bad there is one thing that may be positive. It seems to be happening at a slow pace which gives us time to adjust our approaches. People will be making little changes in their own lives that in the long run will make it possible to make the big changes when they are needed. More people will move toward a goal of sustainability when these kind of conditions are present. I only hope that it is not too late for the poorest countries like Haiti. We can no longer follow the "bigger, better and more" lifestyle. It is time to band together in a society that is based on helping each other prosper.

[Acadia Blue]

4. I am almost a vegetarian, my hubby is not, but our annual bill

went down several hundred dollars even with the food price increase.

[NickB79]

5. I've been urging my girlfriend to make more beans and rice dishes

But she has some kind of cooking inferiority complex, always complaining that her cooking is never as good as her mom's or grandma's.

Man, a big pot of beans and rice, a little pork or chicken, some plantains and veggies, and you have a good, cheap meal.

[The2ndWheel]

6. Baby, you've got a stew going

Yeah, more people need to be like Carl Weathers.