Tom Murphy — whose Twitter feed is perhaps the feed to follow if you have an interest in development policy — tweeted last week about a post about food prices on the Guardian‘s Datablog:
“The latest data, out today from the OECD and the UN’s FAO, shows what the best estimates are of changing food prices over the next 10 years. It works by looking at all the indicators, such as demand, how much we consume, how much it costs to transport the stuff and population growth.
And what it shows makes grim reading.
The key finding is that, although a good harvest will push prices down next year, the overall trend is updwards:
‘Over the coming decade real prices for cereals could average as much as 20 percent higher and those for meats as much as 30 percent higher, compared to 2001-10.’
Although these projections are well below the peak price levels experienced in 2007-08 and again this year, this means higher food prices are becoming the norm.”
I’ve posted at the beginning of the month about the foolishness of making forecasts as far in the future as 2030. My opinion of forecasts that go as far in the future as 2020 is not much better, even if the OECD and FAO are reputable sources of past and present data. It is one thing to forecast food prices over the next year or two. For anything beyond that, you might as well just guess.
Still, the post on the Guardian’s website does come with loads of food price data. Having taken a quick look at the spreadsheet, the whole thing looks rather messy, but perhaps someone can use them for something more interesting than forecasting.
And, pardon this professorial pet peeve, but perhaps someone can let people at the Guardian know that “data” is plural?
