Agricultural and Applied Economics—Without Apology
Knowing how a very small fraction of the actual price we pay for food in this country is actually due to the cost of food itself, I was intrigued by a HuffPo article this week with the somewhat sensationalist title of “Rising Food Prices Intensify Poverty, Hunger In US And World,” which began as follows:
An article discussing US food prices in yesterday’s The Telegraph had a slightly alarmist title: “US Food Price Rise Is Steepest in Decades.”
While there is no doubt in my mind that this is the steepest rise in food prices this country has experienced in a long time (since before I was born, in fact), let’s not get carried away. Indeed, the article notes how
“[t]he cost of producing finished foods jumped 3.9 percent last month from a year earlier, as harsh winter weather exacerbated the already increasing price of many basic ingredients used in food. The increase was the steepest since November 1974.”
Oh really?
The cost of food worldwide has gone up 62.4 percent last month from a year earlier (i.e., from 145.3 to 236), according to the statistics provided by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
I understand that The Telegraph compares the US to itself — love thy country fixed effect — but the article should perhaps have noted how this is a relatively small rise in food prices compared to what is going on elsewhere in the world.
Excellent Excerpt: Collier on the Food Crisis
That is, the food crisis of 2008: