Agricultural and Applied Economics—Without Apology
PBS’ NewsHour posted a link to a photo essay about how rising food prices have hit a small Indonesian town.
Looking at the last picture, I am reminded that it was Indo-Malays who left Indonesia around 1,000 CE, sailed around the Indian Ocean, and decided to colonize Madagascar. The meal that Indonesian family resembles many of the meals I have eaten in and around Ambatondrazaka in 2004, when conducting fieldwork for my dissertation.
(HT: World Food Programme, via Twitter.)
According to this new paper of mine titled “Rising Food Prices, Food Price Volatility, and Political Unrest,” the answer is a qualified yes:
An editorial in this morning’s New York Times:
“It is disappointing that the agriculture ministers from the 20 large industrial economies who gathered last week in Paris failed to end two policies that are a big part of the problem: bans on agricultural exports by certain producers and government supports for food-based biofuel production.