According to a conference held by the European Commission’s Joint Research Council (JRC), it is:
“Food security is “probably the most urgent and dramatic” problem facing mankind, a Brussels conference has been told. (…)
Dominique Ristori, director general of the JRC, said that in order to tackle the crisis, food production must assume a much higher priority in political agendas. He said that the case for ‘urgent action’ in the global food system ‘is now compelling.'”
This much is obvious to anyone who has been following the movements of food prices since the second half of 2010. What is more interesting is what the JRC suggests policy makers should do about it:
“Improving ‘governance’ of the global food system is another possible solution, it argues. ‘It is important to reduce subsidies and trade barriers that disadvantage poor countries.'”
This is in line with my own view on the impact of agricultural subsidies in the United States, in Europe, and elsewhere in the industrialized world on developing countries. More on this topic on Tuesday morning.
Misleading and Mistaken Claims About Food Prices in the HuffPo
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: