Food prices

Food prices refer to the (averaged) price level for food in particular countries or regions or on a global scale. The food industry's contribution to the price levels and fluctuations come from the food production process, food marketing and food distribution. Source of uncontrollable price fluctuations are varying crop yield from excess supply to harvest failure and food speculation activities. It is speculated that already the global climate change could be a major factor behind rising food prices. A continuing drought in South Africa may - amongst other factors - have food inflation soar 11% until end of 2016 according to the South African Reserve Bank. To a certain extent, adverse price trends can be counteracted by food politics. When food commodities become too expensive on the world market, food security is in danger especially for developing countries. In keeping with the supply and demand-principle, global prices will on average continue to rise with the growing world population. Food prices refer to the (averaged) price level for food in particular countries or regions or on a global scale. The food industry's contribution to the price levels and fluctuations come from the food production process, food marketing and food distribution. Source of uncontrollable price fluctuations are varying crop yield from excess supply to harvest failure and food speculation activities. It is speculated that already the global climate change could be a major factor behind rising food prices. A continuing drought in South Africa may - amongst other factors - have food inflation soar 11% until end of 2016 according to the South African Reserve Bank. To a certain extent, adverse price trends can be counteracted by food politics. When food commodities become too expensive on the world market, food security is in danger especially for developing countries. In keeping with the supply and demand-principle, global prices will on average continue to rise with the growing world population. Sharp dramatic rises in the food inflation as happened during the 2007-08 world food price crisis have been more pronounced in developing countries than in the OECD and North America in particular, however. Consumer prices in the rich countries are massively influenced by the power of discount stores and constitute only a small part of the entire cost of living. In particular, Western pattern diet constituents like those that are processed by fast food chains are comparatively cheap in the Western hemisphere. Profits rely primarily on quantity (see mass production), less than high-price quality. For some product classes like dairy or meat, overproduction has twisted the price relations in a way utterly unknown in underdeveloped countries ('butter mountain'). The situation for poor societies is worsened by certain free trade agreements that allow easier export of food in the 'southern' direction than vice versa. A striking example can be found in tomato exports from Italy to Ghana by virtue of the Economic Partnership Agreements where the artificially cheap vegetables play a significant role in the destruction of indigenous agriculture and a corresponding further decline in the already ailing economic power. The Numbeo database 'allows you to see, share and compare information about food prices worldwide and gives estimation of minimum money needed for food per person per day'. The FAO food price index is a measure of the monthly change in international prices of a market basket of food commodities. It consists of the average of five commodity group price indices, weighted with the average export shares of each of the groups for 2002-2004: The World Bank releases the quarterly Food Price Watch report which highlights trends in domestic food prices in low- and middle-income countries, and outlines the (food) policy implications of food price fluctuations. In the long term, prices are expected to stabilize. Farmers will grow more grain for both fuel and food and eventually bring prices down. This has already occurred with wheat, with more crops planted in the United States, Canada, and Europe in 2009. However, the Food and Agriculture Organization projects that consumers still have to deal with more expensive food until at least 2018. It is rare for the spikes to hit all major foods in most countries at once. Food prices rose 4% in the United States in 2007, the highest increase since 1990, and are expected to climb as much again in 2008. As of December 2007, 37 countries faced food crises, and 20 had imposed some sort of food-price controls. In China, the price of pork jumped 58% in 2007. In the 1980s and 1990s, farm subsidies and support programs allowed major grain exporting countries to hold large surpluses which could be tapped during food shortages to keep prices down. However, new trade policies have made agricultural production much more responsive to market demands, putting global food reserves at their lowest since 1983.