Muck and Mystery
   Loitering With Intent
blog - at - crumbtrail.org
May 07, 2008
Global Outlook

For agriculture. This USDA report says nothing new, but it's all in one place and could be a useful reference.

Abstract

World market prices for major food commodities such as grains and vegetable oils have risen sharply to historic highs of more than 60 percent above levels just 2 years ago. Many factors have contributed to the runup in food commodity prices. Some factors reflect trends of slower growth in production and more rapid growth in demand that have contributed to a tightening of world balances of grains and oilseeds over the last decade. Recent factors that have further tightened world markets include increased global demand for biofuels feedstocks and adverse weather conditions in 2006 and 2007 in some major grain- and oilseed-producing areas. Other factors that have added to global food commodity price inflation include the declining value of the U.S. dollar, rising energy prices, increasing agricultural costs of production, growing foreign exchange holdings by major food-importing countries, and policies adopted recently by some exporting and importing countries to mitigate their own food price inflation. This report discusses these factors and illustrates how they have contributed to food commodity price increases.
It's semi-large, 800k or so, PDF. With figures, tables and such.

The long term trend seems to be for ever higher prices though there could be some retreat from current highs if this is a good year.

The world really needs to get a lot better at this. That's not news but there are still some regressive pressures, arguments for peasant style systems that may be "almost" as productive as now. That's just silly. It's an exceedingly optimistic forecast for a system that isn't adequate even in that impossibly rosy scenario. Those who have taken a clear eyed look at the issue have been saying for years that production must double or even triple to provide food, fiber and perhaps fuel for 8 or 9 billion people. Given that there are nearly 1 billion that are food insecure or worse now the issue has some urgency.


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