For a long time, food prices have held steady (or even fallen in certain cases) in Japan. The agriculture sector is also protected by high tariff barriers so prices are less volatile. But the food sector is now going to feel the pressure of rising prices via the large volume of food imports. Since incomes have also been static, this rise will definitely make an impact on the consumers’ budget. What will it do to the long-awaited recovery? Insights from the Washington Post.
Tag Archives: food policy
Good News on School Lunch Program
How often do we hear that? Not often enough. But here is a story to make our rainy (where I am , anyway!) Sunday feel a lot better. On a shoestring budget, New York city schools are serving up healthy, cooked meals; changing the children’s perception of food and influencing the choices that become available from food suppliers. I would have liked to know how they worked the budget to change over from steamers and freezers to actual functioning kitchens. Perhaps that happened earlier, (the program is about 7 years old) in times when knives were for chopping salads and not for slashing school budgets. Here is the report from the New York Times.
Agricultural Subsidies
Here is Mark Bittman’s proposal for subsidies for the Farm Bill 2012. He advocates reallocating instead of abolishing subsidies, we could not agree more! Let’s move resources from corn and soy and boost vegetables and fruits. An increased supply in these areas will hopefully lead to a fall in their prices and more people getting their five-a-day!
How to Fix the Food System
Two recent articles in the Atlantic highlight the fractures in our food system: Barry Estabrook writes about discovering that, while Santa Barbara county in California ranks among the top 1 percent of American counties for agricultural production, 95 percent of the fruits and vegetables consumed in the county are imported from outside. Further, amidst all this bounty, 8 per cent of children and 53 per cent of adults are overweight. This is but one example of the many distortions in our food system. He concludes that we all need to make efforts to fix these flaws.
In another article, Josh Viertel shares his disappointment that President Obama is not adequately addressing the problems with the food system, “the fruit loops vs. real fruit” problem, as he frames it. He finds that in matters of reforming the farm system and maintaining good food standards the administration has not taken the lead. Like Estabrook, he concludes that if anything is to change, it is up to us, the people to change it.
We can think of the food system as having two big categories: the farming or food production part and the food consumption part. In both areas, big business interests dominate and governments are often slow to take radical steps to modify the existing structures. It would seem an obvious choice to reduce or abolish subsidies to corn and increase support to fruits and vegetables; or for government dietary guidelines to say that soda is bad for your health, but reality is more complex and cold realities often get in the way of ideal actions. So, yes, it is up to us to bring about a transformation instead of relying solely on the administration. Send a message through your choices: buy less processed foods and more fruits and vegetables, talk to you grocery store people about what you would like to see them sell, they are usually very attentive to consumers. And when a candidate comes to ask for your vote, ask them what they did for food system reform,follow their record, keep a track of how they vote on the Farm Bill 2012, for instance. Perhaps we cannot junk the existing system and put in place a perfect new one all at one go, but we can certainly do our bit to reform the one we have one step at a time.
Reasons for Food Price Rise
Paul Krugman on droughts, floods, speculation and their impact on food prices. Its heartening to see a focus on climate change and agriculture (and thereby food prices), a point not made often enough. On speculation: I feel that it will have a significant impact on the determination of food prices precisely because physical stocks will be impacted negatively by climate change.
How Food Price Rise Fueled Unrest in Egypt
Thought+Food reported on the worrisome global rise in food prices. An insight into how food price inflation factored into the current unrest in Egypt.
When is a Centrist a Radical?
The answer, according to James E. Mcwilliams, is the moment when you enter the domain of food and take up position in the middle. In his book, “Just Food” he notes how polarizing the food wars can be: either you are a diehard supporter of organic farming or you are a “frankenfood” fan. “The dull but respectable place called the center” he finds, is a lonely place.
The subtitle of the book is “Where Locavores get it wrong and how we can truly eat responsibly” and this goes against the current push towards buying and eating locally. I started out with some scepticism but his essential arguement is convincing : eating locally may be a good plan on a personal level but we are not going to be able to solve the problems of the food system at the global level by eating and growing only local, organic food. The book is an easy read, the evidence is presented in an accessible way. So, pick it up if you can and see if you agree that “To be a centrist when it comes to food is, unfortunately, to be a radical.
Posted in Food Policy, Food Safety, Food Security, Nutrition
Tagged food policy, food safety, food security, nutrition
Global Food Price Rise
The rise in global food prices is has been noted by the U.N. and is now likely to be a topic for discussion at the G20 meeting in France.
While arguments are being made in favor of trade liberalisation or a ban on speculation in commodity prices, the contentious subject of subsidies is also going to come up.That agricultural subsidies distort prices is known but dealing with lowering or abolishing subsidies has proven difficult in the past. Everybody likes to point the finger elsewhere: China pays out $15 bn in agricultural subsidies, Brazil and India also make large subsidy payments to support their farmers but most of the pressure will be mounted on the EU and the US as developed countries who need to do their share. At this moment the US is also going to consider the new Farm Bill 2012 and subsidies are likely to feature in that discussion as well. It will be interesting to watch how domestic interests and the global agenda are balanced as the discussions start on the Farm Bill.
When Onion Prices make Headlines!
A fun title followed by a great analysis on the big fuss over runaway onion prices in India. Very interesting amid the reports of global commodity price rise, more on that to follow in later posts.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2011/01/indian_inflation&fsrc=nwl.
Food Price Crisis
My journey here at Thought_Food was prompted in part by the food price spike of 2008. Back then, we were assured that this was only temporary and the situation would improve. But recently in December 2010, the FAO noted a sharp rise in commodity price spikes and there is no ignoring the fact that a crisis is , indeed, brewing. The factors at work are explained in detail in Lester R. Brown’s article at Foreign Policy.
One of the major constraint on growth in agricultural productivity that he identifies’ is the shrinking backlog of untapped technologies. So, if constraints on natural resources prove insurmountable, perhaps we have a case here to take a more reasonable look at the role of biotechnology in raising agricultural productivity? More on the possible benefits here.
Thought + Food 