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Now we face the £6 fish supper
Jenny Haworth, Scotsman
SCOTLAND’s favourite dish, the fish supper, is set to soar in price by up to 50 per cent because of rising fuel prices, food industry leaders have claimed.
A fish supper is likely to cost about £6 this time next year – the current average is about £4.50. Experts also warn that other food prices will continue to rise, including staples such as bread, butter and milk.
If bread prices increase at the same rate as in the past year, an average wholemeal loaf will cost £1.40 by this time next year.
Analysts say the rise in food prices is partly due to the soaring price of fuel, and also to increased worldwide demand for dairy products, poor wheat production after last year’s floods and loss of land to biofuels.
(24 May 2008)
Is fertilizer the ‘most important business on Earth?’
Sean Silcoff, Financial Post
It’s the hottest commodity that nobody cared about. Until now. In the midst of a global food crisis, governments and investors are waking up to fertilizer and its soaring prices. Financial Post reporter Sean Silcoff attended this week’s International Fertilizer Industry Association (IFA) conference in Vienna, where the debate rages: Are fertilizer producers the solution to the world’s food crisis or part of the problem?
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… For 15 years, potash customers grew accustomed to flat prices. Then, in late 2006, prices began to skyrocket. In the past year, the price of potash has risen by up to 300% in some markets (now averaging $600 a tonne, according to analysts). Prices of nitrogen and phosphate fertilizers, which Potash Corp. also makes, have also jumped.
… Demand for fertilizers jumped by 4.5% in 2006 and 6% last year — up from 2% in the past — pushing producers to the brink of capacity. Some, such as Potash Corp., are rationing supply among buyers.
The unprecedented growth in global demand is the result of rapid economic expansion, led by China and India. As millions of people leave poverty every year, they eat more meat and protein. That has led to a surge in demand — and prices — for grains to feed livestock. Ethanol has also sucked up corn stockpiles in the United States.
With the prospect of earning record prices for corn, wheat and soybeans, farmers globally are trying to increase output. To do that, they need more fertilizer.
But high prices and record profits have exposed serious tensions. Indian leaders this week accused suppliers of acting in tandem to drive prices abnormally high. Rising fertilizer prices, they allege, will imperil global food security.
It is a devastating charge. Fertilizer, after all, is a commodity like no other. Without it, there wouldn’t be enough food to feed 40% of the world’s people.
(24 May 2008)
Food Security Requires New Approach to Water
Thalif Deen, IPS
The ongoing food crisis, characterised by growing shortages and rising prices of staple commodities, has far reaching implications for the world’s scarce water resources, says a new study released here.
“More food is likely to come at a cost of more water use in agriculture,” according to the report titled “Saving Water: From Field to Fork”.
The emerging challenges facing the food sector include growing water scarcity; unacceptably high levels of under-nourishment; the proliferation of people who are overweight or obese; and of food that is lost or wasted in society.
“All these challenges mean that a narrow perspective on food security in terms of production and supply is no longer sufficient,” the study notes.
It’s time to take a broader perspective incorporating the steps from growing crops in the field to consuming a meal at home: “A field to fork perspective.”
Jointly authored by the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI), in collaboration with the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) and the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), the 26-page study points out that water will be a key constraint to food production — “unless we change the way we think and act about water resources.”
Anders Berntell of SIWI points out that food production and agriculture were the biggest global users of water. On average, about 70 percent of all water extracted was going into agriculture.
“As people’s incomes rise in developing nations, they are changing to more meat-intensive diets,” Berntell told IPS.
In many cases, he argued, this is good, up to a certain level, because they need proteins in their diet. But beyond that, it creates a problem.
(23 May 2008)
