Claudio Malagoli
UNIVERSITY OF GASTRONOMIC SCIENCES

Price Increases and Food Crises

According to FAO studies, about 800 million people suffer from hunger on our planet. The causes of undernutrition are many and various and are not due solely and exclusively to food shortages. They range from domestic conflict and war to famine as a result of unforeseeable events, often involving adverse climatic conditions and a lack of enough economic resources to meet eating requirements. According to the World Bank, over the next few years price increases will create 100,000 ‘new poor’. There is already talk of ‘bread wars’ and in some countries demonstrators have stormed food warehouses and clashed with police.
To find adequate solutions to the problem, it is necessary to ask why it has come about. It is possible to say that there is no single cause, and that the present economic situation is determined by a series of interconnected factors, such as the increase in the world population and its concentration in large urban areas, the increase in competitors for the use of agrifood products and cultivable land and, last but not least, adverse environmental conditions. Other factors that should be taken into account are the least advanced countries’ use of land to produce food for markets in wealthy countries, the drop in food reserves, the disparity between economic growth in the least advanced countries and the high income of the wealthy ones, the increase in production factor prices, widespread speculation on the food market and drastic changes in agricultural policies in the main producer countries.
It is also important to point out that the increase in the price of food supplies has triggered alarm in the wealthy countries. So much so that perhaps this high increase in food prices is chastening healthy for our society and can help change the minds of many people, who have at last noticed that mobile phones and computers aren’t good to eat! The meaning of this statement is perhaps that foodstuffs were considered for too long a secondary abundant commodity, so no one ever bothered about their price. In this respect, it is important to remember that in advanced societies spending on food and drink has dropped to an all time low of 15 percent of the total. This means that 85 percent of the budget is spent on other nonfood items. Maybe we need to rethink our priorities.
The sharp rise in prices, partly as a result of an economic situation that is anything but florid, has determined a change in approach to food. We thus find ourselves at a moment in time in which food could win back its position as one of our priority forms of consumption.
The problem of containing food prices isn’t an easy one to solve, since it involves social, productive and political choices and affects international relations. For the situation to get back to normal and ensure stable and acceptable nutrition for all, the bodies that make up the food production chain need to adopt a cooperative attitude. It will also be necessary for all of us to adopt a more sober approach to food, thus fostering a new awareness of a commodity that no one can do without.

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