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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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 Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 12:02 pm Post subject: We cannot go on eating like this |
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The commodity runup is creating some interesting discussions:
http://media.ft.com/cms/aad24282-30cc-11dd-bc93-000077b07658.gif
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It is all very awkward. China and India are getting richer. And it appears their new middle classes want all the things we want: cars, washing machines, even meat. Here in the west, we have to restrain ourselves from saying: �Stop. You can�t live like us. The planet can�t stand it. And our wallets can�t stand it. Have you seen the price of petrol?�
Global equity is the awkward issue lying behind the world food crisis. In the long run, it will also prove fundamental to discussions on energy and global warming.
But, for the moment, this difficult, abstract issue is largely obscured by the urgency of finding practical solutions to rising food prices.
Everywhere I have travelled over the past six months, the cost of food has dominated political discussion. In Pakistan I was told that, while foreigners might worry about terrorism or President Pervez Musharraf, ordinary Pakistanis were much more concerned by the soaring price of wheat. In the Middle East, the political impact of rising food prices is discussed with more urgency than Iran or the Palestinians. But food-price inflation is an issue not just in poor countries. In France, aides to President Nicolas Sarkozy point to the rising cost of food and fuel as the key to his slump in the polls. In Britain and the US, unpopular governments tell a similar story.
There is a strong risk that rising food prices will lead to global political friction. Look at the reaction in India to some fairly anodyne comments by President George W. Bush. He said that rising prosperity in the developing world led to people �demanding better nutrition and better food� and so �demand is higher and that causes prices to go up�.
The reaction in India was furious. Commentators railed about how much more Americans eat than Indians � chucking in a few nasty asides about fat Yanks and liposuction.
On one level, this reaction was ridiculous. Most impartial analysts, including the World Bank, agree that rising prosperity in the developing world is an important underlying cause of rising food prices.
But the emotional Indian reaction is also understandable. Any hint that the good life is available only to westerners is unacceptable. Europeans and Americans do eat much more per head than the Chinese or Indians. While rising food prices strain household budgets in the west, they risk famines in Africa and Asia.
The west is also making its own contribution to the food crisis � through subsidies for biofuels. An American cartoon recently captured this unpleasant reality. It showed a fat man extracting a corncob from an African child�s food bowl, with the speech bubble: �Excuse me, I�m going to need this to run my car.� Alex Evans of New York University suggests that these global inequalities mean that it might be more useful to think about �food democracy� than about �food security�.
Western politicians struggle to find a convincing response to these developing-world complaints. But they will struggle just as hard to persuade their voters to cut back, to accommodate the rise of a richer Asia.
So � with food, as with climate change � we shall have to hope that technology rides to the rescue. It has happened before. At the beginning of the 20th century, the discovery of nitrogen-based chemical fertilisers massively expanded world food supplies � just as experts were fretting that the world�s booming population would lead to famine. In the 1960s, the �green revolution� allowed for a further leap in agricultural production.
The trouble is that the new technological fixes are elusive. Wider tolerance of genetically modified crops might help with food. But many of the technologies touted to cut global warming � such as solar power and carbon capture � are far from fruition.
Politicians can help the process by providing incentives for behaviour changes and investment in new technologies. However, there will be a very difficult transition as the world adjusts to higher food and energy prices and waits for new technologies to emerge and flourish.
But what is the alternative? Any solution that is based on asking India and China to stay poor is politically and morally unsustainable. |
http://www.ft.com
We can neither 1) demand Westerners drop consumption for Asia or 2) demand Asia stay poor for our sake. Both are politically impossible. And simply letting markets decide (which means pricing hundreds of millions of Asian out of food/energy). We need to bring industrial agriculture to the whole world and increase yields and soon. And we need off of non-renewable energy. There is a role for government here. But what role and how is very difficult to decide. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 4:16 pm Post subject: |
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| One side-benefit of the rise in food prices is the possibility that governments will stop (cut back on) agricultural subsidies. Rather than take money from other programs to pay farmers not to plant, governments will be able to let farmers plant their fields and reap the harvest of bigger exports. |
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Bigfeet
Joined: 29 May 2008
Location: Grrrrr.....
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| Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 4:27 pm Post subject: |
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| I think this situation is temporary. People will start farming again due to increased prices and the situation should rectify itself in a year or two. What it will do to the environment is another question. |
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doc_ido
Joined: 03 Sep 2007
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| Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 4:44 pm Post subject: |
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Since when has the World Bank been an "impartial" analyst? The FT is showing its true colours a bit there.
As for rising prosperity in previously poor countries being one of the underlying causes of rising food prices: while this is true, the article completely ignores the biggest reasons - loss of farmland, raising food for animals and biofuel production. |
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nicholas_chiasson
Joined: 14 Jun 2007
Location: Samcheok
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| Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 5:41 pm Post subject: |
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New England is reforested. WHy? It was not economical to grow crops in cold climates. If potato prices go high enough, guess what? It IS economical to grow potatoes in Vermont and Maine. If Maine and Vermont grow potatoes price of potatoes goes down due to supply, but only down to a viable level
In my opinion American growers have not been making enough for their food anyway. Only factory farms do well these days. Reduce the desire of supermarkets to truck in produce, buy local. The food problem will, in America, be corrected. In Africa and Asia however, too many people are living on food subsidies. Sorry, I think starvation is really bad, but guys like Mugabe have destroyed their countries ability to produce food. It is not that simple. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 6:59 pm Post subject: |
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I quit vegetarianism when I came to China, but I will take it back up again when I return to the States (I was talking to a colleague about Vegetarianism here, and he said proudly that it did exist: with Buddhist monks. China is not a happy place for a vegetarian, largely because its selection of legumes are narrow and not easy to purchase).
But I cannot give up milk/eggs. And both milk and eggs take up a lot of farmland to produce. It is really hard for the old to learn new habits and new recipes. It is up to us to teach ourselves and our children how to live smaller. Although some will not give up meat, they can give up driving. Others may not be able to give up driving, but they can give up meat. We will be happier in the end the more we can liberate ourselves from superfluities. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 8:46 pm Post subject: |
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| I can't help it, but when I think about eating a steak cut off the haunch of a vegetarian, I just start salivating. All that good red meat and no fat. Yum. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 8:46 pm Post subject: |
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| doc_ido wrote: |
Since when has the World Bank been an "impartial" analyst? The FT is showing its true colours a bit there.
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The FT is by far and away the most reliable of all economics/finance directed publications, including The Economist. In addition, the World Bank does excellent research that often contradict the general ideologies of the organization. It employs some of the most promising and established economists and social scientists on earth. If you are ever in the DC region you can check out any of the many events hosted by the World Bank or attended by WB economists. You will find that they have a wide variety of ideological leanings. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 8:49 pm Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
| I can't help it, but when I think about eating a steak cut off the haunch of a vegetarian, I just start salivating. All that good red meat and no fat. Yum. |
Plus, you'll absorb none of the antibiotics pumped into livestock that you might get from eating a meat-eater. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 9:20 pm Post subject: |
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| No fat, no antibiotics. That's two birds with one stone. What's not to like? |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 9:35 pm Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
| No fat, no antibiotics. That's two birds with one stone. What's not to like? |
What's all this about eating vegetarian birds?  |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 9:37 pm Post subject: |
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| Kuros wrote: |
I quit vegetarianism when I came to China, but I will take it back up again when I return to the States (I was talking to a colleague about Vegetarianism here, and he said proudly that it did exist: with Buddhist monks. China is not a happy place for a vegetarian, largely because its selection of legumes are narrow and not easy to purchase).
But I cannot give up milk/eggs. And both milk and eggs take up a lot of farmland to produce. It is really hard for the old to learn new habits and new recipes. It is up to us to teach ourselves and our children how to live smaller. Although some will not give up meat, they can give up driving. Others may not be able to give up driving, but they can give up meat. We will be happier in the end the more we can liberate ourselves from superfluities. |
Good post.
btw - I remained a vegetarian during my year in China. And I felt healthier than ever, because I wasn't getting all the stodgy bread and pasta we eat in the West. |
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Bigfeet
Joined: 29 May 2008
Location: Grrrrr.....
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| Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 11:02 pm Post subject: |
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| I don't know how people can give up eating meat, that's as bad as giving up sex... |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 11:29 pm Post subject: |
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| Bigfeet wrote: |
| I don't know how people can give up eating meat, that's as bad as giving up sex... |
Giving up meat is great. I can't wait to get back to not eating it. But my g/f has not been very supportive of my vegetarianism. And neither are my co-workers (my boss asked me out on Monday night to his hot pot restaurant, I'm not going to tell him I can't eat his food!). I'll have to detox when I get back to the States. |
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doc_ido
Joined: 03 Sep 2007
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| Posted: Wed Jun 04, 2008 4:36 am Post subject: |
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| mises wrote: |
| The FT is by far and away the most reliable of all economics/finance directed publications, including The Economist. In addition, the World Bank does excellent research that often contradict the general ideologies of the organization. It employs some of the most promising and established economists and social scientists on earth. If you are ever in the DC region you can check out any of the many events hosted by the World Bank or attended by WB economists. You will find that they have a wide variety of ideological leanings. |
I agree about the FT being the best source for economic news (especially since we lost the Wall Street Journal last year), but haven't been thrilled by any of the World Bank's activities recently. Surely the research they fund will be broadly directed by their ideologies, even if the findings are occasionally inconvenient.
Id' be interested to hear your views on this article, highlighting the way the WB has misused some of its research in the past. |
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