Commodity Price Spikes
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-02-16/commodity-price-spikes
Around the world, prices for food and other basic commodities are going up. The price of food has climbed by almost 30% in the past twelve months. Cotton is near a ten year high, and copper is the highest it’s been in forty years. Some say the price hikes are a sign of global economic recovery, but for the world’s poor, the increases can be devastating. Please join us to talk about what’s behind the recent price spikes for food and basic commodities and what these increases could mean for consumers and governments worldwide,
Guests
Robert Zoellick
president, The World Bank
former Deputy Secretary, U.S. Department of State
David Orden
senior research fellow,International Food Policy Research Institute and professor, Virginia Tech Institute for Society, Culture and Environment.
Zanny Minton Beddoes
economics editor, "The Economist;" formerly, economist at the International Monetary Fund
David Leonhardt
columnist, New York Times
Comments
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I would like to respectfully disagree on this point. I do not believe that we are reaching this population "breaking point" that you are referring to. According the the UN population division's 2001 report which states: "From 1900 to 2000, world population grew from 1.6 billion to 6.1 billion persons. However, while world population increased close to 4 times, world real gross domestic product [actual output of goods and service] increased 20 to 40 times, allowing the world not only to sustain a fourfold population increase but also to do so at vastly higher standards of living." Even though this population growth of 1.6 billion is a staggering number, the rate of population growth has continued to decline from its' height of 2 percent in 1970. This number is predicted to continue to decline as many of the developed and even emerging nations are not having the offspring necessary to maintain any positive population growth. In fact, we are already seeing it in the US, as the up coming generation is struggling to support the retiring one.
Science does not use gross domestic product and economics as the measure of earth's carrying capacity for an industrialized humanity (and neither does the planet). Concepts of carrying capacity are based on multiple limiting factors (and not just food and resources, but also wastes and degrees of damage, eradication, and physical degradation). For instance, how much damage and eradication can biospheric systems undergo and still continue to function?
Imagine, for example, a team of astronauts in a space vehicle, who begin to systematically destroy or degrade its machinery and life-support systems by destroying 94% of its heat shields and propulsion systems, 89% of its navigational systems, 92% of its O2 production systems, and 91% of its water purification and waste recycling systems. (Clearly not a farsighted policy, and secondly, if some of them were in fact financially rewarded by their destructive activities would only make the folly worse, not better.)
In a similar way, imagine the owner of a pristine automobile who begins to destroy its carburetor and spark plugs, eradicate half of its axles, 75% of its tires, and dismantle 94% of its steering, ignition, and most of its electrical systems, while each day pouring ever more contaminants into its radiator, oil, gasoline, brake fluids, and transmission fluid. And then suppose that this individual cannot understand why his automobile, which he claims has “always worked in the past,” doesn’t function anymore. Not so bright, is he?
Clearly no rational astronauts would ever permit such damage to the vehicle that preserves their lives in space, and the rest of us would never dream of inflicting such damage upon our automobiles, yet, amazingly, some people seem to suppose that we can treat the only planetary life-support machinery so far known to exist anywhere in the universe in a similar way and nevertheless expect it to continue to function as it has always done in the past.
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As others mention above, apparently, according to other sources, spikes in food prices are resulting from investors shifting money from realty to food, driving up food prices by batting them back and forth. If so, is there really a commitment to stabilizing or reducing the price of food? Is feeding the hungry a primary goal of food production?
Other related food news:
1. a Canadian Broadcasting report which aired just a few days prior to 2/16/2011 indicated that efficiencies as a reason to follow the factory farm model may lack substance, and that, surprisingly, the problem is often not too little food but too much, and that farmers are often driven off farms by government policies, taking with it the infrastructure for local food production.
2. That GMOs, have, apparently, now escaped and established reproducing, feral populations, in this case expressing tolerance to herbicides, but also apparently showing gene migration between individuals. http://www.esa.org/pao/newsroom/press2010/08062010.php
What is the commitment to solving food shortages? Seems a great topic for a future show.
I feel as though these are great points to bring up concerning the increased prices for food in the world. Although I think that we need to focus more on the poor and hungery people of the world in every country not just in underdeveloped countries. Instead of trying to forsee problems for big businesses I feel as though governments should be looking at internal problems. We should be contracting more land to be farmed and trying to work on better ways to use energy. With the energy crisis on hand I feel people should be more motivated on looking for alternative ways of using energy, rather than complaining about the massive increase for the fuels we use today. I know that it is harder to accomplish these goals than I am stating but if we spend more money on these projects than other things I feel as though we would see major improvements in our future.
It's sad, but I doubt that one day we'll be able to live in a world where everybody is living as comfortably as they dream of now. Once we figure out solutions to these problems of malnutrition due to lack of food and raising prices of our basic necessities is when we will begin to live in that ideal world.
Well it is important that people are starting to be self aware of this issue. If we can continue to bring shed light on how food prices and basic commodities are going up maybe we can make a change. It does not shock me that the government policies are hurting people instead of helping. Maybe through self awareness it will change.
Fantastic article, i'm into it.