However much you hope that the food crisis will go away, it's difficult to ignore this week's headlines warning us that the era of cheap food is over. But which of the staples in our shopping basket will be worst hit?
The general picture is that most items will go up, some more significantly than others. With oil at $117 a barrel and rising, so are the costs rising of the three Fs of farming: feed, fuel and fertiliser. “We're in a unique situation in which numerous problems are coming together,” says Tim Lang, Professor of Food Policy at City University. We're not just facing rising oil prices and water shortages, but the changing dietary habits of the developing world as it becomes richer, combined with land being used to provide crops for fuel rather than food, and climate change bringing drought to countries such as Australia.
There's no doubt that we're going to have to spend more on food. And yet, compared to other parts of the world, we're lucky.Link
"Sigh - higher gas prices, higher taxes, higher natural gas and electricity costs and now groeceries - one wonders how much you have to earn a year to be simply sufficient and not 'poor'?"
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