The drivers of average international food prices are always complicated, writes Alastair Smith.
SA small emerging farmers face big problems in the agricultural industry, nearly impossible to survive
Based on real prices, it is currently harder to buy food on the international market than in almost every other year since UN record keeping began in 1961. The real average price of food has actually been increasing since the year 2000, reversing the previous trend of a steady decline from the start of the 1960s. Despite global efforts – that have, in part, responded to targets set by both the UN Millennium Development and the subsequent Sustainable Development Goals to reduce hunger – prices have made food steadily less accessible.
Cereals have added less to overall price increases, but their accessibility worldwide is particularly important for food security. Wheat, barley, maize, sorghum and rice account for at least 50% of global nutrition, and as much as 80% in the poorest countries. Europeans might worry about the price of pasta as Canadian droughts slash wheat harvests. But, as the real price index for cereals creeps towards levels that escalated riots over the price of bread into general uprisings in 2011, there is an urgent need to consider how communities in less affluent regions can weather these stresses and avoid unrest.
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