World food cost up; good for farmers, not for poor

"It's finally dawned on Americans — on the world, really — that there's no more cheap lunch. Or dinner or breakfast," and that has implications for rural areas, Bill Bishop writes in the Daily Yonder, rounding up recent reports from The Economist, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and the Dallas Morning News.

"Food prices in the U.S. have risen more in 2007 than in any year since 1990," and that is part of a worldwide increase, Bishop notes. "These trends are likely to continue. . . . Using grain crops for biofuels is being blamed for much of the run-up in prices, especially by industries that compete for corn and soybeans. Even as the Senate voted 86 to 8 for a new energy bill last week that expands mandates for ethanol use, a lobbyist for the Grocery Manufacturers Association described the competition for land between food and fuel to be a 'runaway freight train. It's great news for corn farmers, but terrible news for consumers.'"

And for the world's poor. "The UN's index of food prices has risen more than 40 percent this year, and Jacques Diouf, head of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization said there is now "a very serious risk that fewer people will be able to get food.'"

Meanwhile, New Hampshire Agriculture Commissioner Lorraine Merrill notes in her Weekly Market Bulletin, "Higher prices will be good for farmers and rural economies. But they can also contribute to political instability. Some countries have already put price controls on food."