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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum

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Nov 7 4:00 PM EST

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To: Maurice Winn who wrote (28290)	1/26/2008 11:55:25 PM
From: elmatador	Read Replies (1) of 217578

fresh water and arable land driving global food prices higher. Higher prices food for dismal thoughts By Liam Halligan Last Updated: 12:17am GMT 27/01/2008 I've Gone on about inflation a lot lately - partly to counter the endless siren calls for reckless rate cuts. But I'm also genuinely worried by the rising cost of food. Corn prices have just hit a 12-year high, wheat and rice have surged to new records and meat, poultry and eggs are also sharply up. Little wonder CPI food inflation is now 6 per cent a year. Until last week, I put this down to the burgeoning food demands of the fast-growing, heavily populated emerging economies of the East. advertisement That, and the needs of the bio-fuel industry. But a thoughtful new paper from UK-based consultants Bidwells Agribusiness suggests something else is driving global food prices higher - namely an ever more pressing world-wide shortage of both fresh water and arable land. In other words, the current food "cycle" could either be huge - with sky-high prices around for much longer than is often assumed. Or it may even be that natural limits on farm production, combined with a rapidly expanding world population, mean prices are now permanently - or "structurally" - higher. We economists are sometimes dubbed "dismal scientists". That label was originally an insult aimed at Thomas Malthus, who in the late 18th century grimly predicted widespread destitution as population growth exceeded the rate at which food supplies could grow. Malthus turned out to be wrong - in part because technology produced better irrigation, fertilisers and pesticides, boosting land yields. However, this new report says that "yield gains have already plateaued". Perhaps "dismal scientist" will soon become a well used term once more. .

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