Talk:2007–2008 world food price crisis/Archive 1

Archive 1

Full quote for move summary (to include the word crisis)

The full quote I used for my move summary (from 2007-2008 world food price rises to the current 2007-2008 world food price crisis reads:

And it's not just the UN that thinks so. Independent analysts, economists and agriculture consultants say the term most often used to describe the food prices and shortages —crisis— is not hyperbole.

It is excerpted from Eric Reguly's "How the cupboard went bare" (Globe & Mail, April 12, 2008). El_C 19:23, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

need to have this article as a featured article

I had initially created the article but had to delete it as i didn't know the wiki tools.thanks for recreating the article.

THis article should be a featured artilce and should be put in the on going events page. manchurian candidate 07:11, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

You are welcome to improve the article to featured quality and nominate it at WP:FAC. If you would rather not put that sort of effort in, you can nominate it for the In The News section of the Main Page at WP:ITN/C. - BanyanTree 08:33, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

I think that this would be a better fit for "In the News" (WP:ITN/C) at the moment: it has a long way to go before FA status, and the situation will be in flux for some time. I'm looking at what needs to be done for ITN listing, and will submit it in the next hour or so. Also, I discovered my monitor at work is clearly crap, as I couldn't see the white square I produced on the third chart. I'll try to fix it, but please chip in if you can do it easily. Also, I want to go through the FAO docs with a fine tooth comb, look at land usage stats, market price histories in developed nations going back to the 70s, and look at market basket changes for those same places/periods. The idea is that there has been a drop in cultivated land in developed nations, rise in food imports, a drop in domestic production, and a movement from raw grains to processed foodstuffs. Good sources for this crucial change are needed! T L Miles (talk) 15:09, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

ITN nom HERE. Wording could use some serious editing, I think. T L Miles (talk) 16:29, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

As an aside, I just have to say that, having read most everything I can get my hands on on this subject in the last few weeks, this is probably the most complete non-technical article available on this crisis right now. Folks contributing here have done a tremendous job. T L Miles (talk) 04:44, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

FAC withdrawn

For information, this article was nominated for FAC and subsequently withdrawn by the nominator. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 16:27, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

rewrite

I rewrote the lead and reorganized the article in the form Introduction -> Causes -> Effects -> Projections. A lot of it was just moving existing stuff around, and I did not add too much new material. To the extent that the references may contradict each other, I have tried to move them into different subsections. Please expand/modify as needed. -- Brhaspati\^talk/_contribs 16:41, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

The article structure needs a tweak. I don't want to do this unilaterally, though. Someone came along and put a "fact" tag on the "Dramatic price rises" lead. Looking at the effect of the above re-organisation made me realise that the cricial thing here (that prices have gone up) is now near the bottom, stuck under "effects on developing nations". While the above re-organisation IS logical, is not a situation like this -- in which there are OBVIOUS effects but quiet, debatable causes -- a situation in which we should upend that logic? Sure, the causes came first, but no one paid any attention to the causes, and people can't even agree what caused this. What we can agree upon are the effects which we now see, and the history of price rises.

I'm arguing that the price rises and unrest lead the article, while debates about the root causes come at the end (along with projections and intergovernment planning). Thoughts? T L Miles (talk) 14:09, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Name

Are we going to rename this every time a new year comes around? I think this food price crisis is really just beginning. It certainly doesn't seem to be slowing down. bob rulz (talk) 23:22, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

While you are probably right about the food crisis we can't predict this and right now IMO the title is correct. Thanks, SqueakBox 23:26, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Further point: I can't find on a American qwerty keyboard how to make the long dash in 2007–2008 world food price crisis. The short dash in 2007-2008 world food price crisis seems like the standard for similar titles on en.wikipedia. Just a heads up. T L Miles (talk) 21:02, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

The mdash (and ndash) should appear at the bottom of the window once you click edit. El_C 21:08, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Cheers, that makes life easier! T L Miles (talk) 12:26, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm going to go with changing the title on this outstanding article, now. That the problem is just receiving press, shouldn't be taken to mean that it didn't exist previously. People have been dying or have been malnourished -- and for many of the same reasons -- for a great period of time. (For example, leading to the French Revolution.) It's important to "extend the horizon" to be able to include other, earlier aspects of attempts at solutions. Moreover, when food is so readily converted to fuel it isn't just a food crisis, it's a global resource crisis that happens to manifest itself in a commodity which people can't do without.

Alpha Ralpha Boulevard (talk) 19:41, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm not clear. What do you want to change the name to? There should be some proposal and consensus here before it is changed. T L Miles (talk) 21:45, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

To be honest, I haven't been involved in renaming articles, so I'm not sure what specifically to suggest.

A) The date in the title is perhaps more misleading than helpful. Some of the factors mentioned in the article have been around for years, albeit in a less obvious form. B) It's surmised that various resources will soon start running out, but that substitutions will mitigate the effects (E.g., textbook "Mineral Resources, Economics and the Environment", 1994.) One of the factors which makes the current situation different is how readily food can be changed into biofuels; that particular relationship may be obvious to people now, but in fact all manner of resources have become prohibitively expensive — for some purposes. (The above textbook mentions, within 15 years from now, in order which the then known reserves will run out: Indium, Silver, Diamond, Zinc, Lead, Arsenic, Gold, Mercury, Sulfur, Thallium). I.e, this isn't a "food crisis", in a sense but a "resource crisis". I'm not sure how to gracefully and meaningfully put this in a title. "Food and resources crises"? "Causes of food price increases"?

This article has much good information, and seems likely to expand, and be linked to other articles, so it would be expedient to plan ahead what those other titles might be, and how this article will fit with them. For example, the "Food vs fuel" article which is linked now presents a comparatively narrow perspective. But there are others (Remember "Guns vs Butter"?)

Given the need to expand and be comprehensive, maybe a title of "Global resource allocation (food shortages)"?

Alpha Ralpha Boulevard (talk) 06:06, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

This sounds like a different article. Perhaps you should start Global resource allocation (food shortages). This article is about the dramatic food commodity price rises which began at the end of 2006. T L Miles (talk) 16:28, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

This article has much information to offer, however too many non-English-speaking persons are editing it. This creates a host of problems including readability, punctuation and spelling errors, as well as grammatical issues. Also there is the ongoing problem of English-speakers editing in both UK and US English. Please choose one or the other, and when editing please stay with what is already in use. It is a simple task to change your spell-checker from EN-US to EN-UK and vice-versa. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.238.136.4 (talk) 12:05, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

G7 meeting did not mention food crisis in weekend statement

The headline Wikinews G7 story misrepresents what happened. The G7 meeting did not mention "food" explicitly, nor was the food crisis an issue that they found pressing. Sure, now they're talking about it, which is being conflated with what went down in the Washington meeting.

The severity of the issue seemed to creep up on officials from the Group of Seven industrial countries, which account for two-thirds of the world's economy and represents the IMF's and World Bank's largest shareholders.

The G7 - the U.S., Japan, Germany, the U.K., France, Italy and Canada - went into the weekend meetings gripped by the global credit crisis, which IMF economists estimate could result in losses approaching $1-trillion.

The G7's four-page statement issued after its gathering Friday made no mention of the food issue beyond a reference to the risk "high oil and commodity prices" posed to the world economy.

Instead, U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, European Central Bank Governor Jean-Claude Trichet and the other members of the group focused on ending turmoil in financial markets. They promised to implement a series of regulatory changes over the next 100 days aimed at restoring confidence in a system shaken by the collapse of the U.S. subprime mortgage market last year.

Emphasis added. Excerpted from "Soaring food prices now top threat, IMF says" (Globe & Mail, April 14). El_C 09:26, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Merge content of World food crises 2007-08 in

I stuck in some of the bits under unrest, which should be cleaned up and perhaps expanded. There are two quotes from the IMF and Gordon Brown which may have a place here. I'd suggest when that's decided World food crises 2007-08 be redirected here. T L Miles (talk) 04:54, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Global warming not mentioned as a factor?

In the Indian state of Kerala where I come from, food prices have gone up significantly because of unseasonal rains and the resulting crop damage. Crops lost due to unseasonal rains in Kerala Climate change is the main reason for food price increase here. In other parts of the world too, climate change is a factor for food price increase. Yet global warming is not mentioned as a factor in this article. --71.112.31.9 (talk) 03:23, 20 April 2008 (UTC)gp

I would argue that the doubling or more of commodity prices that began in September 2006 were not caused in any significant way by global warming. It has, at certin points, been an agravating factor, but not a cause. Discussions I've seen (look at the BBC's special coverage section for example, refed on the article page) point to both global warming and world total population rises as FUTURE factors which may turn this into a permanent crisis. The %100+ jump in grain prices seems traceable to a new vulnerbility to the forces of world markets, made possible trade liberalisation policies that have moved more nations to net food importer status (and thus vulnerable to things like a massive shift in North America to industrial usage or greater Asian demand for grains as animal feed , or the effects of climate change).

As an aside, please see if you can find refs that link climate change to this food price hike. Refs that merely say "climate change is causing a drought/flood" miss that last logigical step. I've seen a few (look at the news from 2006-7 on Australian wheat supplies dropping). Best of luck T L Miles (talk) 13:54, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Article

Is it just me, or is this article abit of bs??.07-08 food crisis??, if even one at all its a food crysis in general, you think its really 07-08, will it be over by this year?.

Oh, and what is so special about the natural rising cost of food?, I don't even think it has really been that exceptional, compared to other comodities atleast, and frankly considering factors such as demand for biofuels, its really not that odd. Rodrigue (talk)

Noting that this is the talk page for an article, not for a discussion of the topic, the fact is that food prices have doubled in a 12 month period for hundreds of millions of people, many of whom live on less than USD$2 a day. So yeah, I think that's exceptional. More importantly to Wikipedia, The UN, FAO, EU and most major news outlets think so too. T L Miles (talk) 15:49, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Graphs on the Side

It seems to me that the graphs on the side have their dates cherry-picked to show stable graphs. Both try to interpolate wildly changing prices between two dates with the same price, predicting that the price won't change over time. More NPOV graphs would have a larger time frame, and would have significant food shortages/crop failures on them, and would have the prices inflation-adjusted. --Chrispy (talk) 21:20, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

There should be stats to enable you to create graphs in the refs. Those there now were drawn from the USDA (as such they're public domain), and include projections which I faded. Those projections were both incredibly optimistic and wrong. USDA, BTW, puts out a statistical report on world farm commodity prices every two months. I believe it is linked in the refs. T L Miles (talk) 21:48, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

US Food Rationing

Replaced the following: "Food rationing was introduced in the USA for the first time in April 2008." This statement is incorrect in several ways. First, the incident the quote refers to was limited to two retailers, not government-based rationing; rice is still available to all. Second, the limit is 100 pounds per type of rice grain per purchase, meaning even at these retailers one can still purchase plenty of rice. Third, this would not be the first instance of rationing in the US. For example, the government rationed sugar during WWII. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.31.240.40 (talk) 11:02, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Rewrite of cause in lead

Specifically this edit, which moved Climate change to the top of the causes. Specifically, the lead went from:

Short-term causes include poor harvests in various parts of the world, especially Australia. Systemic causes for the world-wide food price increase have been currently identified as the increasing use of biofuels in developed countries (see also Food vs fuel), and an increasing demand for a more varied diet (especially meat) across the expanding middle-class populations of Asia.

To:

Systemic causes for the world-wide food price increase have been currently identified as climate change (which has resulted in unseasonal droughts and floods), rising oil prices (which has heightened the costs of fertilizers, food transport, and industrial agriculture), the increasing use of biofuels in developed countries (see also Food vs fuel), and an increasing demand for a more varied diet (especially meat) across the expanding middle-class populations of Asia.

The problem with this is that it changed the main causes (without any consensus), and that these changes are uncited, pushing the cited causes farther down on the list. I won't revert this without consensus, but there should be some discussion of this and similar changes, specifically an increasing number of editors coming here with strong interests in global warming and peak oil that are nudging this article to give primacy to those causes. Causes which I believe the sources show are secondary to what's really going on here. T L Miles (talk) 16:38, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree that the rewrite should be reverted. Climate change and oil prices are secondary causes and while they are no doubt playing a role now, the underlying issues are to do with the market for food: higher demand for meat and dairy products, changed patterns of production, and some low harvest levels. Perhaps we can achieve balance by mentioning oil prices and climate change in a final sentence, making it clear that they are factors but not the primary ones. Damian Doyle (talk) 00:59, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Done. T L Miles (talk) 13:51, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Your edit of the leading paragraph was excellent and very NPOV. Mariordo (talk) 20:30, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Crisis

Maybe I'm missing something here..how did this "crisis" suddenly become such a notable subject so recently if it apperrently stems from older causes?.Where did all the sudden media sources come from?. Rodrigue (talk) 22:35, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Read the article Food vs fuel, the leading paragraph and the section The fuel vs. fuel debate explains the reasons of all the recent hype. When I am finished with the full edit of this section, I will bring a summary to this article, precisely for the reasons you are asking the question. Mariordo (talk) 23:06, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

interests rates underpinning commodity price rise

There's beginning to be some consensus among economists that the low interest rates set by the U.S. Federal Reserve may be driving the rise of commodity prices (including food, oil and metals), at least in part. See the Harvard economist who's been pushing the idea's blog and the recent article by The Economist. The mechanism described is: (1) the Fed lowers interest rates to reassure investors of adequate liquidity in the recent market instability, (2) lowered interest rates reduce the incentive to invest in savings accounts, etc, (2) investors seeking to use their money buy up durable commodities as an alternative, (3) the scarcity of the commodities drives up their price. The current sections of "Impact of oil price increases" and "Financial speculation", as well as "Declining world food stockpiles" to a lesser extent, thus are thus symptoms of the same underlying mechanism. This theory has the benefit of explaining why all the commodities have seemed to move in the same direction at the same time recently. The subject of this article is thus directly related to Subprime mortgage crisis, as well as overlapping with Oil price increases since 2003. I may rewrite some of this article in the future to reflect the emerging literature on links to the Fed's interest cuts, so figured I'd give the editors here fair warning. Thanks, BanyanTree 06:19, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

"impact on farmers" essay

Editor User:Flu1234/User:99.240.108.221 insists this must be placed in the article. Can we get concensus that this uncited opinion piece doesn't belong here? I've removed it twice today (and it's been removed over six times in the last week), and am not going to go over the three revert rule. Requests and explanations to her/his talk page seem met with silence.

Another possibility for the medium and long term impact on farmers. In the underdeveloped world, the unsuspecting, hardworking, enterprising spirited farmers would spend everything they have and borrow money to invest in farming. Then comes the haphazard food aid destroying all pricing structure. These farmers would be deeply in debt and the farming industry would be demoralized. The entire farming industry will be wiped out. Without good planning, good intention very often paves the road to hell. The question to ask is - has the international community ever focus on creating a favourable environment for sustainable farming industry to root in the third world nations? <!--My opinion, no reference. How can medium and long term impact not be speculative? Please give explanation if you want to edit out this paragraph. Thank you-->

Thoughts on how to deal with this? T L Miles (talk) 00:35, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

It deserves immediate removal on the basis of the POV wording. It is worth noting that the article appears to be silent on the effect that food subsidies and price fixing have in blunting the message of markets to start producing when there's a shortage. Some examples are the massive aid given to sugar beet farmers in Europe (which is needed to keep them in business compared to the cheaper sugar cane producers) and wheat subsidies in the US (to keep US farmers from being outcompeted by Brazilians). Similarly, governments that tell farmers to sell at a low fixed price to maintain social stability, regardless of how scarce the commodity is, reduce the incentive to increase acreage planted. There's certainly literature arguing that government efforts around the world to keep food prices low and uncompetitive agricultural industries running over recent decades have created a structural problem that is now becoming apparent. That said, the paragraph you removed isn't really coherent in making this argument, fails NPOV and should stay removed. - BanyanTree 01:03, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree with BanyanTree's comments; the para lacks coherence and is not NPOV. - Damian Doyle (talk) 06:41, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

removal of invisible chatter

I have removed the large amount of commented out discussion, unused external links, etc in the first part of the article. If anything requires a paragraph worth of explanation, it should be on this talk page, not hidden in the text of the actual article. - BanyanTree 10:22, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

"not population growth "

It is said that change in diet, not population growth, drives the demand. I perfectly understand the point, but it doesn't seems neutral to discard population growth. Demand growth is cause by the superimposition of diet changes (which increase the amount of crop per capita) and population change, not by one or the other. With the same population change with no diet changes, the crise would not have occured. But with the same diet changes and stable population it would not have occured either —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.71.93.197 (talk) 17:49, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure that I believe the last assertion. Let's say that global population growth halted in 1960 - and then assume 20 years where lack of investment in basic agricultural research results in gradual reduction of yields, governments allow food stockpiles to dwindle, move 10% or so of the population from a poor to middle class diet and suck up another 10% or so of the crop output into biofuels. (Numbers totally made up.) Unless you have assumed that agricultural producers have expanded their supply to meet a population growth that isn't happening, it seems to me that you still end up with a big rise in food prices in 2008. Investors fleeing the ripple effects of the subprime mortgage collapse moving into the commodities futures markets and causing a price spike is an unfortunate and improbable coincidence, AFAIK. That said, I don't have any sources that address this counterfactual so can't add anything to the article. Do you have a source addressing it? - BanyanTree 22:10, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Well I understand that one can argue that enlarge population promotes an higher crop production year after year, but we can say the same thing about diet changes, biofudels and so on, then discard all proposed causes. The issue is not to emit a judgment such as who is to blame, but just answer the question : why is crop more expensive than say two years ago. there a production-side parameters (soil erosion, climat, fertilizer price due to oil price) and demand-side parameters (explaining higher demand than two years ago). I don't see how the 160 million more inhabitants in the world could not be one of those.

To sum up, the sources already in the article show there are three causes in demand growth : A is population growth, B is diet change (leading to an increase in demand per capita), C are agrofuels, and that each one is them individually is smaller than the production growth. But the sum of A+B+C is too big for production growth, this is the whole point. It's going beyong source reporting and logic, into appreciation to conclude that "B and C must be written as causes, not A".

This source [1] summarizes that as follow : “Especially in China and India, we’re seeing the traditional pattern of an increase in per capita consumption of certain raw materials as the earnings per capita grows (...) This is causing a multiplier effect to the already strong trend in demand due to normal population growth.” This seems the most balanced phrasing i could find in press.

That makes sense, and a more nuanced statement being put in the article could perhaps replace the lead section statement "some commentators...". That said, long-term trends in population growth would appear to be the easiest incentive for producers to identify, and some credible source stating that producers were not responding to long-term trends is badly needed. Part of a possible cause might be related to the lack in basic agricultural research since the 1980s, but I'm thinking market interventions by governments is the most likely culprit if producers never got price signals to increase production. The fact that so few experts list population growth as a reason points to other causes being primary, though I should note that the theory being tossed about by some economists right now that the European GMO ban, which caused African nations to ban GMO for fear of losing their European market, had an equivalent effect to the US biofuels subsidy seems to have some underpinnings. In any case, it's obviously complex. I'll continue reading and if I turn up something solid. Thanks for humoring me and finding a source.  ;) BanyanTree 22:24, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

See, I would disagree with this (especially placing population growth as No 1). I put in the original wording of this and looked look and hard for reputable sources saying this was caused by population growth. I was looking as I saw many readers comments on news websites saying this was the case. I think it's a common assumption. Now you've found one source claiming that population growth is ONE factor in the food crisis, and as a printed source, it should be included. But every serious study of this price spike I could find dismisses population growth as a factor. Population growth has by all accounts slowed since the 1980s, and food production outstripped population since the 60s, even when population was ballooning in the 80s. But because this appears to be a popular misconception, I think it's quite crucial that the substantial evidence to the contrary is presented here. The contrary view should be presented as well, but I think you'll find the evidence for it is thin at best. Now this is quite distinct from demographic changes which has effected how much food per capita is consumed, and that appears to be a very real cause. But the internationalisation of cheap western food production, at the whim of market forces, -- I would argue -- is the real underlying cause here. This is Wikipedia, so any reputable view should be presented, but if you want to understand the roots of this crisis, I think population growth (which is slower in much of the developing world than the popular conception in the West) is the wrong path. My 2cents. T L Miles (talk) 15:50, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't think anyone has said anything about population growth being number one, and 86.71.93.197 has not even made a related edit yet. If anything, population growth seems to have as much support as desertification and GMO bans as significant causes, which I suggest go in as bullet points into a single "Other causes" section at some point.

Tangentially, I would argue that government interventions prevented the development of a true market, where price reflected supply and demand, as well as lack of large-scale farming around the world is at the root. I foresee some interesting and productive debates... - BanyanTree 23:47, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I was reading the statement: "the sources already in the article show there are three causes in demand growth : A is population growth," as suggesting this, which it may not at all. I see your point about "the development of a true market", and while I agree that this has not happened because local markets in some poor nations are being undersold by subsidised foodstuffs, I must admit I'm a Marxist so I can't follow you too far down that road. Whatever anaylses we have about macroeconomic theory, in practice, I think there's always a solid middle ground. I am concerned that people assume there are population crises in places like sub-saharan Africa, when this is demonstrably not the case. It plays into a longstanding Western prejudice about the inability of Africans to feed themselves, something they've been quite able to do in the past. People in, say Senegal, are not farming less or eating more, or seeing dramatic population rises. They are, though, moving to cities while others have been encouraged to move to cash crops away from subsitance farming. Good, bad, or indifferent, when world market prices shoot up, these new urban dwellers find themselves squeezed, while african farmers may benefit in the medium term: this is not the description of famine or population presure, but something else entirely. I would ask people look at the food commodity statistics carefully in this case, before jumping to conlusions about population pressures being a cause here.

That said, I'm taking some time off, and I do hope people find this article and this debates a learning experience (both to the readers and hardworking editors/researchers). T L Miles (talk) 20:52, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Nobody said population growth is only in the poorest population. US population is growing by more than 2 million a year, this too creates extra food demand (much more than 2 million extra africans do). Placing population growth as "A" was not designed to say it's the bigger cause. It's because is can be seen as a "first stage", with individual demand grow coming "after", as (total food demand) = (population) * (demand per capita). And by differenciation (growth in food demand) = (population grow)*(demand per capita) + (population)*(growth of demand per capita). I don't think this can be tagged as original research as it's basic mathematics, and btw this is a talk page. --Raminagrobis fr (talk) 21:03, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

It's already an interpretation (i'd say, a moral judgment) going beyong pure facts to say that population growth isn't a factor just because it's smaller than production growth - this just prove than population growth alone wouldn't have triggered the crisis without the other parameters present (everybody agrees to that).

The most objective way to go is to find the exact figures of demand growth, split between all causes (i don't have those figures). Say "demand for agricultural products have grown xxxx%, of that x% due to population gowth, x% due to diet change, x% due biofuels, x% due to some other factor". There is only one marketplace for corn, in which all demand is summed up.

Let's magine a crisis for gasoline (do we need to "imagine" it, btw). Between one year and the next one, the number of cars grow by 1%, and each car consumes 1% more on average. The offer of gasoline grow by 1.5% only, so prices are up. Only press article might say "the crisis due to the higer per-car consumption, because the number of cars have grown slower than the gasoline production", but another article migth say the contrary. These are opinions, not facts. In a supply-demand problem, figures should always be preferred to anything else.

When i'm at talking about the "causes" section, i think we should separate two things because it's starting to be long enumeration. Long-term causes, which have strained the ability to feed the world for the last years/decades (continuous demand growth, desertification, erosion, groundwater depletion, destruction of the ocean's fish population) and the immediate causes in 2007/2008 which came in addition to those lasting, structural factors (bad production in australia, financial speculation, acceleration of demand growth due to diet change in China, economic stuff)

Also, if globally the production growth is faster than population growth, it is not true everywhere. This indian economist [2] notes that "every politician in this country has chosen to ignore the fact that growth in food production has lagged population growth for many decades now. "

--Raminagrobis fr (talk) 20:30, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

I finally found a good reference [3] showing that grain production is lagging propulation growth since the 80's ! --Raminagrobis fr (talk) 15:47, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

I favour removal of '2007-2008', it's a rather obscure start to a page title. Let's just make it 'food price crisis'. PandaName (talk) 20:44, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Against unconsulted article's name change

Without consulting to anybody, the page name was changed by a user that does not have a Talk page. I think it should be reversed and discussed here first. This is a very specific crisis, in the future, they might be others. As an example, follow the series of articles relating to the Oil crisis, there is even a disambiguation page, because Wiki has articles on the specific 1973 oil crisis, the 1979 energy crisis, the 1990 spike in the price of oil and finally, the present Oil price increases since 2003. Also, the content refers to the 2007-2008, it is not a general article (we might have one in the near future). So, please let's go back to the other name, Wiki policies required the original author to be consulted, and all collaborating editors should have they saying too. Mariordo (talk) 21:02, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

My vote. Reverse name. Mariordo (talk) 21:02, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

I am happy to see the name reversed. Thanks, SqueakBox 22:40, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I too am happy to see the name reversed... edits by PandaName have added little... Johnfos (talk) 22:48, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Move undone and redirects changed back. PandaName also went through and changed links in a bunch of "see alsos", which may also need to be reverted. - BanyanTree 00:22, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Propose removing "2007-2008" from article name

I too am against undiscussed name changes. However, as someone points out earlier in this discussion, calling it the 2007-2008 crisis makes it look like we just have to wait till 2009 and then the crisis will be behind us. I don't think that is the case and more importantly the references don't say that is the case. Also, the references never call it the 2007-2008 crisis. And really the price changes started 3 years ago. Riots are only in the last year but the problem goes back further. So I think the current name is both not used in the references and misleading. I think "world food price crisis" is a better title and better follows Wikipedia guidelines. As someone else above points out, when 2009 comes and the crisis is still going do we change the name of the aritcle? And then again in 2010? Will we wait till 2011 to remove the years? A report today expects things to get worse in 2009. http://biz.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/5/12/business/21184720&sec=business Also note that during World War I it was not called "World War 1", but just "the great war" or "world war". And during the oil crisis of 1973 it was not called the "oil crisis of 1973", just oil crisis. At some future time when the end point of the food price crisis has been discovered it will be ok for people to put a date range on it, but it is presumptuous for us to put a date range on it now. This might be the only worldwide food price crisis ever, and it might last 10 years, or might get worse and worse for 50 years, we just don't know. In the future they will know and if this ends or there is another one they can put a date range on this one. There has been some discussion of an article name change, just no consensus. Vincecate (talk) 10:53, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Oppose. "world food price crisis" is the name of a general article. To state that this is the only world food price crisis is sheer recentism - both Thomas Malthus and many people prior to the Green Revolution thought that they were witnessing the beginning of the final cataclysm of inadequate food. An overview of these periods, and an explanation of what happened next, should be the topic of world food price crisis or a similarly worded article, not the events of the past couple of years. And yes, the article name will be changed if and when the event continues into 2009. - BanyanTree 00:03, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Oppose. I echo the reasons above. You should feel free to find/start an article on World food price crises which discusses the (known) 6000 year history of food price rises. This article is on the steep prices rises of international food commodity prices which began after the 2006 Northern hemisphere harvest season. Please don't try to turn it into something else. T L Miles (talk) 02:02, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Agree with above, "world food crisis" is a title for a general article about any such even, present, historical, future potential, or even fictionnal. To make a parallel, there is an Energy crisis article, and another one called 1979 energy crisis. --Raminagrobis fr (talk) 07:43, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Several articles say this factor of 3 increase in the price of corn, wheat, and rice all around the world in 3 years is unprecedented. I know there was inflation in the 70s but did not think food prices behaved like they have recently but can't find anything yet in Google. I know there have been many predictions of worldwide famine. http://worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=63542 I know there have been countries where sudden price changes caused famines within a country or region. Most of the 6000 year history there was no worldwide food markets, so don't expect there were worldwide price increases. Some spices traded with China maybe, but not rice or wheat. Anyway, I don't know of any similar *worldwide* food price crisis in world history. Can someone give me some pointers? Vincecate (talk) 12:44, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Oppose for the same reasons above. There needs to be some qualifier on the term food price crisis. Perhaps after the fact a better name can be thought of, but I think the current naming is fine as is. Paullb (talk) 12:57, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

If there is more than one "world food price crisis" then we need some qualifier. Do you know of any other? Vincecate (talk) 15:25, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Altavista.com lets you search by date range. It only finds the string "world food price crisis" in 2007 and 2008 articles, nothing in 2006 or earlier. Vincecate (talk) 15:43, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

"worldwide food price crisis" - maybe "world" is not enough of a qualifier and "worldwide" is what we really mean. Vincecate (talk) 13:52, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

1971-1973 had similar price rise - so this is not the only one. This site lets you check out historical prices: http://www.farmdoc.uiuc.edu/manage/pricehistory/price_history.html Wheat and corn went up by a factor of 3 from 1971 to 1973. So I withdraw my proposal for changing the name.  :-) Vincecate (talk) 19:11, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

clearly separate conjonctural and structural causes

The sections discribing the factors is a bit confusing, it's a long enumeration. I propose to do as it's done in the french article : separate long-term, structural causes which have strained the capacity to feed the world in the last decades/years and the immediate cause which added to those old problems and triggered a sudden rise in price. All causes should be enumerated, including, with proper reserves, those subjects to discussion.

Long term causes (no particular order, open to discussion, not exhaustive) :

• Lost agricultural productivity due to desertification
• Lost agricultural productivity due to groundwater depletion
• Lost agricultural productivity due to urbanisation
• Lost agricultural productivity due to air and water

pollution (I remember a french study saying than the closest wheat fields around Paris had a 10% loss due to air pollution)

• Lost agricultural productivity due to global warming
• Constant demand growth due to population growth
• Constant demand growth due to diet change
• Lag in modernizing third world agriculture due to socioeconomic factors
• Idled farmland
• Perharps, the depletion of ocean fish population, I'm not sure it must be included, it's a real thing but the connexion with the crop market is not obvious

Short term causes (same)

• Biofuels
• Drought in Australia
• Acceleration in diet change in china, lots of extra meat demand.
• Speculation, and other financial stuff.

The fall of crop stock is a long-term trend, some people warned about that years ago but of course they were dismissed by most "experts" (it's nothing, stop worrying, you're alarmist, you don't understant economy, and so on). There must be a special mention of it, for the structural part it's an indicator, for the short-term part it's a cause. It made speculation possible, you can speculate much more easily if there are no stocks. --Raminagrobis fr (talk) 15:09, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

I would suggest that you read through the current FAO report, and examine "Table 2. Basic facts of the world cereal situation". You'll note that total production is increasing, but that it's shifting from Wheat and Rice to "coarse grains" for feed and industrial usage. The statistical appendix had figures back to 1997, and other FAO and USDA world market figures go back to the 60s. A careful examination of these would be a good starting to making general assumptions about causes. T L Miles (talk) 17:54, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

For strictly market prices (back to 1987) in several dozen commodities/markets see the interatice FAO database here. Not that this will not provide production figures by place, trade figures, or demand (by usage) figures which must be examined allong with prices. T L Miles (talk) 18:00, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

You're right this must be added to the causes. Also, it must be noted that a strong decline in grain stocks was reported almost two years ago ([4] FAO). --Raminagrobis fr (talk) 22:39, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

User Maavak quoting Maavak on Maavak.net

This really conflicts with Wikipedia rules WP:V and WP:NOR. So I removed it. You can tell that it is user Maavak because he edited my home page after I removed his stuf another time. Vincecate (talk) 18:23, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

About biofuel criticism.

　The recent biofuel criticism is unfair. I insist that the criticism group "should use land and the water for a food production so that it is limited". Then how will about the salable farm product? They do not criticize it about the cultivation of luxury goods. 　In many parts of the world, viticulture for coffee and the cultivation of the cacao, mulberry cultivation for sericulture, wine is performed. 　It is evil to use farmland for fuel production, and will it be to be good to use farmland for luxury production? The fuel is necessities, and many salable farm products are luxury goods. 　I think that the argument from such a point of view is necessary.

--202.215.168.122 (talk) 14:04, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

That fuel is a necessity is debatable, but you might have a point. Still, for this even to make sense to discuss, we would have to show that fuel crops are displacing luxury crops rather than food staples. As far as I know, the use of corn and palm oil as fuel is a replacement of food, not luxury. Do you have sources that show that fuel crops are replacing luxury crops? NJGW (talk) 14:13, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

The order of the need degree will be food> fuel> luxury goods. What to make with farmland is a problem. You should criticize luxury goods production if you criticize fuel production. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.215.168.122 (talk) 14:25, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps, but that would have to be in a different article, such as 2007–2008 world food price crisis. This is an article about biofuel, not about luxury food items. Therefore, if there is no connection between those two, there's nothing to discuss here. NJGW (talk) 14:37, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

About a cause of the food price hike, it is possible to conclude nobody. About a theme "how fuel production affects a food price", the opinion of each country differs. Cereals supply will increase if we change fazenda and cacao farms in the world into a field of wheat and a corn field. 　A mulberry farm the vineyards are similar (the wine use), too. Is there the evidence that such an element does not influence cereals price? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.215.168.121 (talk) 14:57, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

I wasn't aware that the rain forests used to grow cacao beans were useful for wheat fields. I was also not aware that these are issues having to do with biofuels. Again, this is the wrong article to discuss this issue. The issue here is that the cereals and oils used as biofuels were food before they were burned as fuel. Same field, same crop, same producers, different end use. You are introducing quite a bit of speculation that would take thorough documentation to support and you are trying to discuss it this issue in the wrong article. NJGW (talk) 15:09, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

　The core of the claim of the biofuel criticism group is as follows. 　Since "land and water in the world are limited, it is a principle to use as a food production". 　If only corn ethanol is criticized, it is clear logic contradiction. By the food summit, Sato millet ethanol and both corn ethanol were criticized simply because we understood it. 　By the way, we can make corn and the sugar cane in the tropical zone. Fazenda and the cacao farm are farmland to produce luxuries. Is this non-humanitarian? You should use the land for a food production. We must criticize the luxury production if we criticize biofuel from the humanitarian standpoint. 　Otherwise it is considered that it is in tune with the plot of the oil-producing country. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.215.168.121 (talk) 15:29, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

From what I understand, clearing a rain forest will give you one or two years of non-rain forest crops before the land is unusable, there is enough land left fallow for farming subsidies to provide food for the hungry, there is enough grain which goes rancid in storage waiting for a buyer at the right price to feed the hungry, and the biggest luxury crop is meat, not mulberries or cacao. First move your discussion to the proper article. Second find and list the sources you believe back you up. With no sources you have only a discussion and no article. NJGW (talk) 15:53, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Food price increases predicted in 2006?

An interesting article I came across; anybody have the background to comment on this?[5] The president of the U.S. Rice Producers Association was predicting in March 2006 that prices would be rising worldwide (primarily due to the high price of oil). Of course he might have a wp:coi in saying so to his association members (that's what they would want to hear after all), but was it just that or was he on to something? NJGW (talk) 01:28, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Japenese Rice Imports

It would seem the phrase: "Japan is forced to import" in the section: Distorted global rice market, is a bit misleading, the WTO rule is that the first 767,000 tons of imported rice is tariff free. That is Japan can't levy the 490% tariff on imported rice that it normally does. Without that tarriff imported rice is competitive with that of localy grown rice thus sells by demand and not force. Anyhow, never edited wikipedia before so thought I best to post on the discussion page first. Asterland (talk) 01:51, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Even without tax, I would argue that it's questionable if imported rice would see any demand outside of the use by Thai and other southeast Asian themed restaurants. Japanese almost exclusively eats short-grain rice, rather than long-grain rice popular and widely available for export elsewhere. A regular stores and supermarkets in Japan don't have any stock of long-grain rice. You actually have to go to an Asian-cuisine (as in non-Japanese) food store to find the long grain rice. The cheapness of imported rice is a non-factor because there is no needs. It's like asking an Irish to start drinking Budweiser because it's cheaper than Guinness. --Revth (talk) 01:16, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

OR? removed until sourced

This was inserted today, but is unsourced and appears to be an essay rather than encyclopedia entry.

Without discounting the significance of these above approximate causes, the food crisis could not have reached its current pressing magnitude if not for the deep structural causes underlying it. The approximate causes acted as only catalysts to a ticking time bomb of the last 40 years of an unequal and unsustainable food system. The problems seen today find their root in World Bank development policy, WTO and Free Trade enforcement, and the corporate monopoly of agro-business.

The current global crisis illustrates the vulnerability many countries face today towards international market swings. Since the 1960s green revolution policies, Structural adjustment programs, and Free trade policy have devastated the sovereignty of Southern food systems. The Green Revolution, heralded as a solution to end global hunger, promoted technological packages of hybrid seeds, chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and easy credit to developing countries. These policies in fact favored larger producers, displacing small farmers from the most fertile land and degraded the agro-ecosystems farmed for basic sustenance by local populations. With the structural adjustment programs of the 1980s-90s mandated by the World Bank and IMF, developing countries struggling with defaulted loans were required to further remove all tariff and subsidy barriers to free trade. The resulting deregulation and trade liberalization allowed for the complete penetration of agribusiness that had started 20 years earlier with the Green Revolution. Today, the world’s grain trade is consolidated among three agro-industry giants—Archer Daniels Midland, Cargill, and Bunge.

The WTO and trade agreements such as NAFTA have only further entrenched such policies. With the US and EU exempt from WTO law on subsidies, highly subsidized grain from the North floods southern markets leaving small producers unable to compete with grains priced below production costs. Through the elimination of southern food systems’ autonomy and diversity, countries are left vulnerable to international market shock and manipulation. Market deregulation and faith in the free market to dictate food prices has destroyed states ability to respond to this food crisis.

It should not be reinserted without proper citations and proper rewording. NJGW (talk) 18:52, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Causes of the food crisis

Lack of investment

Lack of investment is not mentioned anywhere as a cause of the world food price crisis. For 50 years ultra low prices have deterred potential investors in agri-business. Why has this cause not been investigated not even sugested in this article? --Lberghmans (talk) 17:36, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

If you have any references to support lack of investment please cite them. The reasons agricultural prices were low include powered agricultural machinery, which has displaced animal power in developed countries. Fertilizer manufacturing plants also were capital investment. Highways and motor trucks also reduced food prices. Food was oversupplied in many countries following WW II because of the Green Revolution, fertilizers and mechanization, but the potentials of those technologies are nearly exhausted. See: Productivity improving technologies (historical) Sections 4 and 6.Phmoreno (talk) 00:17, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Deterioration of currency values

It is arguable that much of the assett and food commodity price increases have a great deal to do with, if not more to do with the collapsing value of fiat currencies, such as the US dollar which many commodities are priced against. In contrast, price increases against the old fashioned currrency of gold is not so dramatic. Some fiat currencies have been significantly declining in value against commodoties and other un-pegged currencies (eg; Euro, etc) over the last few years. Collapsing currency values, essentially hyper-inflation, has been seen before in countries that have central banks the in effect "printed" too much money. Nowadays its mostly electronic. See Hyperinflation article. Some countries are delivering a hyperinflation effect, by avoiding deflation, through very low interest rates, in an effort to save their economies from deeper rrecession. The "sub-prime" crisis is the tail end of an (house) assett price bubbles in the US, caused by a regime of very low interest rates that began in 2001. (unsigned comment by User:220.237.13.184, 14:50, 21 April 2008 ).

plz add 2009

there have benn mass drought worldwide

http://english.cctv.com/program/chinatoday/20090821/101864.shtml

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/06/26/india.drought/

http://www.usatoday.com/weather/drought/2009-01-30-california-drought_N.htm

http://www.marketskeptics.com/2009/02/2009-global-food-catastrophe.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.95.130.66 (talk) 13:00, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

http://www.commodityonline.com/news/Global-starvation-imminent-as-US-faces-crop-failure-18791-3-1.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.95.129.56 (talk) 04:23, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Hidden refs

These refs are currently commented out in the text and need to be integrated:

• Why are tortillas now tied to oil prices? Reuters-Alertnet: Tim Large. 13 March 2008.
• GLOBAL: "Let them eat subsidies?", 7 April 2008 (IRIN) .
• The cost of eating. Rising food prices are now affecting communities that had previously been protected from the scourge of hunger . Josette Sheeran, The Guardian, February 26, 2008.

• Hungry for oil. Dwindling oil stocks could cause the UK to be vulnerable to food shortages for the first time since the second world war. Caroline Lucas, The Guardian, January 29, 2007 9:30 AM

• Commodity Forecasts, World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates Historical Revisions, USDA, Office of the Chief Economist. July 12, 2006

• WFP and global food price rises - key points, United Nations World Food Program, 26 February, 2008.

• International Agricultural Baseline Data / Supply and Use Tables, 2007-2016 , USDA Economic Research Service.

• Corn Prices Near Record High, But What About Food Costs?

— Preceding unsigned comment added by NJGW (talk • contribs) 15:47, 27 July 2008‎ (UTC)

How many died?

I need a number estimating how many died of starvation in 2008 compared to earlier years, say the average of 2000 to 2006.24.214.43.163 (talk) 12:37, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Add n:Poverty rises as food prices increase from Sunday, April 17, 2011 Wikinews.

Add {{sister |project=wikinews |text=[[Wikinews]] has news on this topic * [[n:Poverty rises as food prices increase|Poverty rises as food prices increase]], Sunday, April 17, 2011 }} 99.109.127.246 (talk) 01:54, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

As I've pointed out a number of times, Wikinews sister links are for categories, not for individual news items. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 07:02, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

I've seen them too. 99.190.85.25 (talk) 22:36, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

See related discussion on Talk:Politics of global warming (United States). 99.190.85.25 (talk) 22:38, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

That news article isn't related to this article, anyway. I don't know why I argue the technicalities, when the substance is missing. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 23:57, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

How about http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Category:Food  ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.181.156.137 (talk) 04:47, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Why? (This article) 2007–2008 world food price crisis → ??? → ??? → Food → n:Category:Food? — Arthur Rubin (talk) 05:03, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Possible calculation error

In the text under World population growth, there is this:

According to Joachim von Braun, of the IFPRI, total food production increases only about 1 to 2 percent per year, while total world population increases approximately 4%.^[12]

with the reference ^[12] containing no literature reference, but the text

+100% in 25 years makes +4% each year

which seems to be drived from the doubling time of the human population of 25 years mentioned in the National geographic article of reference ^[11]; problem is, annual growth rate with a doubling time of 25 years is not 4% or a factor of 1.04. It's 2^0.04, or 1,0281..., so the figure would be about 2.8%. And to use real numbers and not some theoretical values from an essay on Malthus, in 1968, the doubling time of the human population was about 40 years between 1950 and 1990, which leads to an annual growth rate of 2^0.025 or 1,0174..., and that was an all-time high, AFAIK. Any mistakes by me? BTW that fits nicely with the food per capita graph. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.217.124.166 (talk) 12:03, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Reading the article I have noted the same problem. According to the articles World population, World population estimates recent population growth is even smaller: about 1.2% per year. Therefore this section should be corrected if not deleted. Page International_wheat_production_statistics contains information about wheat production growth. According to it, there was a drop during 2006--2007. Second part of the section World population growth was edited to remove erroneous text. However some more effort is appreciated to improve this section, because my English is far from perfect, and because I haven't found estimates on food production (wheat production is different from total food production because, first, there are some independent sources of food, and, second, because some wheat is not used for food). Vikasatkin (talk) 02:57, 30 December 2011 (UTC)