The price of food around the world has been rising in recent times but over the past year, it has increased by upwards of 30%. This statistic is according to the UN and more specifically the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. Examples of this are the price of dairy rising by 16% or wheat rising by 40%. The main foods that increased were cereals, vegetable oils, and wheat. All of these increases are due to the pandemic and poor harvest. The pandemic, in particular, caused many problems with workers and quite simply most places didn't have enough people to either gather the crop or ship it. These labor shortages not only drive the cost of the food up but also drive the price of transportation of the food itself. An example of this is in places like Australia where they had ships ready to take the product away but they didn’t have enough workers to come in and help. The overall driver of this is climate change which disproportionately affects poorer countries causing instability and political unrest. To add to this when food prices rise, poorer countries are also affected much more than richer countries. Overall this trend of rising food prices will continue for some time unless the challenges of climate change are addressed.
-Anthony Kindness
Source:https://www.bbc.com/news/business-59172665
No comments:
Post a Comment