One Reason to Go Veg

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Meat is expensive, and getting more so. Last week, economists projected that food prices will rise significantly in 2010. In the United States, wholesale pork prices are already up 27 percent this year, the costs of beef will jump by 4 to 5 percent, and dairy products will jump by 20 percent. Poultry will also become more expensive, Bloomberg reports.
 
These price increases are a continuation of the same price spike in grains that killed people, at least in food-related riots in Haiti in 2008, and with hunger-related complications elsewhere. That economic event was treated as an anomaly by the U.S. news cycle. But it is actually the rule.
 
The news narrative goes something like this: The diversion of grains toward biofuels in 2008, and the spike in fuel used for fertilizer, pushed up costs for grains by 40 percent or more. As usual, the poorest people in the poorest countries suffered the most. But cattle, hog and poultry producers were also affected by the high costs of feed grains, and as a result, in 2009, they lowered production. For these reasons, in 2010, meat and milk will become significantly more expensive, inconveniencing people in wealthy countries.
 
But this narrative does not address a number of critical factors in our food production system. I spoke with Sushil Pandey, an economist at the International Rice Research Institute here in the Philippines (the group responsible for the first Green Revolution). He laid out for me a few of the many reasons why the cost of rice, specifically, and food more generally, will continue to be high and volatile. Namely, the earth has to produce food for more people than ever before, on less arable land than ever before; that meat-based diets require more grains and feed less people than plant-based diets; and that as China, India, Brazil and other developing nations get richer, more of them will opt for meat-based diets. Dr. Robert Zeigler, director general at IRRI lays these arguments out well in this BBC piece. In addition, I've spoken with Philippine farmers who claim that a changing climate is upending their traditional farming knowledge, and challenging harvests.
 
The food crisis of 2008 abated at the same time the global economy collapsed. Less demand, less speculation for agricultural commodities, and a drop in fuel prices allowed the costs of corn, wheat and rice to deflate. But as we turn economies around and work our ways out of recessions, it is likely that the pressure on the food system will return. And when it does, the news cycle shouldn't call it a spike in prices. Instead we should refer to it as a return to normal prices, and to this period as a "dip."
 
Of course, U.S. agricultural subsidies should shield Americans from the worst of it--that will be felt by the poor in India, Cambodia, Haiti, Ghana and other less powerful countries, unless we can make some big changes. Jeffrey Sachs made some good suggestions in April 2008. In my more pessimistic moods, I think people have a hard time changing their behavior, or acting for the greater good, without compelling economic incentives. Perhaps that's what Mother Nature is providing.
 
(Image by Vaarok; C.C. 2.5)
 
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