Krupp: Food Speculation

Print More
MP3

(Host) It’s not easy to determine exactly how much food Vermont imports.
But commentator Ron Krupp thinks that rising food prices due to drought
in the Midwest is just one good reason why we ought to know.

(Krupp)
In 1975, George Burrill and Jim Nolfi of the Vermont Institute of
Community Involvement – published a research report on the potential for
food self-sufficiency in Vermont – called, "Bread, Land and History."

At
the time, they estimated that we import 95 percent of our food. It’s
difficult to know whether that percentage has changed since then,
because no comprehensive research has been done recently on the subject
of food self-sufficiency in Vermont – but I suspect that we import less
today than we did in 1975. After all, the farm and food movement has
grown by leaps and bounds in just the last ten years. The number of
small, diversified farms, farmers’ markets and Community Supported
Agriculture initiatives have increased. And we buy more local food per
capita than any other state. On the other hand, most people shop in
supermarkets that don’t carry much local food.

When I travel
around the state – doing garden and farm talks at libraries, I always
ask folks how much of their income they spend on food, especially local
food. Most people don’t know – but studies show that American families
spend on average 13 percent of their income on food whereas in 1950 the
figure was closer to 25 percent. I would guess that families that
support local farmers and value-added producers spend more. And some
families grow their own food as well as prepare and put food by for the
winter.

The world’s poorest two billion people spend from 50 to
70 percent of their scarce resources on food. And in some places. World grain prices doubled between June 2010 and June 2011.
The United Nations reported that this
increase even surpassed that of the prices during the last major food
crisis in 2008 – translating into an over-all increase in food costs of
39 percent.

The "Arab spring" was not just about democracy, but
also access to food. A correlation can be drawn between spikes in food
prices and the January 2011 overthrow of Tunisia’s autocratic government
and later that year, the revolt in Egypt – the world’s top importer of
wheat.

The
severe drought in the Midwest will increase food prices but the main
reason food prices are out of control has to with the deregulation of
food commodities like corn, soybeans, wheat, and sugar and the
speculation that occurred when contracts to buy and sell foods were
turned into derivatives that could be bought and sold among traders who
had nothing to do with food. The result is a relationship between supply
and demand that’s distorted by what some consider to be greed. By
becoming more self-reliant through farming and local food initiatives,
Vermonters can reduce their dependency on food imports, affording us
greater protection from speculation, and establishing a more stable,
regional food economy.

Comments are closed.