From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
h/t Patsy Lacey
For millennia, food production and pricing have been disrupted by the weather, with one-off events such as heatwaves, droughts, flooding or frosts cutting harvests and raising prices. War and disease are also factors, as the world saw recently after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the swine fever that swept through China’s pig population.
But another, more sustained thread has run through many sharp increases in food prices. From oranges in Brazil to cocoa in west Africa; olives in southern Europe to coffee in Vietnam, permanently shifting weather patterns as a result of climate change are reducing crop yields, squeezing supplies and driving up prices.
Adam Davis, co-founder of global agricultural hedge fund Farrer Capital, says climate change has helped drive up prices for a long list of food commodities trading at higher levels this year. “Wheat is up 17 per cent, palm oil 23 per cent . . . sugar 9 per cent and pork 21 per cent,” he says. For the consumer, the “lag effect of those high commodity prices is not going away”.
A third of the food price increases in the UK in 2023 was down to climate change, according to the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit think-tank.
“There’s a material impact from climate change on global food prices,” says Frederic Neumann, chief Asia economist at HSBC. “It’s easy to shrug off individual events as being isolated, but we’ve just seen such a sequence of abnormal events and disruptions that, of course, add up to climate change impact.”
Such repeated events result in “a permanent impact on the ability to supply food,” argues Neumann. Food price rises once considered temporary are becoming a source of persistent inflationary pressure.
Globally, annual food inflation rates could rise by up to 3.2 percentage points per year within the next decade or so as a result of higher temperatures, according to a recent study by the European Central Bank and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
https://www.ft.com/content/125e89c0-308a-492f-ae8e-6834847d1186
Meanwhile back in the real world:
https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#compare
The only factor pushing up food prices is the consistently high price of oil and gas, the intended result of attempts by western governments to throttle off new drilling. This impacts both the operating costs for farmers and also the price of fertiliser.
If any of these lies were true, do you honestly believe those same governments would be wanting to rewild large areas of the planet?
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Climate Change is Pushing Up Food Prices
Hmmm…not quite right…let’s fix that misstatement
Climate Change Policy is Pushing Up Food Prices
Fighting the great Climate Change Boogeyman by mandating the installation of High Cost intermittent weather dependent energy sources to replace significantly lower cost reliable FF energy sources is creating massive inflation driving up the cost of everything… from the cost of energy, electricity, gas and gasoline, to the cost of goods, services and transportation, food included.
“Climate Change Policy is Pushing Up Food Prices”
Yes, that’s the right way to put it.
OT…it’s a good thing that Trump was President in 2019 and 2020, when Covid struck as the “Vaccine” (yeah riiiight) allowed us to get back to Normal(??) prior to Biden taking office. If he ascended to the big chair prior to the vaccine release, we would likely still be in lock down waiting for it to be tested as lock downs also fight the climate boogeyman
Do you want to buy a bridge? Do you have a memory, not if you believe what you posted above.
High oil prices are not the result of western governments attempts to throttle off new drilling. 2024 will see a new record for the amount of fossil fuels produced beating the previous record set in 2023. Oil prices are set by cartels and not the free market and western governments have very little to do with it.
When western countries like USA had plenty of their own production, they had more control over the prices.
Trying to deflect that the cause is almost totally down to the green agenda…
Have you no shame !!
Between Jan 2017 and Jan 2021 the price of crude oil averaged around $45 per barrel then from January 21 to Jan 22 the price rocketed to over $100 per barrel and is still now around double what it averaged 2017 – 2020 (Trading Economics).
Coincidence or could it have something to do with executive actions by Biden in Jan 2021?
Whenever you restrict a supply of a natural resource, the price goes up. That’s also the only reason why monopolies are considered greed.
DeBeers figured that one out a loooong time ago.
DeBeers = carbon merchant.
Yes and the fools don’t understand just a few percent reduction in oil production, or a few percent of demand out stripping supply will change the price upwards by huge numbers. The inverse is true for oversupply and reduced usage.
What is not a coincidence is your choice of Jan 2021. The price turned upwards Apr 2020, rebounding after the corona crash. https://knoema.com/infographics/cbhnele/world-crude-oil-supply-and-demand-forecast-2020-2021
What’s your point?
It was obviously merely returning to the pre-corona average.
so that’s the new term, let me see if i can use it properly:
after coming into power in january 2021, the biden cartel enacted multiple policies that drove the price of gas to nearly double its 2020 level
did i get it right? grifters are in cartels?
Except the post was cartels and western governments had very little to do with it.
Your point is currently in the US and elsewhere in the western nations, governments ARE the cartels.
Point well made, mate.
Supply and demand, yo.
Record production doesn’t matter if demand is growing faster.
What planet do you live on? The Canadian government is throttling Canadian oil production, which means we buy more from other countries, at whatever price they want to charge.
On the consumption side, I live in British Columbia, and the air tax here is roughly 3x the price of the natural gas I use for heating. 5% GST is on top of that.
As for gasoline, the air tax on that is 17.61 cents per litre this year, plus 5% GST of course. For diesel, it’s currently 20.74 cents per litre plus 5% GST.
Hopefully that problem will be rectified by a new administration in the US shortly.
Long term despite large fluctuations in the prices of lamb and beef, products that the loonies demand we all stop eating anyway, the prices of staples like wheat corn and rice have been falling consistently for at least 150 years despite — or partly due to — 🥵 climate change.
Yeah, the steady increase in arable land area and record crops is obviously causing higher prices.
Why isn’t Basic Economics a required course in school?
Replaced with Bidenomics.
The price of everything is going up. This is primarily a result of the value of currencies going down, which occurs due to inflation of the money supply (colloquially known as money printing). Western countries, most prominently the US, have been engaging in massive amounts of money printing for many years (decades now, since 2008). This is often couched in euphemistic terms like “quantitative easing”.
Money printing, the creation of new money out of thin air (which is seldom ever actually printed into physical existence) is theft from all those who hold no net debt. The created money gains its value by the dilution of the value of the entire money pool. This newly created money has maximum purchasing power the first time it is spent (as its dilatory effects are only felt once it is spent into the economy). While a significant amount of new money creation is done by governments effectively creating money from thin air, the majority is created through commercial bank loans, where the money loaned does not exist prior to the creation of the loan, it is conjured into existence by the creation of the loan, and will be extinguished upon repayment of the loan. The world is drowning in a sea of debt, created out of nothing and for which the funds to pay the interest do not exist. Yet more loans, and more debt must be taken out in order to pay the interest.
It is unsound money that is at the root of many of the problems that the world faces. But, barely a single politician on the planet would ever advocate for sound money. Sound money would forestall their ability to promise unaffordable policies. It is only by debt based financing and money printing that the largess of government is made possible.
Climate change has nothing to do with this, at least not directly. The massive waste of money that is the “Green energy revolution” is a sizeable part of the profligate spending problems. Countries are endeavoring to spend multiples of their GDP to trash their own energy infrastructure and cripple their agricultural sectors while simultaneously incurring massive debts and causing crippling inflation for their people. It’s difficult to see how such a perfect storm of blunders could happen by mere chance.
It’s not that things are getting more expensive, it’s that your money is becoming more worthless.
I’m a billionaire. I have an envelope with ~$20 Billion dollars in it on my shelf. Unfortunately, these are ZIM$1Billion notes though. But, I’m still a billionaire.
Unlike fiat currency, the value of items is pretty stable. A nice daughter for a wife of a successful farmer in most of the world is still worth two goats and a donkey, same as it has been for millennia
that seems like a fair exchange 🙂
Unless you get an ugly donkey.
You have the date exactly correct 2008 in the year the US economy collapsed. We’ve partially survived by printing money but $2 trillion of additional annual debt is unsustainable. How much longer can we maintain the facade? Can we still have a functioning economy at $64 trillion of national debt in 30 years or less? I don’t see how, especially with a society that thinks 2 PPM annual additional ATM CO2 (plant food) is an existential crisis, but $2 trillion additional annual national debt is just a number.
2008, the year Trump last talked to H. Clinton. He was trying to help her with her campaign against Obama. After Obama took office, in 2009, Trump switched parties due to his disagreement with Obama economic policies. Clinton never forgave him and the rest is history.
Interesting take, Sparta. Maybe Trump could see that Obama was more left on economics, defense, foreign policy and such, but he could stand H’s social ideas. She certainly was a capitalist.
I may have to talk wih a friend who voted for Hillary.
Gums…
Once I saw a report that defended the US national debt due to it being less than the GDP and less percentage wise than most other countries.
Now the US national debt is greater than the GDP. What is the new justification?
The New Deal back in the Great Depression lasted about 2 years and was killed because of the massive $1B debt taken on by the US. It did not jump start the economy because the money was spend on one and done projects. Bridges, football stadiums, libraries, etc., none of which created employment once the projects were finished.
All such “make-work” schemes by governments turn out to be just a short-fix sugar rush for economies.
Demand economies require that supply activities don’t get initiated until organic demand is evident.
Command economy dictates such as government “make-work” projects have the demand / supply relationship ass-backwards.
The Financial Times is almost as bad as The Guardian for climate hysteria.
It is so sad to see once realists jump on the ideological bandwagon. They used to question things. And like The Economist they all seem to support a one sided narrative. Bizarre, really..
Not bizarre. Captured. Bought and paid for.
That might be pushing things a bit.
As a rule, ceteris paribus, commodity prices will rise in line with inflation.
Production increases usually exceed demand increases, so food prices tend not to keep pace with general inflation.
Inflation has been quite a bit higher than that for the last couple of years. Central banks, by and large have a target range of inflation of between 2 and 3 percentage points, so 3.2 for food is rather close to the mark.
Always remember that interest is a compounding factor. So, a 2% rise on top of a previous 20% still means prices go up. That’s why companies often have a 2 prong approach to a price rise, say the first is 20%, the 2nd is 7%.
And lawyers can spin the way interest is calculated much like a ‘prisoner of war’ can now be called an ‘enemy combatant’. Or a laid off person is not ‘unemployed’ but is put in a ‘back to work scheme’, special provision type of thing.Different ( counting)rules.
Also, ‘general interest’ doesnt mean anything, just like ‘global mean temperature’. Or the average temperature of the Moon for that matter..
You have to read the fine print. Interest can be paid (or charged) on the principal or the balance.
I’m not sure what interest has to do with inflation, though.
Isn’t that a section in the book shop?
Don’t forget cost of fuel is not only in production but also in processing, delivery, storage and sales of the product.
Small producers are price takers, so can’t directly pass along the price of anything.
You either hope to ride it out until prices improve, pack it in, or produce something else.
Later stages of the supply chain tend to be larger, so do have scope to increase prices to pass along the increased costs.
Energy prices are certainly a factor in the price of most things, it’s just a matter of what proportion of inflation is due to them.
How Soaring Shipping Costs Raise Prices Around the World. https://www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2022/03/28/how-soaring-shipping-costs-raise-prices-around-the-world
Sails won’t help
But that couldn’t have anything to do with switching to more expensive fuel, could it?
I’ll ask the Houthis.
Be sure to check the sulfur content.
I was not going to comment as it is pretty clear from the article already.
Suffice to say that reality is what certain people say it is and is driven by groupthink and group identity, usually pushed by an interest minority/ elite. As an extreme example is the Biden- Trump ‘debate’. If you are on team Democrat you apparently have to support a dead man walking otherwise your fund will halt. As long as they can spin the media their way they will continue. Same for ‘climate change’. Team Net Zero. Reality has to take a back seat. This car is driven by those benefiting fr the green slushfund. These matters overlap.
Good example. Even so, it’s interesting that reality is nevertheless setting in with the realization that “dead man walking” could take down a whole swath of dems with him. “Hide the decline” is so obvious that it’s backfiring.
I agree.
To add: The Biden demise is clear to see. Climate alarmism is focused on extreme weather events that are always happening somewhere with the catastrophy usually 5-10 years away.
From the article: “permanently shifting weather patterns as a result of climate change are reducing crop yields, squeezing supplies and driving up prices.”
This is a blatant lie. There is no evidence for “permanently shifting weather patterns” on the Earth.
The weather at my house is acting just like it did 20 years ago and 40 years ago.
Climate Alarmists have to lie in order to promote their Human-caused Climate Change narrative.
Funny how “permanently shifting weather patterns” is the very definition of climate change.
Climate is always changing the unanswered question remains, how much, which way and in what time frame. Climate Alarmists think they have the answers, the only thing for certain is they don’t.
One has to include the increases in minimum wage as a factor in all prices.
This is not a comment on the morality or validity of minimum wages and increases, only the ripple effects.
Just look at what “Climate Change” did to food prices in Sri Lanka a few years ago!
Sorry, but I disagree with this article.
Energy prices are not really that high even compared to the past 10 years of variation.
The real reason food prices are high is because fertilizer prices are high – and the reasons for that principally involve Western sanctions on Russia plus the “mysterious” explosion that took out NordStream.
NordStream’s destruction has killed European domestic fertilizer production capability because it has jumped the price of natural gas in Europe by multiples.
This in turn causes European farmers to try and import their nitrogen fertilizers, but the problem is that Russia is probably the largest single nitrogen fertilizer exporter – hence sanctions.
So between sanctions and NordStream – Europe is a black hole for fertilizer imports and is driving up prices around the world including the US. Yes, the US imports nitrogen fertilizers too – it is a net exporter but there are regions in the US which are very expensive/difficult for the primarily Gulf region producers to supply. North Dakota is one of them – despite connecting via the Missouri river to the Mississippi to the Gulf, ND has some of the highest nitrogen fertilizer prices in the US.
There is some natural gas price impact from LNG exports (again, Europe) but this probably isn’t the dominant factor.
The primary cause for price disruption whether up or down is government interference in the market. There is no section of the market that the government doesn’t the need to screw with. Government is the problem no matter what other hurdles we might face.