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Global warming having drastic impact on everything, can food prices escape?

food 2 1822Yes, we’re fully committed to reverse this ‘irreversible’ climate change and our efforts towards this effect are proving that too, but at what cost? What about the chain reaction triggered by the way we’re hopping from one half backed technique to another keeping everything at stake?

Oil is dead, no problem, we’ve ethanol as an alternative, which is far more environment friendly. However, to axe carbon emissions we’ll have to pay a very heavy price, for which, apparently, we all must be ready.

More demand of corn, sugar and other raw material used for ethanol production has automatically raised their prices too. The steep rise in prices of vegetables and pulses in cities around the country has caused an alarm among the consumers. Therefore, no doubt, global warming is leading to rise in prices of agricultural products.

Now the time is coming when consumers need to spend more money on food and they will have less money to spend on other goods and services.

Effect of Climate change on agricultural products:

High corn prices are encouraging farmers to rotate their crops away from soybeans, and are likely to force prices for that crop higher. Corn, soybean and wheat are the key parts of the feed chain for cattle and pig farmers due to this they will drive up livestock prices.

It is estimated that, if grain prices rise by 30%, livestock prices will jump 10% after a period of three to six months.

Rise in food prices may give an upward push to headline inflation which may act as a break on global economic growth.

In 2001-02 only 706m bushels of corn were used for fuel in America. In the 2006-7 seasons that figure looks likely to treble, to 2.15 billion bushels. And, as demand shoots up, global corn inventories are at their lowest level in almost 30 years.

Forget dotcoms, forget biotechnology, the next boom might just be in pork bellies.

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Source: The Economist

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