☆☆四星级☆☆Economist Debates阅读写作分析--Rising food prices

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http://www.economist.com/debate/overview/130

前言：

呃 最近有ibt要考，赶工作出一个来作为dies组其它同学发帖的样板
等我考完回来之后好好写一个序言昂~
这个economist debate真的是超级无敌的赞，是economist日常分析的升华版
20个精华debate，将由dies in flames组精心制作,敬请期待

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About this debate

Peoplefear rising food prices as bad - pushing the poorest into starvationandexerting downward financial pressure on all but the wealthiestconsumers --further dampening the global economy. But are higher foodprices inherently negative?Increased foodcosts help farmers, and farmers provide one of humanity's mostbasic needs. If farmers do better it stands toreason others will benefit too. Willrising foodprices push the agricultural industry todevelop safe andgenetically modified foods that can withstand draught or growinmarginally fertile areas - thereby helping developing countriesbecomeself-sustainable? （科技类\社会类话题）Finally, land once earmarked forfood growthincreasingly is being used to develop biofuel crops.Is thepotential fortemporary food shortages worth experimenting withunproven biofuel technologies,particularly if the goal is to lowertransportation costs and ease food pricesin the long-term?

Do you agree with the motion?

Representing the sides

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Defending the motion

Mr Homi Kharas
Senior Fellow at the Wolfensohn Centre for Development at the BrookingsInstitution

The media sensationalises the impact of high food prices with images ofhungerand civil unrest in far-flung places like Port-Au-Prince andCairo.

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Against the motion

Dr Joachim von Braun
Director General, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)

Rising foodprices are not always bad or bad for everyone. Modestincreases infood and agricultural prices above past trends can helpgenerate investment andfoster productivity.

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Background reading


Food: The silent tsunami

The problem with food
Apr 17th 2008
From The Economist print edition

PICTURES of hungerusually show passive eyes and swollen bellies. The harvest failsbecause of war or strife; the onset of crisis is sudden and localised.Its burden falls on those already at the margin.

Today's picturesare different. “This is a silent tsunami,” says Josette Sheeran of theWorld Food Programme, a United Nations agency. A wave of food-priceinflationis moving through the world, leaving riots and shakengovernments in its wake. For the first time in 30 years, food protestsare erupting in many places at once. Bangladesh is in turmoil (seearticle); even China is worried (see

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Food and the poor: The new face of hunger

Apr 17th 2008
From The Economist print edition

SAMAKE BAKARYsells rice from wooden basins at Abobote market in the northern suburbsof Abidjanin Côte d'Ivoire. He points to a bowl of broken Thai ricewhich, at 400CFA francs (roughly $1) per kilogram, is the most popularvariety. On a good day he used to sell 150 kilos. Now he is lucky tosell half that.“People ask the price and go away without buyinganything,”he complains. In early April they went away and rioted: twodays of violence persuaded the government to postpone planned elections.

“World agriculture hasentered a new, unsustainable and politically risky period,”says Joachimvon Braun, the head of the International Food PolicyResearch Institute(IFPRI) in Washington, DC. To prove it, food riotshave erupted in countries all along the equator. In Haiti, protesterschanting“We're hungry” forced the prime minister to resign; 24 peoplewere killed in riots in Cameroon; Egypt's president ordered the army tostart baking bread;the Philippines made hoarding rice punishable by life imprisonment. “It's an explosive situation and threatens political stability,” worries Jean-LouisBillon, president of Côte d'Ivoire'schamber of commerce.…

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The world food summit: Only a few green shoots

Jun 5th 2008 | ROME
From The Economist print edition

Some good ideas, but too little cash, were among the fruits of a global gathering

BOSSES of the United Nations have some discretion over what to focus on.For Kofi Annan, the previous secretary-general, the big issue was peacekeeping and conflict in poor countries. For the new one, Ban Ki-moon,itseems to be the environment and natural resources. Last year he threw his weight behind a declaration in Bali on climate change. Earlier this year he sounded the alarm about water. Now he wants collective action on food.

This week 40-odd heads of government gathered in Rome under the auspices of Mr Ban and the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation to talk about the miserable state of world farming and what to do about it. Many donors and governments are responding already. Intheory, the summit could have done a lot more because, for the firsttime in a generation, soaring food prices have convinced everyone thatsomething is profoundly wrong with world farming and needs to change. But how much new insight did this talk fest really add?

Joachim von Braun,the head of the International Food Policy ResearchInstitute (IFPRI), aWashington-based research group financed by governments,says international action should focus on five things. The Rome summit made progress on a couple of them.

First, food aid. Earlier this year, the World Food Programme (WFP), the main agency for handing out emergency relief, pushed the panic button,saying it was running out of money because of dearer grain. At thesummit, it announced an extra $1.2 billion of food aid, thanks partlyto Saudi Arabia,which just before the meeting gave the programme $500m.The donation from acountryawash with oil money had barely been noticedoutside the WFP. But it was still a remarkable one. Most announcements of “new money” turn out to be old promises repackaged.    This contribution was genuinely new and madea big difference.

Next, biofuels.The conference could have helped rationalise biofuels policy. Somenon-governmental organisations want a moratorium on ethanoloutput,saying this would cut grain prices by 20%. Parts of the UNbureaucracy and some big food companies say they would supportsomething milder, such as international restrictions on the productionofc orn-based ethanol. Still others argue that biofuels are fine as an idea but are beset by a tangle of subsidies, tariffs and production targets that needs unravelling.The summit made no headway in doing so. Just before it, America'ssecretary of agriculture, Ed Schafer, claimed that ethanol accounts foronly 2-3% of the increase in world food prices—acontentious view (IFPRIsays 30%) but one that left the summit irreparably and paraly singlysplit over biofuels.

Third, the conference could have come up with some short-term fixes ,beyond food aid, to increase farmers' incentives and to cut world prices. The most obvious fix is toreduce export bans. Around 40 food-exporting countrieshaveimposed somesorts of trade restriction of food: taxes, quotasoracross-the-boardbans. A study by IFPRI calculates that getting rid of these wouldreduce world cereals prices by an average of 30%. Summits sometimesdissuade leaders from beggaring their neighbours, since the neighbours'complaints may have to be faced in person.

But it is notclear the meeting in Rome achieved this aim. Vietnam,Cambodia and Indiahave all promised to reopen some of their rice exports.Japan, a bigimporter,says it will release about a fifth of itsgovernment-controlled ricestockpile. But Egypt extended its ban on ricetrade for another year, so it is hard to see a clear pattern of improvement.

This reflects one of the basic difficulties of getting coherent actionin this area: countries' interests simply differ. Most developing countries are net importers,but some are net exporters. InBotswana and South Africa, food accountsfor a fifth of the consumerprice index; in Sri Lanka and Bangladeshitaccounts for two-thirds. Andwhile most poor nations are victimsor beneficiaries of food inflation,China and India may be regarded as causes,too. Amartya Sen, a Nobel laureate and writer on the politics offamine,says rising demand (for example, from the Asian middle classes)and notfailing productivity is the main reason for the current crisis.
It is not surprising that the summit did little about biofuels, exportbans or social-safetynets (which it hardly discussed). In any case, as many speakers argued,the value of short-term measures is limited. “Theunderlying problem”,says Lennart Bage, head of the International FundforAgriculturalDevelopment, “is the decline in agriculturalproductivity growth. Unless were verse that, we'll be back in the samesituation in afew years' time.”

Internationalaction for the long term goes beyond the scope of any one meeting. Itwould probably require a deal on world trade in agriculture, forinstance—a distant prospect. But the Rome meeting did make a start on the longest of long-term goals: a second green revolution. Mr Ban said food output needs to rise by 50% by 2030. Countries are issuing, or at least preparing, along list of promises to help finance research intonew seeds, build irrigationcanals and spread fertiliser use among smallfarmers (seeds, irrigation andfertilisers were the main componentsofthe first green revolution in the1960s). These promises could well be the main achievements of the Rome summit.A couple of weeks ago, the words “seeds and “fertilisers” were rarely uttered by rich-country governments. Suddenly, these old obsessions of development wonks have broken through into the domain of public policy.

Can it be done again?

Some argue thata second green revolution will be harder to achieve than the first,because genetically modified organisms provide the only hope for newseed, and Europeans are dead against them;because there is not enough water top ermit a big expansion ofirrigation in, say, Africa; and because oil at $125 a barrel makesfertilisers too expensive. That seems unduly过度 pessimistic悲观. As Mr Bage points out, the only thing known for sure is that therehas been an enormous fall in agricultural investment over 30 years. Itseems abit early to rule out in advance the possible benefits ofreversing that decline.

But saying smallholder agriculture needs investment, and actually providing it, aredifferent matters. Over the past three months, pledges of money havesurged and two institutions—the World Bank and IFAD, a UN agency—haveemerged as the main prospective lenders.

Unfortunately,says Simon Maxwell of Britain's Overseas Development Institute, much ofthe“new” $1.2 billion promised by the World Bank, and the $500m fromthe Asian and Latin American Development Banks, is not reallyadditional. It is diverted from other programmes, and this raisesworries about robbing Peter to pay Paul. Moreover, even the so-callednew funding doesn't amount to very much: tens of millions of dollars,which may been ough for somenew seeds but is a far cry from the $15billion-20billion a year Mr Ban wants for a green revolution. Mr Ban'sefforts to improve farming are laudable and ambitious. So were MrAnnan's efforts to boost peace keeping.

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Opening statements



Defendingthe motion
MrHomi Kharas
Senior Fellow at the Wolfensohn Centre forDevelopment at the Brookings Institution
Themedia sensationalises the impact of high foodprices with images of hunger and civil unrest in far-flung places likePort-Au-Prince and Cairo.

Againstthe motion
DrJoachim von Braun
Director General, the International Food PolicyResearch Institute (IFPRI)
Risingfood prices are not always bad or bad for everyone.Modest increases in food and agricultural prices above past trends can help generate investment and foster productivity.

Themoderator's opening remarks
Jul29th 2008 | Mr John Parker
Many publicdebates consist of people talking past each other. Both ofour protagonists inthe food debate, however, start in the same place:that whether the rise infood prices is good or bad depends in part onother things.
As Joachim vonBraun says for the opposition, "Rising food prices arenot always bad, orbad for everyone." It depends, as Homi Kharas saysfor the proposition:"The impact of high food prices depends on eachhousehold's income andconsumption patterns. Beyond this, the impactalso depends on what happens tolabour, land and credit markets." In other words,the rise in food prices is not necessarily good or bad in itself.
Buthaving agreed on that point, our protagonistsstake out their differences. ForMr von Braun, it is the speed, ratherthan the fact of the price increase thatmatters. Prices haverisen so quickly—the food index of the Food and AgricultureOrganisation(FAO) rose by 50% in the year to May 2008, he says—that peoplehave notbeen able to adjust. Or rather, "adjustment" has taken theform of thepoor eating less and going hungry. Higher food prices have hurtthepoor, encouraged social unrest and created a great deal of widereconomicuncertainty, as countries import inflation.
ForMr Kharas, it is the fact of the increase that matters more. Thisis because he focuses on feeding people tomorrow,rather than today. Heargues that the big challenge for the world over the nextdecades willbe to feed the extra 90m people who are added to the globalpopulation each year; that this cannot be done usingcurrent farm productivity,based on the food prices that have prevailedfor the past ten years orso and that therefore the world needs higher foodprices to drive upinvestment and boost agricultural productivity.
The two men alsodisagree about how much, or how quickly, higher priceswill feed through toimproved productivity. Mr Kharas argues the benefitsare already visible: theFAO's forecast for this year's world cerealsharvest, he says, shows asignificant rise. He points out that share prices infarm-machinerycompanies such as John Deere are soaring, a sure sign of rising agricultural investment.
Mr von Braunreplies that cack-handed government policies and varioussorts of marketfailure are harming the smooth self-correction of foodmarkets and he arguesthat these distortions may be getting worsebecause of higher prices. Largefood-exporting countries have beenimposing export bans to keep food at home,for example.
Both men end by defining their conclusions as matters of balance andjudgment, not principle. "Under current conditions," says Mrvon Braun, "theeffects of high food prices arelargely negative," implying that ifconditions were to change, the impactmight be different too. And he enumerates someof the changes he thinks would be desirable.
"Thespectre of hunger is ugly," says Mr Kharas. "Nor should we leaptothe conclusion that food prices at today's levels are here to stay."Theimplication is that there are many losers and even the gains he seesmight notbe sustained.
Suchfair-mindedness is important in any debate, butthe more so when both sidescould define the terms of debate to theirown advantage. The very phrase"food crisis" may predispose participantsagainst a proposition thatthere is an upside to rising prices. On theother hand, it's an ill wind thatblows absolutely nobody any good;there is always some sort of upside. Thequestion for the audience ishow big, and whether it is big enough to bemeaningful.



Theproposer's opening remarks
Jul29th 2008 | Mr Homi Kharas
The mediasensationalises the impact of high food prices with images ofhunger and civilunrest in far-flung places like Port-Au-Prince andCairo.
Butthese images miss the point. （媒体负作用于社会类的话题）Theworld needs more food and less poverty. In a market economy, higher pricesprovide the incentive to produce more.
Ever sinceMalthus there have been worries that exponentialgrowth in global population will outstripglobal food supplies. But Malthus was wrong. Only asmall part of today's demand for food is due to population growth, despite thefact that 90m people are being added to our planet every year. The bigger impact is felt from therapid incomegrowth in our $60-trillion global economy. Much of thisgrowth today is in poorbut populous countries, like China and India. Asthey become richer, they eatmore food. A "chicken in every pot" is arealistic dream for billionsof the world's new middle class.
To produce thischicken demands an ever-increasing stream of feed-grains. Thethree drivers of demand for food—population growth,income growth andthe shifting pattern of consumption towards meat—suggest thatfoodoutput might need to be doubled in the next 30 years. This is thedemandstory.
For many years,food supply has kept up with and surpassed demand.Modernagricultural technology, based on cheap fossil fuels,deliveredproductivity gains. But for the last ten years, supply growthhas faltered, andwith high energy costs it cannot be put back on track.Thiswas disguised for a time by running down mountains of grain stored insilos in the bread baskets of the world. But now it isclear that limits to agricultural expansion at the low prices of 2000/01are being reached. The reality is that （这样的论证结构不得不让读者被吸引，误区—清晰—现实，完整的阐述方式和逻辑递进）lessthan one-half of the world's land area is suitable for agriculture and in netterms, the irrigated land area is falling. Soilerosion, salinisation, acidification and nutrient depletion contribute todeclining land quality. （用在environment类话题ISSUE以及argument反例中，很好很强大）Biofuelcrops are taking away arable land from food. The world's grain silos areemptying.
Thegood news is that higher food prices areexactly what is required to restore balance in the market. With risingdemand and constrained supply the iron law of economics permits no otherresponse. In a market economy, when demand exceedssupply, prices rise. （argument里的develop句型）Higher prices discourage consumption, but they also encourage moreinvestment and enhance production.
Anyonewho doubts the link between food prices and agricultural investment should takea close look atthe stock price of the world's largest producerof agriculturalequipment, John Deere. While most US shares have taken abeating, JohnDeere's share price has doubled and has split two-for-one in thelasttwo years. High food prices are encouragingfarmers to invest heavily in new equipment. Thispattern is being repeated across the world, with investments inequipment, storage and land improvements.
More food isalready being produced in response to higherprices: forecasts for cereals production in 2008 by the Food and AgricultureOrganisation show a significant increase. This should come as no surprise.When prices fellsteeply between 1997 and 2002, cereal productiondeclined. Now that prices haverisen back to the levels of themid-1990s, cereal production has resumed itsupward trend. Productivity is on the rise.
Moreprofits for farmers does not mean a benefit to humanity. Somehaveargued that rising food prices hurt the poorest of the poor. TheWorldBank suggested that today's higher food prices could push 100mmore people intopoverty.
Unfortunately,the World Bank's flash estimate, whichwas based on an extrapolation from anine-country study, has not stoodup to scrutiny.
（这样彪悍的句型难道不比懒蛋ARGU模板里杀伤力大几十倍？）Therealityis that the impact of high food prices depends on eachhousehold'sincome and consumption patterns. Beyond this, the impactalso depends on whathappens to labour, land and credit markets. As afurther complication, domesticagricultural prices in most countries donot mirror world prices but alsoreflect government tax and subsidypolicies. All these factors have to be takeninto account to understandthe impact of high food prices on household welfare.（这段话对ARGUMENT来说真的是无敌中的无敌，要背过！）
The AsianDevelopment Bank (ADB) has just completed a study includingthe three countrieswith the largest rural populations in the world:India, China and Indonesia.
Consider India,which has a long history of subsidising agriculturalinput and output prices.According to the ADB, this has led to a systemwhich is "unproductive,financially unsustainable, and environmentallydestructive; ... (it) alsoaccentuates inequality among rural Indianstates." Higher world foodprices might be just the push needed byIndia, along with many other countries,to persuade it to reform itsagricultural pricing system and provide newopportunities for itsdesperate farmers.
The ADB reportalso analyses China in some detail. It concludes thatrural households in Chinashould enjoy a significant reduction in theincidence of poverty as a result ofhigh food prices. Although someurban households will be made worse off, these arethe same householdswhich have seen steady growth in wages in the last fewyears and have amiddle-class living standard. In fact, a short while ago manyanalystsclaimed that the greatest risk to China's development was thegrowinggap between income levels in urban and rural areas. With today'sfood prices,that problem has receded.
The outcome inIndonesia appears to be more mixed. Urban low-income andlandless labourerswould become poorer, while small and medium farmerswould be better off.Indonesia has large numbers in both these groups,so many people would beaffected. On average, the ADB simulations suggest thatthere would be about the same number of winners and losers, so average nationalpoverty would remain unchanged.
It issurely true that high food prices will cause hardship to many. Thesuffering of those in Cairo, Haiti and much of Africa is real. The spectre ofhunger is ugly. Thatcannot be denied and should notbe forgotten. Nor should we leap to theconclusion that food prices at today'slevels are here to stay.But for the majority of the world's poor, to befound among the 1.7billion rural residents of India, China and Indonesia, thedream of a"chicken in every pot" is becoming more attainable becauseworld foodsupply is rising again. That is the upsidefor humanity from today's high food prices.



Theopposition's opening remarks
Jul29th 2008 | Dr Joachim von Braun
Rising foodprices are not always bad or bad for everyone. Modestincreases in food andagricultural prices above past trends can helpgenerate investment and fosterproductivity.
Butthat is not the situation with which the world is confronted in 2008. Foodpriceshave increased drastically: the Food and Agriculture Organisation oftheUnited Nations (FAO) food-price index rose by 50 percent between May2007 andMay 2008, and price rises have been much higher for certainfoods and areas.Some countries, communities and households mayexperience an upside from therecent surge in food prices—indeed,large-scale farmers who produce grains andoilseeds are all smiles thesedays—but many more will lose.
Ideally,of course, high food prices would be self-correcting—moreproductionby farmers and a bit of belt-tightening by consumers wouldlead prices to anequilibrium that both farmers and consumers could livewith. Also, some do hope that the price crisiswould now triggerpositive change in the prevailing protectionist anddistortive agriculturalpolicies. In reality, however, （这样的对比转折，很好很实用）market failures and new misguided policiesarelikely to keep food prices high and volatile for years to come:countries thatproduce grain surpluses have increasingly restricted—andeven banned—exports;many countries have shut down promising marketinnovations, such as futuresmarkets in commodity exchanges, yet excessivespeculation has set in anyway;public and private investment inagriculture is being mobilised onlyslowly. Farmers are facing increasing costsof production. The burden ofadjusting to higher food prices is fallingheaviest on the bottombillion, who could not afford a healthy diet even beforethe pricecrisis.
Themost disturbing consequence of high food prices is an increase in hungerand malnutrition.Not only are poor people in developing countries mostlynet food buyers,but they spend 50-70 percent of their budgets on food. As theysee theprice of staple foods like rice double over a couple of months,theiroptions for "coping" consist of reducing or skipping mealsandshifting to even less-nutritious diets. When children and pregnantwomen reduceor skip meals, even temporarily, the consequences for theirhealth and nutrition can be lifelong and irreversible.Researchshows that malnutrition among preschool children directly affectstheirability to learn once they reach school, and their ability to earnincomeas adults. Rising food prices also put severe pressure on foodaid. As foodprices rise, food aid falls in terms of both rations andthe number of peoplereached.
Rising foodprices pose threats to the livelihoodsof the poor by eroding their already limited purchasing power. As poorhouseholds spend more on food, they spend less on othergoods and services essentialto their health and welfare, such as cleanwater, sanitation, education andhealth care. The actual impact ofrising food prices on poor people'slivelihoods depends on their accessto social protection, but in manydeveloping countries social protectionis non-existent or extremely limited. Asa result, many households indistress are forced to take actions that will makethem even morevulnerable in the future, like selling their productive assetsandwithdrawing children, especially girls, from school.
Atfirst glance, one might assume that the world'sabout 400 million small farmersare among the winners from rising foodprices. In fact, however, most smallfarmers in developing countries are actually net buyers of food,so theyfeel the pinch from rising food prices. Even many farmers whoare net foodsellers during and after harvest time must buy food for therest of the year.Theoretically, high food prices increase profits fromfarmers' products, butmost small farmers in developing countries willmiss out on this opportunitybecause they cannot achieve sufficienteconomies of scale or they lack accessto efficient markets. Even forfarmers who can boost production, higher profitsare far fromguaranteed. With rising energy prices, farmers are paying muchmore forfertilisers, high-yielding seeds, livestock feed and transport.
Biofuelproduction from grains and oilseeds is a majorcontributorto high food prices and likely to remain so. Increaseddemand forbiofuels—stemming from overly ambitious mandates and largesubsidies inindustrialised countries—accounts for at least 30 percentof the total increasein the real world price of cereals up to 2007 andprobably even more in 2008.
What started asa hike in food and energy prices has turned into general inflation and severe strainson the economy as a whole. Most affected are net food-importing countries, the majority of whichhave low incomes. Evenfood-exporting countries have "imported" foodprice inflation. Nowcentral banks try to address the inflation trendswith general interest rateand monetary policies which, however, do nothelp address the root causes offood-price inflation, which was a keydriver of general inflation in manycountries in the first place.
The surge infood prices is also a trigger for social andpolitical unrest. Asprices increase, thepoor usually suffer silently for a while, while themiddle class typically hasthe ability to organise, protest, and lobby. Since2007, social unrestrelated to high food prices has occurred in morethan 50 countries, with someexperiencing multiple occurrences and ahigh degree of violence.
Under currentconditions, the effects of high food prices on humanity are largely negative.Nowfundamental changes in trade policies, in biofuel policies,increasedinvestment in agriculture, more agricultural science andtechnology, soundsocial protection and nutrition action, and improvedgovernance of the foodsystem at national and global levels are neededto allow people and countriesto cope with and grow out of thefood-price crisis. Sofar these needed actions have not been forthcoming at sufficient scale.

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Audienceparticipation
Featured guest: Neil Parish
Featured guest
Dr Papa Abdoulaye Seck
Ratherthan being a threat, the current food crisis caused by rising food prices is aunique historical opportunity for Africa to break from decades of policy biasagainst agriculture, which accounts for 35% of GDP in the continent and 75% ofemployment.

The present rice crisis for instance is alreadyforcing African countries to pay attention to local rice production, which has been neglected for so long. In the pastfew months, rice prices in the global market have jumped to record levels notreached since the 1970s food crisis.

Many factors explain the current high price of rice.First of all, since 2002, the global level of rice production has fallen shortof consumption, requiring continuous recourses to globally held rice stocks tocompensate for production shortfall. This has resulted in the decline of worldrice stocks from 147.3 million tones in 2001 to 74.1 million tones in 2008.According to USDA, the ratio of rice stocks to overall consumption is 17.5%(its lowest level since 1976/77). These stocks, half of which are owned byChina, represent two months of world consumption needs.

A compounding factor has been the export ban imposed by major rice exporters.Other factors are the rising prices of oil and freight, depreciation of thedollar and additional pressure on agricultural resources because of biofuelproduction. The limited scope for increasing rice-growing areas in major Asianproducing countries and the absence of major yield-enhancing technologicalbreakthroughs in Asia, together with the lowlevel of global stocks, indicate that prices couldremain high in the near future.

While people around the world have been feeling theimpact of the soaring food prices, no one has been hurt more than Africans. Withnearly 40% of the total rice consumption of Africa coming from theinternational market, African national rice economies are more exposed tounpredictable external supply and price shocks than those of other continents.A third of the volume of rice traded globally is sourced for Africa. It is alsoby far the most vulnerable continent because of its high prevalence of povertyand food insecurity.

The eruption of recent riots, due mainly to risingrice prices in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire, Egypt, Senegal and Mali, testifies to this vulnerability. Policymakers areadopting ill-advised price controls that risk pricing smallholders out of themarket and into further deprivation.

The option for Africa is to combine emergencyresponses for the short term with measures favourable to sustainable expansionof Africa's rice supply in the longer term. Short-term measures includethe reduction of customs duties and taxes on imported rice and theestablishment of mechanisms to avoid speculation in the rice markets. However,governments should take care not to undermine incentives for domestic riceproduction for the benefit of social peace in the major urban centres. Therising trends in rice price levels improve farmers"incentive for producingmore rice.

In the medium- and long-term, tax on all critical inputs, basicagricultural machinery and equipments and post-harvest technologies need to bereduced. Governments also have key roles to play in facilitating access tofinancial services and credit for resource-poor farmers, seed producers andrice processors; increasing investment in water-control technologies; expandingthe rice areas under irrigation; accelerating investment in regional researchcapacity; and hastening the pace of investment in rural infrastructure.政府对科研的支持，关系到国计民生

We are convinced that the future of rice farming lies in Africa. Unlike Asia,this continent has great untapped potential, which canbe seen in its large tracts of land and under-utilised water resources. Forexample, sub-Saharan Africa has 130 million hectares of lowlands but just 3.9million hectares are under cultivation. Our studies also show that local riceproduction under irrigated conditions can be as competitive as in Asia and muchcheaper than in America.

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Audienceparticipation
Featured guest: Papa Seck
Featured guest
Mr Neil Parish
Risingfood prices have definitely put farming back in the headlines, which isundoubtedly a good thing.For far too long it had been taken for granted;we had plenty of food and so there was little global investment in agriculture.It also allowed us to take the moral high ground on issues such asbiotechnology, pesticide use and the effects of agriculture on the environment.We concocted ever more imaginative ways to stop our farmers from increasingtheir yields and ultimately we neglected the real reason for farming in thefirst place: to grow food.
Thecurrent situation will focus our minds on how to feed a growingpopulation on less land and using fewer pesticides. Actionswe take now in areas like biotechnology will stand us in good stead to facefuture challenges to the global food supply and may also help developingcountries produce more of their own food in the long run. I also hopethat it will make governments realise that market-distorting subsidies andprotectionist trade policies only drive prices even further and exclude farmersin developing countries from fair competition. Already the European Union hasgot rid of its set-aside rule and is likely to introduce further reform to theCommon Agricultural Policy later this year. However globally developingcountries need to have better market access.
While higherprices are very difficult for urban dwellers in developing countries, they aregood for farmers in those countries and may encourage them to invest more inagriculture. Developing countries tend to have larger rural populations andwith increased revenue flowing into these areas, this can be the spur for morewidespread economic development.
Howeverhigher prices are not always good news for farmers; fuel andfertiliser costs have nearly doubled in the last year, eating up much of anynew revenue created. Livestock farmers are also facing huge rises in the costof animal feed and many are struggling as a result.
Theimpact of biofuels has been over-emphasised. The increase inmeat consumption in Asia, along with poor global harvests, high oil prices, aweak dollar and speculation are the most significant factors causing the risein food prices. High protein feedstock can also be extracted as a by-product ofthe refining process. However, at a time when we have food shortages weshouldn't be taking 20% of the arable land in America out of food production.
The initial goalof biofuels was to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, and to reduce ourimpact on the environment. Those needs still exist and biofuels can stilladdress them. However we should focus on second-generation biofuels, whichbreak down the cellulose within a crop. This can provide us with cheap andclean fuel without taking land from food production.
Risingfood prices are a huge challenge for many but they do force us to thinkdifferently about farming. By putting the focus firmly back on production anddistribution I believe they can help us address the many problems that causedthe rising prices in the first case.

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rebuttal statements

Defendingthe motion
Mr Homi Kharas
Senior Fellow at the Wolfensohn Centre forDevelopment at the Brookings Institution
Highfood prices are the result of supply being unable to keep up with demand, giventoday's costly technology.

Againstthe motion
Dr Joachim von Braun
Director General, the International Food PolicyResearch Institute (IFPRI)
Homi Kharas and I are in general agreement on the power ofincentives over production. Where we differ is in our assessment of the effectsof high and fast-changing food prices on humanity.

Themoderator's rebuttal remarks
Aug 1st 2008 | Mr John Parker
"It is clear, fromthe wording of the proposition, that any rational person cannot vote con,"writes silencedogood, from our audience of commentators.
One minutelater, uh2l writes: "To say that there isan upside for humanity for rising food prices seems ridiculous on the surfacewhen one considers that for any potential upsides to develop would take years.People are starving and hungry today!" Soit seems it is perfectly possible for a rational person to vote con, though admittedly, at theearly stages of the debate, supporters of the proposition have a clear edgeover opponents, by 59% to 41%.
To judge fromthe commentary, the main reasons for that support appear to be: belief thathigher prices will provide incentives to future production and a feeling that,to quote eatmorebarley, "food has been too cheap for many years". Inhis rebuttal, Homi Kharas develops those two claims. Hesays, in response to Joachim von Braun's argument that higher prices will leadto more poverty, that the long period of declining food prices from 1973 to2002 saw hunger and malnutrition get worse—that is, low prices do notnecessarily ameliorate poverty. And he expands his earlier claim thathigher prices will provide production incentives in two ways: he gives examplesof support to farmers from international donors, such as the World Bank and theGates Foundation, because of higher prices; and he argues the converse, that inthe 1990s, when prices were low, investment in agriculture fell sharply.
In his rebuttal,Mr von Braun questions whether in practice, the incentives will work in quitethe way Mr Kharas claims. He points out that, in theory, higher prices givefarmers an incentive to invest in their farms by (for example) buying newmachinery. But he points out that while this may be happening in America, inmany poor countries farmers are selling assets (such as livestock), not buyingnew ones. The reason, says Mr von Braun, is that higher prices provide a badincentive to cut demand—that is, eat less— as well as good ones to boostproduction. So Mr von Braun is sceptical of claims that productivity in farmingis on the rise: production is up, he says, because farmers are cultivating moreland, but productivity (yields per acre) is not. And productivity must rise forgreater output to be sustainable.
Thisembodies one of the core differences between Mr Kharas andMr von Braun. For Mr Kharas, the important things isthat dearer food unleashes incentives to produce, which in turn have dynamiceconomic effects. Mr von Braun replies that higher food prices trigger a lot of other things, too, including cuts inconsumption and crazy government policies, such as export bans.
Bothmen are to be congratulated on rooting their arguments and counter-arguments sostrongly in the evidence. ThierryG may well be right to say:"We do not know much, consequently identifying upsides is still verydifficult." But we are learning a great deal more about the facts andarguments about dearer food as the debate unfolds.
Theproposer's rebuttal remarks
Aug 1st 2008 | Mr Homi Kharas
High food pricesare the result of supply being unable to keep up with demand, given today's costly technology.
They are an easy scapegoat but are not responsible forhunger and malnutrition in the developing world.
Governmentinterventions and distortions in food markets have been with us for decades. Sohave the problems of hunger and malnutrition in the developing world. Duringa 30-year period of declining food prices from 1973 to 2002, these problems got worse, not better, in manycountries.
The prolongedperiod of low food prices did very little to reduce povertyand hunger, especially in Africa where it is most intransigent.According to the United Nations, more than 20% of children under five wereseverely or moderately underweight (the UN's indicator of hunger) in 2000-04 inmost of sub-Saharan Africa and in several countries in Asia. There has beenvery little progress in Africa over the last decade.
Lowinternational food prices were partly to blame.By the mid-1990s, rice production in Africa was being outstripped by populationgrowth. Africa had to use scarce foreign exchange to import rice and householdfood consumption did not grow. African conditions were not suitable forhigh-yielding Asian hybrids and African high-yielding varieties were notdeveloped and distributed. African food production per head has declined by 12%since 1980.
Fallingproduction is the inevitable必然的response when private producers are faced withfalling prices. But governments also responded by cutting their investments inagriculture. As real food prices fell from 1975 onwards, the growth rate ofpublic investment in agriculture fell in every region in the world. The fall indeveloped countries was most dramatic: from 1991 to 2000 real growth wasnegative. In Africa in the 1990s, it averaged just 1% per year. USAID supportfor agricultural science in Africa has been cut by 75% over the last twodecades.
In an assessmentof declining African food production, Joachim von Braun's own organisation, theInternational Food Policy Research Institute, singles out "poorinfrastructure, high transport costs, limited investment in agriculture, andpricing and marketing policies that penalized farmers". That is code for saying that prices were too low. Lowfood prices meant that rates of return on proposed projects in roads,irrigation and marketing infrastructure were too low to justify investment.Africa's poor farmers simply could not compete when international food was socheap.
At today'shigher food prices, which correspond to the same real level as in the 1960s and1970s, many new opportunities present themselves.The Gates and Rockefeller Foundations created an Alliance for a GreenRevolution in Africa in 2006, with significant funding to improve seeds andsoil. They are trying to replicate the successful Green Revolution which helpedlarge parts of Asia defeat hunger in the 1970s. Writing about that success,Norman Borlaug, Nobel Laureate and the father of the Green Revolution, creditsthe Indian government's decision to drop price controls on food to restoremarket incentives to a point where farmers would rapidly introduce the newvarieties. It was high food prices in the 1960s and 1970s that helped initiateand sustain the Green Revolution and there is every reason to suppose that highfood prices today can serve as a prologue for a similar revolution in Africa inthe years to come.
While some ofthe recent increase in food prices can be traced to policies like the promotionof biofuels, most of the increase is due to higher input costs and the need formore supply. My opponent notes that with rising energy prices, farmers arepaying much more for fertilisers, high-yielding seeds, livestock feed andtransport. Heis absolutely correct, but does not take his argument to its logicalconclusion. In any business, when inputprices go up substantially, output prices must also rise or bankruptcy results.If we accept this argument, as I believe we must, then it is inevitable thathigher food prices must accompany higher energy prices. Surely no one suggeststhat we should return to a world with oil prices at $20 per barrel, with thedestructive effects that these have had on our environment, yet that is theonly logic for those vainly wishing for a return to the low food prices of2001.
Mrvon Braun claims that because most small farmers in the developing world arenet buyers of food they will lose from higher prices. That is a staticargument. It does not incorporate the supply response that would surely follow.It is also a general statement that tries to aggregate together farmers facingvery different market situations. I have already cited some academic studiesthat model the supply response in specific country circumstances and find thatin several large countries the positive supply response on incomes dominatesthe negative impact on consumption of higher food bills. Here is anotherexample of academic research supporting this viewpoint. The Carnegie Endowmentfor International Peace released a study this year on the impact of a 50% risein world rice prices on India. It concludes that India's rural population of700m would benefit from this increase. The relative income of the poorest ruralhouseholds would rise by 4.5%, while the most marginalised groups, likescheduled tribes, would have a 6.4% increase in real income.
Mr von Braun deplores the change in the status quo that higher foodprices represent. The real point is that the status quo of low food prices wasitself the problem. The World Bank president, Robert Zoellick, calledthe hunger and malnutrition goal the "forgotten MDG", a silent tsunami that threatened humanity. Now the alarmhas been rung and misguided agricultural policies are being rectified. AsPaul Romer, one of the leading economists of our generation has said on anotheroccasion, "A crisis is a terrible thing to waste". There is every hope that changes in trade policy, investmentin agriculture and more agricultural science and technology—all of which arecalled for by Mr von Braun—will result from high food prices. The WorldBank has already announced $350m more in agricultural support for Africa nextyear. As we would expect, none of this happened whenfood prices were low.

Theopposition's rebuttal remarks
Aug 1st 2008 | Dr Joachim von Braun
Homi Kharas and I are in general agreement on the power ofincentives over production. Where we differ is in ourassessment of the effects of high and fast-changing food prices onhumanity.
My opponentargues that the world needs more food and that higher prices will give foodproducers the push they need to raise their output.These statements are correct as far as they go, but they fail to recognise thedual effects of price changes: high prices provide an incentive not only toincrease production, but also to cut consumption. Here is where highfood prices become a food crisis: they give poor, malnourished people an ironclad incentive to eat less and starve more.The new middle class can deal with the high prices, the bottom billion of poorcannot. They spend about 50-70% of their income on basic foods.
Mr Kharas arguesthat higher food prices will restore balance in the market. Even at high prices, however, the market is by definition in balance. Marketbalance in itself, therefore, has little economic value. When the market is in balance at excessively high prices,however, it throws the consumption and diets of the poor out of balance.Furthermore, the short-term instability that now characterises food pricesleads to the misallocation of resources bymaking investors nervous aboutlong-term investment. Raising agricultural production sustainably requires anenvironment that gives farmers incentives for sound long-run investmentstrategies.
Does thestrong market performance of the agricultural equipment manufacturer John Deerereflect worldwide jumps in investments by farmers, as Mr Kharas writes? Not quite—reality looks very different in Ethiopiathan it does in Iowa. Granted, when richfarmers do well, they buy tractors and combines; liquidity is mainly drivingthose investments. But few poor farmers in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia arelining up at the John Deere dealership. Millions of poor African and Asianfarmers are net buyers of food, and to survive in the face of high food prices,they are selling assets—their livestock, even their tin roofs—rather thanacquiring machinery.
We bothacknowledge that biofuel crops are diverting arable land from food productionand that grain reserves are alarmingly low. In myview, however, this situation points to the urgent need to changebiofuel policies to make more grains and oilseeds currently used for fuelavailable for food and feed. The market will not deal with this, because thebiofuel policies are subsidy policies that distort markets. Biofuel productionbased on these crops should be suspended until prices for these commoditiescome down to reasonable levels according to long-runsupply and demand.
Productivity isalready on the rise, Mr Kharas writes. This can behoped for, but so far no evidence is available to support this statement.Production is up, but productivity is not. At the moment, farmers areboosting production by cultivating more land. However, sustainable productionincreases require higher productivity—that is,achieving growing incremental outputs with the incremental inputs, land andwater resources. And higher productivity in turn requires technologicalchange that reaches farmers' fields. But millions of small farmers do not haveaccess to technologies and services that would help them raise productivity andthereby take advantage of higher food prices.The public investment to facilitate this access by more rural roads andextension services has yet to be scaled up.
Iagree with Mr Kharas that domestic food prices often diverge from internationalfood prices because of various government tax and subsidy policies. I would add, however, that many countries haveintroduced massive new market-distorting policies, such as export bans, thatprevent high prices from unleashing the desired production incentives. The high prices did trigger mostly bad policies, not goodincentives. More modest price increases would have been a lot better forincentives.
Mr.Kharas closes with a dream: "For themajority of the world's poor, the dream of a 'chicken in every pot' is becomingmore attainable because world food supply is rising again." Unfortunately, this dream is beginning to look like afantasy: poultry prices are up by 30% since January 2007 and productionhas increased by just 3%, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation ofthe United Nations. The poor cannot afford even a chicken wing any more, andtheir pots are even emptier than before. We need a dual strategy to grow out ofthe food crisis: production expansion and protection of the poor. The incentives help with the former, but alone they are nothelping humanity.

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Audienceparticipation

Featured guest: Valerie Guarnieri


Featured guest
Mr Paul Roberts  



Tohear mainstream commentators, the food crisis is but a temporary lapse inmarket equilibrium. Drought and flooding will abate. Policy blunders,such as turning grain into fuel, will be corrected. Moreto the point, high food prices are already stimulating farmers to boostproduction—just as high prices have eventually corrected every food crisis sincebefore Malthus.
Butto look more closely at today's crisis and one realises that this mess isn'tlike anything we've faced before, and its correction will be neither as easynor as automatic.
Considerthe unusually steep rise in food demand. Not only is thedeveloping world growing more populated, but many of these newcomers can nowafford meat, each pound of which requires an average of eight pounds of feedgrain to produce. By mid-century, forecasters say we'll need 50 percent morefeed crops than we currently grow, even though no one knows precisely where theextra supply will come from.
Readily arablefarmland is increasingly scarce. At the same time, the miracle that confounded Malthustwo centuries ago—our ability to coax more food from existing acres via betterproductivity—is running into new obstacles.
Water is runninglow. In fast-growing parts of Asia and North Africa, farming has alreadydepleted underground water supplies so severelythat many countries essentially import their water, in the form of grain. Oilprices are soaring—a major worry for a food system whose success hinges onever-greater mechanisation and ever cheaper global transport. (Comparativeadvantage is meaningless if shipping becomes too expensive.) As troubling isthe rising price of natural gas, the key input for nitrogen fertilisers, whosecosts have tripled. Given that 40 percent of our food supply, in terms ofcalories, is generated with nitrogen fertilisers, theidea that we must boost output by half while using fertiliserssubstantially more expensive than they are today doesn'tinspire optimism.
Then there isquestion of climate. It's already clear that global warming is hurting cropoutput in sub-Saharan Africa and other basket-case regions. But the real worryis the impact on food powerhouses, such as Europe and the United States, whosesurpluses will become even more critical as the basket cases founder. Much ofAmerica's agriculture power stems from its unusually stable climate. Yet undermost forecasts, America will suffer more frequent "extreme" weatherevents, like the severe storms that disrupted the Midwestern crop-plantingseason and put paid to expectations of a bumper crop this fall. In the future, farmers must correct not only forimbalances in the market, but for those of nature as well.
This isn't to suggest that markets are obsolete or food scienceexhausted. Indeed, higher food prices are already generating a myriad of newcrop technologies requiring less energy and water. But given the scale andcomplexity of today's food challenge—and especially the potentialuncooperativeness of nature—we need more than a new set of food technologies,but a new understanding of what food markets can, and cannot, correct on theirown.

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Audienceparticipation

Featured guest: Paul Roberts


Featured guest
Ms Valerie Guarnieri

There is no doubt that higher foodprices provide an opportunity to help developing countries break the cycle ofpoverty, but this can only happen if farmers can take advantage of the greaterdemand for food. This is a big if.
Millions offarmers in Africa and Asia are actually net food consumers: they do not produceenough food for their families and so must buy on the market. Higher foodprices mean that they are forced to spend more to feed their families and haveless to spend on the seeds, fertilisers and other inputs needed to producecrops. Just as demand for their crops goes up, theopportunity for them to profit fades away.
By mostestimates the world needs to produce twice as much food by 2050 if it is tofeed the global population adequately. We areoptimistic that this goal can be achieved. It requires long-term, structuralsolutions, including more investment in agriculture and agriculturalproductivity. Agencies like the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and theInternational Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), together with the WorldBank, will lead the way.
Meanwhile, theworld needs a flexible, speedy global food assistance system to helpgovernments meet the urgent needs of those most at risk from hunger andmalnutrition. This is where the World Food Programme (WFP) and its network ofpartners come in. We have already rolled out new funds to boost operations inover 62 places, including Haiti, Afghanistan and the Horn of Africa. Right now,we are ramping up food assistance during the lean season in West Africa, whereseveral countries are vulnerable because they rely on imported food.
WFP will surelybe stretched as we help the world ride the rough waves before market forceshelp stabilise the situation. We are developing new tools, such as cash andvoucher programmes, to ensure we have the rightresponse to the new reality. But responding to today's greaterchallenges also requires greater generosity. WFP is a voluntarily fundedagency, and increased operations require more funding. During 2008, we aim tofeed around 90m people at a cost of around $6 billion. So far we have raisedhalf of what we need.
Whether GMOs(genetically modified organisms) should be part of thelong-term solution to the crisis is for others to judge. At WFP, ourresponsibility is to help ensure that hungry people have access to the safe andhealthy food they need. Where that involves bringing in food assistance fromabroad, governments are free to choose whether or not to accept geneticallymodified food. As for biofuels, we recognise that theyhave potential benefits but also costs. They are one of the forcesdriving food prices up and our concern is that the proper policies and safetynets are put in place to protect poor people from the crunch.
These are some of the many critical issues that need to be faced toresolve the food crisis. There are no easy answers, but solutions must be foundin order to ensure global food security. This is perhaps the key security issueof our time.

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Closingstatements


Defendingthe motion
Mr Homi Kharas
Senior Fellow at the Wolfensohn Centre forDevelopment at the Brookings Institution
Imagesof food riots and hungry people stir deep emotions. But we must debatetrade-offs: will the rise in food prices generate more food for the world andless poverty for poor people in the future?

Againstthe motion
Dr Joachim von Braun
Director General, the International Food Policy Research Institute(IFPRI)
Contributors to this debate have offered many thoughtful"pro" and "con" arguments. In the closing stage of thisdebate, I want to return to its main focus.

Themoderator's closing remarks
Aug 6th 2008 | Mr John Parker
We have reachedthe last lap of what has been a wonderful debate. It has generated morecommentary than any other since the debate on whether the Olympics should havebeen granted to China.
It has includedwell-informed nuggets on India, Mexico, biofuels and genetically modifiedorganisms. Two of our commentators even said they had voted pro and con at thesame time (a way of thinking, said one, that he had learned in Japan). That mayreflect the fine balance of debate but is not perhaps quite in the spirit ofthe occasion.
One strand ofcommentary criticised the wording of our proposition, arguing that since almost everything in the world has some sort ofupside, the proposition must be biased in favour of itself. But neitherof our debaters seeks to take advantage of this. Both define what they mean byan upside in similar ways: "a positive net effect on humanity" forJoachim von Braun; "the real changes in people's lives that can come aboutin the long run", in Homi Kharas's words.
In their closingstatements, both men develop their positions further, partly in response to ourreaders' comments and questions. Mr Kharas introduces the idea that higherprices are not only beneficial on balance, but fair to producers and consumers:fair because they will spur new production and restrain the growth of corn forethanol; fair because they will reduce rural poverty and narrow the gap betweencity and countryside. Mr von Braun restates, with new evidence, a couple of hisbasic themes: that hunger is not just an acute episodebut has long-run effects and that high prices have provoked perversegovernment reactions that have destabilised markets (there is a point ofagreement here: Mr Kharas also condemns the panic measures, though adds theirimpact would have been even worse if food prices had not been allowed to rise).Mr von Braun also addresses questions raised by the audience on the likelylongevity of the crisis and on obesity (including the remarkable fact thatobesity and malnutrition often coexist in the same family).
Bothat the start and at the end, Mr Kharas noted that high food prices stir deep emotions. I would like to thank him and Mrvon Braun for giving proper weight to the terrible costs of the crisis and for taking us beyond the emotions to the realms of evidence andjudgment. AdrianFajardo wrote: "With two speakers of the calibre ofKharas and von Braun, looking one at heads and theother at tails of the same coin, I decided to look forward to theirclosing statements before casting my vote." I felt the same way, and nowlook forward to your votes.
  

Theproposer's closing remarks
Aug 6th 2008 | Mr Homi Kharas
Images of foodriots and hungry people stir deep emotions. But we must debate trade-offs: willthe rise in food prices generate more food for the world and less poverty forpoor people in the future?
Are today's foodprices fair to producers and consumers?
Yes, becausehigher food prices will bring about new investments in agriculture and higherglobal production. This is already happening in Asia and other parts of theworld, and will accelerate over time.
Yes, becausewithout higher food prices, land use would shift towards corn-for-ethanol andother biofuel crops and we would have less food available.
Yes, because asystem with food prices in free fall for 30 years did not produce anymeasurable decline in hunger and poverty. But the last time food prices were ashigh as they are today we witnessed the Green Revolution and a rapid reductionof rural poverty in one of the largest population centres of the world, SouthAsia.
Yes, because the great urban/rural divide that was cleaving societiesacross the developing world has now narrowed.（这个结构，很赞）
Somehave argued that the proposition is unfairly worded. As there is an upside tomost things, surely food prices are no exception. I do not want this debate tobe about such sophistry. Instead let us be clear about the real changes inpeople's lives that can come about in the long run from higher food prices.Most of the evidence I have seen suggests that when looked at in detail, mostpoor people will gain from higher food prices.
Manycommentators have argued that subsistence farmers do not benefit from high foodprices. I presented evidence from studies on India, China and Indonesia, wherethe mass of humanity resides, suggesting that farmers (including the poorest ofthe poor) would benefit in net terms, when both income and expenditure effectsare taken into account. No one has advanced anyevidence to the contrary, although many choose to believe their own instinctsrather than the evidence I presented. My opponent claims that millions of poorAfrican and Asian farmers are suffering, but he has not actually challenged anyof the studies I cite, nor has he presented any facts to back up his claims.
Toall the sceptics who view farmers in developing countries as isolated frommarkets and impervious to the incentives of high global prices, I would simplyrefer to the comments by Dr Seck, a true expert on Africa: "The currentfood crisis caused by rising food prices is a unique historical opportunity forAfrica to break from decades of policy bias against agriculture." Pleaselook at his credentials before dismissing his conclusions.
In the lastanalysis, almost everyone agrees that we need faster rural development toalleviate poverty and hunger. Higher farmgate prices are a key element for thisto happen. One blogger commenting on this debate offered a nice example of thisprocess at work. When Vietnam liberalised and raised rice prices in the 1990s,rural families were able to afford to send their children to school rather thanhaving them work as farm labourers. These educated children are today fuellingVietnam's rapid growth. The country has seen arguably the fastest decline inpoverty in history. And it started with a rise in food prices.
Severalcommentators have noted that high food prices are the result of misguidedpolicies—towards ethanol, the dollar, speculators, meat eaters. Because thosecommentators are vehemently against the citedpolicies, they think all the consequences, including higher food prices, mustbe bad. I am not arguing that those other policies are good. I would also liketo see many of them reversed. But what I am arguing is that the effects ofthose policies would be far worse if the market for food was not permitted toadjust through higher prices. The alternative would be food shortages andlarge-scale rationing. This debate is not about comparing a world of high foodprices with some other idealised world which is ordered differently. The debateis about whether the rise in food prices in this messy, distorted world we livein can have some benefit for humanity. Surely yes.
Toall those who bemoan the hunger and hardship that higher food prices arecausing for the poor, I would simply say that a system which failed to produceany marked change in hunger and poverty over a 30-year period of price declineswas not working for the poor. Give a different system a chance. If a strategyhas not worked for 30 years, surely there is an upside to changing strategies.
Letthere be no mistake. Our global food production system was under severe threatin the early years of this century. We needed a change. Could anything havegenerated a successful change to encourage more production in the absence ofhigher food prices? I think not.
What we arereally debating is whether there is an upside to humanity from fair foodprices. For years, poor farmers in developing countries have been getting shortshrift, fighting competition from increasingly subsidized, mechanized farmersin rich countries. The result was a historical rise in inequality and growingurban/rural income differentials in the developing world. Now the tables areturned and there is a fairer outcome in income distribution.
Thank you to allthose who have taken the time to follow this debate and enrich it through theircomments. Thanks to my opponent for his enormous contributions to solving theworld's food problems, not just debating them. Thanks also to the guestcommentator who has provided a voice with the weight of so much experience. Andthanks to our moderator for focusing us on balance,judgment and the weight of empirical evidence, rather than on principle andemotion.

Theopposition's closing remarks
Aug 6th 2008 | Dr Joachim von Braun
Contributors tothis debate have offered many thoughtful "pro" and "con"arguments. In the closing stage of this debate, I want to return to its mainfocus.
This debate isnot about whether markets work (they do), whether incentives stimulate neededinvestments (they do), or whether subsidies by OECD countries hurt developing-countryagriculture (they do). Nor is the debate about economic laws and settledfundamentals or about whether moderate increases in food prices are good or bad(I actually think they would have been good). Instead, this debate is about theactual impacts of the drastic food price rise over the past two years and ifthere is an upside for humanity as a whole. For me, an "upside" canbe identified only if these rising food prices have a positive net effect onhumanity. The net effect is negative.
Thecrisis is not short-term. Some have argued that this crisis will beshort-lived. As positive price and policy incentives stimulate food production,they say, prices will fall and the crisis will come to an end. I have tworesponses: First, IFPRI has modelledscenarios for supply responses to high food prices, and even the optimistic scenarios show prices increasing until2015 (excluding speculative effects which may change matters in the short run).Second, new research shows that young children often never completely recoverfrom temporary episodes of undernutrition. A 2008 Lancet article shows thatboys benefiting from a randomised nutrition intervention at a young age earnedwages 50% higher 30 years later than boys who did not benefit from theintervention. If lack of food and poor diets resulting from high food pricesprevent infants and young children from getting the nutrients they need, the health and economic consequences for the individuals andsociety are not temporary, but lifelong. Thismeans that even if prices begin falling today, the effects of this crisis willbe with us for years to come.
Theethical considerations expressed by many commentators arevalid concerns in evaluating the impacts of rising food prices. Theright to food is a fundamental human right. A Pareto improvement in which someindividuals are better off and nobody is worse off is out of the question inthe case of rapidly rising food prices. The adverseeffects of high food prices are concentrated mainly among the poor.Policy that fosters or simply accepts the high food price change does notconform with Pareto and violates the principle of "do no harm".
Hunger andobesity can coexist. During the decades when prices were gradually falling,substantial progress was made in reducing hunger globally, and especially inAsia. The Global Hunger Index decreased by more than one-third from the early1980s to the early 2000s. The main positive effect of the Green Revolution forhumanity has been to bring prices down and make food affordable for many. Theadvent of extremely high food prices has compromised these gains. Will highfood prices at least have the benefit of reducing obesity, as some peopleargue? Probably not. Obesity, a global phenomenon thatis becoming increasingly widespread, is a complex issue. It is notuncommon for an obese mother and an undernourished child to live in the samehousehold in low- and middle-income countries. When food prices increase fasterthan wages, consumers find healthy diets less affordable and replace them withcheap processed foods rich in fats and sugars. High food prices, then, are notlikely to lower obesity.
Markets andtrade have been harmed, because drastic food price increases have provokedchain reactions from governments. High food prices have undermined the verymarket institutions that should be transmitting price signals effectively for asound supply response. The world has suffered a huge loss in confidence intrade in recent months. At a global scale, thisloss of confidence is clearest in the collapse of WTO trade negotiations lastweek, partly owing to China and India's concerns about their small farmers'income and the reliability of their food supplies. So the WTO trade agenda hasbeen pushed back by several years. At the national level,high food prices have provoked export bans and the closingof futures markets. This situation creates abundant new opportunitiesfor corruption and rent-seeking. All of these developments add up to huge newtransaction costs for humanity.
Overcomingthe food crisis needs action. We cannot wait for price signals alone toovercome the food crisis. Sustainable production increases require higherproductivity. Large investments in the public and private sectors are needed.Millions of small farmers do not have access to technologies and services thatwould help them raise productivity and thereby take advantage of higher foodprices, yet in many countries public investments in rural roads, research andextension have yet to be scaled up. Market-distorting biofuel policies muststop. Social protection must be expanded and improved.
Inconclusion, the drastic increases in food prices have undermined the nutrition,health and overall well-being of millions of people and will continue to do so.Of course, some people—even some poor people—have gained. But the losersgreatly outnumber them and include many people who were near or below thepoverty line before the crisis struck. When a large share of humanity loses,humanity is worse off—and even more so when the losers are mostly among thepoor, who can less afford the losses. That is why there is no net positive"upside" to the drastic food price increases. Policy must be"contra" to accepting this situation.

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Winner announcement


August 08, 2008
Mr John Parker

MR JOHN PARKER
Globalisation Editor, The Economist
Before becomingthe Globalisation editor, Mr. Parker was The Economist's bureau chief inWashington DC and from there went to Brussels also as bureau chief.
After ananimated fortnight of debate, the votes have been cast. You have voted infavour of the proposition clearly, though not overwhelmingly.

By a margin of 56% to 44%, this house believes that “There is anupside for humanity in the rise of food prices.”

I would like to thank our two speakers, Homi Kharas of the BrookingsInstitution and Joachim von Braun of the International Food Policy ResearchInstitute for leading us through what is often an emotive and controversialsubject.

I think it is fair to say both of them agreed on some basic and importantpoints: that high food prices are here to stay; that prices provide strongincentives for farmers to produce more food; that government policies often getin the way of markets clearing. Both men also agreed that the world would bemuch better off if governments were to help smallholders raise productivitythrough various sorts of public investment.

Where they differed was in their estimation of how destabilising the suddenrise in prices has been, and in their judgment about how well markets areworking to transmit incentives to farmers when prices are rising so sharply.

I would also like to thank Valerie Guarnieri of the World Food Programme forher intervention about what is happening on the ground, in some of the mosttragic and difficult parts of the world where people are going hungry. Regardless of whether one thinks high food prices are, onbalance, good or bad, they clearly have costs; the World Food Programmehas kept millions of people alive this year who might otherwise have starved.

And I would like to thank you all for contributions which have ranged, as theyshould, from the short and snappy to the long and thoughtful. Though we havecounted the votes, the commentary pages will remain open. There is still plentyto be said and I encourage you to continue to post comments both about thedebate and about its outcome until Friday August 15th, when we will close thedebate hall.

Please remember to look out for our next meeting, when we debate theproposition that “This house believes that we can solve our energy problemswith existing technologies today, without the need for breakthroughinnovations.” This is will go live later in August. I look forward to hearingfrom all of you again.

草木也知愁UID: 2487572

Ulrich123 wrote:
Brilliantdebate topic, I always love the pro/anti Malthus debates.The pro debatementions the "iron law of economics" and that it somehow trumps thelaws of physics. He basically claims no matter how high the population numbersget, the laws of supply and demand will solve the problem. Lets take the extreme scenario of endless population growth,if the world population increased at current rates then by 2600 the massof the entire planet would be homo sapien dna, if wenow had to spread out into the entire universe already by the year 7000 allmatter in the universe would have to become homo sapien dna (Forgive me if thenumber are not 100% correct, but they are more less in that range).Clearly endless growth is impossible. （这个夸张推理法用的很好,ARGUMENT可用）Also he side mentionsthe 1.7 billion rural people, I suggest he check his math, because that doesnot make up the majority of the poor. Perhaps he should focus on the entireworld.（语言过于犀利了些，但是我们加工一下的话，还是很好的表达）
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world citizen wrote:
We cannot look at food prices from a capitalist perspective. Food prices affect the poor disproportionately. Risingfood prices reduce disposable income which in some cases is not disposable. Inthe west we are used to restaurants and large supermarkets and food representsa small part of our paycheck. But more than half of the world's populationlives on a fine line between survival and dispair. Those hungry masses havetoppled empires before, let us not be short sightedthis time around and think that we can profit from a bad situation. Food is oneitem which we cannot afford to not afford.（这个叠词的用法，强烈的赞）
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Doug Pascover wrote:
As ofnow, I'm inclined to agree with the con side, althoughthe moderator is correct that in this debate both sides have engaged the topicin a promising way. The precedential evidence for the Proposition's casethat high food prices will allow the Indian government to reform itsagricultural subsidies are that the U.S. did not see the s
e opportunity. Expecting policy-makers to eliminate subsidies when themarket obsolesces them is like expecting farmers to stop complaining when theprice rises and the weather's fair. It makes perfect sense but for theevidence.（这个要是再不去用到ARGUMENT里，就真的没有天理了）
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jomiku wrote:
If the degrading global environment is a main issue and if thepoorest nations have too many mouths to feed, then low and subsidized foodprices encourage an oversupply of people which then creates more poverty,distresses the environment more and requires more subsidized food.（比较绕的一个句子，但是这个循环递推法很好的论证了后面这个结论） Rising food pricesshould over time counter this.
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hardyjj77 wrote:
I simply refuse to adopt the belief that freezing the least
ongus out of the global food chain is a good thing.
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Kodana wrote:
Weshould all recognise that that there has been a sharp increase in the foodprices over the last 12 months. However if we analyse the trend taking intoaccount the last ten years, there is an
amazingly decrease in the overall food prices.This can be found in the last report of the United Nations Food andAgricultural Agency. That does not mean that it is a normal to experience sucha high increase in a short period of time. Although I agree that the increasecan bring a short term benefits to some farmers and other businessintermediaries, it believe that it would be counter productive for the majorityof the population, mainly those leaving in the developing countries. This willsurely delay ou put a break to attaining the millenium develo
entgoals as set by the United Nations for the most poor countries.
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treaclemine wrote:
Stopwasting grain - stop artificially breeding animals for meat, dairy and eggs.
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glowworm wrote:
Risingfood prices have a disproportionate effect on thepoor. To saythat rising food prices enriches poor farmers may be naive -- supply chains areoften lengthy, inefficient, and COSTLY! Ultimately, poor farmers may never seethe higher profits that you might imagine. Also, I'm rather disturbedby the alarmist Malthusian comments on here. To say that an oversupply of poor people creates morepoverty is illogical. Lack of access tobasic things like food and education create poverty. Also, in the grand schemeof things, it is NOT the poor who distress the environment but the world's richwith our demand for cash crops and meat. The world was not made foreverybody to eat meat. The meat industry causes a disproportionate
aount of stress on land, and it isthe West that generates the demand for meat. There simply isn't enough earth toraise crops to give people in developed countries a burger or a steak everyday! For the beef industry to work you have to devote lots of land (see:deforestation) and money to growing food for cows--resources that wouldotherwise be used to grow food en masse. Should grain go to livestock or tohumans??? Or to our pets?? (Pets in the US eat more meat than people in lots ofcountries!) see Timothy Mitchell's
erica'sEgypt: Discourse of the Develo
ent IndustryBottom line: crops are feeding COWSand CARS, not people. What has the world come to?（言语激进，但是逻辑没有错，修改之后会有用的）
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fzalles wrote:
Havingread the opening comments only briefly I think they are both only focusing on the goods side of the inflationphenomenon. In other words, it is mantra now that therise in prices is due to higher demand than supply increases. But I belive thatthere is a VERY high component of this inflationary problem that is led by thefalling US dollar. The stock of money has increased higher than the supply ofgoods, that has manifested itself in higher prices which unfortunately aremaking the poor poorer. The incredible wealth transfer that has taken place sinBretton Woods is at the heart of this problem, it is a MONETARY problem, morethan a supply problem.
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BJFischer wrote:
Mr.Moderator, I have voted pro. The proposition isweighted heavily to the proposition's side to begin with, since he doesn't evenhave to argue that the rise of food prices is on balance good or bad, merelythat an upside exists. The opposition asserts the lack of innovation withoutbacking up his arguments.
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Cogito Ergo wrote:
The wording of previous propositions has been called into questionfor inaccurately characterizing the issue being discussed. While noting them(the wordings) I have let them pass, until now. This proposition, as presented,is next to pointless, guaranteed to generate by default near endless drivel onthe workings of the market. A far more provocative, germane, and intellectuallyhonest proposition would read, "The house maintains that subsidization offood production, industry-biased agricultural policy, and perverseinternational trade policies have distorted food pricing and consumption to thedetriment of humanity." Debate on the existing proposition is pointlessand should await a more meaningful and substantive argument.
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bhujangadev wrote:
Foodcrisis and consequent spiralling food prices is adirect result of neglect of agriculture; this has been proved
ply in the case of Africancountries. The middlemen between the farmers and the consumers are the ones whobenefit in the process, because they can afford to and have the necessaryresources to hold back the stocks, indilge in forward trading and whatnot.Checkmate these classes toi avoid articifical food shortages
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gligrohs wrote:
Withoutany other consideration, i. e. "caeteris paribus", I would agree with the general proposition but it could alsobe a sophism if you don't consider the velocitywith which food prices are rising and its effects on the general world economy.
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uh2l wrote:
To say that there is an upside for humanity for rising food pricesseems ridiculous on the surface when one considers that for any potentialupsides to develop would take years. People are starving and hungry today! In the U.S., I suppose there isan upside because we may eat less and lose some weight, but for most of the earth's human inhabitants, it hurts. It also takes money away from spending on other items,thereby hurting global economies.I also do like the fact that meat will becomemore expensive as grain prices skyrocket since it takes much moregrain/fruits/veggies to produce meat calories and nutrition than can be gainedby directly eating the grain. But that is more of an upside for the animals. Wemay benefit in health if we eat less meat and there could be environmentaladvantages because the meat industry uses vast
ountsof energy.Overall though, high food prices have more downside than upside.
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sgnl wrote:
Intheory, free market systems recalibrate through the use of price signals. Fuelconsumption in the United States has finally shown signs; consumption hasdropped 4 percent in what is a unlikely scenario.Prices generally lead to benefits in the longerrun. But I cannot say that the current food price 'shock' will carry an upsideunless reforms are taken from the global community as a whole.We all know thatfood prices are rising fast (wheat and grains seem to double every month!).Those prices could rise and maybe create a bigger shock to the system withoutfarm subsidies and fuel subsidies. Countries like the United States, India,China and Venezuela could do more by relaxing or eliminating subsidies andprice controls(corn, fuel and petrol, milk and other food or fuel products)that were meant to 'help' income gaps and output growth. The negative externalities are just as horrendous; theyconfuse the price signals that are meant to help determine demand, supply andresource allocations. The current corn disaster in the Midwest United States isdirectly affected by the subsidizing of corn for fuel production by decreasingcorn stock for food. Venezuelan and Zimbabwean price controls further exacerbatethe well-being of millions of people. Fine, war, distrust and protest are theresults of these policies. If policy changes can be made (or in some casesadministration changes), maybe I would be able to change my vote towards Homi'sside.
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timwills wrote:
I agreewith the comments that the debate quesiton could have been phrased to producemore reason on the problem and less debate on semantics."is anupside" does that mean overall positive - or just that not everything isnegative? Anyone expecting that hardship for consumers may lead to moreefficient resource allocation including less restrictive trade policies wouldwant to vote yes, even though the overall benefit is a hope for the futurearising from suffering in the present". "is" to me means"now" - so that's a negatory captain.
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Ashish wrote:
DearSirs, I agree with the Propoposition wholeheartedly.TodayGlobally there are more people who are overweight as compared toundernourished.So by Increasing Prices for food we can reduce Consumption,especially for the Overweight.This discourages Food wastage also.Everydayclose to a Billion Dollars worth of food goes waste in OECD countries.This hasto stop. Also,Higher Prices for food encourage more Production and gives aboost to Agriculture worldwide.
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ElRajo wrote:
Thisdebate reminds me of a political cartoon I saw manyyears ago. It might even have been in the Economist. I can't remember.Then President Reagan had recently made a statement about the third worldpulling itself up by their own bootstraps. In the cartoon a bare footed Mexicanpeasant was standing next to a massive concrete wall with Reagan standing ontop. The barefooted peasant was looking up and saying...Senior what eezbootstrap?? In the current debate Ad

Smith'sinvisible hand has replaced Reagan but it is these issue. The world food marketis already distorted by heavily subsidized food exports from
erica and Europe which has had astifling effect on the growth of agricultural sectors in poor and countries. Sothe question is which part of humanity will benefit the most from rapidlyrising food prices. Will it be humanity as a whole that benefits or will it bethose who already dominate food production. It seems more likely to me that thebenefits will only further the centralizaion and control of an alreadydistorted market. The term "humanity" refersto all people everywhere and not just the profits of those who don't reallyneed more. The whole of humanity can only benefit by the elimination ofthe world's economically crippling food dependence that forces third worldnations to import more and more and thereby devote ever more of their limitedfinancial resources to such imports and I doubt that rising prices can solvethat problem. The only solution is the elimination of agricultural subsidies inthe West so that third world farmers can at least compete in their owncountries. Free markets, open markets and fair trade are needed to allow thegrowth of agricultural industries where they are needed. Until then the only effect of rising food prices is risingmisery.
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HochJS wrote:
I agreewith the pro comments. If you consider the part of the world involved inagriculture and food production, shifting the balance of relative prices toincrease the
ount that goes towards theproduction of food is a net positive for the developing world. As always theinterference of governments to shift prices, limiting exports of rice,subsidizing removing land from agriculture, dumping products in certainmarkets, distort the market for food. Allowing the market to work and reducingdistortions to the market from sometimes well meaning governments and sometimesentrenched lobbies, should improve the
ount andquality of food available. If you think about this in terms of the energycosts, the
ount spent moving food around theglobe is a significant drain on resources and in the short term is driving upfood and energy costs. Letting more be grown locally will improve the incomedistribution and the availability of food over time. As alays the issue will bein part the costs of the change and the disruption that ensues.
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davidhutchinson wrote:
Yes. Itwill reduce rural poverty and give us a chance to stop subsidies too. It willreverse the migration from land to cities. It might help to transfer money toproducer countries, i.e. better than aid.
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Andy D
ien wrote:
I don'tthink the rising food price as horrific as it seems tobe. especially in the free market, the soaring food prices not always deal with the scarcity of sources, instead its more often that the "market"confidence that catalyze that sort of thing.Besides, if the wage is pumping up, then the incline in food prices are nolonger a big issue, since it doesn't make a big difference. However, if stagflationmay be the season, it may cause some troubles elsewhere. And even thoughstagflation rules for a moment, wage could still be distributed, especially onthe labour at restaurant and dairy productions, from the raise of income due torising food prices. Well it may be quite unfair if one sector of productiongrows robust, while the others don't. To the proposition's second problem whichis the civil unrest, it may not be happening as long as social security systemkeeps rolling. And as more and more people can't afford food, the price willsoon decline, since food industries are seeking income and wanted theirproducts to be sold.
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Bahiense wrote:
Comingfrom a country with great opportunities of becoming the next food supplier tothe world, I have already watch the consequences of not having environmentaland socioeconomic standards to produce crops. In Argentina we have been facinga political crisis over the last 130 days due to a conflict between governmentand rural producers on tax retentions for soy exportations. If we want not tobecome a country in which only seeding pools survive, we need to encouragelittle and medium rural producers of other grows rather than soy to producebiofuels. We need to produce things that are of basic consumption to ourpeople: Argentina consumes only 5% of the produced soy.Soy has also producedbig deforestation on our remaining ancient forest. Farmers know it is veryprofitable for them to deforest and rent their land to big sowing pools, thisdoesn't lead to development but to concentration.
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m ilci wrote:
Bothvon Braun and Homi Kharas miss a very important point. Rising food prices wereprovoked by the consequences ot the disastrous decision of the USA to stimulatewith huge subsidies the production of ethanol from Corn. This a disastrousprocess when compared wiyh Ethanol made from Sugarcane. Another point they donot mention that the protectionist policies of Europe, Japan and somewhat lessof the USA have ruined the small farmer everywhere but mostly in Africa and SE.Asia. Even worse the dumping of surplus food produced as a consequence ofEurope`s and the USA`s protectionist policies and also increased the speed ofruining these farmers. It is very satiosfactory for our Judeo-Christian Societyto save people from hunger by feeding them. But again overdoing this results inless incentive for the locals to produce food on their own. A furtherdisastrous policy is to neglect efforts of reflorestation of the semi aridareas of the globe. This would result in a progressively more humid climate andan advance on the deserts. Such a policy does not even cost much moneyconsidering the cheaplabour available in the semi arid regions. But the resultswill show up only in the medium term and will not help to elect or ratherreelect the politicians presently in power. Milci
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Ohio wrote:
As has been the case for at least the last century, hunger is caused almostexclusively by government interference in the food market, particularlygovernment interference in wartime. The sharp rise in prices reflects real andvaluable price signals about supply and demand, but has been sped up by thesudden
erican change in subsidy rules toencourage corn-based ethanol, and exacerbated by protectionist laws andrent-seeking taxes in various nations. A change in price indicates a change inthe supply and demand situation, which will lead to changes in agriculturaleconomies. A sharp change will indeed lead to instability and unrest. Change isneeded to produce more food (particularly meat) with less land, and for theworld's peasants to climb out of poverty. Unfortunately, change will be painfulfor those peasants, both landed and landless, before it improves the situation.Today's high prices signal the need for consolidation of small peasant farmsinto larger productive farms where today's technologies can be brought to bearto achieve the productivity gains that we need. It is most assuredly not asignal that small landed peasants are in fact viable economic entities; thesmall gain in income they will see from the rise in agricultural prices isdwarfed by the potential of their land to produce more in a bigger, moreefficient farm. So there will be short term pain, political unrest, and massmigrations of peasants as a result of the investment in productive agricultureand the resulting displacement of peasants. Think of Steinbeck's "TheGrapes of Wrath", where the tractors move in and the sharecroppers areforced out in 1930s Oklahoma. But this short term pain is the only way to getthe investment and land use changes necessary to feed the 21st centurypopulation, and is also the only way to free smallholder peasants from poverty(by moving to the city), so I vote Pro. Governments should try harder not toexacerbate the pain, but that is perhaps too much to hope for.
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thetwentyone wrote:
It basicallyboils down to one thing, something that Joachim von Braun hit upon: the rapid increase has been very difficult to cope with.Farming is not an industry that can adjust to the world market rapidly. Itisn't until next March that this year's June prices will affect the incomes anddecisions of the farmers, simply because it takes a long time to grow crops. Long term, the response will benefit humanity, but shortterm it hurts. From a economical point of view, the long term benefits outweighthe short term costs, and so I vote Pro.
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Jjmarti wrote:
Justfor international corporations can be a good new the rising food prices. Ex
plesare closer than third world countries, just have a look at spanish fields wheresmall companies are closing when couldn't compite against biggers.
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Jan101 wrote:
Risingprices will likely increase the world food supply in a year or two,possibly toolate to avoid hunger in many third world countries. Overthe medium term, in countries where the markets for crops and financingare readily available, the desired increases in efficiency and farm productswill happen. In countries with less than ideal infrastructures, increased efficiencies will come about later if at all. So, just when theincreased production in the efficient countries results in lower per unit costsand lower prices, the still less efficient farmers in the developing countriesget beaten again by cheap imports. So, for the third world farmer (andconsumer) there is likely not a long-term positive effect from high prices. Only with government support to farmers in thirdworld countries in order to bridge the short to medium term of crisis, will there be a long term positive effect from higherfood prices.
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jmcarvajales wrote:
AEuronization of the economy.If globalization is tocontinue, it may certainly relay on extreme conditions (such as the rise offood prices) that will push for regulating organizations that will protect andeven subside the less favorable sectors of the population. Seeing it happen isa whole different story.
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cynic8 wrote:
In thelong run, Malthus must be considered. In the present, much of the high price offood is human caused, modt obvioudly in the political growth of corn for fuel,with reduction in food, and no to nil increase in energy. Subsidies toagribusiness distort the market, limit production. There is data to suggestthat populations that are least industrialized are increasing population fasterthan food production will eventually be able to sustain. Please show meSPECIFIC, data based benefit, if you can.
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econoguy wrote:
Thereare no doubt difficulties in adjusting to rising food prices, just as there arefor rising gas prices. Some would argue that food apearsto be more important in some sense than gasoine but that is an empty, essentially pointless debate. The importantthing as I see it is to avoid in any way suggesting any intervention in thosemarket price signals. Humanity has survived by seekingand finding substitutes and will continue to do so. Again, a chorus will rise saying there is no substitute forfood, but again, that is not the point. One kind of food gets substituted foranother kind. Those who are not poverty stricken or starving and whocare about poor and starving people will assist. The key is not to meddle withthe price mechanism but to find ways to help those poor and starving peopleattain more income. In the longer run reducing poverty, whether by training orby Green Bank style access to credit, improved human and property rights, or any number of other possibilities, is a far superiorsolution. Everyone else will find ways toadjust. It is what we are best at doing, using our incredible brains.
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y_Wangwrote:
It isarguable to say that the rise of food pushes the poorest into starvation. Infact think about where good commodities are from --- poor countries! thinkabout your coffee bean producers from Africa and your soy bean producers inChina! Also, up raising food prices are due to fuel costs and resources such asseeds and farm chemicals. Why the heck on earth would you think that Monsanto'ssales have doubled over the past 2 years? not because of their actual quantityin sales have grown, but the prices of their products have been rocket high. The other factor that is notable is actually thecommodity trading floors. just watch out for what is going on in Chicago. It isNOT necessary to push food prices up, it is just a chaos on the trading floor.more and more people are hedging on the rise of commodities, if the pricesdon't rise, where on earth would it go???? Is this the free market that we arelooking for? All the hedging and big companies keep pushing and pushingcommodity prices? I bet Ad

Smithwon't agree on this one....
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avk 800 wrote:
Ibelieve the answer to this proposition may only bedetermined when the cause in the rise of food prices and the exact affect ofthat cause becomes a known quantity. My supposition is that the price ofoil has drastically affected and probably caused the rise in food price. Themargins that are directly affected by this supposition are primarily thoseprocesses which are directly reliant on oil to generate their power (movingproduct to market, making fertilizers, running labor machinery). If the supposition is true, economies of scale arecurrently being restructured for more efficient operation and some operationsare winning and some are losing. Competition between scale is certainly morelikely to occur and cause some disruption. Most likely there is a generalconstriction in the range of food product on a global scale. Supply will go tomarkets that can afford the rise in price. Markets that cannot afford the risein price will be forced to rely on innovation. Innovation as always willdetermine the level of competition. Likely, the profitgained today will be the capital promised to innovation tomorrow. It is unknownat this point how the profit of today will be spent tomorrow and therefore, itis not particularly evident to me that all of humanity will benefit. Ivote 'Con'.
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guess what wrote:
In thelong run we are all dead doesn't sound so trite right now for the many who are suffering the pangs of humger. Disaster reliefshould be directed towards those who are most vulnerable and agricultural selfsufficiency policies drafted. Self sufficiency is becoming increasinglyimportant in an age of rising energy prices and risks of climatologicalcatastrophes and terrorists attacks. The law of comparative advantage mightlead to an over concentration of production which would then become morevulnerable to various disruptions. Even the Web is vulnerable because it has ahub, as the recent scare proved.
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twinspappy wrote:
Withthe rise of food prices, I'm afraid that the rich getricher and the poor get poorer.
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Risk Thinker wrote:
This is another wakeup call for securing the future ofhumanity...either prices go up or population comes down...targeting obesitywill help...Chinahas taken the right step of enforcing one-child policy...Chinese ladies aretaking on foreign husbands to redress imbalance!
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Talleyrand-Pýrigord wrote:
Therise of all commodities especially those related to food supplies are
aplifying the gap, between those who are ableto afford the increase of food prices, and those who don’t. In my opinion themain two problems are those subsidies that still exist in the developed world,which are utterly unacceptable in one hand, the tariff barriers and in somecases like Argentina’s and few other countries export taxes are intolerable aswell. All these actions are d
aging world trade and diminishing in all thesecases any chance of any urgent action to help millions in the whole world whoare not in position to feed themselves and their f
ilies, are we prepare for more f
ine, isunreservedly immoral. The collapsed of the negotiations related to a free trade(which means less subsidies and no barriers) is the most appalling news of thisday.
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Victor B wrote:
Governmentsand the international committee needed the food pricecrisis to spark a re-focussing of attention and resources onagricultural productivity in general and food productivity in general. Theenormous capacity of agriculture to bear benign neglect over the past 3-4decades has been worn away, and it is high time to engineer a new "greenrevolution" - which in the late 1960s and early 1970s, was also sparked bythe threat of widespread hunger. World food prices will settle down in a fewyears at a new, and higher equilibrium - one that enables increased levels ofirrigation and cultivation in less-favored areas, as well as the adoption andadaption of enhanced technologies in favored areas.
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lalitshingal wrote:
"Achicken in every pot", is what is said to justify or support rising foodprices. Well! Try that with subsistence farming - which is what the majority ofthe rural poor do to eke out a living. In fact things have worsened even more -with the marginal farmers already turning out to be migrant agriculturallabourers. How does rise in food prices help this vast impoverished, floatingpopulation?It is in-correct to assume more agricultural income translates intoa better nutritive diet for the millions of hungry. Having armchair debateswith graphs and stats do not remotely bring to focus the abject conditions ofthe lowest strata of humanity who do not have enough of resources to afford adecent meal in a full day.
artya Sen, the Nobel laurete, correctly analysedthe earlier f
inesof India (notably West Bengal during the British rule) that it was not lack offood that led to the deaths but the lack of purcasing power of the poor thatcaused such a cal
ity to unfold and that also over a period of a few years!Whatmarket force corrections are we talking about? Arcane theoretical economics?Pandering to the coffer filling of the Agricultural Transnationals? Or thereality on the ground?Converting corn to ethanol for getting closer to energysecurity? How cruel can one get and how short sighted? The world's tall andmighties dictating the terms of the agricultural policies of thegovernments?Get real and let us admit that higher prices may have an upside -but only be a nasty one - if welfare of the vast majority of humanity is whatis under debate.Do we want a further stratification in the global world with avast majority not benefiting from the rise of basic consumption items?
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anju chandel wrote:
Thereal problem is the imminent population explosion. The world needs to takedrastic steps to contain it (9.5 billion by 2050 !!!) within 'manageable'limits. Our planet will just not be able to bear the burden of ever escalatinghumanity for long. Because it is not only food that a person requires in orderto live; the necessities are myriad and earth's resources will not suffice.After all, we have 'evolved' long ago from being a plain 'living being' -animals.
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MelodyC wrote:
Selfregulation is often cited as the cure for starving nations - a notion that doesnot account for economies of scale and political corruption in localizedagriculture - especially rural economies diminished by increasing fuel prices.Laissez Fair is a myopic oversimplification in the immediate context becausethese are micro economies which we effect through world affairs, but which donot effect a balance on global markets because of contained localized use. Thematter then is an ethical one, the balance of which is more important to thestarving farmer versus the slightly less-well-off investor. Never mind thebiofuel peak when most would starve before they could deliver enough goods topay for the ride back to the farm. Inciting more investment to enhance medicaland biofuel production does nothing to address large populations in need ofsustenance over genetically modified, niche-use biotech. Positioning outreachprogress for cost effective source seeds, self-sustaining edible food-growingtechnologies, and basic business education is a realistic plan for populationstability in sustenance agriculture. Traditional small scale farming economiesare for survival, not profit. The providers in this case are the consumers.Both will lose under textbook flipping, principle preaching, ADB PRISMmanipulating armchair consultants. In FDA proposal terminology the averagetheoretical simulation makes suggestions only when any easily obtainable expertwill not claim to have the resources to predict such vastly complexassociations. One must assume a similar fate for simulations of economicallydisparate agricultural societies.The purpose of thisargument is not concerned with the quantitative link between food pricesand agricultural investment, but with the effects ofthose links on sustenance farmers. We are headed for yet another marketshift when corn production is finally overcome by sugar beat refinement, or thenext biotech commodity craze fighting to gain market dominance. Rather thanexpect cartel ransomed, local market toppling food subsidies to do ourorganizing for us, we would fair better to target diversification of both theworld food and biofuel resources with these voracity that we diversify our ownretirement portfolios. This will buffer the speed atwhich price runs dominate entire food markets, and would lend needed stabilityto the existence of traditional sustenance farmers who are dependent on thecircumspect management of encroaching global food sources.A "chicken inevery pot" pre-supposes a pot in which to cook, something traditionalsustenance farmers will find cold comfort as unchecked free market prices surgebeyond their means to stay afloat.
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lalitshingal wrote:
Probably the "chicken in every pot" comment is going toinvite a lot of flak. Jokes aside, the vast majority, for whom food pricesreally hurt and really mean almost life or death situation, just cannot benefitfrom these misplaced logic of market economics.As rightly posted in the Comments by acontributor, ill conceived and out of control(for the local governments) policies for a select elite of human kind may argueabout the striking of balance over a period of time in terms of demand andsupply. However for those teetering on the edge,such mis-begotten policy statements, feel rather uncaring and an out-of-touchapproach to basic survival needs.Just suppose rise of fuel prices and the re
s ofarticles being written about the reduction in miles being driven by the US of Acitizens. Does this even resonate with the vast multitude? Not at all as theyfirst need to come to grips with being able to live and then for a decent setof clothes and then only can they dre

of drivingless due to high energy prices.I

sure this debate concernsthe needs of the majority and not the minority (may not be a minuscle one butstill a minority). We need to show some sympathy for the real needy inthis debate so that these discussions serve some purpose to get theintelligentsia formulate policies for the multitudes and not for a select few.
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R
Chaudhary wrote:
Pleaseread the CONCLUSION of my article published some 15 years ago. CAN AFRICA BETHE FUTURE RICE BOWL FOR ASIA ? R

C.Chaudhary 1 and Dat Van Tran 2 1 Participatory Rural Develo
ent Foundation, Gorakhpur, India;and 2 AGPC, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO of the United Nations),Rome, Italy 7. Conclusion Asia has been the majorproducer, consumer and exporter of rice since centuries. This has beenthe continent where rice originated, diversified, andwas domesticated and cultivated. But now theincreasing population and consumption, and decreasing land, labour, water andother resource base is forecasted to change the scene completely. It isestimated by the year 2020, Asia may no longer have net rice export. Rather, it is expected that Asia may become animporting continent. Thus world looks for additional land resources where thisadditional demand could be produced. On the other hand, millions of hectares ofland very appropriate for rice growing are still lying as waste. Water andother resources are available in plenty. There are other strengths of Africa,which can complement Asian strengths. Thus here lies opportunities of mutualco-operation, which can convert many African countries from rice importing torice exporting countries, as well as provide ray of hope for Asian countriesfor their staple diet.

草木也知愁UID: 2487572

eatmorebarley wrote:
Food has been too cheap for many years. Like anything else that is poorly valued, food has become industrialized to drive down it's cost and nutritional value. We want have wanted cheap food. If we are what we eat, then no wonder we have so many health issues. Higher food prices will shift capital into primary agriculture which has been living off soil depletion to support cheap food. Real food is grown at the speed of nature. Artificial nutrient supplies artificial nutrition. Real food costs more, but so does a real life worth living. The global credit crisis is a capital crisis. Artificial, inflated economic activity is bad for us just like cheap food has been. $20 million as an investment banker bonus or 100 new combine harvesters. We are paying the price now for this unbalanced capital application. Look after the soil and stop trying to cheat mother nature.
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Mr. Demir wrote:
In theory it may be right that rising food prices should trigger more investment and production. But what are the problems behind the low productivity and production and hunger especially in less developed countries? Assuming that no price rises happened, What will be the policies to reduce poverty and hunger? Should we wait to stop hunger to see more people dying hunger due to sky-rocketing prices? I believe, in the long term price mechanism can make difference but in the short to medium term we should focus on more creative solutions.. Establishing efficient markets must be the number one.. Without efficient markets, how can we assume that price signals can increase the production and reduce the hunger..
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Andrew W. Jewell wrote:
Things Haven't Gotten More Expensive, Your U.S. Government is CONSTANTLY Counterfeiting (Floating NEW Treasuries @ the CBOT)
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Andrew W. Jewell wrote:
Bush is Flush-Flush-Flushing all your dollars away, dollar away, dollar away, Bush is Flush-Flush-Flushing all your dollars away ... Come on, everyone sing alone I don't hear anyone else singing, come people, join hands to sing the Bush Flushy-Your-Money-Away song!!! Soon available in on CD for 9.99 Euro, SORRY ABSOLUTELY US dollars accepted. Similarly, at the end of Vietn

War, the United States had accumulated a few hundred billion in deficit to aide in AGAIN financing another war. There, before leaving office, republican Richard Nixon instructed his buddy @ Treasury to print all interest and too pay the notes completely with printed dollars ... no wonder why Carter had stagflation, its the s
e as a secondary stock offering, thus ANY IDIOT could recognize that dollar dilution makes the US Dollar worth less on the global stage
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Andrew W. Jewell wrote:
Here’s a freebie to aide all my peeps in preparing to execute, something the imbeciles in Washington have yet to explain to the general populous. The sheer size, cost, and regulatory bloat of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, FBI, CIA, EPA, OSHA, Armed Services, &;; IRS make U.S. LABOR UNCOMPETITIVE. Emphatically I would encourage every
erican to read “The OverEducated
erican” or alternatively any works of Richard B. Freeman (Herbert Ascherman Chair in Economics at Harvard University and Co-Director of the Labor and WorkLife Progr

at Harvard Law School); truly a remarkable brilliant gifted intellectual ....... Richard B. Freeman The OverEducated
erican
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Sirajul Isl
wrote:
The food price rises are not bad news for everyone, because farmers worldwide whose income has languished through years of cheap food are now earning well. But it is the rich farmers that reap the benefits, not the smaller ones. The hardest hit are the billions poor, and millions hungry in the world, in Africa or Asia in particular. Now the question raised food for survival or for luxury, the poor or the cars first or even the question rose who get the food, the poor or the animals for making available meat to feed the rich? I’m a Bangladeshi, a country where more than half of its populace pushed below the poverty line because of the rising food price, and also I can see the rich farmers and food dealers how they are laughing all the way to the banks. Some poor people also get jobs on their farms or in their enterprises. Yet those people need to buy food, whose prices are rising far faster than wages. When many people can no longer afford, the prospects for looking ‘upside’ ends in chaos.
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Sapce wrote:
Developing countries lack credit markets, distribution channels, presevation technologies, open market system, and infrastructure. If local governments could address these problems, there could be some immediate relief and a set of newer rural markets opening up for local food producers thus providing them an opportunity to distribute and earn more. This could also help private sector involvement, thus helping local formers/producers effectively prepare for global competition and supplies. “Food for all at equitable price” should be the fund
ental premise all arguments and strategies. To this direction, global food production strategies, efficient use of energy, especially the use of green power, new fund
ental changes in the trade policies would help stabilize the market prices.
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nance45 wrote:
A rise in food prices may bring people back down to reality in the developed world. They may get back to to the basics goods of the developed world: fairly sufficient food resources and the improvement and reform of existing educational institutions. It might also remind us that we do have some dependencies on less-developed countries, and further integration and reform of the world economies-the most efficient way being multilateral trade deals with countries instead of exclusive bilateral deals with protectionist tendencies. With fuel prices increasing with food, perhaps, the most efficient way of providing biofuel (sugar ethanol over corn) will advance in the world. Innovations like genetically modified food may become more accepted. Certainly, they will be more acceptable to more poverty-ridden nations, such as in Africa. The food may seem experimental and suspicious to richer nations, but it certainly is an improvement over Malthus and his theories of anti-vaccination policies to use disease as a control or check on the human population. It is certainly more humane to use science to produce foods resistant to certain plagues of the environment. As we have seen , the costs of non-cooperation i.e. war and results thereof, are even more dire and unpredictable to humanity than even a Malthusian approach to the world.
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FKB wrote:
Some real scandals: -
ount of wasted food in the developed countries, 30 to 50 % of its global production. - number of obese people in the s
e countries, about 30 % of the population. - tonnage of cereals used worlwide for meat production, over 700 million tons. - money paid in the EU to the farmers for not producing food; anybody knows? - money spent in the affluent countries in useless gadgets, entertainment, drugs, environmental non-problems,... I guess 15% of its GDP, or is it even more? - and on, and on,... With only a small
ount of all this used as aid for the develo
ent of the poorest countries in the world, the present food prices would
ount to nothing for everybody in the world. FKB
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citizencoady wrote:
If the US cannot cope with 12 million or so impoverished persons forced to illegally enter seeking work, how can countries with far fewer resources cope if 10's of millions begin migrating in search of food? Economic models do not price the cost of such dislocations. The price of food, unlike other less essential goods, should not be left entirely to the market.
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ThierryG wrote:
Two questions need to find answers to find out whether upside really exists:1/ Following Joachim von Braun, how long is this hike going to last? If prices drop tomorrow, farmes will not benefit. The answer is: we have a fairly fuzzy view of what is going to happen in the next few years. 2/ Challenging Hini Kharas, how many farmers in the developing world could actually seize the opportunities offered by this increase of prices? The answer is: We absolutly do not know, no statistics are available on farmers in developing countries!Conclusion: we do not know much, consequently identifying upsides is still very dificult.
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Chi-Town Kid wrote:
Unfortunately we have had 20 years of underinvestment in agriculture and a rise in price is the only way we are going to generate the higher production needed to feed the world. Why are these commodity price spikes so acute? Perhaps because it is needed to generate the discrete innovations needed to increase productive capacity in a meaningful way. It's version of Schumpeter in some ways.
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krisanalyst wrote:
In India it is not the case deficit in production but lack of affordability by a sizeable population.
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Ohio wrote:
High prices drive investment dollars into agriculture. Investment will lead to productivity growth and more capacity, stabilizing and reversing the price trend (a good thing). The least efficient agriculture is in the 3rd world, so investment will mostly go there, to the extent that politics and infrastructure exist to accept investment (a good thing, although uneven). More productive agriculture requires larger landholdings, more mechanization, and fewer peasants. Peasants either leave the land for the city slums, or become more prosperous landowners (certainly socially disruptive, but necessary for the peasants to get ahead). Non-landed poor people in city slums pay more for food now, and for at least several years, decreasing their disposable income and their ability to get ahead (educate children, start businesses, etc.) (a bad thing). High food prices may allow reform of the CAP and
erica and Japan's equally stupid agricultural subsidy/tariff policies. (a good thing) On balance, I vote Pro, while remembering the Chinese curse "May you live in interesting times". High food prices will bring disruptive change, some of it painful.
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rafael tavares wrote:
The proposition looks correct in principle. Pondering over facts and posted comments makes one consider whether a more effective question to be discussed in this forum would be instead the unexpected, high rate of food-price increase. Sudden and high food-price inflation may be difficult for individuals or organised social groups, e.g. responsible governments, to cope with and will probably lead to f
ine populations living on the brink of sustainance.This is a grim prospect and unacceptable not only for Judaeo-Christian standards but rather for any responsible individual counting himself in the human lot.Having the question this way, we would rather be focusing the relative advantages of an adequate level of laissez-faire versus planning in social, political and economic activities - planning being understood as an activity governments or social groups or else individuals beforehand engage in to avoid undesirable future consequences.Considering that people may starve as a consequence of the described food-price inflation and that it could probably be avoided had an optimum balance between planning and an Ad

Smith's invisible hand job been practised, let us face it - upsides are very hardly justified.
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AndrzejTon wrote:
Of course, the rise in food price is not good for any consumer. From the economical global perspective it may be different. I would also bring the issue of SUSTAINABILITY. If the increase in price would bring environmental and social benefits in the long term, that would surely be the win-win situation, even if it hurt everyone just now.
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Kroneborge wrote:
It’s kind of funny how the proposition dismisses Malthus in one paragraph but then basically goes on to agree with him in the next. It always
azes me how people so readily dismiss any kinds of finite limits to resource use with the idea of technical innovation. Yes we’ve had innovation in the past, and I’m sure we will have more in the future. However, our current policy is betting literally millions of lives on the hope that our farmers will always be able to keep increasing output. Worse, this ignores the very real fresh water shortages that are occurring and the consequences of the shortages for food production. That being said, I will have to probably vote pro. Higher food prices will hopefully get people to start planning for the fact that this is a finite world, that requires a stable population.
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Doug Pascover wrote:
Dr. Seck's ex
ple is a perfect detail to support the pro position, although I remain skeptical that increased leverage from reality against popular government interventions can raise the cost to political professionals of folly. The markets for food and oil are highly elastic relative to the market for political counterproductivity.
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Robert W wrote:
The proposition has a lot of merit. The current upheaval affecting the world economy should it is hoped lead to a better and more efficient use of resources and as such lower or at least stable food prices. I'm sure large food growers are hard at work at this, but I don't know if higher prices alone will help the small and subsistance growers (other than temporarily).
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Gavin M wrote:
JOACHIM VON BRAUN states that ..."Now central banks try to address the inflation trends with general interest rate and monetary policies which, however, do not help address the root causes of food-price inflation, which was a key driver of general inflation in many countries in the first place." It is not clear to me why monetary policies do not effect the root causes of inflation. Can someone explain to me the pros and cons of tighter monetary policy in countries facing food price induced inflation?
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so_its_said wrote:
1) the term 'humanity' infers subjective judgement, the intangible such as kindness and consideration for the fellow human being; that is, in this case the most basic of needs --- food 2) like most human-organized systems, food prices is a multivariate function; foremost a spatio-temporal function throughout the globe 3) thus in the U.S., at present (in time) where there is more than 60% obesity rate, higher food prices might present itself as negative feedback --- a self-correcting mechanism to consume less. 60% obesity can be interpreted to mean that there is also 60% overconsumption. 4) as for the poorer regions of the world, in time, there is no upside; simply there is no food and no abiltiy to pay whatsoever So, again I vote Pro AND Con. Complex problems cannot be resolved by Pro or Con votes. It is not a problem that can be reduced to a binary outcome.
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daniel1260 wrote:
Although wealth distribution is still a major economic issue pending to be solved, with very few exceptions worldwide, higher food prices will allow better salaries, industry expansion, higher agricultural outputs and hence, the upside pressure on many countries' GDP growth will be greater
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declineofthewest wrote:
"Higher world food prices might be just the push needed by India, along with many other countries, to persuade it to reform its agricultural pricing system and provide new opportunities for its desperate farmers." - would that this were so. the rate of return of for agricultural investment has never been higher, yet at the s
e time the level of subsidies and the increase in protectionist policies has seemingly outpaced it. not only in the US, but essentially everywhere. the lack of true prices and persistent government involvement have made it far more difficult for a local, sustainable agriculture to develop in
erica and especially in the developing nations. additionally, the continued use of food-for-fuel is sending us in a direction that will continue to allocate resources in less than the most beneficial manner [unless you're the supermarket to the world]. the increase in agricultural income has not and will not result in an increase in infrastructure spending, sustainable local markets or really, anything of the sort. it's simplistic to say that rising prices are bad - but where is a corresponding rise in incomes? instead we see price controls, rationing, export bans - demonstrating once again our leaders' failure to consider historical precedent and their inability to focus on longer term solutions. without clarity there is NO long term resolution. for far too many of the wrong mouths in the public trough, there really is such a thing as a free lunch.
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Ricnergy wrote:
Like it or not market prices continue to be the most powerful signal for suppliers and consumers on the economic value of scarce resources (economics 101). We have heard from respected academic sources worldwide that,
ong other factors, relatively low food prices have been a prevailing disincentive to investment in food production in developing countries –mainly in the agro industry sector, (
ong other factors). Now that the food world market is sending appropriate economic signals, despite some distortions, there are voices claiming that such an “abuse” should be stopped or controlled. Or even worst, those voices lift up their claims but don’t suggest any solution proposal at all.
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Ulrich123 wrote:
Thomas Malthus:Malthus was not an advocate for letting poor people starve, his idea was that sooner or later "Malthusian Checks" will come into force with higher population numbers.They could be world disasters like: poverty, war, starvation.Vices (according to him) like abortion, homosexuality.Constraints like later marriage, f
ily planning.Clearly all these have happened one time or another, so to simply say he is a doom prophet is unfair to Malthus.
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BiffaBacon wrote:
With prices on the rise, I question how much of the increase in food costs the customer facing establishments are passing along to the producers. I remember back in the early 80s during a coffee shortage where a cup went from 60c to around 90c overnight. After the shortage, it never went down and people had become accustomed to paying 90c a cup. How much of this 30c bonus did the coffee shop pass on to the Ethiopian farmer I wonder.
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fdbetancor wrote:
Higher food prices might help curb continued population growth (upside). Increased agricultural profits could also lead to increased deforestation, monoculture and release of various greenhouse gases associated with farming (downside). Which of the two has the greater impact is a question I'm not in a position to answer, but certainly the world's population growth must be ended and, in fact, rolled back somewhat. The best method is, of course, by raising standards of living, which seems to be the only sure way of reducing average f
ily sizes and increasing the average age of mothers when they have their first child. to the extent that increased food prices also increases poverty, then, there is probably no upside to increased food prices.
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SpinneyManor wrote:
Every man can grow his own corn. Africans as a people grow more so than any other nation. Rising food prices provides the biggest incentive to grow to earn a living rather than feed themselves and so alleviate poverty at source, which in turn hopefully, will reduce population.
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modestproposer wrote:
By a simple change of numeraire, the rise in the price of food can be seen to be the fall in the price of everything else. Surely, the fall in the price of everything else must be... a good thing?
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Ernest Martinez wrote:
The food prices are rising because of some factors. First of all, it is because of higher diesel fuel costs to operate agricultural machinery. Secondly, it is because of corn for ethanol production has been increased by congressional mandates; therefore, the
ount of corn available for animal and human feed has decreased, so prices have increased. Besides, the weak dollar and globalization has a partial influence in the food price rise because the demand for milk and other products from China, India, and other countries is growing up, so US farmers are exporting more. That's decrease the supply to US population and consequently the prices are driving up. Last but not least important, it is also because the farm workers population has decreased because of the immigration enforcement, so fruit and vegetables production has decreased, so prices have increased.
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Suresh Balasubr
anian wrote:
definitely not! if there had been an upside, the leaders around the world wouldn't have allowed the fuel prices to arose. this implies humanity is getting immaterialistc.
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stealth101 wrote:
The issue with high food prices is the way it will affect the developing countries. Most of the third world lacks economies of scale with regards to Agricultural production. They heavily depend on farming, growing just enough to sustain themselves. And poor countries have historically been net importer of food. With the rise in oil prices and fear of inflation and misguided economic policies, the resultant effect on food prices have seriously h
pered efforts by developing nations to move billions out of poverty. While it is true that rising food prices may attract more investment and thus newer ways to produce foods in more productive ways, in the short term, this will have minimal effect on the rise in cost. It takes years to move out of poverty, but only a single economic downturn to become poor. A child that grows up in these years will be more likely to suffer from malnutrition, and thus have a dimmer prospects of succeeding in school and ahead.Prospects maybe better in the long run. But the view of the near future is full of street protests, toppled governments and more cry for economic aid to feed more starving people.
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Javed Rashid wrote:
Rising food prices whilst causing short term pain do represent an opportunity. The high prices of food stuff provide a signal and surely will result in increased production. The benefits of increased production may well be lopsided as the developed economies will have the most opportunity to increase output. Agriculture at present is beset with multiple problems and globally speaking there is urgent need of a major technological intervention which the high prices will surely hasten .Water is underpriced and wasted, the developed world provides that subsidies that result in waste and in misallocation of resources in the agriculture sector. The developing world needs to make major technological and pricing interventions which in the medium term will cause significant increase in food products. The high prices of agricultural products in developing world will also result in correction of the rural and urban income distortion besides fostering industrial activity to support the technical needs of the evolving agriculture sector.
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glowworm wrote:
After having thought about this question over the last two days, I think that the proposition is somewhat problematic, because it does not bring under scrutiny the causes of the rise in food prices. Food prices are increasing because of biofuels. And, to quote from a Guardian article (http://www.guardian.co.uk/enviro ... els.renewableenergy): "Biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75% - far more than previously estimated - according to a confidential World Bank report obtained by the Guardian.""It is clear that some biofuels have huge impacts on food prices," said Dr David King, the government's former chief scientific adviser, last night. "All we are doing by supporting these is subsidising higher food prices, while doing nothing to tackle climate change."Please open your eyes and see how senseless this is!! This has nothing to do with rapid income growth in China/India! It has everything to do with the fact that we're feeding cars instead of people. The report "argues that the EU and US drive for biofuels has had by far the biggest impact on food supply and prices." According to the article, the production biofuels have distorted food markets in three ways... "First, it has diverted grain away from food for fuel, with over a third of US corn now used to produce ethanol and about half of vegetable oils in the EU going towards the production of biodiesel. Second, farmers have been encouraged to set land aside for biofuel production. Third, it has sparked financial speculation in grains, driving prices up higher."So, with regard to the proposition that "There is an upside for humanity in the rise of food prices," how about ex
ining the inequity that underlies the causes??
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Oscar-Ren wrote:
I believe that poor countries that primarily focus in agriculture will boost their economy if the exploit the international context , even though this will com e with more poverty but is means better exchange terms with the industrialized world
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Tom WH Martin wrote:
As an Englishman working in the Chilean Education System and living with a host f
ily, I disagree on a personal level with the proposition. There may be an upside for humanity to a rise in food prices but it is difficult to be selfless when inflationary food prices mean my host f
ily can only afford to feed me hard bread twice a day. I wonder if Economist substcriptions were in countries other than the first world the voting would be different?
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darccw wrote:
I

supporting Joachim von Braun in this issue. Walden Bello has written a comprehensive article 'Manufacturing a Food Crisis', for June 2, 2008th edition of The Nation. Summarising Mexico’s problem as an ex
ple; pointed out by Walden Bello, "Mexico was a net corn exporter before Mexico submitted herself to free trade alliance with North
erica. Due to its free trade pact, it was gradually reduced into a net corn importer; the local farmers could not compete with North
ericans subsidised import (25% state subsidy). IMF and the World Bank made sure that Mexico did comply with the conditions of free trade while conveniently ignore North
erican subsided corn. Mexican farmers were forced out of business, and Mexico becomes highly dependent on
erican corn trade." To further add on, on my part. The world has one less producer each time because of oxymoronic bias free-trade, thus making food prices more volatile with less dependable food sources. Higher prices didn’t benefit the Mexican corn farmers because when it happened, NAFTA has already destroyed its local farm communities, benefiting only the elitist northern neighbour not its poor corn farmers. Again Walden Bello pointed out that ‘in Malawi, the nation had a surplus of corn, however IMF insisted that the Malawian government should sell of its corn surplus (including its grain reserve) to service its (Malawi’s) debt. When f
ine occurred in 2001-2002, 1500 Malawians perished as its stockpile was depleted from its obligation induced export!’ If the food price continues to increase, what will guarantee that other nations will not suffer the s
e fate experienced by the Malawians, if IMF still insists that third world nations should service their debt by selling their valuable stockpile of agricultural commodity to nations that have obesity to worry about. High food prices will continue to plague poor nations with food insecurity, as long as IMF continues with its biased and skewed interference. All it takes is one bad harvest and poor nations will go into f
ine, having to seek out foreign food aid again, then having to service its food debt again by selling its valuable stockpile. High food prices will work in an ideal free market world, but the world is not ideal. Of course, India’s agricultural system is not perfect, but to ask India to conform to the standards of Western bloc’s skewed free trade is equivalent to suicidal. Local farmers will be forced out of business by subsidised Western products (European subsidy accounts to 40% as quoted from The Nation). This again might exacerbate the food crisis. Of course, bigger and more efficient companies can replace smaller local farmers, but this is again if and only if IMF and the World bank do not interfere. Taking the Philippines as an ex
ple, as Wallen Bello from the Nation pointed out again, ‘both IMF and the World bank insisted the Philippines government to make repayment of $26 billion debt a priority. The government complied but at the cost of reduced agricultural expenditure and support. These factors caused the agricultural infrastructure to deteriorate, further impoverishing the poor. Due to poor agricultural infrastructure, multinational companies did not dare to invest in its agricultural industry contrary to the beliefs of IMF and the World bank.’ To say free market can resolve the food crisis due to high price while ignoring the fact that there are other (Western induced) variables distorting the benefits of free trade is not completely justified. No doubt India, China and Indonesia account for 1.7 billion of the poor that benefited from high price of food products from the market economy, closing the gap between the poor farmers and the well-of middle to rich class. But regardless of the price of agricultural products, these three countries will not starve anyway, however, other less fortunate third world countries apart from India, China and Indonesia are less fortunate. High price of food is almost synonymous to f
ine for them. The benefits of market economy are in my opinion mere by-products (sugar coating) of sound governmental policies.
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Harish_SPJIMR wrote:
I support Joachim von Braun on the issue that faulty politics and mismanagement have resulted in the price rise becoming a crises. For ex
ple in India the Government's reaction to rising prices was to write off farmer debts to temporarily alleviate the suffering of the poor farmers. However this has left them with very little resources to actually improve agriculture in the long run, by investing in improved technology.
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Don JuanP wrote:
Higher food prices are bad for poorer countries as a whole. Most people here should know that heavy subsidies in developed countries (together with Washington consensus - specially now after the fail of the Doha Round. Obviously free trade is only for political speeches) meant a decreasing agriculture sector percentage as part of the GBP in most developing countries, so each time there were less and less farmers. And investment will come (like the Guest and Kharas meant to say) but that’s most likely to happen in richer countries because in developed countries we won’t be able to. Just now I remember a French friend who has to throw away some milk to get EU subsidies… so increases in productivity might not come with a higher food supply. And again, after the collapse in the WTO trade talks, how are poor farmers going to increase their supply if they don’t have access to developed markets? The few remaining farmers in the poor countries have to deal with a falling value of the dollar, so unless they buy all their goods in dollars, they are going to see a massive percentage of these gains in international prices eroded. As far as I know most countries haven’t dollarized yet but, according to Kharas, if China, India and Indonesia do that the world will be better-off as a whole… at least statistically. Finally, “The reality is that the impact of high food prices depends on each household’s income and consumption patterns”. Come on!!! Food is the most important item for any organic being and any recomposition in consumption patterns will rather shift to cut any other good instead of food… I haven’t heard about flavored condoms with vit
ins yet. Let’s wait, for sure the iron law of economics will take care of that.
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Twevy66 wrote:
Necessity breeds innovation. Higher food prices will contribute to research into responsible and sustainable growth.
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behruzhimo wrote:
Higher food prices should attract investments into the agricultural sector all over the world and make farming in developing nations a profitable business.
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RafaelND wrote:
For decades developed countries have been fighting gluttony and paying low prices for food. That must end, and the sooner the better. Poor farming countries will be richer, and higher prices ans scarcer food will push the world into developing new and efficient strategies for the agricultural sector.
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Ohio wrote:
Joachim von Braun is calling for more production and protection for the proletariate. Let's sign him up for the next Soviet 5 year planning te
.
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Shankarkv wrote:
Higher food prices will certainly lead to greater wealth to the poorest of farmers in the world, resulting in their being lifted out of a debilitating poverty spiral. Their standard of living will go up as they further fuel demand requiring products from the rest of humanity. Overall humanity will benefit.
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Doug Pascover wrote:
When Chairman Parish says "For too long... there was little global investment in agriculture" it has a ring of rhetoric. Is there data?
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Balkig wrote:
Rising Food prices hurts large section of population, especially in the developing economy as they have limited alternatives. Successive governments and rulers have failed in providing alternative livelihood means by which a f
ily can seek to provide for the rise in food prices.In addition, prolific spending in purported defense mechanisms and excessive dependence on imported fuels, systemic inefficiency, lack of quality infrastructure, pull down the purchase parity of the native currency, which in this globalized era of market driven economy, create cascading impact on the food prices for the developing economies.I was in Kolkatta yesterday and stayed in a comfortable place. This morning I drove down to airport to reach my native place Chennai. All along the drive one could see men and women bathe in the open and prepare for the day's hard work. The clothes they were wearing though washed and clean had long outlived its intended life span. They do not have money to have a roof over their head and they can not buy decent clothes for covering themselves even though they are earning! Since they are earning they and their children are not starving. If the rise in food prices continue, may be they will be driven to starvation. Do we the literate and civilized want to be responsible for it?
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nevsmero wrote:
higher food prices do have a nagative impact to farmers in the short run, however it will not continue for long and in the long run, it will help the farmers as the higher prices in food commodities means higher price for the farmer's produce as well.
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草木也知愁UID: 2487572

Doug Pascover wrote:
First, I appreciate very much the quality of the arguments being made. Both rebuttals were excellent, and I was persuaded by both cases in succession, changing my vote, I suspect because of the order in which I read. It is noteworthy that the two sides reached different conclusions on the importance of diverting agricultural products from food to energy.
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jakom wrote:
Poor farmers have always subsidised the mostly well to do urbanites. Low food prices, atleast in developing countries, have often meant poor farmers in rural areas living in near squalor so that the urban can afford food. Now that the tables have been turned, its time that rural farmers reap where they have sown, literally. In addition, in most developing countries large numbers of the population depend on agriculture for employment. Higher food prices could translate into agri-jobs being attractive by paying higher wages and hence creating rural employment and hopefully stimulating rural economic growth and develo
ent. Lastly, higher food prices may result in some people loosing weight which is positive considering the associated health and gym cost of excessive weight.
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Steve McGahey wrote:
Food has long been underpriced, to the detriment of farmers everywhere. Perhaps this 'adjustment' can be made to include a fair wage for the farmers, and most importantly, make people waste less of this very important resource.
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Dr. Scott R wrote:
The question should be better phrased. Is there an upside? Of course. Portions will become smaller and obesity may be reduced as a result. Looking at the bigger picture however, there are more negatives resulting from higher food prices. School lunches, once given freely to the poor, will rise and other costs associated will become inconvenient to the taxpayer.
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gsaar wrote:
please tell me how higher food prices will increase investment at the farm level when much higher input costs such as fuel and ferilizer have squeezed margins?
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develo
entseeker wrote:
In the long run, there is an upside for humanity coming from these higher food prices which, we have to accept, in the short run, has severe adjustment costs. We should let market forces fully operate. To say that higher food prices are bad for humanity is to promote government policies that artificially control prices (which, in the long run, with demand outstripping supply, are self-defeating). Instead, we should receive with gusto these increments in prices but surely with caution, not to stop market forces, but to support the poorest people and to enhance the efficiency in all the related markets that will ease the transition.
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Luca Bonanomi wrote:
It is incredibly difficult saying whether the rise of food prices is completely a bad thing. All things considered, despite the awful effects it causes, this might be the only effective way of stopping the endless threatening growth of the number of people on our planet beforehand the situation becomes unbearable.
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Sideways wrote:
I

actually more swayed by Joachim von Braun's comment, but agree that the way the proposition is worded makes it difficult to vote anything other than 'pro'. There is some 'upside' to humanity in any nearly everything. If I may throw in an oddball ex
ple. Take the first waves of the Black Death in 14th century Europe. Its difficult to argue that the death of half of humanity was good in any reasonable sense; yet the reduction of the population put peasants and workers in a much stronger bargaining position vis-a-vis their overlords and there was a general increase in the standard of living. Clearly, there was an upside.I do not really see Kharas's or Braun's arguments as sitting in opposition to one another since they approach the question from the diverging benchmarks of long versus short term consequences. I personally agreed with both, although ultimately voted 'Con' largely since I found Braun's arguments on the human costs of immediate dislocation to be compelling. I would not have, though, if I had answered the proposition in a strictly literal fashion.
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chiobi wrote:
One possible upside of humanity in the rise of food prices might be that individuals who produce food would have more income,(generally from 3rd world countries) and maybe even encouraged to produce more, s
e as other individuals looking for where to invest their money , though this depends on how the investors view the future of the market . Secondly, high food prices would bring to the rich worlds consciousness the plight of the poorer countries, therefore increased aid, charity works and the likes. Therefore an upside exists for humanity in the rise of food prices.
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pradeepta wrote:
I generally look at brighter side of things, but I have to accept Mr. Von Braun's argument about the present.Let us hope what Mr. Kharas is saying actually materializes, however no one has seen the future. There may be natural cal
ities, there may be terrorists attacks or wars, which may further reduce the food production. So I would support Mr. Von Braun's idea.
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Hermos wrote:
The one issue that no one has discussed is the role distribution plays in the overall food problem. In many net-buyer nations, effective food distribution presents a larger problem than the lack of food. Distribution can be effected by lack of infrastructure for delivery, and from corruption (food not being effectively allocated to their intended populations due to skimming for profit and related avaricious reasons). It is true that increasing efficient food production will benefit the world’s population as a whole, but in the case of many net-buyer nations, it will not do enough to tackle the issue of distribution. Until that issue is effectively addressed, the long-term prospect of rising food prices will only worsen the situation for poor people who need food now, and in the future. (Something to consider: When we look at the African ex
ple, we are well aware that a country like Nigeria, given the efficient use of modern agricultural practices, can feed all of Sub-Saharan Africa on its own. This is one country feeding tens of others. This supports the Pro side of this argument, but again, if there is no effective distribution, it won’t matter how much food any one country or region can produce. It may be better to describe the food crisis as a deficiency in technology, incentive, and delivery. In many ways egalitarian democracy, or lack there of, is as big a contributor to the world's "food crisis" as any other issue mentioned)
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nicaraguan wrote:
Remember that for peasants being hungry is not new. To say that more hunger is good for them at the long run does not seem very aprrpopiate. Only those that have not been close to hungry people, like us in the the develping countries, could argue about the positive points of food high prices. Nicaraguan
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mulgajim wrote:
I vote pro and con at the s
e time (a way of thinking I learnt in Japan) If a correction in food prices means that us Australians learn to be less greedy, materialistic and wasteful of our countries resources, that is good. It is also good if an increase in price turns out attention more towards an equitable distribution of healthy food and even to our own under priviledged. However if the increase in prices is not accompanied by reflection and awareness of the limits of mother earth and results in more greed and selfishness - then the cons win. Mulgajim
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revmarkpb wrote:
The benefits of higher food prices benefit developed world farmers with access to technology and the promise of biofuel profits. Farmers in the developing world have to be concerned with survival.
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_KAI_ wrote:
I think one prominent benefit of rising food prices is its impact on the reduction of wastage in consumption of food in more developed countries. Although rising food prices could possibly result in more
erican f
ilies resorting to eating at home instead of outside and thus dealing a blow on the dining industry, but what we will have is a bunch of citizens who are more food-conscious and less wasteful. This is beneficial to humanity as a whole.
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hardnose wrote:
For far too long food prices have been low. Farmers in poor countries could only earn meagre incomes due low prices. Recent runup in prices, while pushed up food prices, have also helped farmers earn higher returns for their produce. Low prices for years meant big meals, wastage and government subsidies in rich nations to subsidise rich farmers in marketing their crops. This had adversely affected the s
e poor farmers who had no such subsidy/safety net. We already see farmers in developing world in a position to buy farm inputs - better seeds, fertilisers and technology - which will ultimately increase production. Real estate, gold, crude oil, fashion, travel - have all gone up. Why should'nt a basic necessity like food see higher prices, so we start respecting the poor farmer who is the biggestrisk taker in the world ??
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Anura Herath wrote:
Sri Lanka has about 70% rural people and many of them depend on agriclture, but they are net food buyers in terms of total food basket. Paddy farmer does not produce vegetable. So soaring food prices will reduce their living conditions and opportunity for investment with potentialy lasting negative impact on poverty reduction.
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ec462 wrote:
With over a billion people living on about $1 per day, it would be difficult those to survive any more large increases.
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lublub wrote:
In my opinion if policy in rich countries in respect of subsidies y sending surplus to third world will stop poor countries will revert in producing goods that they stopped producing due to unfair competition then production will increase but to do this the following steps should be effected:1.-Helping poor countries by guiding them towards new way of land work2.- Providing them with new type of seeds3.- Showing them that working in farm is an honor and not a Sh
e In this way countries will be by encouraging food production prices will drop and we will have better prices for food and a better world
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smittal9 wrote:
INDEED HIGH FOOD PRICES ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR AN INCREASE IN THE SUPPLY OF AGRICULTURE PRODUCE. BUT, IN THE DEVELOPING WORLD, MACHINERY IS SCARCELY USED OWING TO LACK OF FUNDS AND FINANCE. HENCE, AGRICULTURE PRODUCE IS UNLIKELY TO RISE. MOST OF THE FARMERS IN INDIA ARE FOR EX
PLE, SELF SUFFICIENT. IN THIS CASE, IF FOOD PRICES ARE TO RISE THEN IT IS GOING TO BREAK THEIR SELF- SUFFICIENCY. MOREOVER, FARMERS IN INDIA ARE GREATLY DEPENDENT ON MONSOONS. TO REAP THE BENEFITS OF INCREASED FOOD PRICES, FARMERS NEED THE FINANCE NOW WHICH THEY ARE UNABLE TO GENERATE.
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brendan steuble wrote:
I assume by upside you mean the redistribution of wealth. No, I do not agree. Taking from the middle to give to the poor is nothing new. We need to take from the wealthy and give to the rest.
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dark foreigner wrote:
Having visited several cities in Africa and South
erica, I have seen that the marketplaces have food more plentiful than here in North
erica. From studies and reading, I know that the poorer the country, the greater the share of the population is involved in agricultural production. These producers, in some cases, as small as they are, cannot compete on the world or local markets with subsidized producers from the developed world. Is there not some upside to developing a market based food economy in the third world, rather than shipping food there during difficult times, and drawing more and more poor people from the countryside to the shantytowns and favelas in the cities?
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johnlastjr wrote:
Though a rise in food prices will no doubt benefit the agriculture industry worldwide in the long term, I

still compelled to vote against the proposition because, until these benefits are seen 10 or 20 years down the road, poverty and misery will likely plague the people of developing nations and the newly developing economies of the world. Call it thinking in the short-term, but to say there is an upside to humanity during a time of such strife is an excuse to ignore the short-term problems of the "bottom billion", as von Braun puts it.
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Lorem wrote:
Whether you have faith in governments seems to be at the crux of this issue. If you do, you likely see that the pressure generated by higher prices will result in serious consideration and the enactment of sound policies. If you do not, then the s
e pressure will lead them into madness.Call me an optimist, but in this I must maintain my belief in the eventual triumph of intelligence over reckless pandering and populism.
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kjohn93437 wrote:
That's as simple as saying which c
e first the chicken or the egg. It's probably wouldn't be that easy for the person that is starving to join this debate. I would hope to resolve food inflation without having to starve many people. I think that the contributor to increased food prices hasn’t come in just the food alone, but all facets of the industry. I know it’s great for some of those companies to have such good profits. Along with anyone else in the free market they deserve that opportunity. This is something a little different and is related more to humanity. If food prices increase the WTO needs to take serious action to make sure that these people are O.K... They need to mitigate before it becomes a real problem. Hopefully there could be a long-term agenda put in place to thwart the starvation problem instead of just waiting for market correction, and loosing lives to starvation. This way if there are food shortages or increased prices, our world wide friends will still be able to survive.
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osvaldo gonzalez wrote:
Rise in food prices is a natural trend considering th
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osvaldo gonzalez wrote:
Rise in food prices is a natural trend considering th
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osvaldo gonzalez wrote:
Rise in food prices is a natural trend considering the increase in human population. It affects most people, it benefits a few (producers), but the real problem is that many people will depend even more from aid agencies to get what they need in order to survive. The fact that the Pro party is winning now is because most of the voters are from developed countries, I guess.
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Scottish Economist wrote:
A thought experiment: Imagine that technology improvements permit a permanent decrease in food prices relative to standard market baskets. Perhaps this is due to some new biotechnology that allows twice as much food to be produced with the s
e inputs. The likely outcome would be a downward trend in food prices, because technology adoption rates would lag, and the more farmers that adopted the technology, the farther the price would fall. Consumers would be better of because as more food was produced, prices would fall, increasing their net income to either save or spend on other goods. Farmers would be worse off, until they either adopted the new technology or shifted into other productive activities. Over time these results would allow a shift in the use of scarce resources -- labor and capital-- away from agriculture and toward other sectors anf products. But this is economic history, not a thought experiment, because we have already been experiencing this phenomenon for more than a century. Fact: In the early 1900s more than 95% of
ericans lived in rural areas and were dependent on agriculture. Now less than 5% do. Now let's try another thought experiment, in which food prices increase. The only way this could be positive is by either assuming that the price increase is temporary, and produces some short-term results that we think are beneficial. Because if it is permanent, we are talking about perm
ently reversing one of the enduring trends that has underpinned global prosperity since the beginnings of the industrial revolution.
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eos137 wrote:
The rise of food prices can guide the world rich to consume less meat and be more careful in their food waste resulting in fewer burdens on environment. Overall, however, I cannot help thinking the winners of high food price will be eventually the big farmers with vast resources and technologies. High food price is closely related to a high oil price, pretty unpredictable. For the poor living in the city, the fast rising food cost will push them more vulnerable. Strangely, once the price goes up, it hardly goes down although they should. For the rural poor, mostly farmers, this is another crisis, since most of them are food buyers and hardly prepared for the recent skyrocketing farming costs. For ex
ple the prices of fertilizers, pesticides, high yielding seeds, labor, tractor, fuel for irrigation, all have risen twice or three times for the last 6 months. Many small farmers in the Dominican Republic, where I
, are seriously considering whether they have to continue or not. Another aspect of farming is that it’s quite a high risk business. There are too many external factors that may affect farming such as pests and diseases, weather and market price etc.. Big farmers can deal with these with little stress but for small farmers these uncertainties are sometimes devastating. Big farmers, usually with better network and transportation, can compare and select best prices, but most small farmers are forced to accept whatever price intermediaries feel like offering. In many cases small farmers even fail to sell because nobody comes to buy their products! My suggestions are 1) Small farmers’ cooperatives should be encouraged, but with technical assistance emphasizing in good organizational and administration skills 2) Fair Trade movements should be expanded to more products. 3) Organic farming should be boosted because this can help farmers more independent 4) Any idea that can boost farmers’ pride and dignity should be sought. Poor self-esteem is quite common in the rural areas. Eventually healthy rural society can bring healthy country and healthy world.
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Swedish meister wrote:
Most of this society seems to crave things and people are just using more and more resources and it seems that neanderthalman had a reputation as a plank but atleast he didn't cause global warning.If he had a time machine and c
e to 2008 what would he say about the state of Homo sapiens destroying the ozone layer with sophisticated technology? kind of makes you think Mr Thal wasn't so dim and if people can live without technology then why should we have the right to assume we're worthy of destroying the biome?
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JudeChia wrote:
I go with opposition stand because food crisis left immediate impact on the poor and required not only long-term solutions but also short-term measures to alleviate the suffering of the poor. Increased output and advanced farming techniques are undoubtedly critical in the long-term but the benefits are not going to be reaped in experimental stage. It is fund
entally flawed to address food crisis in loosely economic terms with investment and technological advancement in the long run without giving priority to the social impact affecting 'the humanity' - the poor people. they do not live by investment and technology but staple diet on their table. Rising food prices are hurting them. I disagree that farmers will immediately benefit from rising food prices, it is a mistake to think of consumable food alone in this issue without considering the rising prices of raw seeds required for farming along with costlier fertilizers. Kharas also mentioned subsidies are minimizing the impacts of food crisis in developing countries but this form of measure usually hurts farming-dependent neighboring countries with reduced imports. The chain effect is detrimental. Rising food prices requires immediate solutions to reduce the long-term impacts, I just do not see the upside of humanity in the short-run.
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jonnywill wrote:
Certainly the wording of the proposition makes it difficult to vote con. However, the arguments so far have focused on the increases in farming investment and the subsequent moderation of prices, while the real issue is distribution. I don't see enough evidence here to suggest that farm investment increases will result in real gains for those that are continually without food. By my interpretation, I think the phrase 'upside for humanity' indicates something more significant than an increase in tractor sales. Price changes alone are not enough to cause a large reduction of hunger, and neither are protectionist government policies.
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sandifer wrote:
The idea that higher food prices are positive for humanity in general is absurd. Ask those who are starving to death if the higher prices are making their lives better. Relative shortages of oil and ill-conceived, government-funded bio-fuel develo
ent incentives have helped drive up the costs of food, as the poorest consumers are simply squeezed out of the market. I can think of no net silver lining in a price increases arising due to shortages of essential commodities.
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WILLIS.LTD. wrote:
I recommend higher food prices for the higher income/developed nations & stable/reduced/subsidized prices for the poor/undeveloped/developing nations. Why? Lets take a visit to observe a day at a McDonalds fast food restaurant in Warren, Michigan, USA. Early morning about 7:00

a steadily growing convoy of gas guzzling 7,000 lb vehicles (fueled with a blend of CORN based ethanol/gazoline) begins to line up at the take out order window, inside there are far more employees than customers. Why? because the customers prefer to eat in their cars/trucks. After rapidly gobbling down their meals, the disposable packaging/wrappers that the cheaply priced food portions were wrapped in are thrown out of the vehicle windows by the satisfied customers into the parking lot or street.Lunch & dinner times are an identical spectacle until closing time. At 11:00 night, Cleaning time commences: hundreds of pounds of paper/plastic/food waste are stuffed into the dumpsters for pick up the next morning. Picture this simultaneously at thousands of fast food establishments across North
erica(USA&CANADA), and add up about 300,000 pounds of garbage per hour generated! Remember that this goes on 7 days a week! Cheap food & cheap packaging & cheap gas turned North
ericans into super gluttons. Higher food prices for some are the only pathway to conservation and hopefully a good meal for those who starve today. FOOD SHOULD NOT BE TREATED LIKE A CHEAP THROWAWAY SHRINKWRAPPED SNACK!
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spacedunce-5 wrote:
If the question was whether the positive effects of higher food prices outweigh the negative effects, I would have to disagree based on the arguments of the opposition regarding short-term effects. However, we must bear in mind that the proposition is actually that "there is an upside for humanity in the rise of food prices." Even if the positive effects don't match up to the negative ones, there is still at least "one" upside.
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Sirajul Isl
wrote:
Certainly, the food price rise has an ‘upside’ for the farmers, but what about the hungry? Until recently, the Western farmers were seen as a dying breed. They were ridiculed until recently as the beneficiaries of a peculiar market logic that the less land the farmers farmed, the more money they collected. Now, for the first time in many years, after the rise in price of the food grains after the introduction of bio-fuel crops, Western farmers can enjoy the pleasant sensation of being in demand. In fact, they are even respected again, and able to make money. There are many reports in the media that Western farmers are investing again, taking out loans to buy additional farmland, build storage buildings and put new machinery in their barns. Food production is suddenly turning into a growth sector in the West. Their farmers now seek that supply and demand rule the market. Farming has a future once again. Today's farmers can also act as businessmen. Their portfolio now consists of crops like rice, wheat, corn, potatoes and sugarcanes etc. But people are dying hungry because of the food crisis, and price rise of their staples. What about them? I must say that the price rise has a downside too!
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Neil Shrubak wrote:
In the years that passed since Malthus had voiced the concern about the difference in rates of population growth and food production, both have been growing exponentially. Yet such social maladies as hunger and starvation have definitely declined since that time. Even though it seems inconceivable, the food production may still continue to keep up with the population growth. The Opposition cites,
ong other primary concerns, the market failures and the lack of economies of scale for small independent farmers in the third world. Both seem to be week arguments. I will skip the latter, because the Proposition has already addressed the issue of agricultural producers as net food buyers in its rebuttal. I agree with the Opposition on the subject of misguided government intervention, but it is clearly not the s
e thing as the market failure. The current increase in food prices has a lot more to do with fuel prices than with food itself, through increased costs of transportation in global economy, food imp-ex tariffs, and through blind subsidies on cost-inefficient alternative fuels such as corn ethanol. Consider the map of hunger today - it is prevalent in the countries that lack not only civic societies, but also any semblance of law and order of any kind. To the best of my knowledge, in Latin
erica farmers go on strike demanding higher prices, and, despite relatively high levels of poverty, hunger is not on top of the public enemy list. In Asia, India and China have drastically improved the nutrition standards, while they still have plenty of various problems. Middle East and Northern Africa are rife with problems, too, but hunger is not common there, albeit present sporadically in some conflict-stricken zones. That leaves South-East Asia and Africa to consider. The places where hunger is a systemic issue are the ones with the least capable government, to say the least. More bluntly, many people in those areas may not suffer from hunger because they have a better chance of being killed in one of many tribal, religious, or ethnic war, or in a great number of local but nonetheless brutal conflicts. One important exception is, of course, the inner city poor. Brazil or India, China or Nigeria, it is the urban unemployed population that suffers the most from high food prices. In other words, it is not the market failures that bring about the starvation, but the social ills aggravated by bad governance. In a somewhat Malthusian twist, it seems to me more likely that the popular discontent arising from such bad governance is capable of improving the situation either through the change of government (Kenya and soon, hopefully, Zimbabwe) or through the change in government policies (China and, with some luck, Cuba). In this respect, the high food prices act as catalysts for market corrections AND policy corrections all over the world. (Now it is less likely that the subsidies for ethanol bio-fuel will find as much support in the U.S. Congress as they did in the past.) In conclusion, we should most definitely welcome high food prices, especially in the developed world, because they indicate the importance of increasingly scarce resources. Much like high fuel prices triggered an explosion of investments in exploration of alternative energy sources and in energy conservation, in the long-run high food prices will perforce promote even wider range of socially responsible actions, including better governance, the spread of f
ily planning, increase in agricultural and industrial productivity, etc. This is the upside for humanity in the rise of food prices. Too bad there's always a short-run, and there rising food prices are likely to bring more blood spilled over a grain of rice.
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john wrote:
The idea that volatility in agriculture prices, where basic foodstuffs have doubled or even tripled in price, is helpful is probably the single most ridiculous proposition imaginable. Dr Kharas has admitted that hardship will be suffered as a direct result of the price increases, but "on balance" some will win and some will lose. It is difficult to see how the increased profits of an agricultural mega-corporation switching to ethanol fuel production or the trillions of dollars in profit by petroleum producers, where a lot of the food price increase went, balances out the starvation of people in the horn of Africa as they are priced out of the market for grains, especially after subsidized cheap agricultural goods had forced African farmers out of business in the first place. I guess it ranks with the statement made by a French Interior Minister who defended agricultural subsidies because then
erican tourists can have pretty backdrops for their photographs. Subsidized low prices drove developing country farmers into economic ruin as urban workers bought cheap imported food. High prices drive both the rural and urban worker into starvation. Now that's a nice balance.
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Robert W wrote:
I agree with previous commentators that the Proposition leaves little room for anything but a Pro vote. The Pro sides' opening statement puts it ahead on points. However both sides' rebuttals and the majority of comments seem to have focused the issue on the developing world. If this is the part of the Propostion we are all focusing on, then the Con side has pulled ahead. Mr. Kharas's rebuttal does not enhance his arguement, rather it weakens it. He states that a thirty year period of declining food prices didn't reduce poverty and that government interventions and distortions have been with us for decades as has hunger and malnutrition. He is correct to argue that higher food prices should bring about increased prosperity for all, but seems to implicitly agree that this is so only in an efficient market with little government intervention and distortion. He does not make the case that higher prices will change this. Mr. von Braun makes the excellent point that without such change long-run investment becomes much more risky than it should be. The original Propostion does not distinguish between the rich world and developing world but specifies "humanity". Although I agree completely with Mr. Kharas's quote "a crisis is a terrible thing to waste", sadly in many parts of the world it will be.
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KOJINATOR wrote:
If oil rich Gulf Cooperation Councils countries buying vast lands in poor countries such as Sudan to produce food just for their citizens and China baiting African countries to tie up their resources can be considered an upside... then the status quo of endemic poverty wins and next will come the environmental alarmists who want to tie up the sun power of the Sahara to produce green energy for rich Europeans across the Medi... sh
e on the Economist for promoting orientalism.
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felix-rome wrote:
Good observation, but i'm afraid i'm not sure biotecnologies and genetically modified foods will improve world agriculture and farmers life' conditions. Don't you remember the green revolution? Therefore that, I fear these incomes will empower only the big multinationals that hold the main part of lands, despite to landless and little farmers that will sell their lands cause of their lower increasing tecnologies. Surely lower prices are not a better solution but i think we have to debate on land property and rural reforms
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the hawk wrote:
It appears absurd to think that rising food prices has an upside for humanity. Yes, it may have; from the point of view of the developed countries and their institutions. Otherwise, how could have the President of
erica proclaim that the spurt in prices was the result of the increased consumption of the people from emerging market economies such as India and China. What everybody forgot was that it was coming close on the heels of the energy crisis. I also failed to realize how it could get jacked up within a short span of time calling into question the supply-demand cause. The surplus investment funds having bottomed out of the real estate market was looking for avenues of investment. The wall street investment bankers decided to park the money in commodities. The greed of the wealthy to grab from the begging bowls; lest they lose the value of their money.It was a little earlier before the real estate fiasco, the pundits from wall street analyzed that the economic growth across the globe has resulted in the asset price getting inflated. The world was yet to see a price-inflation till recently.The reason given at that time was the world was provided with cheap goods by China. That is true even today. What has changed in the meantime was the real estate bubble burst in the US. Now the US has all kinds of stories. It is no strange coincidence that the US congress is debating on the twin issues of OIL DRILL and WALL STREET Regulation to address the twin issue of Energy/Food Crisis facing the world.What is sad is that the short-term solution is given a go-by. You have chosen to ignore the hungry at the expense of the Long-term the Energy Bill.It sounds hollow, that this debate is being staged here on this august platform even as those responsible are turning a blind's eye to the immediate need of the hour. I think enough is enough for the demand-supply rationale, the failure of WTO round. Is there no stopping the greed of the sovereign wealth funds? Channelizing it to far more
bitious Alternative Energy, Better Agricultural Practices, Education etc., in the emerging economies with the help of the developed World? I think there exists immense opportunity if only we have the will.
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草木也知愁UID: 2487572

Azigran wrote:
We saw low food prices for many years, low prices discouraged investment to this sphere of business. Today we can see huge
ount of investments.In business, somenody loses and somebody wins. Today, food importers are losing food exporters are winning. Even if rising oil prices are hurting profit margins of exporters. Developing and Poor countries are losing in this case.Food helps people to work and do all activities. How people can work or do any activity without feeding. Incresing oil and gas prices are making people to change own transport to public. What is the substution for food? What people should eat in order to maintain activities and health. All these arguments are for developing and poor countries.What about developed countries? It's also bad for them, they are spending more parts of income. But, it's less painful for them than developing and poor countries.
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leopold. wrote:
Ywes,otherwise there will be a hard satavation in part of world, maninly in underdeveloped countries suchch as South
erica,Africa and Asia. You are very weakthy and fat people.
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leopold. wrote:
Please correction my previous comments: Yes; wealthy. thank you!
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thoughtfulty wrote:
Dear Parker, I would like to highlight the the case of India. We have around 60-70% of the population dependent on Agriculture sector, But ironically the most poorly organised sector. The fertile lands are made commercial, the tools are primitive, the food processing is almost absent, the water supply is monsoon based, very poor marketing and low productivity - all of which culminates in farmer suicides. The Government, if it can shred all its laziness and wake up to the call of rising prices and starts to regulate, with atmost strictnes, then yes, there is an upside, atleast to the people of india!
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Shifat wrote:
In this globalised world literally most of the countries are poorand so they live mostly on food the rising prices for food would only mean a fall in their living standards since now they would find it extremely difficult to afford a day's meal.
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hanseenhoorn wrote:
The present foodprice crisis will add 150.000.000 people to the already 850.000.000 chronically hungry. Half of these 1 billion chronically hungry people are smallholder farm f
ilies who more often than not are net food consumers. In order to benfit from the higher food prices smallholder farmers around the world should become more entrepreneurial to capture the new opportunities for better value for their crops. In particular in Africa (but also in India and China) smallholders face so many constraints to improve their economic position, that they are virtually uncapable to benefit from the opportunity. The biggest constraints are the absence of supporting institutions (not present or corrupt), the lack of infrastucture to market produce effectively and a traditionalist mindset that is risk avoinding due to the lessons of the past ( generations of badly treated or neglected people learned only to survive, although with mixed success). The conclusion is that the necessary entrepreneurship to capture new opportunities is seriously h
pered by risk-avoiding behaviour and thus prevents that the really poor and hungry ( 1 bln) will benfit from the present price hikes and on the contrary will continue to suffer from it.
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abhayg wrote:
one problem with the argument of production incentive is that it assumes that prices are going to remain high forever. will those incentives still remain if and when prices go down (which is what everyone is expecting). i guess world economy over-adjusted in terms of capital share in agriculture vs. manufacturing/ services after industrial/technological revolution. this recent price increase will help towards equating the return on capital in all sectors. but i

not sure whether the s
e is ever going to happen in labor, since capital is more mobile than labor (specially in terms of cross-country movements).
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Archivistangel wrote:
The consumer price or the ex farm gate price? And at which consumer or farmer location? The fair & productivity motivated would contend that consumer prices in places as economically different as Japan and the world's poorest countries need to fall while ex farm gate prices in Australia, Africa (broadacre) and South
erica need to rise.
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AdrianFajardo wrote:
With two speakers of the caliber of Kharas and von Braun, looking one at heads and the other at tails of the s
e coin, I decided to look forward to their closing statements before casting my vote.
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RyGor wrote:
A rise in food prices will lead to innovations that will bring the cost of food back down to earth. Higher prices lead to fierce competition to find ways to bring the cost down even slightly. Anything to gain an edge over the competition and win the favor of consumers will be a benefit to the marketplace. The immediate impact will not be very positive, but there will be a long term benefit to all this.
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ClaudiaRJT wrote:
Most people will agree that a fund
ental human right is the right to live. Most people will also agree that killing is wrong. But what does the right to live entail? Don't we all need enough healthy food to survive? And is shooting someone the only way to kill him? Or, is it possible to do so by willingly letting food prices grow higher and higher while we know he cannot afford them?Sure there are many arguments for the "upside" in the rise of food prices. But are those economical arguments really sufficient to give a positive ethical outlook to the number of people who will be hurt? Maybe there are places where it is indeed the case that the majority will benefit instead. But then, we should not generalize at all. Rather, we should look at the specific circumstances for each single case.
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U N Han wrote:
Unproductive expenditure results in high inflation rate. Easy money accelerates demand while production touches a low pitch. Flexible monetary policy deflates inflation and brings down high cost of essential commodities. A strong will to implement develo
ental work and control overpopulation will naturally boost economy and free the population from starvation.
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karim9256 wrote:
Why food price is high..? that need to be agreed first. If it is due to low
ount in the whole world how to face the situation we need to find out the solution first, second what should we do for future, 3rd we have enough food how the wolrd organization is taking step to dirstibute to balance the food price. Food is a basic need to live or survive. if the availability is not enough and price is high then the low income people ahs to sacrifice or die to make the rich alive....that is the challange of UN organizations. If the humanity organizations work together as they do we hope this situation can be over come...but it is signal for fututre to give priority in the agriculture sector. Price rise directly affect the income constrained people not the upper class....upper class they can ballance in differnet ways. In my coutry there is no adjustment of income but the price is risisng...so is question mark how to manage..?
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Ulrich123 wrote:
The moderator quotes a comment: “It is clear, from the wording of the proposition, that any rational person cannot vote con.”Can somebody please explain this to me ? I just do not get it, if the food prices kept on rising indefinitely then surely a rational person should figure out that this not an upside for humanity.Surely con arguments can be just as rational.
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ozatmk wrote:
I cannot vote, "Pro" since ordinary people do not behave in the rational way predicted by the great and the good. If food prices are allowed to increase without checks then it can lead to a breakdown in social order. Possible ex
ple is the Chinese great leap forward or North Korea today. Other than this, most people think that Ad

Smith advocated unfettered private enterprise. In fact he made an exception reffering to key industries, where a nations security was involved. I would suggest that food security is important for the sake of social order. Another ex
ple is the bread riots in Egypt in the early 1980s. I think the conclusion should be that there is need for affoedable basic foods. Perhaps the UKs WW2 ration may be a template for this. Other more exotic items can be treated as tradable luxaries.
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Pruz wrote:
The Proposition is rather logical - food prices are rising, which means farmers get more income, and with the consequent (& rising) push to lower prices, more efficient production practices/ policies will come into play.But when this logical proposition meets reality, it turns out to be a not so happy d(eb)ate. We all wish for sound economic/political policies that drive us towards better life, prosperity etc., - even the ultimate goal termed by Bhutan as their "Gross National Happiness".The sad fact is that Higher food prices inevitably lead countries/ governments to look for short term solutions - whether with banning of exports, stopping futures trading, banning futures trade exchanges, increasing subsidies etc., This is not to say that the governments and countries are not right in doing so - these steps (often) help, in the short(er) term to reduce the food-price burden. To expect them to take steps which would increase productivity - by means of policies, toning down of subsidies, or a longer-term vision is quite irrational. One cant be expected to plan for the future when you're fire-fighting. Maybe after the fire's been doused, some govt.s might do some rethinking - but in a world with a lot of ostrich-like behaviour (eg: large farm subsidies by OECD countries), its rather hard to conceive of rising food prices actually driving some good for humanity.
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Wariah wrote:
It is being argued that supply has failed to match the growing demand due to number of reasons.Drought in Australia, growing middle class in India and China, and use of food grains to produce biofuel are some of the common reasons cited responsible for the present price rise. However, data on global supply and demand,national, regional and global exports and imports,and supply and use of biofuels in Us and EU do not support this arguement and do not offer acceptable explaination for the unprecedented price rise of almost all the food commodities in almost all the countries. Drought in Australia reduced wheat supply by 10 percent in Australia. A ten percent reduction in wheat production in Australia is not expected to trigger off an upward price hike in almost every country and push the price increases somewhere 80 to 125 percent. Middle class in China and India didn't grow overnight as the soaring food prices is only the recent phenomenon. We need to look into the national and global market failure (or failure of globalization in food markets)for the possible explaination of the present food price crisis. Wariah
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JAldrette wrote:
An important piece of information which wasn't provided by either contributors is whether there is evidence that the rise in global food prices have reached the small and medium scale farmers in developing countries. Is there evidence on this? Assuming that most of the poor farming households are not selling at world prices but are buying goods likely to have been imported at world prices, it seems that the net impact must be negative.
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critilo wrote:
control of petroleum and political imposition of genetic modified foods, are behind the debate. Please don't miss the point.
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Monchhichi75 wrote:
I'm not convinced that there truely is a food shortage. I know that there are more than enough to feed everyone on this planet. Rice is really the easiest to grow, all you need is water. You can grow it on the mountain tops. Figure it out people. I'm an armchair economist, these economists are armchair realists. And proceed this gouging with caution. There are many people in these developing countries (ie. India, Thailand and China) that will not reap the benefits of the booming economy. These countries are not merciful to their poor. India has over 100 million Dalits and China has violated many human rights. Not everyone there can afford more expensive rice and grains. Starvation is not caused by f
ine. It's not caused by a lack of supply. It's only caused by lack of access of supply, which is due to corruption and war.
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Cretinizing Baguette wrote:
The citizens of the world with the least resources are not in a position to easily absorb the increased costs of food. Perhaps now is the time for governments of the world to look at the global effects of their laws related to agriculture and trade, as well as more efficient means of delivering aid to impoverished areas... for instance, making loans available to farmers, instead of dumping actual cereal crops into local markets. Subsidies and protectionist policies distort price.
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frguido wrote:
Clearly, botched efforts from the government of Argentina to reduce domestic food prices have contributed to lower production volumes, lower exports and higher international prices ...on top of higher domestic prices. Modern agriculture is a capital intensive activity that needs all the economic incentives available to grow. The land surface is and will be the s
e, only productivity growth through better technology will increase supply. Higher prices allow farmers to afford better technologies needed to increase land productivity and crop yields, which is the only sustainable way to keep prices under control and f
ine at bay.
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shaurya wrote:
there might be an economic theory of higher food prices, driving higher supplies, resulting in better financial conditional of the farmers.. but practical ground reality conditions may be very different from this theory, especially from the perspective of the emerging economies.. The theory might hold good for normal price rises, but the exorbitant rise of food prices can have catastrophic results. Also, "Humanity" is a much larger issue, and i strongly beleive that hunger propels violence. The first priority of a human is to satisfy the basic necessitiies of himself and the f
ily. But if a large chunk of population is not able to afford the exorbitantly priced food items( a basic necessity), a situation of chaos may arise , with persistant conflict between haves and have-nots. This may be applicable not just in the african continant, but large parts of asia as well. the rise of the "middle class" might just phase away. Rising food prices, also push up inflation significantly, and with the disposable income shrinking , the multiplier effect of spending boosting growth also shrinks. The humankind then get into an economic condition where sustainance becomes the priority, growth would have to wait.
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jmjared wrote:
I'll give you real 3rd world perspective. I grew up in one of the states known for producing much of Mexico's corn. I've seen what has happened when technology improves. During the late nineties and early 2000’s thousands of crops were lost due to lower costs for exporting farmers. Mexicans found themselves consuming
erican corn, lower quality corn, because it was cheaper for the public in general. Therefore, Mexican farmers lost much of their income which had a much bigger political impact in the country. Now that demand has caught up to supply, Mexicans are finding themselves enjoying less corn, because demand elsewhere is an incentive for Mexican producers of corn to sell out side the country. I understand that this is a global issue, but if we believe that eventually technology will improve to cover all of humanity’s necessities, we are simply wrong. We will always be dealing with the s
e old problem, Greed.
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jaibo wrote:
One thing that I haven't seen adressed is the price of inputs (i.e. nitrogen fertilizers)...there seems to be less supply here also...this is driving production costs up...the balancing of food supply and demand looks like it's going to take a while.
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john wrote:
I have been following the comments and for every Pro comment there seems to be about 10 Con comments. Why is this propostion leading? Is it that the Pro side have little to add to the debate except their votes? How can any rational thinker believe that a doubling or tripling of basic grain prices have an upside? Reuters has an article today entitled "More AIDS risked as poor women trade sex for food." The article quotes UN officials that with the increase in food prices around the world, more poor women are likely to trade sex for food and in so doing increase the risk for AIDS. I fail to see the upside in this. Does the increased sexual activity of Kenyan fisherman represent an upside for humanity, or is it the 50 million additional people who went hungry last year because of rising food prices the big bonus for humanity? People mention as an upside that price rises will cause people to eat less, especially meat, yet one of the reasons cited for the rise is that people in India and China are eating more meat, which is supposedly a major driver for the price rises. Do people believe that a population (
ericans) that spends less than 10% of their income on food will be seriously affected by a total rise to perhaps 12% of their income? You might eat fewer restaurant meals and brown bag it to the office. Wheat has doubled and rice has tripled in price, but meat has gone up 5-10%. In California, the price of filet mignon rose from $8.99/lb to $9.29/lb while rice went from $8.00/50lb bag to $22.00/50lb (this is at Costco). It takes my wife and I four or five months or more to finish a 50 lb bag of rice, so the inflated price of rice adds less than $.10 a day to our budget. People may demand higher wages to make up for inflation, but it does not cause a major problem to the European or North
erican unless you are poor. On the other hand, people who spend 50% or 80% of their income on food are greatly affected. Their diet consists almost entirely of grains and that is where the biggest price increases have come.
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imns70 wrote:
I believe that rising food prices will encourage more investment in agriculture sector. But in my nation, India this is not happening because of archaic government policies. In the prevailing situation, it will be far cry for many Indian farmers to get good compensation even if the prices double from current levels. In my country we need to get away from rural 'f
ily' agriculture to corporate agriculture, changing from 'feed the f
ily' paradigm to earn from agriculture.Moreover we need to educate farmers and desist from following populist but non-effective policies.
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inkjoy wrote:
Please don't forget that most of the world's farmers outside the U.S. and EU do not enjoy large incomes. Farmers face rising costs of production with fuel and fertilizer leading the way. As the price of food rises, incomes of farmers will also rise, but this is necessary to offset increases in the costs of production. Farmers feed us. What product is more important to consumers than food? Maybe it's time that consumers in the rich nations forgot about buying the latest Nintendo or I-Pod and instead put their money where their mouths are. Of course, those consumers (particularly in the low-income countries) who lack the luxury of choosing food over modern electronics deserve special attention, but this is where the international develo
ent community--private foundations, official donors, etc.--must step up to the plate. Don't begrudge the world's farmers a long-overdue rise in income.
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joem042 wrote:
Farmers and food producers must act now to avert future shortages. Demand for food will continue to grow, because the earths population is continually expanding. Access to arable land is becoming the major constraint. Rising food prices and increasing production costs will encourage the production of more efficient food sources. A move from inefficient animal based food sources to more efficient cereal based sources will result from price/cost driven demand reduction. Over the next twenty to thirty years the availability of sufficient calories to sustain life may supercede cost as the major issue.
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Bookbuyer wrote:
There is an excellent series on the food production issues mainly concerning India running all this week on Slate.com, authored by Mira K
dar. Worth reading by all following this debate.
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gellato2 wrote:
I

always
used by over-generalization and academic rhetoric. It is rational to suggest that rising food prices will ensure an adequate food supply. It is equally rational to suggest that escalating food cost will have a deleterious effect on global economies. So, where is the meat in this discussion? Africa's problems are not demand and supply relationships. In fact, Africa, as well as other emerging countries, has the capacity to become net exporters of food and food products. However, Africa is so plagued by political instability and corruption that it cannot pull itself up by its bootstraps and until that is addressed; we will continue to see massive suffering. Any discussion of food prices and the demand and supply effects thereof are mute, when discussing world hunger.
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i2008 wrote:
There is an upside and a downside for humanity in the rise in food prices. But on the belance ther downside is more weighty. Let millions not profit from higher food prices but not one person suffer the pangs of hunegr.
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Phaedrus137 wrote:
The Proposition's opening statement highlights the unmistakable
biguity and absurdity in the Proposition itself when it correctly claimed "higher prices discourage consumption." There may be an upside in the rise of food prices in the form of increased investment and production, but there are far greater negative impacts on humanity. When higher prices discourage consumption in the world's poorest populations, the choice is not whether to buy that organiclly raised filet mignon or a few extra shares of John Deere. Rather, it is between a morsal or nothing.
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AusEconomist wrote:
In economic terms, I would argue that increasing food prices are a downside for humanity. Why? The impact will be worse for those on 'low incomes' who will experience a decline in their standards of living. 'High income' earners, however, are able to minimise the effects of rising prices due to their higher disposable incomes, and may not even need to adjust their purchasing patterns/decisions. Australia is a good ex
ple. We are currently experiencing higher food prices due to supply-side problems (such as poor weather and drought.) The argument that 'farmers do better' if prices rise is simply untrue. They are already facing serious cost pressures (such as rising fuel prices), so any increase in price is more than likely to be offset by higher costs. Furthermore, consumers (like myself) pay more for fruit, vegetables and other basic food items, reducing our capacity to invest more in our education and adversely affecting our personal savings. Overall, the rise in food prices will have a negative impact on the poor and low-income earners in society. The evidence is already out there.
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草木也知愁UID: 2487572

the hawk wrote:
I think many of us take for granted the ground realities given the propensity to base our opinion on what have been taught in text books when analyzing economic problem such as price rise. The first thing that c
e forth from Homi Kharas as expected is "the demand-supply gap". You only need to look at the recent asset bubble to refute that argument. US, UK and Japan. Just look for that in the UAE to follow. Exhorbitant rent even when the Units lying vacant all around. Clearly this is instigated.The demand-supply in-equilibrium is the root cause. People need affordable housing not lavish units for which they do not have the disposable income. A lot of cheap money in circulation that has no "productivity" to support has entered the money market causing the exuberance of "expensive assets".The petro dollar controlled by a few wealthy petro-authoritarian states along with the Investment Bankers are the root cause. The financial systems has to find ways to isolate the cheap money so that it does not drive the good money out.We are facing a situation where cheap money cl
our for return along with good money forcing the Financial Institutions to raise interest rate to contain the inflation. It is equivalent to prescribing a broad spectrum anti-biotic medicine. It was John Kenneth Galbraith who said that "inflation is the sabotage of the rich on the poor".
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vonhist wrote:
the term 'humanity' suggests we are considering the impact of increased food prices on every person on the planet. To suggest there is an upside of increased prices for the least fortunate cannot be supported by looking at economic factors alone. Therefore I vote Con.
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Smaya wrote:
For a developing country largely based on agricultural sector employment (>40% of jobs), higher food prices provide the window of opportunity for many rural poors to climbe above the poverty line. This window may be just a short duration so we must move to respond in a constructive way. Some people might just decide to sot on the fence and stay idle, especially those that were misguided by the food/fuel dilemma.
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erlok wrote:
Paradigm change be d
ned MT: We want this kind of speculation - which reflects underlying fund
entals - to occur. The expectation of a supply disruption in the future causes the market to take actions today Given that obesity has been declared a pandemic in the US and that most developed and even developing countries seem to be following suit in the reported rise in national obesity, I find the price increases in food staples (especially carbohydrate based cereals) beneficial -- if they will reduce aggregate consumption. New technologies will increase yields, whilst new acreage will increase production. This will happen whether prices rise or not. What is more important is that governments accept that obesity is a grave national illness and make efforts, especially
ongst the young, to avoid its dangers. The poor African farmer is a special case. Few are dieing of obesity. They are hungry because they cannot produce cereal crops the produce of which can compete with subsidized imports from developed countries. Doha failed in this latest round, one can only hope for "political reasons". And that next year, a more accommodating
erican government will push towards a final agreement. If so, more African countries will become self-sustaining in terms of cereal crops. Given
erica’s focus on intensive farming, with its attendant ecological d
ages, a price rise would be possible by taxation of cereals-based products. It would, perhaps, do wonders to contain
erica's runaway rates of obesity. For these reasons, I vote con.
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inkjoy wrote:
In AusEconomist’s piece from August 6, the author states that “the argument that farmers do better if prices rise is simply untrue”, citing that farmers already face rising cost pressures, and that “any increase in price is more than likely to be offset by higher costs.” While this last bit on offsetting is almost certainly the case, doesn’t this imply that if farmers faced these higher input costs (think fuel and fertilizer), without an accompanying rise in prices, they would most certainly be worse off? In fact, many would be forced out of the industry without the additional revenue that higher prices bring. It’s naïve to think otherwise.
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ali-croplife wrote:
I really hope that Kharas is right. There has to be an upside and I agree with the need for an incentive to increase productivity – I just hope that remedial steps are taken fast and the suffering of those who can no longer afford nourishment is not prolonged. Both Kharas and Von Braun seem to agree on the need to increase productivity and investment in agricultural science and technology, but in many parts of the world we still face extreme and unjustified hostility to biotechnology. This is a further hurdle that needs to be overcome if we are seriously going to increase productivity and double global food production by 2050. There are clearly a number of obstacles to surmount in addressing the issue of food prices, but negative attitudes towards GM constitute a significant challenge in enabling us to harness the benefits of this tool, such as yield increases and more efficient use of water, more widely. GM crops have been grown in some 20 countries for over a decade with no negative side effects of any sort, yet public opinion particularly in Europe and some African countries continues to be stubbornly – and detrimentally – anti GM. Ali Mohd. Ali Regional Coordinator CropLife Africa/Middle East P.O.Box 961810, Sport City 11196,
man, Jordan Tel/Fax: 962-6-5530544 Direct Line: 962-6-5523039 Mobile: 962-79-5567409 e-mail: ali-croplife@nets.com.jo
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Ravi kataria wrote:
This is the only chance the world has got to reduce the inequalities
ong the poor and rich. If the high prices can be managed effectively, and the governments start removing the barriers for the trade of commodities (the governments are not inviting this thing in order to protect the inflation into their own country) they can allow the Class of Agricultarist to grow. In the near future, this would bolster the supply too, that can further lead to lower commodities prices. The economics of management, is there but politics drive it differently.
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lithemba sebe wrote:
inflation is good in the sense that it encourages responsible spending and helps to keep people from dept as interest rates are often raised.
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hockey20guy wrote:
Rising food prices inherently displaces the poorest of the poor who are limited by their financial resources and ability to even purchase staple foods at a subsidized rate. Farming conglomerates are gobbling up local small farms, for whom some people's livelihood depends on. However, there is an upside for those who are given the opportunity to start up farms as long as there are incentives and if goods are sourced domestically.
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lithemba sebe wrote:
hunger and malnutrition in developing countries is often as a result of the inefficient use of resources and those resuorces not reaching the people that need them. its not that there isnt food or the price of food is too high, there is plenty of food and aid food.
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Anthony Lester wrote:
Hello there: Is it not that the rise in food prices is a strategy from the biggest food producers-mainly the US- to counter balance the rising price of oil? in other words the largest food producers are saying, Ok we do not have oil and we have a huge appettite for it, so lets drive the price of food-which we have- to setoff the rising price of oil. Thanks.
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Dr.Xavier S.Savides wrote:
Indeed but to my opinion said rise,apart of speculation is a concequence of erroneous politics(see biofuels as well as erroneous agricultural politics (see Brussels)Dr.Xavier S. savides
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Ulrich123 wrote:
Lots of interesting views.At first I did not get the argument about how the proposition was biased towards a pro, but now I see it, very clever. The Economist intellectually supports the Pro stance, it was cunning in how they structured the debate.I wonder how this debate will be looked upon in say 2050 or 2100 (assuming of course they still can), history is always the ultimate arbiter.
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Doug Pascover wrote:
Congratulations to all the participants as well as the host. This is how you do an informative, constructive debate.
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zangie wrote:
Food price increases would mean more for farmers but how many are not farmers for the benefit to reach humanity at large when food prices increase. The upside for humanity is only about increased investment, and that would be for a couple of investors and this assumes market efficiency that increased price would attract investments to the food industry. Then again in much of Africa and the most of the develo
ent world the farmers cannot find their way to the markets to benefit from increased prices. Consequence, dearer food in growing metropolis infested with rural dwellers seeking greener pastures in the cities. There is no upside for humanity.
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krazie_gorilla96 wrote:
Thank you so much for hosting this debate. It is definitely informative and constructive. Thank you so much. Good luck to both speakers. :)
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gligrohs wrote:
It is stupid to produce ethanol for corn, something the US started long time a go to balance corn prices. Ethanol should always be produced from sugarcane, like we do in Brazil. But the US insists in subsidizing
erican ethanol from corn and taxing Brazilian ethanol exports to the US. It is also a fallacy that sugarcane for ethanol occupies or will take land used to grow staples, we have plenty of land for both in Brazil.
ericans want us to do what they say and not to do what they do. Remember Doha. What kind of free market economy is this???
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gligrohs wrote:
... of course I meant "...produce ethanol FROM corn ..."
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rbratt wrote:
A thoughtful, well-considered debate from both sides. I don't put myself in the Keynesian c
p, but in reading the statements of our debators, I

reminded of the quote attributed to John Maynard Keynes: "In the long run, we are all dead." The promise offered by Mr. Kharas is compelling, but I fear there are too many hurdles (absent or neglected infrastructure to support small farmers in underdeveloped nations, protectionist trade policies and counterproductive energy policies, etc.) to cross to realize that promise any time soon. The reality of higher food prices means Keynes's long run isn't as far off as it would otherwise be for far too many of our fellow global citizens. I can't see that as an upside.
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Hein Schreuder wrote:
Agricultural subsidies are the largest market distortion globally, but particularly in the USA and Europe. With high food prices there is at least the chance that the traditional argument of supporting "poor farmers" can no longer be used as justification. This is a genuine upside, if it supports the reduction of such subsidies over time.
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haozhu wrote:
The rise in food price is not a problem of its own; high oil price plays a role too, through the raising cost of fertilizers and transportation. In a world where the rich urban people in developed countries wanting low enough gas price and poor rural folks in developing ones needing cheaper food, for ex
ple, we have to weigh the relative incentive of investments as to where they go. U.S. policy of biofuel takes a big chunk of farmland out of food production, and investment is not going back to food production unless there is an upside of food price. I'm talking about not only government investment, but also of private sector, which is probably nimbler and more efficient. High food price would guarantee that people keep investing in technology of food production, and in the long term benefit humanity.
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hereonearth wrote:
More than half of the world's people now live in urban areas. They are not farmers. They are not helped by rising food prices. Many of the farmers in developing countries do not have access to the gloabl marketplace. Many in Africa cannot afford seeds or fertilizer. Those at the bottom rungs of the economic ladder who spend more than half of their income on food are at risk of falling off entirely.
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BIG E wrote:
YOU HAVE HAD LESS THAN TWO YEAR'S OF FOOD INFLATION,UP TO THAT YOU HAVE HAD TEN YEAR'S OF FOOD DEFLATION. FOOD IN REAL TERMS IS CHEAPER NOW IN THE WEST THAN IT EVER HAS BEEN. FOR EX
PLE TWO LTRS OF MILK IN MY LOCAL TESCO STORE COST ME 1.6 EURO'S AND 2LTRS OF DIET COKE COST ME 2EURO'S. WHICH IS BETTER VALUE? FORGET ABOUT YOUR FOOD INFLATION DEBATE IF YOU WANT THIS TO A CONSTRUCTIVE DEBATE LOOK AT THE POWER OF THE SUPER MARKETS, AND HOW THE CONTROL THE WHOLE PURCHASING AND SELLING OF FOOD.AND HOW MANY HAVE THAT POWER.
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morningcalm wrote:
If we define progress beyond total net benefit and move toward an equity argument then those who toil in agriculture shall reap a transfer of wealth. Of course some poor will be harmed but since so much of the world still labors on the land there could be a net gain for the general welfare.
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dapaul wrote:
The 'food crisis' is not the rise in international food prices but the inability of our leaders to ensure that every mouth is fed. It is the unequal distribution of global food supplies
idst plenty that is the real crisis. While food prices are increasing at an acceralated rate we must bear in mind that food prices are not at an historic high. In relative terms food prices as a proportion of disposable income is low, although not as low as in the last decade. World food prices are still worryingly low, it was only in 2004 that the World Bank expressed concern at the trend of falling real food prices. As The Economist headlined last year 'the era of cheap food is over' and the crisis is exacty that..the end of cheap food. The rise of food prices
idst economic turmoil in the western world will benefit humanity in a number of ways. First, consumers will reflect on their consumption patterns and will change their behaviour to avoid wastage and eat in season while producers will reconsider and reweight the costs of international transport in their supply chain. The situation where food is brought locally and transported abroad to be 'processed or packaged' only to be imported back to the local economy will end as the rise in oil prices erode the benefits of 'cheap labour abroad'. This will have considerable benefits for the environment as it will cut out on needless transport. However while the media is protraying the rise in food prices as a crisis, it is not neccesarly a negative thing. Many gain from higher prices. As eluded to earlier, farm prices have been extremely low for the last number of decades. A rise in food prices will benefit farmers in both the developed and developing world who export and sell their produce. This will bring many out of poverty and mitigrate the farm income problem faced by many small farmers. In addition, higher prices will help the political economy of reforming agricultural policies in the developed countries, policies which distort but generally suppress the international price. We must remember that one of the reasons why there is a drive for trade liberalisation in agriculture was to stop the decline and to push up the artifically suppressed world prices. Exporters in the developing world(the cairns group)also stand to gain. they will receive higher prices. This will encourage investment and help them develop their agricultural sectors to achieve improvements in their living standards. Lifting these people out of poverty is perhaps one of the greatest gifts to humanity as a result of higher prices. Of course there are losers to these higher prices; consumers and net importers of food who will experience higher import bills. While developed countries can probably afford these bills, it will be net importing developing countries that will be most vulnerable. The international community must adopt policies that will mitigate the adverse implications of rising food prices to developing countries while helping these countries build trade capacity so they can export and benefit from high food prices but also to gain access and to new local markets and to supply their domestic markets more efficently. Governments must manage this food crisis in a manner as to release its benefits and prevent profiterring on behalf of retailers. Overall I believe that higher food prices will present opportunities for humanity, there will be losers and we must address those issues. History has been full of instances where politcal systems have been overturned due to the price of bread, recent European history has also shown that inflation can bring down democracy. Our leaders must not allow that happen over the price of wheat, rice or beef.
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HopeOnHope wrote:
All the discussion on this topic is worthless, since the market prices will never be about fair distribution of wealth. The need for food being distibuted based on need and not price will never be realized because of a lack of concern to the needs of the hungry. Poor is poor and wealth will remain wealth, and the market will bear what the profits mandate.
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Libertatis Vindex wrote:
If Globalization can be made to meant for the greater good of nations, then highter food prices will eventually turn the food industry into what the auto industry has become: Global markets, integrated by the logic of competitive advantage; with gradual abolition of protectionist barriers and subsidies.
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airipapa wrote:
In fact if the food prices goes up , the collapse of raw material market would only be the beginning downturn of a global economy. Though food is a kind of good that is needed by every home, people's buying abillity should not be over estimated. Too much spent on food will result in slump in other ecomonic fields, for people money stays at a stable level in a short time. Maybe we will see more cash in peasants' pocket with less good they can buy, for the rise of other goods prices maybe much more faster.
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Shashi Kumar wrote:
The incrase in food prices is a great threat to develo
ent. Though the overall production of food increased, the prices are also galopping. I find it's the mismanagement of available food, as in the case of human capital. Hence, there should a worldwide policy for food as we have world wide human-rights. It's not only 'food security' is very important, but 'food protection' is utmost important for stability.
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karim9256 wrote:
I

adding one more para with my previous one.Some one was claiming why Pro when women adopt wrong ways to buy the higher priced food...TRUE. The reason to be pro is even then Huminity can win over hunger situation. So present situtaion has awaken up the individual's and world's huminity to take the roles individually and combinedly. If we fail our civilization claim will be so called civilization. If we share the food we all can survive and protect any dearth situation.The researcher, the Global leader we beleive will be shaked to take a strategy to make a " Hunger Free World".So Pro always can win con if people wants and for those reasons it is upside for humanity.
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H Singh wrote:
Rising food prices do have an upside. It brings the plight of poor and hungry to the focus of insensitive political and institutional set up, and builds pressure for removing infrastructure and institutional rigidities and inefficiencies which are the main causes for poor's inadequate access to food at resaonable prices. If we don't want more people remain hungry, we must provide higher prices to the farmers to produce more. At the s
e time, the produce has to be managed (post-harvest) efficiently to enable effecive access to the poor at reasonable price. For this to happen, infrastructure, institutions and governance are the crucial factors and not the high/low food prices.
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Mensoelrey wrote:
Instead of giving food to people and depressing farmer's prices, wouldn't the WFP do better to help farmers produce more?
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farfrom wrote:
If there is an upside it's mechanism is a feedback loop. However feedback is a complex process in practice however elegant and simple the theory. The first questions to ask are, What is the response time? what is the loop gain? are there non linearaties? will the system overshoot into oscillation?
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john wrote:
If this debate were simply about a good price for a quality product and the proper reimbursement for agricultural workers and agricultural entrepreneurs, then nobody few would be arguing about this topic. However, what we are seeing is the inflationary trend of the commodities markets resulting from market pressures, market distortions, and market failures. The doubling of the price of wheat, the tripling of the price of rice in a matter of a few months is a failure that has few benefits. The price of maize increased 165% in just six months from Aug 2006 to Feb 2007. By July of this year, the price increased by 268% in only two years. Just this year wheat prices have dropped by 25% but still remain at levels nearly double what they were two years ago. The USDA estimate overall farm production costs have increased by 24% over the past year. For some grain producers, prices have been good enough to overcome this increase, but for other agricultural producers, prices have only risen by a few percent if at all, hardly enough to offset the production increases. Just because there are some benefits to a few from price inflation does not represent an upside to humanity as a whole. John Deere is having a banner year.
erican maize growers have benefited from government mandates for bio-fuels, but meat producers have only seen a 5% increase in price, while dairy has actually experienced a 10% decline against a backdrop of rising input prices. The deflation in agriculture prices over the past three decades have been in large part due to the distortions introduced by governments to both subsidise producers and allow them to sell abroad at a price below fair market prices. This has had the dual result of driving market farmers out of business and forcing developing countries to depend on imported food, without a viable commercial domestic agriculture. With the price rises, some farmers have benefited, but many have not. Add to this stew the 50 million additional people whom the UN has estimated have suffered from hunger last year from price rises. Agricultural workers who are forced to pay for imported food are included in this number. The moderator has it right that what we are seeing is a terrible crisis. Dr Kharas argues that the price rises are beneficial because in the long term they might introduce needed reforms. Several commentators in this forum have quoted Keynes that in the long run we are all dead; one can add, many from hunger, malnutrition, and the lack of ability to balance food with other necessities, in the short run also. One has to wonder about the upside.
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marik7 wrote:
OK. If food prices continue to rise, more poor people will starve to death. This may reduce the world's population of people (if those starving people don't indulge themselves in a death throes of baby creation). Thus, there will be less demand for food. Thus, according to the theory of supply and demand, the price of food will drop.What could be more upside than that?
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InCharade wrote:
True higher prices 'might' increase "global production over time".. but i would like the Pro te

to try n stay hungry for 2 days and then give it another thought..
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sasa_ntl wrote:
Many people in poor countries suffer from rising food prices. But at the s
e time, some governments and organizations are offering help, which reflects the virtues of humanity. It should be praised, but should it be advocated? In the long run, NO! What the poor are receiving is just food, instead of knowledge and technology. If the wealthy countries cut off the food supplies, the poor cannot survive. To show real humanity, it's more practical to provide not only food, but also technology. If you give a man a fish, he will survive for a day. But if you teach him how to fish, he will survive for his whole life.
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Sirajul Isl
wrote:
Yes, I’m with the debate moderator that this debate has generated more discussion than almost any other The Economist run so far. I voted Con, and post remark twice against the proposition. I think, the ground realities remain the s
e irrespective of who wins or loses. However, those who criticised the wording of the proposition were right as well as wrong because in a debate one has to take a side. But I’m convinced that food price rise has both positive and negative effect. It is really thought provoking when Mr. Homi Kharas remarked that a system which failed to produce any marked change in hunger over a 30-year period of price declines was not working for the poor. Higher prices of agricultural products that are consumed as food is certainly in favour of the producers, and will impel new production but we need to ex
ine the consumers’ benefit, as told by him that it would restrain the growth of corn for ethanol. If that is true, that maybe a good sign. But if that is not, it would spark more hunger. And we yet to know food price rise reducing rural poverty and narrow the gap between the city and the countryside or not. What I can see in my country (Bangladesh) is that even after a good boro harvest of rice, more and more people slide down below poverty line, crying for food, while a few landowners that control most of the farmland, and many of them are townspeople, only carry money from rural to urban. New investment in agriculture is made and production and trading escalating contributing to GDPs. But we know national income seldom trickles down to the poor. Children from poorer f
ilies historically been suffering from malnutrition, and the increased cost of basic food worsens the situation. The cycle of poverty and malnutrition makes them unable to compete for better education, better jobs, and they remain poor doing low-paid jobs, or without a job. What Mr. Joachim von Braun said is very correct. What he said the recent collapse of global trade talks is evidence that the rising ‘food’ prices have pushed back the world trade agenda by several years must be correct again, but I want to add that it is non-food agricultural product cotton that failed the talks in particular, apart from others. Every debater is right! No winners, no losers, but the billions poor. Thanks for a nice debate.
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Mr. Demir wrote:
In the short term, market mechanisms or price signals can do nothing for hungery people, and in the long term we will be all dead as Keynes said. Policy makers firstly should produce some real projects which make small scale farmers more adaptable to change and modern farming methods..
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Ben Vickers wrote:
Higher food prices lead to forest clearance, exacerbating climate change and massive net losses for humanity. I

surprised that climate change and other environmental concerns have barely figured in this debate. Increased production caused by higher food prices is not accompanied by a rise in productivity in most developing countries, but by a rise in cultivated area, as Dr von Braun correctly pointed out. He could have gone on to say that this extra land is mostly former forest land. Land use conversion results in 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions and measures to mitigate climate change will thus not succeed without addressing this problem. High food prices, as well as subsidies for agrofuels (a more accurate term than biofuels), combine to accelerate deforestation at just the time when discussions are ongoing within the UN to devise a method by which the carbon in forests saved from destruction are given a monetary value. As the opportunity costs of the conversion of this forest for agricultural production, either for food or crops, increase, this method becomes less and less financially viable. This is of particular significance in Indonesia which, becuase of forest conversion to agriculture, is now the world's 3rd largest source of greenhouse gases. Production of more food to feed more hungry mouths is not necessarily a positive outcome in terms of the welfare of Homo sapiens. The motion is couched in terms of 'humanity'. This does not equate to the net individuals who gain or lose from food price increases, whether in the short or long term. Humanity as a whole will suffer long into the future from the land grab that is currently being encouraged by the swift rise in prices, and the irreversible changes to our climate and environment that are the inevitable result.
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christoph28 wrote:
Surely, current levels of global hunger, malnutrition and poverty are a scandal. But, higher prices for food producers were needed. Scale and speed have however created a predic
ent and triggered crises in many countries. Ideally, social protection systems would have responded but often they are either not prepared or simply not in place. Concerning the supply side, the challenge is to create an environment that enhances sustainable productivity gains while allowing smallholder farmers to engage meaningful in markets to enable them to benefit from higher prices. On the demand side, policy induced demand (i.e. biofuel targets) need to be reviewed to moderate impact on price. Although agreeing with most of Homi Kharas’s arguments, I consider Joachim von Braun’s arguments more balanced and to the point.
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