12.09.23 - World on track for record food prices 'within a year' due to US drought
Publish date:
Oct 18, 2012
Summary:
Brace yourself for some painful "agflation". That is the shorthand for agricultural commodity inflation, otherwise known as rising food prices.
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They are being driven upwards by the climb in grain and oilseed prices as US crops weather the country's worst drought since 1936, while the farming belts of Russia and South America suffer through similar water shortages.
What we are seeing represents the third major rally in global grain and oilseed prices in just half a decade.
Worse is to come, new research warns. World food prices look set to hit an all-time high in the first quarter of next year – and then keep rising, according to the analysis from Rabobank, a specialist in agricultural commodities.
By June 2013, the basket of food prices tracked by the United Nations could climb 15pc from current levels, according to the bank's analysts.
"The coming year will see the world economy re-enter a period of agflation as grain and oilseed stocks decline to critically low levels, pushing the FAO [Food and Agricultural Organisation] Food Price Index above record nominal highs set in February 2011," they say.
The index offers a useful proxy for the prices paid by world consumers for food, they note – indicating how agricultural commodity price movements are likely to translate into prices of shop shelves.
For policy-makers, the pick up in food inflation signals problems, as high food prices tend to magnify social unrest.
"Politics and economics are inextricably linked as exemplified by the Arab Spring, which was preceded by a rise in food prices," note Hermes fund managers in a recent report.
But no crisis looks quite the same as the last. Rabobank thinks the consumer impact could be less painful this time around compared to 2008, when there were severe shortages of wheat and rice.
That is because today's shortages are being seen more in crops used as animal feed, such as corn and soybeans.
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