Rising Food Prices Essay

The concerns for the 5% of the Australian population who are currently facing food insecurity are predominantly due to reduced access to nutritious food, particularly in rural and remote areas and low socio economic issues around affordability. However as a nation, Australia has more food than it needs and as such has numerous for opportunities for trade, including wheat, barley, diary and beef.

We know this poses a huge problem, it’s hard not to notice, especially when thinking about the combination of the rising cost of food, with stagnant or falling incomes, coupled with the unemployment rate and rise in the cost of living. All these factors are the reason people just cannot spend the amount of money they once use to on food. In the 1940’s people would use 24% of their personal disposable income on the purchase of food for the home or away from home, on already prepared food such as that in restaurants. In a survey done by the USDA, Americans today were only using about 9.8% of their personal disposable income on food (Volpe, 2013). This is an extremely large difference and is without question caused by the economy.

Over the next forty years, global population is expected to reach nine billion people. This increase in population, combined with expected economic growth, will cause an increase in food demanded and inevitably drain the resources we use for food production. So far, agriculture has been able to respond positively to the rising demand for crop and livestock products. However, farmers are already faced with many new challenges associated with feeding an expanding global population. Farmers must now meet strict new emissions requirements and produce more food on fewer acres while minimizing their environmental footprint. The demand for food is expected to grow substantially in the next couple decades. Some of the factors affecting an increase in food demands are population growth, rising incomes of individuals, food supply factors, and biofuels.

“Economists at the University of California, Davis said that agriculture, once a $44 billion annual business in California, will suffer a financial hit of $2.2 billion due to revenue losses and higher water costs” (Associated Press, 2014). Many farmers are going out of business because the production costs have increased with rising inflation, while revenue has decreased. Others have reduced their farmland plantations which decreases the crop production. Some of the affected crops include oranges, pistachios and rice. One example of how this affects the nation is the California almonds. “California [is] the source of eighty percent of the world’s almonds” (Bloomberg, 2014). This year farmers had to come up with new tactics to rescue the nut from drought “by diverting the water used for vegetables and drilling more water wells to keep the trees hydrated” (Bloomberg, 2014). Farmers are not the only group of workers affected by the drought.

Another complex issue that is raised when crops are used to make biofuel is whether that has or will drive up food prices. Instead of using new oil from crops, recycled oil

The air around us is constantly getting warmer, in fact 2001-2010 was the warmest decade ever recorded. According to the article,"Signs of Climate Change", the average tempature on Earth is predicted to rise between 4-12 degrees by 2100. The major rise of temperature is later causing droughts to happen more and more. In present day the droughts are already starting to get more powerful, last longer, and happen more often. In 2100 they are way worse than present day and they are continuing to get worse. With the combination of really high temperatures and the drought we are not longer able to grow crops such as corn, cabbage, lettuce, and watermelon here in 2100.

Fruits, including grapes for wine, can produce up to 40% in agricultural export earnings annually

The world population is increasing at an exponential rate. Along with it is an increase of mouths to feed and more food to be created to feed them. Many options come about when feeding the population, organic food, regular healthy food, fast food, fattening food etc. Many times, parents and American society as whole choose to go the unhealthier, cheaper and tastier route when

Gas Prices: When gas prices rise, the cost of shipping food rises, and when the cost of shipping the food rises, so does Whole Foods’s operating costs. (Whole Foods, 2014).

Corn: The price of corn is set by the overall supply of the product. As the supply for corn goes up the overall price drops. As the supply of corn falls the price will dramatically rise. This can all depend on the type of year farmers had.

Regarding the great business competition, the food companies sell products with higher price would lead declining their profit by selling less. As D. Yach states in her article “ Food industry: friend or foe?”, “A fundamental critique of claims by food companies that they can meaningfully engage in obesity control measures has been that they must sell less, which threatens their business interests”(3). People nowadays prefer to pay less money for a great amount of food with lower quality than expensive products with excellent quality, and the growth of demand on food caused a great competition to the food companies who are more interested on marketing. Accordingly, the food industry prefers to produce the lower quality food to get more sales by reducing the price of the products in order to be more

Within the last year, oil prices in the United States have dropped significantly. As oil drilling in the United States has reached its highest level in over 30 years, consumers are reaping the benefits. Among these gains are record-low prices at the pump, and cheaper oil to heat homes. However, oil prices did not just drop on their own; multiple factors contributed to the fall. Increased domestic production, declining global demand, and competition from other oil-producing nations had led to rapidly dropping oil prices across the United States.

The last but not the least, high food prices make the situation even worse. According to FAO ' s data, the population of undernourishment increased by 75 million, which is higher than it in 2003 to 2005. The scientists analyzed it is caused by the rising food price (FAO, 2008). Additionally, in some countries in African, South American and Asia where average income is very low, to achieve the food security is almost impossible. For instance, Afghanistan is one of the most food-insecure countries. In Afghanistan, with 80% of the population living in rural place, the agricultural industry is most significant to this country. However, the households in Afghanistan still need to spend over 60 percent of their budgets on food. In 2008, it can be easily found in the chart, the wheat flour price experienced a sharp increase from 15 per kg to 45 per kg, which greatly increased the burden of the inhabitants (D’Souza, 2011). When the flour price rises, the local people will certainly spend more percentage of their incomes on wheat flour rather than some high-quality vegetables and meat. Unreasonable diet structure can directly contribute to lacking nutrition and influence their healthy. As a result, a vicious circle is created and makes the

In the past fifty years, there has been such a vast change in the Industrial Food Industry. Food went from being grown naturally to being processed and packaged for convenience and cheapness. This is where the problem starts, and the greed for money is to blame. The industry has been altered in order to find convenience in making product faster because we all know, time is money. It has been altered in a manner of scamming to get all you can out of as little as possible to of course, save money. It has all become a game of money and profit rather than right and wrong and I have found more than enough examples to

Food is the foundation of human live and people cannot survive without it. Food security is a vital issue facing the governments around the world. However, food shortage is becoming increasingly severe in this day and age. There are several reasons which led to the universal food shortage and they are interconnected to each other. Increasing world population, extreme weather and the wide spread use of biofuels are the main causes of worldwide shortage of food. These factors lead to food price rises rapidly.