Climate Conversations: How can we make food security fairer and more sustainable? [AlertNet]
“One thing is clear – feeding the world sustainably and more fairly requires us to overcome several substantial hurdles. The world’s population is expected to grow by nearly a third by 2050, when there will be nine billion people. Economies are also growing, and as incomes rise, diets will likely shift towards more energy-intensive foods, especially meat and dairy products. And climate change will impact rainfall patterns and temperatures, bringing harsher growing conditions to many parts of the tropics while more northerly areas will see longer growing seasons.”
Climate Conversations: Another food crisis? Not if we think things through [AlertNet]
“We now know more than we did in 2007-08 in terms of how and to what extent prices are transmitted from global to domestic markets. We expect positive transmission effects in the case of wheat in Latin American and Asian countries, although the key commodity for Asia will be rice. In Latin America, in the case of bread, the average transmission elasticity is about 0.20, which means that a 1 percentage point increase in the growth rate of the international price of wheat translates into a permanent increase of 0.20 percentage points in the growth rate of the domestic price of bread.”
World Food Prices Hit Record High [CNN]
“The FAO’s Food Price Index measures the cost of a basket of basic food supplies —
sugar, cereals, dairy, oils and fats and meat — across the globe. The index rose by 3.4% in January — the seventh monthly increase in a row — to its highest level since records began in 1990. The cost of sugar, cereals, dairy and oils and fats all went up last month, while meat prices remained steady.”
