Entries tagged with 'food prices'
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From the Los Angeles Times, a look at the battle between grocery chains and major food manufacturers over wholesale food prices: "The nation's big grocery chains contend that food manufacturers have raised prices too fast and too far, considering large drops in prices for fuel, corn, wheat, and other important commodities in recent months."...
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With budgets tightening across all economic strata in this country, many families are selectively bypassing organics to save money, according to the New York Times' Andrew Martin. The question that I find even more pressing is whether people are going to stop shopping at farmers' markets across the country, which are generally more expensive than both conventional and organic supermarkets. What are serious eaters everywhere doing to save money? Are organically and/or locally grown produce still important to you? As Martin put it, are consumers going to decide they can no longer afford to let their conscience dictate their shopping list? I for one will not stop supporting my local farmers. I have always felt that local and sustainable...
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On Tuesdays, Jamie Forrest (CurdNerds.com) drops by for some Serious Cheese talk. Photograph courtesy of FactoryFarm.org The answer, according to a recent study from the University of Minnesota, lies in the slim ratio between agricultural revenues and today's cost of living. The authors of the study found that it takes $74,804 in annual revenues to support a Minnesotan farm family of 3.4 people. This amounts to a herd of 127 dairy cows (where each cow earns a little less than $600 a year on average). By comparison, Jasper Hill Farm in Vermont has only 37 cows. And ten years ago the average U.S. farm had only 80 cows on it. Simply put, the cost of living has far outpaced the...
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Whole Foods is trying a store image makeover, according to the
New York Times. In these lean times, with rising food prices and wholesale economic anxiety, the store sometimes known as "Whole Paycheck" is trying to recast itself as a value-driven store.
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Australian droughts are killing rice fields. Flour prices are up. Hops shortages mean crazy-expensive beer soon. Maybe grocery stores aren't selling milk for $450 a gallon yet, but dramatic food shortages are happening globally, and the backlash is huge. After last week's fatal riots in Egypt, Cameroon, and Haiti, the World Bank stepped up Monday with a 2,500-page report on the growing international crisis, listing 33 countries in serious danger.
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It's one thing when I and a few others in the food media write about the precipitous rise of food prices and the resulting devastating effects. It's quite another when Princeton economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman does. Krugman articulates the problem clearly and cogently. People in developing countries are eating more meat. Krugman: "Since it takes about 700 calories' worth of animal feed to produce a 100-calorie piece of beef, this change in diet increases the overall demand for grains." The price of oil. As Krugman points out, "modern farming is highly energy-intensive." Also rising economic powers like China are now competing with old, big economies like ours for scarce resources, including oil and farmland. Also, the...
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Slate's Explainer tackles the question: "Why are global food prices soaring?" The short answer: "Energy prices. The global food system is heavily dependent on petroleum, not just for shipping goods from one location to another but also for production, packaging, and processing. As the price of oil rises—crude oil is currently hovering at around $100 a barrel—so do the costs of planting, harvesting, and delivering food."...
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These days it's better to be an egg farmer than to work at the Wall Street firm Bear, Stearns. That's the only conclusion you can draw after reading story after story about rising food prices. But what about the rest of us, the serious eaters who are neither egg farmers nor investment bankers? Here, according to Andrew Martin and Michael M. Grynbaum of the New York Times, are the cold, hard facts:...
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2007 was a breakout year for agricultural commodities like corn, wheat, and soy. Corn prices finished the year at an 11-year high, while soybeans were at a 34-year high. Such trends are, of course, driving up food prices. Are we feeling the effects?
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Don't blame us, say U.S. ethanol makers, in response to the high price of food. [Washington Post] Meanwhile, European food prices surge, too. [Reuters] A new foot-and-mouth scare in England. [The Telegraph] French couple raises the country's only certified-organic snails. Vive le free-range escargot! [The Telegraph] In Japan, fast-food chains jump on the trans-fat–banning bandwagon. [Asahi Shimbun] And China and the U.S. reach a food-safety agreement while Chinese officials plan to use GPS to track and safeguard Olympic food shipments. [Voice of America; AP] Back to the U.S., and there are more recalls on canned food. This time it's green beans. [Detroit Free Press] File under "obvious": For pre-schoolers, flashy packaging more important than flavor. [Fox News] Your RDA of...
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