Rising Food Prices put Children at Risk
The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization announced last week that food prices rose dramatically in 2021 compared to 2020. While we might normally expect food prices to decrease as production ramps up to meet demand, this time may be different. As FAO economist Abdolreza Abbassian explained that “the consistently high cost of inputs, the ongoing global pandemic and ever more volatile climatic conditions leave little room for optimism about a return to more stable market conditions even in 2022.”
Good, nurtitious food is a prerequsite for children’s health and well-being, so we wanted to chat Alastair Smith of the University of Warwick’s Global Sustainable Development program to better understand what’s going on with food prices now and how children’s future access to food might be impacted by longer term risks such as climate change. This conversation with Capita CEO Joe Waters has been edited for length and clarity.
Fire in Loyalton, CA, August 2020. Photo by Manny Becerra on Unsplash.
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Joe Waters: The UN just announced that there was a 28 percent increase in global food prices in 2020. That’s staggering number.
Alastair Smith: It is, and what it represents is how quickly things could go from ‘maybe it isn’t that bad’ to being really, really bad. It’s important to understand the gravity of this news. Just to keep the methodology in mind, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations reports on nominal prices, which differs from real prices. It’s the latter that represents purchasing power, the ability to access food. The real price is adjusted for inflation. The nominal prices were falling consistently since the 1960s, and then started increasing around 2000, just when the Millennium Development Goals were introduced. What happened in the international market is the opposite of what we’d hope. Food is more expensive now than ever before, excepting the 1970s oil crisis. There are very serious implications for everyone.
Can you tell me about the concept of food sovereignty?
This term refers to a nation’s ability to sustain itself. The USA is fairly food sovereign, though there’s a negative trade balance in fish and crustaceans. The U.S. also imports fruits and nuts, animal fats, and sugars. Britain is less food sovereign. There is significant concern in Madagascar, even a threat of famine, as the price of cereals has been increasing. Overall, utilization is greater than production, but the buffer stock [“a scheme which buys and stores stocks at times of good harvests to prevent prices falling below a target range or price level, and releases stocks during bad harvests to prevent prices rising above a target range or price level” –ed.] is doing its job. What happens next is important.
What do you anticipate will happen as the planet gets warmer? A climate emergency, the trauma from extreme weather events, these make everything more difficult.
The collective struggles to predict weather are already causing fluctuations in production. Droughts in Canada are leading to price increases throughout the supply chain. The melting of the permafrost is releasing methane, and this and other factors make the weather both less predictable and more severe. Extrapolate further and you see how the climate emergency increases instances of undersupply.
“Droughts in Canada are leading to price increases throughout the supply chain. The melting of the permafrost is releasing methane, and this and other factors make the weather both less predictable and more severe. Extrapolate further and you see how the climate emergency increases instances of undersupply.”
Can you help us differentiate between short-term supply issues and structural factors?
The Covid pandemic has exacerbated underlying climate trends. Shipping is one example. Another is the contraction of labor availability for production and logistics. The resilience of the system—its ability to absorb shocks—is being tested.
How do we address these issues? Do we increase production? Increase food aid?
I always tell my students it’s important to take a step back and look at the complexity of our food systems. Think about all the ways the ecology is modified through politics, technology, and culture. Food is a necessity for life, but do people have a right to food? Some have compared the climate emergency to a state of war, which might entail a more interventionist and directive stance, different from the Neoliberal, “markets will provide” agenda. Food aid is a tough one. Historically it’s been hard to balance acute nutritional aid and the imperative to maintain local capacity. Migration and other long-term issues take the question beyond that of any given nation-state.
How does the increase in food prices impact outcomes for young children? What does it mean for creating the conditions for children to flourish?
“Children are vulnerable because of the energy they require for physical and mental development. Think about when you’ve been hungry, or stressed, how you tend to forget things. The mental stress is rarely recognized, the consequences for education.”
The quantity of food isn’t usually the reason people suffer from malnutrition. It’s about access to food. Poverty and inequality come into play. Without interventions from the state, we’re likely so see malnutrition increase. There’s undernutrition, where people can’t afford the number of calories they need. Overnutrition is another concern--people eating more of the wrong food. Children are vulnerable because of the energy they require for physical and mental development. Think about when you’ve been hungry, or stressed, how you tend to forget things. The mental stress is rarely recognized, the consequences for education. One report says 1 in 7 U.S. children are currently undernourished. Households of color are more likely to fall into that category, compounding all the other inequalities they experience. Recent arrivals are also especially vulnerable.
What do you wish more policymakers understood?
Besides the distinction between nominal and real prices, it’s the lived reality of children in poor households. If leaders were more empathetic, if they felt that human connection, they might make different decisions. Another way to think about the present moment is that the world hasn’t collapsed because governments have gotten involved to fight the pandemic. Capital might not care about people, but it cares about people’s ability to be consumers and to provide labor. That’s where self-interest comes into play.
This interview was edited by Mark Swartz.