Fuelling poverty with food?
Rapidly rising food prices have led to instability in many countries and have fuelled inflation in less developed economies where food spending is a greater proportion of overall consumer spending. A number of factors have contributed to this rapid rise in prices, but one important contributory factor is the move towards growing crops that can be used as bio-fuels in the developing world and this shift in production is having a knock-on effect in world food markets.
Big food companies accused of risking climate catastrophe Guardian (8/11/07)
An agricultural crime against humanity Monbiot.com (6/11/07)
Global food crisis looms as climate change and fuel shortages bite Guardian (3/11/07)
Questions
| 1. | Identify the main factors that have led to rising world food prices. |
| 2. | Assess the extent to which the move towards bio-fuels has contributed to the rise in world food prices. |
| 3. | Explain how the impact of rising food prices differs in the developed and developing world. |
| 4. | Discuss policies that governments could adopt to ameliorate the impact of rising food prices on the level of economic growth. |