by Marvin J. Ramirez
Marvin J. Ramirez
It’s hard to say anything when we see food prices skyrocketing to levels never seen in the world history. A loaf of bread has increase from $2 to 4.50 in less than a year? The same for milk, eggs, and most of our basic food staples.
The recent skyrocketing cost of food staples around the world is making national and international headlines, according to Catholic Relief Services.
The crisis is prompting economists, agronomists, finance ministers and heads of state to come up with immediate and long-term solutions so that more widespread price increases are averted and increasing discontent is mitigated.
“What we are seeing is unprecedented,” says Catholic Relief Services food aid expert Lisa Kuennen-Asfaw in a statement. “If immediate needs are not met, and if resources and policies supporting increased agricultural production are not put in place soon, we are heading for a cascade of hunger in the world.”
They say prices are increasing sharply in every region of the world for some of the most basic food stuffs traded on international commodity markets. The price of wheat has doubled in less than a year, while other staples such as corn, maize and soy are trading at well above their 1990s levels. Rice, which is the staple food for about 3 billion people worldwide, has tripled in cost in the last 18 months. In some countries, prices for milk and meat have more than doubled.
But we don’t need to go that far. Let’s take a look at the prices at Safeway and check the prices.
Why are big corporations such as Safeway, are way so much more expensive than small grocery stores around the corner, when Safeway buys more wholesale than these small family-owned businesses in the neighborhood? Why do we keep buying there?
Maybe the answer is in the stock market. When we enter in the stock market, I mean when we allow our food supplies to be sold in the stock market, multimillion dollar investors capitalize in buying all the food supply in the world, and then they increase the price at their will. Can you imagine that a few people might now own all the food in the world, in the name of ‘free market?’
Maybe it’s time to take a look at where free market should stop, or we are going to end up being the slaves of those who own all the food. Or maybe we already are their slaves. What are the politicians doing about it?
