REASONS FOR FOOD PRICES RISING

Over the past few years food prices are at dangerous levels according to the World Bank they have pushed 44 million people into poverty. There have been many suggestions as to why the food prices have gone up by extreme amounts. The world’s population is obviously increasing so food is harder to supply for the growing population but this is not the main reason why this has happened. Many countries over the past years have started to become more and more developed and so people are demanding more and better quality food. In other words changing diets in fast-developing nations such as China and India is considered main factor of price changes. Production has failed to keep up with the growing demand coming from these developing countries, pushing prices sharply higher. Another factor is that LEDC’s many times have problems with transportation. It is hard to export your goods and very expensive in some cases. Furthermore rising oil prices have boosted demand for bio-fuels. The use of land to grow plants which can be used to make alternative fuels- and the use of food crops themselves for fuel- has reduced food supplies and helped push up prices.
The main reason though for the rise in food prices is supply has decreased due to severe weather in some of the world’s biggest exporting countries. Flooding hit the planting season in Canada, and destroyed crops of wheat and sugar cane in Australia. In addition, drought and fires devastated harvests of wheat and other grains in Russia and the surrounding region during the summer. Onion prices have soared in India in the past month, following heavy rains in the west, where much of it supply comes from. In Central America, lack of rain has damaged bean crops and caused the biggest individual price rises, according to a recent FAO