Global Food Price Spikes

Food prices are through the roof around the world. We look at all the why’s and all the consequences.

2008 was a bad year for global food supplies. A real pinch.

Now, just over two years later, the pinch is back. The U.N.’s global food price index is at a record high. Experts say the era of “cheap food” is ending. That’s good for farmers with food to sell, but hard for everybody else.

It’s a factor in the unrest in the Middle East. It can push inflation all over, and it leaves people hungry. We’ve got high global demand, smaller crop yields, bad weather – maybe from climate change – and biofuels cutting into food crops.  It'’s a recipe for trouble.

We look at food, and a crowded planet.
-Tom Ashbrook
Guests:

Gawain Kripke, director of policy and research for Oxfam America.

Bruce Babcock,  professor of economics and the director of the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development at Iowa State University.

Holly Wang, professor of agricultural economics at Purdue University.