The end of cheap food

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Hi mylottors, as long as most people can remember, food has been getting cheaper and farming has been in decline. Since 1974, food prices on world markets fell by three-quarters in real terms. Food today is so cheap that the West is battling gluttony even as it scraps piles of half-eaten leftovers into the bin. That is why this year's price rise has been so extraordinary. Although the cost of food is determined by fundamental patterns of demand and supply, the balance between good and ill also depends in part on governments. If politicicans do nothing, or the wrong things, the world faces more misery, especailly among the urban poor. If they get policy right, they can help increase the wealth of the poorest nations, aid the rural poor, rescue farming from subsides and neglect- and minimise the harm to the slum-dwellers and landless labourers. So far, the auguries look gloomy.