[OPE-L] Food prices

From: Jurriaan Bendien (adsl675281@TISCALI.NL)
Date: Wed Dec 12 2007 - 13:04:42 EST

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Jerry, 

What I am talking about is a "structural" increase in food prices. It is of course true, that if a lot more food is produced that prices are likely to drop again, but in the context of modern agribusiness, market monopolies, food-for-fuel production, food futures, transport costs and the like, and given the geopolitical balance of power, population growth and consumption habits, my hunch is that we are looking at a relatively PERMANENT structural increase in food prices, just as the increase in home prices since 1980 is largely a permanent, structural increase, within a margin of perhaps 10-20% fluctuation.

The world of global food production and distribution is a pretty weird world, it doesn't make much rational economic sense at all, as far as I can see.

Jurriaan

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