Food Shortages, Rising Prices, Famine Threatens

Global Food Prices Rise As Famine Threat Emerges

Tyler Durden

Food prices continue rising during the coronavirus pandemic, jeopardizing food security for tens of millions worldwide.

On Thursday, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations said world food prices rose for the fourth consecutive month in September, led by surging prices for cereals and vegetable oils, reported Reuters. 

FAO's food price index, which tracks the international prices of the top traded food commodities (cereals, oilseeds, dairy products, meat, and sugar), averaged 97.9 in September versus a downwardly revised 95.9 in August.  

FAO's cereal price index jumped 5.1% in September and is 13.6% above its value one year earlier. 

Vegetable oil price soared 6% in September, over August prices, due to rising palm, sunflower seeds, and soy oil prices, hitting 8-month highs. 

Dairy prices barely budged over the month, with moderate price increases for butter, cheese, and skim milk powder, offset by a decline in whole milk powder. 

Sugar prices declined 2.6% over the month, mainly because of a global glut expected to persist through the 2021 season. 

Meat prices slipped .9% on the month and were +9.4% year-on-year, with prices for pork slumping due to China's ban on pork imports from Germany after several cases of African swine fever were recently found. 

As outlined by The World Bank in September, rising food costs because of the virus pandemic have significant impacts on vulnerable households, many of which are being crushed into poverty and hunger. 

In August, UN World Food Program (WFP) Director David Beasley warned that $5 billion in emergency funds are needed within six months to avert a global famine. 

UN secretary-general, Antonio Guterres recently said the world is experiencing one of the worst food crises in five decades. The virus-related downturn is driving wealth inequality to extremes and pushing millions of people into extreme poverty. 

Here are the highest at-risk areas for a food crisis breakout: 

Food insecurity risks, produced by soaring prices and disrupted supply chains because of the virus pandemic, are not limited to the US. A top food bank in the country recently warned of a nationwide "meal shortage" in the next 12 months. 

And throughout history, food price volatility and disruptions have often resulted in social unrest. An unintended consequence of the global downturn could be a continuation of the social unrest, seen across the world. 

It is being projected that there could be an “eight billion meal shortage” at America’s food banks over the next 12 months

Michael Snyder

In 2020, we are witnessing an explosion of hunger in the United States that is unlike anything that we have seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s.  Tens of millions of Americans have lost their jobs since the start of this pandemic, and money is running low for a whole lot of people.  In fact, I just wrote an article about a survey that found that one out of every five Americans will be out of cash by Election Day.  More Americans are slipping into poverty with each passing month, and this has created an unprecedented surge of demand at food banks across the nation.  Meanwhile, our growing economic problems are also causing donations to dry up, and so many food banks are facing a major crunch as we head into 2021.  In fact, Feeding America is warning that their network of food banks is potentially facing an “eight billion meal shortage” over the next 12 months…

Feeding America, the nation’s largest food-relief organization, is warning of a six billion to eight billion meal shortage over the next 12 months, which could leave millions of Americans hungry amid the pandemic.

The dire shortage comes as tens of millions of Americans have turned to local food banks for help amid the pandemic-triggered surge in unemployment and food insecurity.

To me, that is a number that is almost unimaginable.

How in the world are we going to make up an 8,000,000,000 meal shortfall?

And of course that number assumes that things won’t get dramatically worse in our society next year.  If they do, the true number could end up being far greater.

This should greatly alarm all of us, because food banks are the last resort for millions upon millions of desperate Americans.

One of those desperate Americans is a 32-year-old mother in North Carolina named Christian Sullins…

Can you imagine being in a position where your kids literally have no food?

We should be thankful that our national network of food banks has been able to help so many people throughout this year, but moving forward the system just isn’t going to be able to handle the crushing demand that is expected.In 2019, approximately 35 million Americans were dealing with food insecurity, but thanks to this pandemic Feeding America expects that number to rise to 54 million…

Earlier this year the organization estimated as many as 54 million people in the US could experience food insecurity due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

That’s a major jump from the 35.2 million people who faced hunger last year.

 

Greater Boston Food Bank president Catherine D’Amato says things are getting dire.

‘It used to be one million pounds out the door a week, now it’s two to 2.5 million pounds a week. We’re doing more in a month that we did in a year 20 years ago. Food insecurity has gone from one in 13 people to one in eight in Eastern Massachusetts, even higher for families with children,’ D’Amato said to the Washington Post.

Prior to 2020, food banks could meet most of the demand from donations that they received.  But now supermarkets and retailers are having their own problems and have dramatically cut back on donations.