Global Agriculture Flashcards
Brazilian Mega Farms
Bom Futuro farm in the Mato Grosso region.
Founded 1982
Largest soybean farm in the world, with 555,000 acres of just soybeans!
2008 Food Crises Stats
Between 2005 and 2008, global food prices increased 83%. The price of corn almost tripled, while rice rose 170%. The result: an additional 40 million people around the world went hungry in 2008, most of them in developing countries.
2008 Food Crises Explanation
Culmination of several forces: long-standing trends in global agriculture, and shorter-term market distortions.
1) lack of investment by governments and the private sector, as well as to adverse weather conditions in key growing regions, the system had experienced a long-term slowdown in the growth of agricultural production. Grain stocks declined in the face of rising holding costs and the perception that there was less need to maintain stocks in an economic climate of liberalized global trade. By the end of 2008, world food stocks had dwindled to their lowest levels since 1982. Meanwhile, energy prices were soaring, further increasing food production costs.
2) Immediate trends: increased speculation in commodity futures, which exacerbated the volatility of commodity prices, and increased production of biofuels, partly in response to high oil prices.
Food prices fell soon after the 2007–2008 crisis, only to rise again in 2010–2011. Over the next decade, those prices remained relatively high, as nations adopted various measures to protect their domestic markets—only to create a range of negative impacts on medium- to long-term food prices, along with additional trade restrictions.
Learnings from 2008
While the immediate causes of the current crisis may differ, the ultimate conclusion remains the same: our global food systems are poorly designed to protect the most vulnerable from the impact on food prices of long- and short-term trends that are far beyond their control.
