Newswise — “High food prices are a serious problem for the poor and for political stability. And this year has brought record food price levels due to a growing imbalance between rapidly growing demand and a slowly growing supply of food globally.
“Increased food price volatility is not itself a problem for either poverty or political stability. The problem is that policymakers and many pundits are confusing the two, and mistakenly asserting that price volatility, not high food-price levels, is aggravating poverty problems and causing political unrest.
“Unfortunately, misdiagnosis leads to misguided prescriptions. Now we’re seeing mounting political support for government price stabilization schemes that have a poor track record and for market information systems that do nothing to address the fundamental global demand-supply imbalance. A sharp focus needs to stay on addressing threatening fundamentals that cause high food prices.” --Christopher B. Barrett, professor of Applied Economics and Management at Cornell University
RSS