In China, pork has become so expensive they’re stealing pigs by the truckload. In Kansas, it’s wheat. In Mexico, they’ve got tortilla riots over the cost of corn. In American supermarkets, the price of milk and eggs has soared.
All over the world, the price of food is headed up. Sometimes way up. And an era of cheap food is over.
We’re turning corn into fuel, feeding meat to new millions, paying more for oil to farm — and there are consequences.
This hour, On Point: the soaring cost, globally, of what we eat — and where we’re headed with the price of food.
-Tom Ashbrook
Guests:
John Parker, globalization correspondent for The Economist.
Bruce Babcock, professor of economics and director of the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development at Iowa State University.
Abdolreza Abbassian, senior economist at the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization and secretary of the Intergovernmental Group for Grains.
Lester Brown, founder and president of Earth Policy Institute and author of “Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization.”
Tags: economics, food, globalization
