Letters and Blogs

The food question

Comment on "Consumer inflation jumps to 11-year high" (China Daily website, September 12)

There are even bigger questions about food prices elsewhere than in China itself. What about the food macro-economy in the rest of the world? Is it significant that the US this year has a record maize harvest, but this maize has been grown for ethanol fuel to be consumed by American cars, not for human food? What about Bangladesh, with half a million people marooned by floods today, and more than 150 million people who need to be fed daily? The UN-FAO reports that China's harvests are relatively good this year, so what is going on in the world's markets to cause food prices to rise steeply in China? Blue-ear pig disease seems an unlikely explanation - there must be other changes too. My guess is that flooding has damaged crops in several densely populated regions of the world, such as Bangladesh, and Central America. This may be causing turbulence in the futures market, affecting prices now.