Recent food-price increases caused by climate disasters: Tamino
By Tamino
March 21, 2011 … The 2010-2011 rise in food prices was triggered by a rise in cereals prices. It started in July of 2010, and still hasn’t relented. Sure, there are other factors too — and as usually happens, an increase in cereals prices can cause a “ripple effect,” leading to increased prices in other commodities. But the root cause is something that happened to cereals prices in July of 2010. And what on earth could that be? “Cereals” includes wheat. What if one of the world’s largest wheat producers had devastating crop losses, reducing their production by a third? What if they were one of the world’s biggest wheat exporters, but production was so reduced that their exports dropped to zero? That’s exactly what happened in Russia. And the trouble started in July of 2010. Why did the Russian wheat harvest suffer so? Because of the record-breaking heat wave and drought which plagued a massive region, at just the wrong time for Russian agriculture. And one of the contributing factors is: global warming. …
