Worldwide floods, drought spark food inflation
With pandemic fallout, UN worried a tenth of population will go hungry
Wild weather is wreaking havoc on crops around the world, sending their prices skyrocketing.
On wheat farms in the U.S. and Russia, it’s a drought that’s ruining harvests. The soybean fields of Brazil are bone dry too, touched by little more than the occasional shower. In Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia, the problem is the exact opposite. Torrential downpours are causing flooding in rice fields and stands of oil palm trees. The sudden emergence of these supply strains is a big blow to a global economy that has been struggling to regain its footing after the shock of the COVID-19 lockdowns. As prices soar on everything from sugar to cooking oil, millions of working-class families that had already been forced to scale back food purchases in the pandemic are being thrust deeper into financial distress.
What’s more, these increases threaten to push up broader inflation indexes in some countries and could make it harder for central bankers to keep providing monetary stimulus to shore up growth.
The Bloomberg Agriculture Spot Index, a gauge of nine crop prices, has risen 28 per cent since late April to its highest level in more than four years. Wheat earlier this week was the most expensive since 2014.
The fallout from the pandemic means that the United Nations was already warning of a worst-case scenario in which about a tenth of the world’s population would go hungry this year.
Things could become more dire if grocery costs keep rising and even more people can’t afford to eat.