6 ms·

Living in the UK, yes food prices are rising. But I work for an NGO whose main focus is in East Africa and I've been tracking food inflation there and seeing 20

Living in the UK, yes food prices are rising. But I work for an NGO whose main focus is in East Africa and I've been tracking food inflation there and seeing 200-400% jumps over the past three years. Perfect storm of the lack of available fertilizer, wheat shortage and poor growing seasons over the past five years is hitting everyone. I don't see it geetting better until the world adjusts; swapping to alternative crops and producing nitrogen fertilizer at country level.

robocat 4y ago
I agree, the problem is fairly global. So UK specific explanations are unlikely to have much validity. Some punters myopically only considering UK features (such as brexit) is misleading. https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/food-inflation https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/food-inflation (Click on World Tab, and click on the inflation heading to sort - I needed to tap and slide to get it to sort descending).
- smarnach 4y ago
  Inflation (in general, not food inflation specifically) in the UK is worse than in, say, Germany and France. The reasons for that are specific to the UK, and they do include Brexit. I think it's not myopic to point that out. We shouldn't give a free pass to people who have wreaked economic havoc to the UK just because there are some geopolitical factors that happen to wreak even worse havoc at the same time.
  - dukeyukey 4y ago
    Absolutely not. But Belgium, Sweden, Denmark, Czechia, all have comparable or worse inflation. Brexit was and continues to be a shit show, but the UK isn't uniquely in trouble here.
    - pharmakom 4y ago
      Question isn’t how Brexit UK compares to other countries, question is how it compared to hypothetical UK without Brexit. The government is spending a lot of money keeping inflation down through the energy price cap.
tmtvl 4y ago
Funny that you mention nitrogen fertilizer, here in Belgium there is a minor agricultural crisis going on due to the ag sector needing to reduce nitrogen emissions.
- pindab0ter 4y ago
  Same in the Netherlands. Except I'm not so sure about the 'minor' part.
  - mateo1 4y ago
    I would be funny if it wasn't horrifying. We're all shooting ourselves on the foot while other countries can only dream of achieving the industrial, technological and economical progress we've made. Deindustrialization 30,40,50 years ago was a side effect. But destroying our own energy infrastructure, industry, and now even agricultural sector? This is totally mad, and despite turning a blind eye this will come back to bites us, hopefully sooner rather than later so we can still undo some of the damage within 20 years.
    - illiac786 4y ago
      Which one is "shooting ourselves in the foot"? Pumping more nitrogen fertilizer in the environment or cutting it? I think it depends who is "we" and what's the timeline for shooting ourselves in the foot, short term or long term. In both cases it sucks. I have a preference for the better long term strategy, at least I don't have the impression or driving into a wall (or I feel like we trying to swerve/break). Some day it's hard not to feel overwhelmed, looking at the global prospective. Keeping our planet habitable will require us to: * Sacrifice individual benefit for the common good * Trust each other * Think long term (like multiple generations) All things humanity has a horrible track record at. That does not put me in an optimistic mood. On the up side, if we kill everything including ourselves maybe in millions of years the next intelligent race will find remnants of our apocalypse and learn from it? =)
      - mateo1 4y ago

robocat 4y ago

I agree, the problem is fairly global. So UK specific explanations are unlikely to have much validity. Some punters myopically only considering UK features (such as brexit) is misleading. https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/food-inflation https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/food-inflation (Click on World Tab, and click on the inflation heading to sort - I needed to tap and slide to get it to sort descending).

smarnach 4y ago
Inflation (in general, not food inflation specifically) in the UK is worse than in, say, Germany and France. The reasons for that are specific to the UK, and they do include Brexit. I think it's not myopic to point that out. We shouldn't give a free pass to people who have wreaked economic havoc to the UK just because there are some geopolitical factors that happen to wreak even worse havoc at the same time.
- dukeyukey 4y ago
  Absolutely not. But Belgium, Sweden, Denmark, Czechia, all have comparable or worse inflation. Brexit was and continues to be a shit show, but the UK isn't uniquely in trouble here.
  - pharmakom 4y ago
    Question isn’t how Brexit UK compares to other countries, question is how it compared to hypothetical UK without Brexit. The government is spending a lot of money keeping inflation down through the energy price cap.

tmtvl 4y ago

Funny that you mention nitrogen fertilizer, here in Belgium there is a minor agricultural crisis going on due to the ag sector needing to reduce nitrogen emissions.

pindab0ter 4y ago
Same in the Netherlands. Except I'm not so sure about the 'minor' part.
- mateo1 4y ago
  I would be funny if it wasn't horrifying. We're all shooting ourselves on the foot while other countries can only dream of achieving the industrial, technological and economical progress we've made. Deindustrialization 30,40,50 years ago was a side effect. But destroying our own energy infrastructure, industry, and now even agricultural sector? This is totally mad, and despite turning a blind eye this will come back to bites us, hopefully sooner rather than later so we can still undo some of the damage within 20 years.
  - illiac786 4y ago
    Which one is "shooting ourselves in the foot"? Pumping more nitrogen fertilizer in the environment or cutting it? I think it depends who is "we" and what's the timeline for shooting ourselves in the foot, short term or long term. In both cases it sucks. I have a preference for the better long term strategy, at least I don't have the impression or driving into a wall (or I feel like we trying to swerve/break). Some day it's hard not to feel overwhelmed, looking at the global prospective. Keeping our planet habitable will require us to: * Sacrifice individual benefit for the common good * Trust each other * Think long term (like multiple generations) All things humanity has a horrible track record at. That does not put me in an optimistic mood. On the up side, if we kill everything including ourselves maybe in millions of years the next intelligent race will find remnants of our apocalypse and learn from it? =)
    - mateo1 4y ago