To shed more light on the impacts of food price spikes, Oxfam has created an interactive map of Food Price Volatility Pressure Points. This map shows the impacts of price spikes in some of the countries where food prices have complicated the lives of poor people and offers a chance to take action on to help address price volatility.

The map shows are areas that are highly vulnerable to price spikes, countries that have had extreme weather events contribute to global price hikes and places that have seen price spikes contribute to violence or unrest that has shaken the foundation of global stability. While this map alone does not tell the full story of how price spikes have impacted our world, it offers a global snapshot to give us a better understanding of what is happening in communities near and far.

Originally published by Oxfam

According to the World Bank, food prices have risen dramatically in the last few months, largely due to weather events and political unrest around the world. Wheat is particularly hard hit. In Azerbaijan, for example, the price of wheat went up 24 percent during the second half of last year and Azerbaijanis already put almost half of their spending toward food.

Ephraim Leibtag, an economist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, said these times of high food prices affect people disproportionately: “As situations change in the food market, who feels that more or less in their everyday lives? The consumer who spends the majority of spending on food, when there’s a food spike, if food prices are 40 percent of their budget, that takes a bigger hit.”

This interactive map shows data on the percentages of spending that go towards food by residents of countries around the world. Click on a percentage number for the total per capita household spending and food spending for that country.

This post is part of an ongoing partnership between Civil Eats and the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism News21 course on food reporting. Over the next several months we will regularly feature stories from students in the class.

While this might be good for some consumers in the short term, as some of these savings are passed on in the form of sale prices or discounts, in the long term it is a disaster in the making for us all.

Like everyone right now, farmers are caught between a rock and a hard place – they have to plan many months in advance how much of which crops to grow. In the current situation, farmers grew too much for the existing market and now have a surplus. The problem is that most farmers won’t want to make this mistake twice, and will reduce planting as we move forward – reducing supply and driving prices up this summer and fall, and possibly longer.

The economic forces that are driving these decisions, of course, have nothing to do with food or farming at all. But they will greatly affect the quantity and availability of food for years to come. The second side to this predicament is that farming, in its modern form, requires access to relatively large amounts of capital. This allows farmers to borrow in the off season against their harvest season profits, but the source of this money has run dry right when many farmers need financial help the most. And while the Obama administration is being urged to quickly implement new policies to support small family and organic farmers, the irony is that some of these farmers just might not be there when the help finally comes through.

For there is another entirely separate issue that is going to affect our food supply this summer. In a perfect storm of trouble, Mother Nature picked this year to give us the worst drought in decades. California and Texas are the hardest hit, but many communities in the South and Southwest are experiencing lower than normal rainfall this winter.  And this phenomenon is not confined to US borders. Concerns about drought conditions in China and South America are making farmers nervous, as well.

So it is no surprise that many farmers are deciding not to plant anything at all.

Our weather can be fickle, and perhaps we will have an extraordinarily wet spring to compensate for our current water deficiency. And perhaps our financial markets will rapidly recover and spending and lending patterns will quickly return to normal. But maybe not.

I don’t have the answer – but I do know that if we want to continue eating fresh and healthy food in the months ahead, we are going to have to ask our farmers to take risks that many of us couldn’t stomach. And so we all need to support the risks these farmers are making by buying what they offer – not only when it is in the sale bin, but also when it is something fresh and yummy and perhaps just a little more expensive.

The connection is simple – the health of America’s eaters depends on the health of the food and agriculture system.

Diet-related diseases continue to escalate – specifically in our children. Researchers predict that as a result of the continued rise in overweight, the children of today will have a shorter lifespan than their parents. Overweight and obesity alone have translated into skyrocketing health care costs which are bankrupting families and the health care system.

Likewise, the number of family farms and acres used for growing food is falling, while the cost of farm inputs are increasing. Subsidized crops such as corn, soybeans and wheat have flooded supermarkets with more processed, packaged “food-like” substances. Often, these foods are of low nutritional value and high in sugar, fat and salt.

A dichotomy exists between agriculture policies and Dietary Guidelines for Americans – yet, ironically, both are overseen by the USDA. Current food and farm policies stand in the way of making healthy food the easiest choice.

Food and agriculture policies must support disease prevention efforts and can save millions in health care costs. The USDA and USDHHS must use sound science, instead of pressures from special interests like biotechnology companies and the food industry, to reform policies and programs that support a healthy and sustainable food and agriculture system.

As Vilsack and Daschle assume their cabinet positions in January, they should adopt the words of author and farmer Wendell Berry who said “eating is an agricultural act,” and agree to the following resolutions that build healthy land, eaters, farms and the economy.

Work Together. It sounds easy but USDA and USDHHS do not have a strong working relationship on initiatives that focus on healthy individuals, families, farms and communities. To build this relationship and refocus attention on food that supports health, an interdepartmental Food Policy Council, led by a Food Czar, should be established to assure farm, food and nutrition policies and programs support public health goals. In addition to working with other Federal agencies like the FDA, EPA and the Interior Department, this would eliminate counteraction of programs and policies while increasing program integrity, efficiency and accountability.

Build Fertile Soil. Healthy soil grows healthy food. Soil is a critical component of the earth’s life support system, and how soil is managed determines our ability to grow food for future generations. In June 2008, Iowa experienced unprecedented flooding that destroyed land, homes, businesses and communities. According to the Iowa Daily Erosion Project, 60% of Iowa’s counties lost seven tons of soil per acre that month. Soil loss reduces our ability to grow food. Simply, without soil there would be no farms, and without farms there would be no food. And without food, our health and communities deteriorate. To retain this natural resource, agriculture and land management policies must focus on protecting, preserving and rebuilding fertile soil. Farmers should receive support or credits for decreasing use of synthetic farm chemicals, protecting natural resources, building soil, reducing fossil fuel use and capturing carbon.

Grow More Fruits and Vegetables. Healthy people need healthy food. A diet rich in fruits and vegetables maximizes health. According to the USDA, if each of us ate the recommended servings of foods according to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, U.S. farms would need to produce an additional 7.6 million acres in fruit and 6.5 million additional acres in vegetables. Our agriculture system does not grow enough of the right foods that promote our health. We are forced to rely on other countries to put fruits and vegetables on our plates. As we grow fewer types of food, the variety of foods we eat decreases. This leads to lower nutritional quality of our diets, increases our risk of diet-related disease and compromises our domestic nutrition security. To boost fruit and vegetable production, we need to revitalize farm policies that support diversified small and mid-sized farms and local processors, thereby decreasing our reliance on other countries to support healthy diets.

Make Healthy Food the Easiest Choice. As we increase our consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables and whole grains, we lower our risk of developing obesity, diabetes, heart disease and some cancers. Less disease means lower health care costs. Yet, healthy foods are not always the easiest choice and the cost of nutritious food or the distance one has to travel to purchase healthy food often is the deal-breaker for low-income families. The same applies to federal food and nutrition assistance programs. When food costs rise, fewer people are served or services are cut. In 2009, Congress will reauthorize the Child Nutrition and WIC Act. Administered by USDA, programs such as WIC and the National School Lunch Program offer tremendous health benefits to children. For example, USDA and USDHHS could work together to lift the severe cost constraints that limit the purchase of healthy, fresh foods within these programs. Improving the nutritional quality of the WIC food package and the foods served in schools will nourish healthy children, prepare them to learn, reduce childhood diseases, reduce food insecurity and produce healthy, productive adults. The nutritional health of our children is the foundation for community and economic development.

Leverage Food Production as Community Economic Development. On average, fresh produce travels about 1500 miles before it appears on plates in the Midwest. Approximately 90% of the food consumed in Iowa is not grown in Iowa. As supply channels lengthen, our food becomes more vulnerable. Growing more food closer to where we eat it increases our access to fresh seasonal food, cultivates a closer relationship with farmers, and builds community resiliency, economic stability, food security and health. Buying food directly from farmers generates revenue that is reinvested within communities and strengthens local economies. According to the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, if Iowans ate five servings of fruits and vegetables per day, and Iowa farmers supplied that produce for three months of the year, these additional crops would add $300 million and more than 4,000 jobs to the Iowa economy. Agriculture and health policies working together to leverage food production as a community asset will strengthen economic development while increasing access to fresh, seasonal and delicious food.

English agronomist Sir Albert Howard said, “Soil is the basis of the public health system.” Healthy soil grows healthy food and healthy food nourishes healthy people. Although written more than 60 years ago, the science holds true today and hopefully will become a guiding principle for both Vilsack and Daschle as they assume their positions in January.

After taking two hours to fastidiously set up my campsite – tent and sleeping bag placed just so, lofting my food bag into a tree to protect against bears – I soon realized I had nothing to do. I grew nervous, impatient, paced around the site and back down the trail I had entered on. With 72 hours to kill before I needed to return, I was not ready to receive whatever wisdom might be awaiting me.

Fortunately, the necessities of wilderness survival intervened. I needed to collect firewood to make a fire. I had to haul water from the nearby stream for drinking and cooking. Though the water was clean, boiling was required to protect against Giardia. Boiling enough water for drinking and cooking for three days took more wood, water, and time than I thought. Before I knew it, my worries over what I would do for the next three days had been resolved. I would haul water and collect wood, haul water and collect wood, haul water and collect wood.

This act of enforced simplification – reducing one’s daily life to a few essential tasks – became a kind of mantra for me later in life, and specifically, a rough guidepost for the way I would approach food. The columnist Ellen Goodman once wrote that she did not regard the nearly infinite choice of food items in today’s supermarket as an emblem of her freedom as a consumer, but more as a chain around her neck that enslaved her to a never-ending onslaught of superfluous food items that left her confused and disoriented. Like me wandering about the forest with nothing to do, she rambled about the supermarket finding nothing to eat.

A large supermarket has tens of thousands of different food items to choose from, and the food industry introduces as many as 15,000 new food items every year. Holding aside the health and dietary consequences of our food choices, which of course are enormous, how are we to choose from this maddening array of food? Has this so-called abundance made our lives simpler, or simply crazy?

Like my experience with water and wood, I decided to narrow my range of options, and in so doing, take a more mindful approach to what I eat. I am trying to eat locally and seasonally, and as much as possible, assemble my daily menus from an admittedly narrower, but happily tastier range of choices that are closer at hand. I start with our garden and then move to the farmers’ market for the produce we eat. We buy beef from a New Mexico rancher whom we know personally and whose cows are raised entirely on grass. I’ve been to the facility where the cows are slaughtered; it’s locally owned, employs 10 people in a small town where every job counts, operates humanely, and on a good day, is able slaughter only four cows compared to the thousands that are slaughtered daily in a large, corporate meat packing plant.

Not all our food is local. I buy Organic Valley milk at the supermarket which is produced by dairies in Colorado and across the country. I’ve investigated that farmer-owned co-op and I’m convinced that it protects the environment, the cows, and the health and safety of their milk more than the factory dairy farms that operate in New Mexico. A trip to Whole Foods is a treat that we can only afford to indulge in every other month. We buy coffee from a fair trade company out of Massachusetts. The rest of the time we’re shopping at Albertson’s for such things as bananas, cereal, and of course, beer and wine.

The simplifying act is to start with what we have first and to put together simple meals around those foods. A whole, free-range chicken from Whole Foods was more the accessory to the carrots, parsnips, and onions from our garden a few nights ago. New Mexico beef will anchor the chiles, tomatoes and potatoes from the garden for tomorrow night’s stew. We store produce, can produce, freeze produce, and when the food dryer is working, dry produce. Like little squirrels storing nuts, we stash food everywhere.

I’m not trying to imitate Barbara Kingsolver or eat only the 100-mile diet. I’m not a food purist nor do I wile away my days in a state of hyper-anxiety over the health, origin, or method of production of the food I buy. I love to garden; it’s my recreation, my fitness club, my calisthenics. It’s also the focal point for as many meals as possible. I like farmers and ranchers. I spend time getting to know them, and sometimes, much to their chagrin, even write about them. I learn about other foods – what’s good and what’s not – when I have time. I don’t read labels obsessively, but if I can’t pronounce most of the words in the ingredients list, I generally put it back on the shelf. When I haven’t been fortunate enough to have my own garden, I’ve joined a community garden, shopped more at the farmers’ market, and bought a share in a community supported agriculture farm.

When we sit down to dinner, my wife and I often count the number of items on the plate that are “local.” Many nights we hit 100% and will toast that fact with a glass of New Mexico wine; other nights it’s much less. But every night we strive for a least a token morsel of something local, even if it’s a dried up clove of garlic from the last year’s garden. This is the emblem of our freedom and the simple ways we celebrate life’s pleasures.

But there’s one more facet to the process of simplification, and it’s not so simple. In my opinion, it’s not enough to only satisfy your desire for simplicity and good food, and to be an informed consumer. You need to be a good food citizen as well. This means two things: The first is that if you believe that you should have the best and healthiest food available, then shouldn’t everybody, regardless of income? This is what we call “food justice.” The season of charitable giving is with us, and I believe that we need to think a little more deeply about who and what we give money to if we are going to achieve food justice. It may be worth looking at programs that support beginning, socially disadvantaged farmers, or initiative that try to protect the area’s precious farmland. Maybe it’s worth pulling together a group of people from your school, neighborhood, or faith community to buy shares for low-income families at an area CSA, or otherwise encourage the purchase of our local bounty by all.

The second characteristic of good food citizenship has to do with another season that’s upon us, and that’s New Mexico’s legislative season. Bills will come before our lawmakers that will promote farming in New Mexico, healthier and locally grown food for students in our public schools, and more opportunities for low-income people to better feed their families. We need to support those initiatives. Private charities and local farms are not enough. As good food citizens we need to speak up for policies and practices that promote local and healthy food for all.

So there you have it, my recipe for a simpler and more fulfilling life. Eat local and seasonal, support causes that are promoting the same for everybody, and get loud with the New Mexico State Legislature.

What if each of us were engaged in our communities, our “work”, and our “play” in a new way—one in which we actually understand the impacts of our choices? What if we were to price a food system that is clean, just, and fair by redefining the costs of products and services? Since we have to start by eating to fuel our brains and bodies, let’s expand our business practices and personal financial decisions to include the impacts on people and places—in our food.

So what is true cost pricing a meal? Why should we include all the positive and negative factors that are upstream–what goes on before food gets on the table, and downstream—nutrition we get from food, and the waste stream–in a meal that impact people and places? We must redefine our pricing structure to include the impacts on people and places so we can recapture the ownership of the sources of our sustenance; support our local organic farmers and their farm practices and knowledge; grow vital communities; and heal our land and biosphere – one choice at a time.

Consumers and small businesses move 70% of all the transactions in the US marketplace every day. By actively engaging in marketplace policy-making, true cost pricing of products and services can help us understand the social and environmental impacts of our individual and collective purchases. If we can true cost price an organic meal, we can develop the capacity, practices, and language we need to communicate this “good food language” among ourselves, and link consumer and small business purchasing power to leverage a sustainable food system and marketplace.
Join us on Thursday, August 28th for Pricing the Food on the Table Forum where you can:

At this Forum, we will benchmark our findings against industrially processed food meals; organic meals; and locally grown, organic meals within 100 miles of meal preparation. To review the participant background materials for Pricing the Food on the Table, scroll through to Agenda and Background Materials.

Martin Luther King said, “We need to have tough minds and tender hearts if we are serious about changing the world.” While we celebrate the profound beauty and vitality of all living systems, we take on the evolutionary challenge of simultaneously developing the analytic and intuitive sides of our brain. THIS IS THE TIME TO EVOLVE!

We thank those conscious eaters among us who are willing to recapture the ownership of their lives by joining Pricing the Food on the Table Forum.

Images by rekha6 and Sustainable Ventures

We all want to do the right thing. We want to buy organic exclusively. We’d love to buy grass-fed beef regularly. And we’d like nothing more than to eat wild seafood all the time.

But I know I’m not alone when I do a double-take at the seafood counter. I blink when I see wild shrimp selling for $15.99 a pound versus farm-raised for $5.99 pound. I gulp when I stop at a farmers’ market to find grass-fed rib-eyes priced at least three times higher than conventionally-raised ones.

What’s a budget-conscious, environmentally-concerned consumer to do, other than bolt to the dried pasta aisle and call it a day?

The answer is surprisingly simple, according to champions of sustainability:
Eat what’s best for you, but eat less of it.

With one third of all adult Americans now obese, that’s not such a bad lifestyle change to make. You might think twice about buying grass-fed ground beef at $9 a pound. But half a pound of it at $4.50 is doable for most budgets. After all, there’s no real reason each of us has to gorge ourselves on 6 ounces of beef at dinner. Try 3 ounces instead. Same with wild seafood. There’s no requirement that we must have a dozen shrimp in a serving of paella, when six shrimp is more than generous.

It’s easier than you think to get by with smaller servings of wild seafood, grass-fed beef because they generally have more flavor and plenty of protein, and are thus more satisfying. Put simply, it doesn’t take as much to feel satiated.

Round out meals with more whole grains and produce, which health experts always scold us to consuming too little of anyway.

How else can you better allocate your shrinking budget when organic items, on average, cost 50 to 70 percent more than conventional ones? The consumer guide, the Daily Green, has compiled a handy list of the top 12 foods to buy organic whenever possible, based on considerations of pesticides, chemicals, additives, and hormones. Its top picks for organic are:

1. Beef
2. Milk
3. Coffee
4. Peaches
5. Apples
6. Sweet bell peppers
7. Celery
8. Strawberries
9. Lettuces
10. Grapes
11. Potatoes
12. Tomatoes

When gas prices skyrocket, you don’t stop filling up. You just drive less. When the price of movie tickets soars, you don’t stop patronizing your local multiplex. You just become choosier about which movies to see. Organic and sustainable foods may carry higher price tags, but you can afford to enjoy them in some form or quantity. Given today’s health and environmental concerns, you can’t afford not to.

Photo by framboise

Have you been to the grocery store lately? Of course you have. Have you gone into shock at the prices yet? Of course you have. Even if you are like me and don’t spend a lot of time figuring out prices and food budgets, you have been caught off guard. It’s not just the price of that great filet, or wild salmon that has your head spinning. In fact, we expect those things to be higher. I pay just about $10 a pound for my favorite pastrami, and am happy to do it. But it is the staples that have me on pause.

According to the latest American Farm Bureau market basket survey of 16 basic groceries, the price was $45.03 in the first quarter, up 9% from the same period last year. They say that we are paying on average $2.69 for a five-pound bag of flour, 26% more than we paid last year. A gallon of milk has jumped 10 percent to $3.81. Cheddar cheese is now nearly $5 per pound. Wholesale egg prices have jumped nearly 60 percent. Pair this with the costs we pay for gas to get to work, or even to shop for food, the prices we pay for medical care and prescriptions, and the basics of keeping a roof over our heads and lights on, we are all feeling the squeeze.

The U.S. Department of Labor Statistics tells us to relax, because in fact, we are paying a smaller percentage of our income on food than we did in 1901 when groceries took nearly 43 percent. The last time it was measured, we hovered around 14 percent. But since I wasn’t buying groceries in 1901, I can only say that in 2008 the pinch is real and doesn’t promise to let up.

Why the high costs? I just assumed it was rising fuel costs to transport the food. But the experts in sustainable food systems are saying that there’s more to it. Fuel costs are certainly a factor, but so is the cost of feed—primarily corn. The government’s mandate for ethanol production (corn based) has driven the costs up. And then there is the question of food scarcity around the world. Scarcity leads to demand. And with the drop of the dollar in the U.S. it is more cost effective for other countries to get their food here.

So what does it all mean for us? A colleague of mine suggests that it means that we will all have to learn to live with less. I would say that there are so many people who are living with so much less that there is no give in the game for them. Soup kitchens and food pantries are feeling big shortages. Children are already going hungry right here in the U.S. because of poverty. In a country where there are many who have a lot, there is an arrogance that exists in simplifying the solution to doing with less. At least that’s the way it feels to me.

Food, and the ability to have fresh, fair and affordable food is a basic human right. Food insecurity for our young and for our elderly speaks to what comes in between. A community that does not have access to affordable, healthy food is also a place where there is poverty, low educational opportunities, vulnerable living situations, and huge health problems. As fresh food prices rise, it becomes more affordable to buy fast food or packaged and processed foods that bring with them obesity, diabetes and a number of diseases that lead to increased premature mortality rates. And here is the thing we must remember: it won’t be long until we all feel more than the pinch. If gas prices continue to rise, even those of us who see ourselves firmly planted in the middle class will feel the vice grip of food insecurity.

Solutions? Be aware. Push your policy makers on the state and national levels to take some steps. Look beyond your own kitchen to the needs of your community and your city, and become an advocate for food for all. Know what legislation, such as the Farm Bill or the upcoming Child Nutrition legislation that comes up in 2009, and make your wishes known. God old school—support your farmer’s markets, community gardens and your own little backyard crops.

Photos by newhousedesign, roadsidepictures, and jbcurio.