In this week’s Field Report: A push to improve federal food purchasing heats up, the first food-focused COP kicks off, dust storms accelerate, and new evidence suggests that fair-trade certifications are failing to protect farmworkers.
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March 29, 2011
A one dollar bag of rice in the U.S. is not the same as a one dollar bag of rice in Indonesia. For an American, who, on average, devotes about seven percent of his or her spending to food, it won’t matter that much if the price of rice doubles to two dollars. An American can likely take the money that would have gone to a “non-essential” item and put it towards food instead. But for an Indonesian, who devotes 43 percent of his/her spending to food, it could mean less to eat.
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.
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This map really doesn't seem to separate out the idea of choosing to shop at the local market and pay fair wages, and having no choice in where to buy food. And that's going to make a big difference when talking about rising food costs, because someone who chooses to spend more can readjust just as much as the American whose diet is supported primarily by processed foods and agricultural subsidies.
totally stoked about your project!
Americans eat far too much processed junk, don't pay farmers fair wages nor value fresh, seasonal food.
Great project by the way :)
That all being said, people in America are way too cheap when it comes to what they put in their bodies and I think they should devote more money to things like grass fed beef, sustainable fish, local vegetables and the like.
I'm also with Kevin on adding in the amount of our tax dollars that go towards subsidizing big ag, this would greatly increase the amount spent on food in this country.
However the opinion here is that food prices are generally higher that the rest of the EU.
Possible solution may be people paying down debt, and shopping in discount retailers (Aldi + Lidl)or more people growing their own. Still a bit of a puzzle when you consider Grease who have similar problems, or the US which also has high levels of consumer debt.
Maybe we are actually the Bread Basket of Europe after all.
If we support Growing your own food we could really see a change in the amount spent on food. GYO is a great way to also stay fit, great for families and for people of all ages and abilities.
Find us on facebook and twitter support growing your own produce.
http://twitter.com/#!/allotinabox/followers
Thanks in advance for your kind assistance,
Dave
See: http://yy9g.info/publications/eib29/eib29-4/eib29-4.pdf for a good explanation)
Unfortunately about 47% of us fall below an average income of $25,000. This means that many of us are devoting 20% or more of our income on food. Other easily available data indicate that there are 47 million Americans who don't get enough food, 16 million of these are children. This is the real story.
But I think it is flawed statistically. When you click on a country for more information, you get two figures. Total Household Expenditures and Per Person Food Expenditures. I cannot tell the size of the household. In the US, the Total is 32051 and the per person is 2208. That calculates to 6.9% ONLY if it is a one-person household. The proportion of income spent on food will increase as the size of the household increases if the household total stays the same.
In the US, a 4 person household will spend 27.56% of income on food.
Household size needs to be taken into account, for both figures. In the US, is the average total household expenditure for a one-person household really over 32000 dollars?
I would be curious to know how your percentages account for the wide range of expenses made on different International household budgets and if the household incomes quoted were either gross or net. Countries such as Canada, the UK, & the EU, where the costs of health insurance and tuitions are either considerably lower or not directly charged against household income cannot readily be compared to countries with few or no services whatsoever, unless some equalizing compensations are made. In the EU the percentage spent for food may be higher than the in US because other major expenses are covered elsewhere. Your percentages will be valid when comparing societies of economic similarity but on a global basis the comparisons become skewed by other differences. In other words saying that the US spends an average of 6.9% on food and Algeria spends 43.8% is misleading. I do agree, it's just wrong that the Algerians have so much less income left over to spend on their SUVs' gasoline, maybe only 6.9%; it's fortunate that we get those costs subsidized.
In general you prove your point; we are a pampered oblivious society, so I appreciate your statistics. I would be very interested to see a breakdown of the direct impact on world food prices made by commodities speculation and suggest that you use that as a factor in your next research project.
Or.. they don't have to spend nearly so much on health care, tuition, childcare, transportation (or at least have highly subsidized and available public transportation as an option)among other things.