Jamaicans are struggling to come to grips with dramatic increases in the price of food. What is actually causing these increases?
There is a large consensus that this is due to the advent of the biofuel industry. It is believed that there is now competition between the consumers of food and consumers of fuel.
At the beginning of 2006, there were the so-called “tortilla riots” in Mexico that were caused by ridiculous increases in the cost of cornflower. These increases were caused by a large-scale switch in the United States from using maize for food and instead for fuel- production. This of course meant the Mexicans were receiving less corn from their neighbors.
For years, this trading of cheap maize/corn between the U.S. and Mexico had basically destroyed the corn farming sector in that country. The Mexicans have had to become self reliant and are trying to revive their local maize farming. This is going to be a slow process, however it is a start.
The food shortages and price increases that Brazil suffered a few years ago, were blamed on the ProAlcohol program (fuel ethanol). But it was found that the bio-ethanol production had not adversely affected food production as Brazil is one of the world’s largest exporters of agricultural commodities and this has not changed as it should if this was to be the case.
Policies that were biased towards commodity export crops, large acreage increases of such crops, hyper-inflation, currency devaluation, price control of domestic foodstuffs etc. were also listed as some of the combining factors which resulted in the price increases that were experienced. Thus bio-ethanol production should be considered as part of the overall problem, not the problem.
A greater demand for food and fuel could actually encourage the development of the agricultural sector in Jamaica, which for years has been crushed by cheap imports.
