Day 54

March 13

The price of food is rising across Egypt. I generally go to this hole-in-the-wall take away restaurant for Tameea for Lunch. I go there because it is 50 piasters for one sandwich. This week they raised the prices to 60 piasters. Although this means nothing to me, other then the math becoming harder to calculate and change harder to break. However, for the rest of people who buy their food her this means that if they buy 2 sandwiches a day for lunch they are paying an extra 4 pounds every month. Although this doesn't seem like much, when you are making less than 300 pounds a month everything adds up. On Wednesday, I found out that the price of my other lunch destination, Koshri-Tahrir, or K-tah, as we like to call it, had its 3 pound meal go up to 4 pounds. These are just small indications of a larger world-wide problem.

You can look at the New York Times or Google News to see the articles about the rising prices of wheat world wide. It has special ramifications for Egypt who is one of the largest importers of wheat in the world. It also has one of the largest government subsidy programs to keep the food prices low for the millions of Egyptian poor. The government allegedly spends 1.7 billion dollars on the subsidies on this program. Because many working Egyptians make less than 300 pounds a month this subsidy is critical for meeting their basic needs. However, as the price of wheat for the bread keeps rising, the government costs continue to increase. When the price of wheat increases, it is felt across the entire spectrum of Egyptian life. If this prices continue to increase, we will either see the effects of inflation or the effects of mass-starvation. Either way, the future is not good for Egyptians and developing countries throughout the world.

Now for why the price of wheat and other commodities is increasing. As far as I can tell, the increasing prices is simply due to a shift in the demand curve. Since there are more and more people in the developing countries clamoring for more and more food and with the supply not increasing at the same rate, the prices increases. In my opinion, the demand for food may soon become one of the world's biggest challenges. To increase the supply of food you can either create more arable land or make the land currently farmed more productive. The former, is not exactly a solution as there simply isn't a lot of land around. Unless we want to stop cutting down the rain forest or other precious ecological areas. The former is where the solution must lie and I don't know enough to speak to the possibilities of this.

However, there is also the problem of climate change and what kind of effects this will have on the yield and size of farmland. Higher temperatures require more water to irrigate and generally cause lower levels of production. If the climate does change we could also lose a lot of the farmland we have now. These two effects will dramatically increase the price of food.

Seeing this rising price of food makes me, first, hate ethanol even more. How can America morally believe that Ethanol, which really isn't all that good of an alternative to oil, other than the fact that its made in America, be considered a feasible renewable energy. The use of ethanol, is morally reprehensible in a world where there actually isn't enough food to around any more. Second, I am glad to know that my work and summer work will actually be contributing to the research and science that is on the very cutting edge of the problems that will face the world. Water and Food. Its what the wars of the future will be fought about. Crazy.