The global food price index of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reached to its highest in March. It creates challenging situation for low-income consumers. Moreover, these high prices are also challenging for humanitarian programs who are feeding people facing crisis level hunger.
These high input prices are worrying for different reasons:
- Higher input costs decreasing the income of farmers when the farmers are already struggling with undernutirtion and poverty. Actually, farmers are unable to adjust the input prices with the real output prices.
- High input prices could also lead to shortage of food. Farmers may not be able to buy some materials; ultimately, they try to manage with less material.
- High input prices lead to the availability of less incentives. No doubt, high prices should come with the availability of more incentives to help farmers increase the food production. However, it increases the inequity within the sustainable inequitable food system.
To make the global food system sustainable, a fundamental shift is required. For instance, Fossil fuels are a real threat to the planet. So, there is a need to reduce fossil fuel dependence and look for an alternative.