Thread by @ChaseSova

It’s now obvious that we’re entering into uncharted territory for global food prices. The FAO index is at its highest ever level driven by the War in Ukraine, Covid-19 impacts & climate events in major breadbaskets.

Here is how rising prices impact stability, a 🧵:

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In 2007/8 prices for major food commodities increased rapidly, driven by high fuel prices, production losses in major breadbaskets, plus export bans, panic buying & speculation.

You can read @IFPRI's post mortem here:
ifpri.org/publication/re…

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The result was what former @WFP Executive Director @JosetteSheeran called a "Silent Tsunami". Just as it has today, higher food prices increased the costs of humanitarian response just as it was needed most.

news.un.org/en/story/2008/…

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The "Silent Tsunami" produced social unrest in at least 40 developing and middle-income countries and regime change in at least one.

This edited work by @cbb2cornell covers this period well: oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/a…

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Haiti is probably the best example:

April '08:"Haiti’s government fell on Saturday when senators fired the prime minister after more than a week of riots over food prices, ignoring a plan presented by the president to slash the cost of rice."

reuters.com/article/us-hai…

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But a second wave of price spikes in 2011 has also been linked to the rise of the Arab Spring in the Middle East.

You might remember the fruit vender that lit himself on fire in Tunisia in December 2010, protesting corruption:

aljazeera.com/features/2020/…

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Some relevant research on this:

Global Warming and the Arab Spring:
tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.108…

Chinese drought, bread and the Arab Spring:
sciencedirect.com/science/articl…

Does food security matter for transition in Arab countries?:
sciencedirect.com/science/articl…

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Food prices differ from other commodities (e.g. oil) in that they predominantly impact the income of individual people rather than the state, which owns the majority of profits from extractive natural resource industries.

See: jstor.org/stable/43551562

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In fact, it has been recently demonstrated that food price shocks have almost twice the impact on economic growth than other commodities, including oil.

See this work from @BrookingsInst: brookings.edu/bpea-articles/…

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But why do high food prices produce instability in some places but not others? Berazneva & Lee (2013) find that:

--high levels of poverty
--high import dependency
--high level of urbanization
--poor governance

...increase the likelihood.

sciencedirect.com/science/articl….

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Smith (2014):

“The likelihood of a food riot increases with the increase in fragility…more fragile countries in the 1st quartile have a 37 percent likelihood of a riot event compared to 18 percent likelihood for the 2nd quartile.”

journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.117…

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.@cullenhendrix and Haggard (2015), examining urban unrest resulting from food price spikes, note that regime type (i.e., democracy versus autocracy) plays an important role in mediating this food-price/instability relationship.

See: journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.117…

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Mainly:

Food $ unrest is more likely in democracies w/ “permissive political opportunity structures” that allow for popular uprising & protest.

It's also true that democracies "often pursue policies that are more favorable to the rural sector & less favorable to cities."

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Sometimes food price riots have less to do with prices themselves than perceptions of hoarding and profiteering or beliefs of who caused prices to rise in the first place:

See:
tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.108…

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Prices of foods w/ cultural significance, especially those consumed by the rich & poor alike, are more likely to incite widespread unrest.

Think of“pasta riots” in Italy or “tortilla riots” in Mexico.

See: worldcat.org/title/eating-f…

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Bread has considerable cultural significance across social strata, meaning the rise in wheat prices (and high import reliance in the Middle East) is especially predictive of instability there.

In 2011, bread prices in Egypt tripled. See again: sciencedirect.com/science/articl…

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Historically food price riots have been an overwhelmingly urban phenomenon. Urban unrest, meanwhile, is more likely today given that Covid-19 has thrust many new urban people into hunger:

See this piece from @welshce @CSISFood: hhpronline.org/articles/2021/…

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During the last food price crisis, the global hunger picture was rosier than it is today. As @WFP warns, there are at least 43 million people across dozens of countries facing famine BEFORE this new shock.

See this from @WFPUSA_CEO: philanthropynewsdigest.org/features/comme…

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So, the cards are stacked against us in the face of this new price crisis. There are a couple things that probably need to happen to prevent a repeat (only worse) of 07/08 and 2011:

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1) Food trade needs to keep flowing. As @MaximoTorero notes in his latest op-ed, we mostly avoided dangerous protectionism during the pandemic, but it's starting to show now w/ the conflict in Ukraine. This will only drive prices higher.

latimes.com/opinion/story/…

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2. Food asst. needs to increase, esp. in urban areas. @WFP can provide a safety net for many vulnerable people, but higher prices make that work harder.

Already, the org. is spending $50 million more each month to reach the same # of people.

See: washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/…

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3. Peace.

Man-made conflict is the single largest driver of hunger today. Ending hostilities in Ukraine will ensure famers in that important breadbasket can plant this season & that its ports come back online.

Without peace, this food $ shockwave will continue to grow.

END

Glad folks are finding this useful. Full @WFPUSA report (including other types of food-related instability beyond food price riots) linked below.

pp. 35-41: ag. resource competition
pp. 41- 47: price spikes/riots
pp. 47-52: climate change & conflict

👉 wfpusa.org/wp-content/upl…

Latest from @DutchFarmerInUA: "If the war is not stopped before the end of March, no export can come from Ukraine after summer. This will affect already unstable countries...Food prices could easily double compared to the prices in January 2022."

👇
dutchfarmerinukraine.nl/en/blog/what-a…