World food prices are pushing higher—the United Nations overall food index shows a 28. 3% annual increase, with cereals up 44. 1

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问题 World food prices are pushing higher—the United Nations overall food index shows a 28. 3% annual increase, with cereals up 44. 1%—sparking concerns that a new food crisis may be emerging, just three years after the last one. Does this mean the world is running out of food?
The quick answer is that the world does seem to be running low on cheap food. This supply shortage stems from the failure of governments and donors over nearly three decades to fund the basic agricultural research, investments in rural infrastructure, and training for smallholder farmers necessary to push out the productivity frontier.
Until recently, world food crises have been relatively rare events—occurring about three times a century. The food crisis of 2007 ~2008, although scary at the time, was relatively mild by comparison. Prices for wheat, rice and maize—the staple foods that provide well over half the world population’s energy intake directly and a good deal more indirectly via livestock products—rose 96. 7% between 2006 and 2008, not approaching the spikes in the mid-1970s when corrected for inflation. Yet here we are just a few years later, talking about food prices again.

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答案 世界粮食价格正在逐步走高——美国综合粮食指数年均增长28.3%,谷物价格上涨了44.1%,这种情况引发了人们对新一轮粮食危机的担忧,毕竟最近一次粮食危机刚刚过去三年。这是否意味着世界上的粮食将要消耗殆尽? 要立即作答的话就是世界廉价的粮食正在变得越来越少。在过去三十多年中,政府部门以及捐助者为基础农业研究提供资金支持,在农村基础设施上进行投资,对小农户的农民开展培训以提高劳动生产率,但都一事无成,从而导致了廉价粮食的供应短缺。 一直到最近,世界粮食危机一百年之内只发生了三次,相对来讲,也算是小概率事件了。2007年到2008年发生粮食危机时人心惶惶,但相对来说,程度不是很严重。小麦、大米以及玉米这些主食为世界上超过一半的人口直接提供摄人能量,还有很大一部分通过畜产品间接为人们提供能量。在2007年到2008年期间,这些主食的价格上涨了96.7%,不过还没有接近20世纪70年代中期应对通货膨胀时的峰值。然而距离最近一次粮食危机还没几年,我们又开始谈论粮食价格了。

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