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Uh, hello? The correlations to go back to at least 1990. 28+ years of correlations is not "short term."
Wow. So again, you completely ignored not just tons of relevant facts, but also my point that there are over a dozen factors that have impacts on global food prices. #monomania
Are you out of your forking mind?
Global population in 2005: 6.5 billion
Global population in 2017: 7.5 billion
A global population increase 1 billion people in just 12 years has no effect whatsoever on demand?!? You've completely lost it.
And again! These billions are not eating the exact same amount and type of food every single day. As noted in previous discussions, the number of people in dire poverty is falling, and incomes are going up for those who are incredibly poor (mostly in China and India). One thing these people do is buy tastier calories, mostly meat -- which is more expensive.
Tell us, oh economic genius: What happens when Chinese consumption of pork per capita jumps by 20% between 2005 and 2015? Surprise! The answer is not a simple linear formula, because there are lots of other factors involved such as an outbreak of disease (e.g. blue-ear pig in 2007), hog farms getting larger, the availability of imports and more.
Anyway.... All of these complexities defy such pathetically simple claims like "biofuels double the price of food!" We're dealing with global economic systems that are impacted by factors as varied as...
• population size
• changes in disposable income in different income tranches
• changes in consumer tastes (i.e. demand)
• the impact of disease
• the impact of weather
• industrial uses for biomass
• the ability to use waste biomass for non-food products
• the interconnected nature of global finance and supply chains
• consolidation of Big Ag
• the impact of weather on the nutritional properties of crops (e.g. Brazilian soybeans enjoy better growing weather than the US, thus higher protein content)
etc etc
That doesn't respond to a single point I've made.
It's also pretty much a bull**** point for you to raise. Palm oil production started its rapid increase in the late 90s, years before biofuels were all the rage. Much of this was due to the policies of governments who didn't give a crap about environmental concerns, such as Suharto pushing palm oil in Indonesia as early as the 1970s. In fact, global demand for timber encourages Indonesia to chop down its forests, and then use the cleared area for agriculture (have I mentioned yet that global agriculture is incredibly complex and interconnected?) We could even look earlier to British colonists planting palm oil in Malaysia for export, if we wanted. Some of its virtues include high yields, use in a variety of products (margarine, soap, lipstick, ice cream, lubricants etc). Price is only part of the equation.
I.e. You have to be a very special kind of person to believe that the only reason to grow more of a crop, which has a variety of industrial and food uses, is because "the cost of food went up."
Unsurprisingly, environmentalists object to the heavy use of palm oil because of its environmental impact. Organizations like the WWF are trying to hold corporation's feet to the fire over sustainable palm oil. MEPs voted to ban palm oil use in biofuels last year. I could be here all day quoting examples.
Oh, wait. I forgot. You don't care about facts. All you care about is: "Bad thing! Blame environmentalists!" :roll:
Thanks for making it apparent, yet again, why you keep getting thoroughly trashed when you raise this ridiculous point.
Yeah, I'm out of my mind, as is the World Bank. Both of us seem to have this mad idea that removing vast amounts of food out of the world market makes food much more expensive. What do we know about economics?