COLDIRETTI: WHILE STOCKS FALL, GRAINS AND CEREALS INCREASE IN VALUE

While stock markets all over the world are reaping great losses of between 3 and 7%, the quotes for grain and cereals are increasing at the Chicago Board of Trade, which represents the world’s point of reference for primary agricultural materials.
This was recently made note of by the Italian agricultural union, Coldiretti, which emphasized how many possibilities for global economic development depend on agriculture, as was also confirmed by the World Economic Forum held recently in Davos, Switzerland.
According to the WEF, the reduction in the availability of food with the increase in prices is - together with the petroleum crisis, the U.S. recession and the globalization of general risks - one of the most serious risks for the global economy for the next ten years.

Coldiretti also pointed out that an analysis with similar results by the International Food Policy Research Institute has revealed how the age of cheap agricultural products has come to an end and, after a long period of prices that constantly went down, there has now been a change in this structural trend because of factors like climate change (which has caused a reduction in arable land and a decrease in crop yields), an increased demand for dairy and meat products in countries like India and China, as well as the development of bio-fuels that are obtained from agricultural crops.

Coldiretti now sustains that this prefigures a change in hierarchies within the economy, with a new and central role to be held by agriculture over the next few years, in both the food supply sector as well as in the development of alternative energy sources.