It has emerged at the last minute that there is going to some kind of food price/food shortages summit at Downing Street today with farm leaders and retailers in attendance.

Quite what will be discussed isn't very clear (the meeting ends at 6pm) but the Prime Minister's briefing yesterday reads as follows:

World food prices

Asked if the group of people the Prime Minister would be meeting this week regarding food prices would include the head of the World Food Programme, the Prime Minister's Spokesman (PMS) said that the head of the World Food Programme was not on his list of attendees but that the meeting included some people from Oxford University, representatives from the retail sector, the European Commission, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Save the Children and others.

Put that the Prime Minister had mentioned in Washington last week that he planned to have a meeting with the World Food Programme, the PMS replied that he would check if there was going to be a representative from the World Food Programme at the meeting.

Asked what the purpose of the meeting was, the PMS replied that the meeting would follow on from the letter the Prime Minister had written the week before last to discuss the strategy, short and longer term, regarding the problem of rising global food prices.

Asked if there was anything the Government had in mind that it could actually do, the PMS said that there were a number of things we were discussing with our international partners at the G8, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and elsewhere. We were looking at the impact of global food prices on the world economy and some of the underlying causes of higher food prices, such as bio-fuels. We were also looking at what could be done by the IMF and the World Bank to mitigate the impact of higher food prices.

Asked if the Prime Minister was concerned about the rising cost of food here, the PMS replied that the Prime Minister was concerned about the impact of rising food prices on both the global economy and the domestic economy.

There was a piece on the Fox news website yesterday about some of the large bulk retailers limiting the amount of rice, flour and cooking oil people can purchase at one time in the USA, that is currently being done in some places, New York was mentioned.  The reporter also stated that a little known meeting between US government officials and reps from the baking industry occured last month in which the baking reps asked the government to ban wheat exports from our nation.  This is the first I have heard of any of this, I assume it is true though. 

It's always the same.  A bit of publicity and the public over-reacts.  As HHS has commented on another thread with fuel - one refinery is going on strike for a two days - perhaps - so everyone in Scotland and the north of England thinks that petrol would be better stocked in my tank than on the forecourt, and hey presto you won't get petrol anywhere!  It will be on the TV news tonight and by tomorrow there will be queues all over the UK.  Mindless lemmings!

To follow up my previous post.  Both NBC and Fox report last night and this morning that Sams Club and Costco are putting limits on the amounts of a few basics, chiefly rice.  However, the limit if I understand it is about 80 pounds per purchase.  Fox had the head of our NFU on this morning, he stated there is more rice in the USA this year than there was this time last year, and that much of this is speculative in nature.  It seems suddenly our press is going to concern itself with the food price situation, something they have largely ignored.

In terms of shortages, I have a friend with 22500 bushels of corn in storage from last year, I have about 5000, plan on feeding it, but of course if the market was to get much higher it would be sold.  I wonder truthfully how short grain really is, it seems to me that the speculators drive the price down too low when there is a slight surplus, and too high when there is a slight or perceived shortage.