Ulf Mvller wrote:

On Tue, Oct 03, 2000 at 02:54:34PM +0100, Ken Brown wrote:

...

NB in a real famine (as opposed to temporary shortages, which a place like Belize can probably get through with less hassle than a richer more efficient economy with all our "Just in Time" suppliers) food prices go *down* at first... strange but true. It is due to farmers unloading stock to get money in as quickly as they can.

Why would they want to do that?

Because they are afraid they will need to get out quickly so they want to turn goods into money if they can. Also there is the price-of-meat effect which has often been observed in Africa, as much as 18 months before a famine gets serious. If people are running out of feed for their livestock (for example in a drought) they sell them rather than watch them starve. So the price of meat goes down. This can also temporarily depress the price of other food (which, of course, doesn't help peasant farmers or nomads who graze their cattle). Ken