Food Prices: Climate Volatility, Protectionism, and Fiscal Dynamics

Food prices

Food inflation has started to ease sharply across the developed world, but this is another potential source of risk over the coming decade. Last year showed the cross-dependency of food prices on energy costs, and the ongoing risks associated with the Ukraine war and grain exports. But climate change is also creating increasingly volatile harvests, and the risk is that this results in more protectionism as producing nations seek to protect domestic supply. India’s recent bans on rice exports, and occasional threats of palm oil bans from Indonesia, highlight the risks here. This is a bigger threat to emerging markets, where food can exceed 50% of inflation baskets.

 

Fiscal support

Huge government deficits in the 1970s may not have caused the initial inflation spike, but they undoubtedly amplified it. So, too, did the massive interventions at the start of the Covid pandemic and the “excess savings” pile they helped create.

That story is now clearly changing. The US fiscal position is tightening and in the short term, a resumption of student loan repayments is symptomatic of Congress’ reluctance to allow further big spending packages. In the EU, the Stability and Growth Pact – the rules that mandate fiscal responsibility by European governments – is coming back to the fore. As we wrote a few months back, there’s a growing recognition that the rules need to be more flexible, especially when it comes to public investment. However, political uncertainty in the Netherlands and Spain could undermine an agreement on the new rules. In this scenario, and in the absence of yet another activation of the escape clause, eurozone fiscal policies would become more restrictive. 

That said, after a decade of austerity and ultra-low interest rates, particularly in Europe, the lesson from both the pandemic and the Ukraine War is that fiscal policy can be a powerful lever. Met with a fresh, unexpected shock, we suspect the bar to another large fiscal intervention is lower than it might have been in the 2010s.