World Food Prices Aren’t Too High, They’re Too Low: How Cheap Food is Destabilizing the Global Economy - A talk by Nick Cullather February 18, 2011

The revolution in Tunis began as a food riot. In recent weeks, markets in Algiers and Cairo have erupted, and malnutrition has reached 17 percent in Agadez, the largest city in the Sahel. Reports from the UN and the World Bank put the blame on overpopulation and climate, but there may be another problem. Since the 1950s, chronic underinvestment in agriculture has been considered a normal feature of a healthy, growing economy. A successful farm policy is one that delivers cheap food to urban consumers, whatever the cost at the producing end. This talk will review the history of this conceptual trap, and how it is ruining the prospects for recovery.

Nick Cullather is a professor of History at Indiana University where his research focuses on United States foreign relations specializing in the history of intelligence, development, and nation-building. His most recent book The Hungry World (2010), explores the use of food as a tool of psychological warfare and regime change during the Cold War. Among other works, he is also the author of "The Foreign Policy of the Calorie" (2007), Secret History: The CIA's Classified Account of its Operations in Guatemala, 1952-1954 (2006), and Illusions of Influence: The Political Economy of United States-Philippines Relations, 1942-1960 (1994).

Presented as part of the University Symposium on Abundance and Scarcity. Organized in part by the Agri-Foods Reading Group.

Official Website: http://www.ias.umn.edu/symposiumcal.php