Increased food prices cause ripple effects

These days, everything seems to cost more, especially food, a trend driven largely by the dramatic rise in the price of fuel. Oil hit $118 a barrel earlier this week, yet another record.

Oil costs for agriculture and transportation, and some other factors, especially ethanol production from corn that otherwise would be used for food, are the driving forces that have pushed food prices sky high. Costs are so high, in fact, that many parts of the world now face what the United Nations World Food Programme calls a "silent tsunami" of hunger that is threatening to provoke the biggest global food crisis since World War II. And U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon went a step further saying Friday that rising food prices have already placed the world in a global crisis.

Critical food staples, such as rice and grain, are up, by as much as 40 percent in parts of the world. That, in turn, means beef and poultry prices are rising, because cows and chickens feed on grain. Rice supplies have become so tight that the nation's two biggest warehouse retail chains, Sam's Club and Costco, have put some limits on how much rice customers can buy at one time.

Food prices rose 4.9 percent in 2007, the biggest increase since 1990, which saw a 5.3 percent hike, according to the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In the Lowcountry, operators of food pantries, soup kitchens and distribution centers say the demand for food has spiked dramatically since the beginning of the year. At the same time, they say, their expenses have jumped both for food and for the fuel they have to buy to pick up and deliver the food.

Read more in Sunday's Post and Courier.