Will rising food prices have a global effect on employment and urbanization?
As food grows more expensive, rural Third Worlders will have a greater incentive to stay down on the farm, instead of crowding into cities. This is the kind of quiet, unseen trend that can have a huge effect but be hardly noticed for years. Two Turkish economists discuss what they are seeing here. In Turkey, ...
As food grows more expensive, rural Third Worlders will have a greater incentive to stay down on the farm, instead of crowding into cities.
As food grows more expensive, rural Third Worlders will have a greater incentive to stay down on the farm, instead of crowding into cities.
This is the kind of quiet, unseen trend that can have a huge effect but be hardly noticed for years. Two Turkish economists discuss what they are seeing here. In Turkey, they note, agricultural employment has increased by 17 percent between 2007 and 2010. They conclude that, "we believe that the recent increase in global food prices and the adverse effects of the global crisis on the non-agricultural sector [have] played an important role in the increase in agricultural employment in Turkey."
We have lived so long with "rural flight" — more than a century — that it will take some time to get our heads around the opposite.
I have no idea what the political and military implications might be, but I am sure that, if this trend continues, there will be some.
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