How Speculation Aired Food Crisis

The future is bleak with regards to solutions for the current food crisis. Many would think that the current prices of food is thanks to the temper tantrum of Mother Nature. What many do not know is that this current food crisis is all thanks to speculation.

Speculation, in this article, is about trading. It all began with Goldman Sachs and their greed for more money to enter their coffers. They started this scheme that eventually resulted to speculators in trading to keep speculating that the prices of the food items would go up. Goldman Sachs believed in the long term type of trading, that one which basically is met with common stocks and commodities. They believed that if they held on to their stocks and wait out for a better and higher price, they could gain more money.

Technically, they were right. Holding on to the stocks would eventually give the investor the opportunity to sell at a higher price and earn more money. Well and good if the stocks involved were not something that is so basic as food and people actually had to eat. But because of this scheme, the speculators held on to the hope that what they bought could be sold for a higher price – in this case the basic foods. This resulted to the cost of food to dramatically increase through the years and months, way before Mother Nature had her temper tantrum, way before the economic fallout a few years back.

Thanks to speculators who played with food as a commodity and as a source of millions, no longer could people afford to buy the food that they need to survive. The price of the seeds have also dramatically increased because of this and farmers are having a hard time meeting the demand of the prices of the seeds to actually plant the required number of acreage to produce the required amount of food that will feed the world. The result: a food crisis. Unfortunately, there seems to be no solution right at the moment, nothing that could solve the crisis.

Is it safe to speculate that the speculators are still waiting for that increase in price so they can sell their stocks and make more money?