How much your groceries will cost in 10 years

However much you hope that the food crisis will go away, it’s difficult to ignore this week’s headlines warning us that the era of cheap food is over. But which of the staples in our shopping basket will be worst hit?

The general picture is that most items will go up, some more significantly than others. With oil at $117 a barrel and rising, so are the costs rising of the three Fs of farming: feed, fuel and fertiliser. “We’re in a unique situation in which numerous problems are coming together,” says Tim Lang, Professor of Food Policy at City University. We’re not just facing rising oil prices and water shortages, but the changing dietary habits of the developing world as it becomes richer, combined with land being used to provide crops for fuel rather than food, and climate change bringing drought to countries such as Australia.
And yet, compared to other parts of the world, we’re lucky. We spend 13 per cent of our household budget on food, down from 30 per cent, 50 years ago. For a family in the developing world, food is likely to be between 50 and 75 per cent of the total, according to the World Bank. What’s more, in poorer countries, people buy raw ingredients, so if the price of corn doubles, that seriously affects their buying power.

But there is another side. Not only is the EU already backing down on biofuels, but some economists argue that the price of raw materials will be regulated by market forces. The theory is this: if farmers respond by growing more staple crops and leaving less land fallow, production will increase, thus lowering prices.

Meanwhile, supermarkets will compete to keep prices low. This could have ethical repercussions, cautions Evan Fraser, a senior lecturer in sustainable development at Leeds University. “Consumer instinct is to want to keep food cheap,” he says. “But usually this is achieved by squeezing producers.”

Here we show you what the food is your basket might cost in ten years’ time.

The Times