Good grief!

To use the immortal words of Charlie Brown...it is only grief we're seeing now.

I am convinced that the world is slipping into or is already in, a recession. Call me morbid but I fear it could get worse because I really don't see how it's going to get better soon. A vicious combination of factors is just doing the whole world in.

We already have a fuel mini-crisis with oil prices spiralling up to Us$117 a barrel last week. Then wheat crops have been disastrous recently, causing the price of bread and flour to go up. There is a corn shortage because the dumb Americans and Europeans would rather use corn for cars than people, instead of using the perfectly good sugar ethanol the Brazilians have been producing for years. And I read a story from the Trinidad Express last week that rice is about to go up there by 30%.

A snippet from that story below:

THE OLDER citizens would remember the days when eating rice was a luxury, usually reserved for Sundays. Those days could be returning very soon.

This is the view of Charles James, managing director of the country's main supplier of rice, JMH Enterprise Ltd, who noted that with the next shipment of rice to arrive in the country next week prices would increase by about 30 per cent.

He noted that the four kilogramme bag of rice sold for about $34 to $36, while the nine or 10 kilogramme bag usually sold for between $80 to $95. Consumers could pay about $10 more for the smaller bag and about $30 more for the larger bags of rice.

James explained that his company has been importing rice from Uruguay and Brazil, but the farmers in Uruguay have closed their borders and stopped exporting rice. He noted that Brazil has taken up the slack but have also announced a price increase. He said that Argentina has similarly ceased rice exports following countries such as Vietnam, Thailand and India.

Nothing has been said here yet but I figure if rice is going up there because of imported increases, our time is coming just now.

The Prime Minister's hand was forced last week and he raised fuel prices - or rather, withdrew the subsidies on fuel. The most shocking of all was diesel- all these years I swore diesel was just cheaper to produce or something. I didn't realise it was so heavily subsidised! All those people with big diesel-guzzling SUVs must be hollering for murder now.

It has had an immediate knock-on effect, with the price of fish going up almost immediately...FISH of all things...poor people food! Yesterday it was bacchanal in the Bridgetown fish market as boat owners and operators insisted that they had to raise the price of a 100 catch from $25 to $40. Jeez. Us. Chrise! The vendors weren't having it and several boat owners just went and sold on the street.

However, according to one boat owner, the diesel hike (about 67% -it's practically the same price as gas now- that would tell you) has increased their bill per fishing trip from $1400 to $3600- so wha ya gine do, nuh?

The government also let the subsidy for flour lapse last week and flour has promptly gone up by 30% - I have not heard the official announcements for the increase in the price of bread...but it's coming.

Not only that, chicken, beef, eggs- every damn animal product is expected to go up by at least 10 to 15% since the price of feed increased last week by 25% - something else that had a temporary subsidy on it. Head of the Barbados Agricultural Society and MP James Paul delivered the bitter news in the Sunday Nation.

LOOK FOR PRICE INCREASES in beef, lamb, pork, eggs and possibly chicken by next month – along with major challenges for small farmers – since the price of animal feed has just gone up by 25 per cent.

This warning has come from chief executive officer of the Barbados Agricultural Society (BAS), James Paul, who called it the biggest price increase ever for farmers.

"Never in the history of price increases have you had such a major one affecting farmers across the board in one fell swoop," he told the SUNDAY SUN in an interview just days after the island's lone feed manufacturer Pinnacle Feeds announced the April 16 increase.

I don't know what to do... it doesn't even make any damn sense turning vegetarian since the price of fish, rice and bread have increased or are set to increase.

T'ings rough in trute.

All I have to comfort me in this time is my grandfather's words "it won't always be so." Obviously the world is in for a tough time- a recession or even depression. It will eventually force those who are driving the high prices (oil producers, rice farmers who have cut back their exports, corn farmers) to drop their prices when people's spending power is depressed.

This is honestly some of the most grim economic times I can remember- though my years are short. I can't even compare it to the time after 9/11 because at least then the troubles were really restricted to the tourist industries. But ...food! You just can't do without food- you HAVE to buy it, no matter how expensive it is.

I know this though - I'm definitely going to use my upcoming vacation to plant a kitchen garden- if I can trim a $30 or so off my grocery bill, I might just be able to balance out the price increases.