Food price

“ On the contrary, when a pound of flour or maize is purchased, the price of which is perhaps only one-eighth that of meat, the whole of it is edible. Thus, from the mere point of economy as well as of nutrition the superiority of cereals and other vegetable products is at once evident. On the one hand, a cereal is almost a complete food containing all the elements necessary to nutrition, and it costs only a few cents a pound. On the other hand, a steak or roast is only a partial food and it costs much more than cereals. ”

“ In this state of things, therefore, it can hardly be said, that the value depends at all on cost of production. It depends entirely on demand and supply, that is, on the proportion between the quantity of surplus food which the peasants choose to produce, and the numbers of the non-agricultural, or rather of the non-peasant population. If the buying class were numerous and the growing class lazy, food might be permanently at a scarcity price. ”

“ Labor and prices.—The amount of labor involved in producing a food material affects its price. Meats cost more than staple vegetable foods, like corn, wheat, or beans, because we must raise the corn first to feed the animals. Meat is as cheap as vegetable foods only when the animal can find its own food, as in the pioneer days of any country, when only a small part of the land is under cultivation. To the Pilgrim Fathers, meat was cheaper than corn, in terms of279 labor, with deer at hand in the forest and corn raised with difficulty in small clearings. ”

“ In all the broad range of articles that, in a state of civilization, are needed by man, the only absolutely indispensable thing is money. For everything else there is some substitute—some alternative; for money there is none. Among articles of food, if beef rise in price, the demand for it will diminish, as a certain proportion of the people will resort to other forms of food. If, by reason of its continued scarcity, beef continue to rise, the demand will further diminish, until finally it may altogether cease and center on something else. ”

“ Few articles of food have reached the maximum price laid down for them by the authorities. Fresh vegetables and fruit are very cheap. The only important articles which the shops have difficulty in supplying are sugar, condensed milk, and dried cereals. ”

“ Pork will disappear as a food staple and butter will be replaced by the more wholesome oleomargarine products. Within our large cities, an anomalous condition exists in the price of vegetables. Wholesale prices have not increased, indeed in many cases, they have decreased greatly; yet because of archaic methods of distribution, the retail cost is greater. ”

“ No phenomenon of the present serious situation is more remarkable, or of more urgent and vital concern to the nation, than the amazing rise in food prices which we have witnessed during the past six months. ”

“ I find their food, such as butcher’s meat, potatoes, and vegetables, milk, and some other kinds of necessaries, are also increased in price, owing to this advance in rent. So that the outlook for our workpeople, despite all our wealth, is indeed not a very pleasant one, for how are they to tide over this storm with all these necessaries at such prices? ”

“ Secondly, the price of food, especially of flour, is rising rapidly. We have explained in the first chapter how largely the lack of food in the towns was due to vicious interference with exchange: when such is the prime cause of economic trouble, the least disturbance aggravates it to a high degree ”

“ PRICES OF FOOD
Every one nowadays will agree that the seller should fix the price at which he will sell his wares. For the prices vary according as the supply of the commodity in question is plentiful and the demand great. An abundant wheat harvest is followed by cheap bread; but we do not all so readily understand, that not bread alone but all perishable articles must be dear one year and cheap another. ”

“ If there is much demand in a certain community for a food that is not plentiful in the market, the price of that food always goes up. As in the case of mushrooms, many expensive foods add practically nothing in the way of nourishment, their only value being in the variety of flavor they supply.
22. Furthermore, in order to provide wisely, the person who purchases vegetables for the family should be able to judge whether she is getting full value in food for the money she invests. ”

“ Moreover, just so far as higher money wages for the same work, or the same money wages for a reduced number of hours, have been granted without a corresponding increase in the efficiency of the labor, the expenses of producing goods in general—and consequently prices—have risen. But, without doubt, one of the most important factors in raising prices—directly and indirectly—has been the increased price of food due to the changing conditions of agriculture. ”

“ But it is clear that the price of labour has no necessary connexion with the price of food, since it depends entirely on the supply of labourers compared with the demand. ”

“ These statistics of increased production of wheat, hogs, vegetable oils and sugar show that the producers of the United States responded quite as effectively as did the consumers to the appeals of the Government for war service in the matter of food.
Price Stabilization.—Under the highly artificial and unusual conditions of world supply and of concentration of demand upon the U.S. markets there was constant danger of wide and rapid fluctuations in the prices of affected commodities. ”

“ As a result of the work of the Food Administration the skyward movement of prices has been checked, and for some of the most essential commodities such as wheat, the product of wheat flour, and bread, there have been actual reductions in price. Also prices have been stabilized. Dealing in futures for the most essential products has been prohibited and hoarding and speculation prevented. ”

“ There are many ways of saving in the purchase of food if you put your mind upon it. If you are buying prunes, you may pay as high as fifty cents or a dollar a pound for the big ones, and they are not a bit better than the tiny ones, which you can buy for as low as eight cents a pound in bulk. When bread is stale, the bakers sell it for half price, despite the fact that only then has it become fit to eat. ”

“ Grains an economical food.—While grains are pre-eminently among the most nutritious of foods, they are also among the most economical, the average price being from five to seven cents a pound, and even less when purchased in bulk. ”

“ Of concentrated foods used for fattening stock, none stands higher in the estimation of the farmer than linseed-cake, although it appears to me that the price of the article is somewhat too high in relation to its amount of nutriment, and that corn, if its price be moderate, is a more economical food. ”

“ It is, however, often the case that bullocks receive 100 lbs., or upwards, of roots per day, with a large quantity of cake or meal, often 10 or 12 lbs. per day; they will not then look at straw, and are obliged to be fed with hay. The cost price of these quantities and kinds of food stands so high that the animals do not yield a profit; for although they may make meat a little faster, yet the proportionate increase is nothing compared to the increased cost of the feeding materials used. ”

“ But it is complicated by the size of this country and by the variety of local food conditions which are bound to affect the price at which the retailer can buy and sell his foodstuffs. It would be utterly impossible to set forth one fair price list which would be fair for every spot in this country at any one time. ”

“ The price of food has almost continually risen, while the price of manufactured articles and luxuries has almost continually fallen. Take the agricultural industry itself: the most indispensable objects, such as wheat, meat, &c., increase in price while cotton, sugar, coffee, &c., fall continually in a surprising fashion. ”

“ The course of food prices in the United States during the last fifteen months is of interest. In general, for the first twelve months of the Food Administration the prices to the farmer increased, but decreased to the consumer by the elimination of profiteering and speculation. ”

“ They are of this kind, that, given the number of a population, the quantity of the staple food required is nearly a fixed quantity, and this almost irrespective of price. Except among the poorest, increased cheapness will not stimulate a larger consumption; while, on the other hand, all, at any cost within the range of their means, will obtain their usual supply. ”

“ The author, examining the phenomenon of the high food-prices at present ruling in all great civilized states, proves by statistics that these are caused by a relative decline in the production of food-stuffs as compared with the increase in general commerce and the production of manufactured-articles, and that consequently there has ensued a rise in the exchange-values of manufactured-articles, which with our system of society can have no other effect than of producing high food-prices and low wages. ”

“ When the price of cattle, for example, rises so high, that it is as profitable to cultivate land in order to raise food for them as in order to raise food for man, it cannot well go higher. If it did, more corn land would soon be turned into pasture. The extension of tillage, by diminishing the quantity of wild pasture, diminishes the quantity of butcher’s meat, which the country naturally produces without labour or cultivation; and, by increasing the number of those who have either corn, or, what comes to the same thing, the price of corn, to give in exchange for it, increases the demand. ”

“ Not only grain has become somewhat cheaper, but many other things, from which the industrious poor derive an agreeable and wholesome variety of food, have become a great deal cheaper. Potatoes, for example, do not at present, through the greater part of the kingdom, cost half the price which they used to do thirty or forty years ago. ”

“ The fact that food prices are relatively high and that the prices of chemicals, metals, lumber, etc., are relatively low, though their supply is relatively small, may be due to a concentration of purchasing power upon food, and the general direction of the flow of currency toward the purchase of immediate consumables. ”

“ There was a decrease of frozen fish of about 13 per cent. from last year. Taken in connection with the evidence of relatively abundant reserves of live animals and large crops for the current year, it would seem that some relief from high prices of food should be possible."
WHY FOOD PRICES WERE HIGH
The explanation of the post-war high prices of food is given as follows:
"It is true that food is, by comparison, plentiful. ”

“ Where the supply is permanently small and the demand widespread, the price of the particular food material will be high, and vice versa. Olive oil is a good example of the permanently280 high-priced food. ”

“ If the production of cereals and meat in that quarter of the world is sufficiently augmented, it will mean a substantial reduction in the price of these essential foodstuffs—it will mean cheaper bread and a lowering of the present almost prohibitive prices of meats. ”

“ I have calculated only the actual cost of the raw materials, but my figures are too high rather than too low, for corned beef and chuck steaks are often sold at retail as low as three or four [188] cents a pound, and neck pieces, heads, hearts, livers, and kidneys even lower, while I have allowed eight cents a pound as an average price for all the meat that the man eats. Now, allowing for the cost of cooking and for unavoidable waste, I reckon that a strong, healthy American citizen can feed himself abundantly on less than seventy-five dollars a year. ”

“ Flour is truly on the rampage, no concession from dealers’ prices on the part of the very few holders of considerable quantities, with a still further advance of five dollars per sack, which brings the price of an average lot of flour to the unprecedented figures, in this market, of one dollar per pound. ”

“ As it is in constant demand for luxuriously-served tables, and has hitherto, we believe, baffled all attempts to increase it by cultivation, it bears usually a high price in the English market, [110] and is seldom to be had cheap in any; but although too costly for common consumption, where the expenditure is regulated by rational economy, it may at times be made to supply, at a reasonable expense, some excellent store-preparations for the breakfast and luncheon-table; as a small portion will impart its peculiar flavour to them. ”

“ Many a dollar is foolishly spent for delicatessen foods. The retail cost of ready prepared foods includes a fraction of the salary of the cook and the fuel, as well as the regular percentage of profit. The food, also, is not so nourishing or flavorsome as if freshly cooked in the home kitchen.
Buying perishable foods in larger quantities than can be used immediately. Too frequently meats, fish, eggs, vegetables, milk and cream are purchased in quantities larger than needed for immediate consumption, and lack of knowledge of use of left-overs causes what is not eaten to be discarded. ”

“ Many commodities like bread and flour, or pig iron and iron products, move necessarily in sympathy with one another; but, even so, we may, I believe, safely put the chance of such an accidental rise simultaneously in 216 commodities out of 243 at less than one in a thousand.
This all corresponds with common sense. We seldom have world-feasts or world-famines. If the corn crop is short in some places, it is usually abundant in other places. If it is short in all places, the crop of wheat or barley or some other staple food is practically certain to be at least normal. ”