Regulação da produção alimentar (EUA)

Um comentário menos pensado, menos informado, menos inteligente, feito a propósito da intervenção da ASAE, por alguns intelectuais do primeiro plano do panorama português, foi o de não necessitarem de intervenções paternalistas por parte do Estado no domínio da alimentação - um comentário ao disparate fica para outra altura, mas este artigo de Krugman pode ficar já como referência para isso e serve para ilustrar, mais um vez, um aspecto pouco conhecido da imbecilidade ideológica da direita norte-americana e da Administração Bush. Um excerto (para induzir a leitura):

• Op-Ed Columnist - Paul Krugman - Bad Cow Disease - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com

  Lately, however, there always seems to be at least one food-safety crisis in the headlines — tainted spinach, poisonous peanut butter and, currently, the attack of the killer tomatoes. .... How did America find itself back in The Jungle?

  
  It started with ideology. Hard-core American conservatives have long idealized the Gilded Age, regarding everything that followed — not just the New Deal, but even the Progressive Era — as a great diversion from the true path of capitalism.

  
  Thus, when Grover Norquist, the anti-tax advocate, was asked about his ultimate goal, he replied that he wanted a restoration of the way America was “up until Teddy Roosevelt, when the socialists took over. The income tax, the death tax, regulation, all that.”

Preços em Portugal e no resto do Mundo

Teodora Cardoso em Preços - DiarioEconomico.com fala da conjuntura dos preços e das lições que devem ser retiradas do que se passa - é do melhor do que tenho lido sobre o que se passa neste momento. O comportamento dos preços em Portugal é curioso. A transcrição do artigo:

• "Em Abril, Portugal detinha a mais baixa taxa de inflação da Zona do Euro a seguir à Holanda. Nos últimos doze meses os preços subiram 2,5% em Portugal. Na presente década, só em 2005 se registou uma inflação média inferior: 2,1%. Analisando a evolução por tipos de bens, verificamos que o preço dos produtos alimentares não transformados caiu 1% ao longo dos últimos 12 meses. Devido sobretudo à subida do custo da energia, o preço dos alimentos transformados cresceu 8,4%, levando a um acréscimo do preço da alimentação de 3,5%. Por seu lado, o preço dos produtos energéticos subiu 8,8% em Portugal, contra, por exemplo, 13,3% em Espanha. Quer em termos de comparações internacionais, quer por confronto com a história das subidas de preços – e das quedas de salários reais – em Portugal em tempo de crises anteriores à integração na moeda única, estes valores, embora preocupantes, estão longe de ser dramáticos.

  A subida dos preços internacionais nestas categorias de produtos é evidentemente uma questão muito séria, mas é sobretudo uma lição e uma oportunidade. A lição resulta da constatação de que, ao longo das últimas décadas, o mundo – e em especial os países desenvolvidos – ignoraram os problemas que se iam acumulando nesses dois sectores-chave. Por um lado, incentivou-se o desperdício, por outro abandonou-se o investimento.

  No contexto do sistema capitalista e da racionalidade que esperamos das decisões do mercado, é esta última omissão que é indesculpável. Não nos precipitemos, porém, a argumentar que a culpa foi principalmente do mercado. Na verdade, estamos, tanto no caso dos produtos agrícolas como do petróleo, perante mercados internacionais muito imperfeitos. As enormes flutuações de cotações, as intervenções destinadas a garantir preços baixos e “segurança da oferta” redundaram em prejuízo dos investimentos necessários. No sector da energia, estes exigiam enormes capitais, tecnologia, tempos de maturação e preços estáveis que os justificassem. Na agricultura supunham – por exemplo, na maior parte dos países africanos – contextos político-administrativos favoráveis à produção local, de preferência à importação proveniente dos países desenvolvidos, financiada por subsídios ou facilitada por taxas de câmbio sobreavaliadas. A inexistência destes pressupostos gerou uma situação em que a maior parte dos terrenos agrícolas africanos não são cultivados e em que o baixo custo do petróleo não permitiu, nem o desenvolvimento de energias alternativas, nem sequer o investimento necessário na própria exploração petrolífera, a ponto de esta se defrontar agora com a escassez de pessoal técnico – que não se formou ao longo dos últimos anos – e dos equipamentos complexos indispensáveis.

  Tudo isto em paralelo com o aumento da população mundial e com o crescimento das grandes economias asiáticas que iam inevitavelmente pressionando a procura desses produtos.

  Porém, a miopia instalada, tanto na política como nos mercados financeiros, fez com que o investimento se dirigisse para o consumo dos países ricos, financiado por dívida, em grande parte financiada pelos países emergentes, iludindo durante alguns anos os problemas ... até ao eclodir da crise.A saída inteligente para os erros cometidos consiste em compreendê-los e corrigi-los. Graças à crise, os mercados apontam as soluções: o investimento e os ganhos de eficiência na energia e na alimentação, a par com a correcção dos desperdícios e dos excessos de endividamento dos consumidores nos países desenvolvidos.

  A análise das políticas que estiveram na origem dos problemas mostra também o que não pode fazer-se. Conceder subsídios indiscriminados para abater os clamores, continuar a privilegiar o transporte individual relativamente ao colectivo e a abandonar as infraestruturas urbanas, ou intervir nos mercados agrícolas, partindo da ideia de que os consumidores dos países pobres são pouco mais que um escape (coberto pela boa consciência da “ajuda”) para os excessos de produção dos ricos, fazem parte dos principais erros a evitar.

  Estamos a viver uma conjuntura internacional em que finalmente começa a expandir-se uma classe média nos países emergentes. Esse é um benefício para todo o mundo, mas exige a reatribuição dos recursos do planeta e o desenvolvimento de tecnologias e de atitudes apropriadas. Não é, porém, compatível com a reivindicação de soluções de curto prazo que só agravariam os problemas. É a miopia anterior que estamos a pagar. Convém, por isso, ajustarmos as lentes com que olhamos para o mundo."

Não poderia estar mais de acordo!

Mais sobre a crise alimentar a nível mundial

Este artigo Harvests of hunger Comment is free não traz nada de novo àquilo que aqui já foi referenciado quanto à crise alimentar (e.g., ver esta nota). No entanto, é uma excelente síntese da informação e da discussão que o assunto tem merecido: daí a sua transcrição:

• A shortage of food is rarely the reason people go hungry. Even now, there is enough food in the world, with a bumper harvest this year, but more people cannot afford to buy the food they need. Addressing this growing crisis is the aim of the Global Conference on Food Security in Rome this week.
  

  Even before the recent food price spikes, an estimated billion people were suffering from chronic hunger, while another two billion were experiencing malnutrition, bringing the total number of food-insecure people to around three billion, or almost half the world's population. Roughly 18,000 children died daily as a direct or indirect consequence of malnutrition. Obviously, the recent increases in food prices are likely to drive the number of people vulnerable to food stress even higher.
  

  As we respond to the current humanitarian emergency due to higher food prices, we must not lose sight of the longer-term problems that have undermined food security in recent decades. The major increases in food production associated with the Green Revolution in the 1960s - with considerable government and international not-for-profit support - gave way to new policy priorities in the 1980s. As the growth in food supply slowed, demand continued to grow, and not only due to population increases. With higher incomes, rising meat consumption requires more grain for animal feed. Since the 1980s, governments have been pressed to promote exports to earn foreign exchange and import food. But food cannot be treated as just another commodity, and governments should develop appropriate policies, infrastructure, and institutions to ensure food security (not to be equated with total self-sufficiency) at the national or regional level.
  

  The problem is that governments in many developing countries, having neglected food security and the productive sectors of their economies for several decades, now lack the fiscal capacity to raise public spending in order to increase food production and agricultural productivity. Moreover, growing urbanisation and other non-agricultural uses of land have reduced acreage available for food production, while agricultural land is increasingly used to produce commodities other than food, such as bio-fuels.
  

  But we should not rush to abandon bio-fuels, despite some undoubtedly poor policies in recent years. Some bio-fuels are far more cost-effective and energy-efficient than others, and different bio-fuel stocks have very different opportunity costs for food agriculture (sugar has not experienced any significant price increase).
  

  Another problem is that fewer and fewer transnational agro-businesses now dominate marketing, production, and inputs. This comes largely at the expense of small farmers and consumers, particularly the poor. Moreover, with less government support, rural credit has often become prohibitively expensive.
  

  In addition, more securitisation, easier online trading, and other financial market developments in recent years have facilitated greater speculative investments, especially in commodity futures and options markets, including those affecting food. Falling asset prices in other financial market segments, following the sub-prime mortgage meltdown in the United States, may be more important for explaining the recent surge in food prices than supply constraints or other factors underlying longer-term gradual upward price trends.
  

  Meanwhile, rich countries' agricultural subsidies and tariffs have undoubtedly undermined food production in developing countries. However, cutting farm subsidies will increase food prices, at least initially, while reducing agricultural tariffs alone will not necessarily lead to an increase in food production in poor countries without complementary support. Instead, some food security advocates have called for rich countries to compensate for the adverse consequences of their own agricultural subsidies and protectionism by providing additional foreign aid to the developing world, targeting production efforts that enhance food security.
  

  To avoid catastrophe, the world community must also meet the urgent emergency food and planting requirements mentioned above, including more generous budget and balance-of-payments support for low-income food-importing countries. Finally, as world leaders gather in Rome, the international community must secure a meaningful global commitment to food security that will not be undermined by contradictory policies.

Alimentação e liberalização do comércio

Na actual crise alimentar uma das questões mais debatidas tem sido o do papel da liberalização do comércio mundial de alimentos quer na agudização quer na solução do problema do aumento dos preços da alimentação para os mais pobres (ver aqui, por exemplo - mais sob a etiqueta de primário).

O problema da liberalização não pode ser dissociado do problema da subsidiação - a subsidiação da produção agrícola nos países desenvolvidos articulada com a liberalização desse tipo de comércio leva a que a agricultura dos países em vias de desenvolvimento seja penalizada em termos concorrenciais, com todas as consequências negativas para o desenvolvimento esperadas (existem exemplos de casos onde soçobrou de todo - e.g., Haiti - ou, ainda, lhe foram retirados subsídios que o tempo veio a demonstrar serem absolutamente essenciais - Malawi). Por outro lado, a auto-suficiência alimentar não é uma solução realista e é mesmo perigosa.

As duas referências que se apresentam aqui abordam a questão de perspectivas diferentes. A segunda irá ser referida ainda noutra nota.

• Economics focus The Doha dilemma Economist.com. A conclusão do artigo:

  
  

  "First, the bank [Banco Mundial], and others, should beware sweeping generalisations about the impact of food prices on the poor. Second, the nature of trade reform matters. Removing rich-country subsidies on staple goods, the focus of much debate in the Doha round, may be less useful in the fight against poverty than cutting tariffs would be. The food-price crisis has not hurt the case for freer farm trade. But it has shown how important it is to get it right."

  
  


• The salvation of high prices Comment is free

  
  

  "The third headline that has not made an appearance in recent weeks is "High food prices help world's poorest farmers". High global food prices have been attacked as hurting the poor most, signalling a crisis in food supplies. Rising demand in China and India are mentioned as causes, but as many have pointed out, this is no recent, or sudden, phenomenon. Some bad harvests and the idiotic US subsidies for biofuels have played a part, but recent price hikes may have as much to do with speculators moving into commodities from property. As farmers bring in what looks almost certain to be the world's record largest wheat harvest this summer, the food commodity bubble may burst as spectacularly as the house price bubble already has.

  Sudden increases in price do hit the poorest most. However, in the medium term, we do need to pay more for food.

  Global food prices have been artificially depressed for decades, by staggeringly large taxpayers' subsidies paid to US and EU farmers. In the US, public subsidies to farmers have cost $1.7 trillion over the last 20 years, according to the OECD. The latest farm bill, just approved by Congress, will provide subsidies of nearly £30bn a year, adding an extra £2bn a year to existing subsidies. These figures only tell part of the story, as regular "disaster relief" for US farmers provides a further £10bn a year. In the EU, subsidies currently cost European taxpayers £43bn a year. A few other developed countries, Japan for example, also subsidise their farmers.

  Not all the £80bn a year plus payments in the US and EU affect food prices, but over decades their overall impact has been to depress global food prices, and to make it harder for farmers in countries with no subsidies, especially the poorest farmers in developing countries, to grow food. So farmers in developing countries are forced to grow commodity crops not readily available in the EU or US for export, or are forced to stop farming altogether.

  Reliance on cheap imports of food dumped by western countries, and on uncertain commodity export markets, crucially diminishes a country's self-sufficiency and resilience in the face of real or perceived global food shortages and global price rises. Yet this is the agricultural policy enthusiastically peddled by our own government for developing countries, and indeed for the UK itself.

  The UK government's current idea of self-sufficiency and food security is an ability to buy food as cheaply as possible on the world market. This Thatcherite vision of global free trade at any cost has remained undimmed by 10 years of New Labour. The Conservative's quality of life commission took a different view, and it seems that another positive consequence of the oil price rises may be, at last, a change in government thinking too. As the Guardian reported last week, the Cabinet Office Strategy Unit may be winning an internal battle within Whitehall to force a change in policy.

  The strategy unit have already noted, "That existing patterns of food production are not fit for a low-carbon, more resource-constrained future". We need more seasonal, local, low-carbon food production; with all countries growing what food they can for their own citizens, and only then turning to exports or imports.

  The speed with which environmental realities disappear from the political and media debate in response to rising oil prices displays a staggering lack of understanding of environmental science, or a degree of short-sightedness extraordinary even for politicians. But I think it also misreads the public mood - as the Cabinet Office report also noted "Supporting citizens' aspirations for better food could help deliver much-needed, long-term changes". What we need are politicians and commentators who have the courage to say what changes we need to make to live well in a "resource-constrained" and "low-carbon" future, and who have the courage to lead that process. The alternative is to leave us flailing around as the environmental realities deliver one blow after another, forcing change on us, and inevitably damaging the poor most in the process."

Crise alimentar: ainda mais ...

A discussão sobre tudo o que se está a passar continua: - sobre as causas; sobre as possibilidades dessa crise se repetir; sobre aquilo que se impõe fazer; sobre a futura escassez dos inputs da produção agrícola; sobre o impacto ambiental da utilização desses inputs. Os artigos estão arrumados dos mais recentes para os mais antigos.

Uma nota de caução: a escolha que faço das ligações não é só na base do que concordo ou não concordo, mas de outros factores: informação que careiam; originalidade do que dizem; capacidade de retratarem dadas posições; disponibilidade futura para comentário ou referência.

Isto vem a propósito, nomeadamente, da última nota aqui referenciada: a de Paul Collier - não tenho dúvidas de que o sistema de produção alimentar a nível mundial deve incorporar níveis elevados de produtividade, de inovação, de aplicação científica, no contexto de comércio internacional liberalizado (com salvaguardas), como forma de se poder alimentar uma população cada vez maior. Assim, deve continuar a incorporar traços importantes da agro-indústria mais "desenvolvida" - no entanto, não pode continuar a ser mais do mesmo: intensivo na utilização da energia fóssil; intensivo na utilização de adubos não renováveis (e com consequências ambientais preocupantes); extensivo na utilização da terra. Naturalmente, outras alterções têm de ocorrer na envolvente da produção alimentar: uma, muito importante: o paradigma alimentar tem de mudar.

O problema é saber como conciliar todas esses objectivos e restrições.

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  Economist's View: "The Rich Get Hungrier": artigo de Amartya Sen sobre a crise alimentar.

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  Flambée agricole : la faute à l’urbanisation Telos:
  
  

  
  

  
  
  "On lit partout que la hausse violente des prix agricoles tient à deux facteurs qui jouent sur la demande : une population mieux nourrie dans les pays émergents, et consommant davantage de viande, produit qui exige davantage de surface à nutrition identique ; et plus récemment la compétition des biocarburants pour occuper, à coup de subventions, leur lot de terres arables. On mentionne moins un troisième facteur, du côté de l’offre, qui joue de façon plus rampante et peut-être plus pernicieuse : l’urbanisation galopante, notamment dans les pays émergents, qui dévore inexorablement les terres arables."

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  New deal for poor farmers Comment is free Jeffrey Sachs
  
  

  
  

  
  
  "During the debt crisis of the 1980s and 1990s, the International Monetary Fund and World Bank forced dozens of poor food-importing countries to dismantle these state systems. Poor farmers were told to fend for themselves, to let "market forces" provide for inputs. This was a profound mistake: there were no such market forces. "


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  Waste not, want not Comment is free:
  
  

  
  

  
  
  "It's a big issue, not least because there is a major question mark about future reserves of phosphate. Concentrations of phosphorus that are rich enough to be worth mining are fairly rare and appear to be declining rapidly. It's impossible to make firm predictions, but bodies as diverse as the UN and the International Fertilizer Industry Association have warned that the world's reserves might not survive the century."


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  Dani Rodrik's weblog: Does the food price crisis enhance the case for self-sufficiency?
  
  

  
  

  
  
  "The rise in food prices and the costs it generates have been aggravated, some say, by policies of import liberalization and subsidy removal which the World Bank and economists advocated around the developing world in the 1980s and later. If developing country policies supporting food crops had not been dismantled, this argument goes, poor people in these countries would not have been left in the throes of volatile world market forces and they would not have suffered as much recently."
  
  

  
  

  
  
  Industrial agriculture currently stands as humanity's big plan for "feeding the world" as global population moves toward 10 billion and the earth warms. Increasingly, as oil supplies tighten and prices rise, we're looking to industrial ag to fill our gas tanks, too. Unhappily, this relatively new form of farming relies utterly on three elements, two mined (potassium and phosphorus) and one synthesized from natural gas (nitrogen). In other words, unless we quickly move toward other agriculture models, we're likely to see increased geopolitical competition for these resources, outsized power for the entities that control them -- and diminishing efforts to control the ecological effects of extracting them.

























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  'The Saudi Arabia of fertilizer' Gristmill: The environmental news blog Grist
  
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  "Several questions arise here. Is it really sustainable to "feed the world" -- much less move its cars -- using technologies that require ravenous doses of finite resources?"


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  Nitrogen bomb Gristmill: The environmental news blog Grist:
  

  "According to Galloway, 'We are accumulating reactive nitrogen in the environment at alarming rates, and this may prove to be as serious as putting carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.'"
  

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  Prix agricoles : qui perd, qui gagne? Telos
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  "La hausse des prix alimentaires pose des problèmes aux plus pauvres, mais elle peut bénéficier aux petits producteurs agricoles. En même temps, la volatilité des cours n’est bonne pour personne. Les plus pauvres ont besoin d’une assurance contre la variation des prix. "

























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  Grasping Reality with Both Hands: The Semi-Daily Journal Economist Brad DeLong
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  The cage match! In this corner, Megan McArdle and Parson Malthus:

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  Megan McArdle: Economics of Contempt: Call me crazy, but I think a permanent doubling of food and energy prices would slow our rate of economic growth pretty significantly. How long it would take incomes to recover "at current rates of economic growth" is irrelevant when the doubling of food and energy prices would lower the rate of economic growth. Given that we and all our machines run on either food or energy, it's a pretty safe bet to say that doubling their prices would have a sizeable impact on growth.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  In this corner, Greg Clark: China, India and Malthus - Los Angeles Times: Thomas Malthus warned in 1798 that population pressures would forever keep food and energy scarce and incomes low. In the 200 years since, world population has grown sevenfold, to 6.7 billion. Yet food and energy have become cheaper and more abundant. Malthus's dystopia, it seemed, belonged in history's junkyard. But, suddenly, rapid growth in China and India and the consequent scramble for increasingly scarce resources has revived the Malthusian specter.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  By 2050, 9 billion people in a world where all have U.S. consumption standards would need eight times as much oil and five times as much food than the planet current uses. Is the future a world of $10-a-gallon gas and $20 Big Macs? Two things allowed growth to occur from 1750 to 2000 with declining commodity prices. First, only a small fraction of the world grew rapidly.... The West was alone in its voracious appetite for raw materials and energy. Second, fossil fuels cheaply substituted for land in agriculture by increasing crop yields.... What will happen depends on the race between technological improvement and growing demand.... [N]o one can predict which force will win. A "full world"... may also be one of cheap and abundant commodities. But suppose the worse. Suppose [commodity] abundance is over. Must we fear that? The answer is no. First, the share of modern U.S. consumption devoted to raw food and energy purchases is small: 1.4% for food raw materials, 7% for energy. The U.S. economy can withstand enormous increases in food and energy costs with little damage because food and energy are even now so extravagantly cheap that most of both are squandered in uses of little value.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  In my town -- Davis, Calif. -- there is a traffic jam outside the main high school each morning as healthy teenagers are ferried by car or drive themselves a few miles to school. They are ferried from houses that are heated, air-conditioned and lighted, most of which rarely gets used by people. Currently in the U.S., we consume the energy equivalent of six gallons of gas per person per day.... Danes, for example -- whose public policy mandates expensive energy -- use the equivalent of only three gallons.... The Danes are not suffering.... Given that we can easily reduce consumption when costs go up, a permanent doubling of the prices of food and energy would reduce income by less than 6%. At current rates of economic growth, incomes would recover from such a shock in less than three years. After that, onward on our march to ever greater prosperity.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  I call this one for Greg Clark. I am a utopian neoliberal optimist.


























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  Common Wealth - Jeffrey D. Sachs - Book Review - New York Times

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  The timing for Jeffrey D. Sachs’s new book on how to avert global economic catastrophe couldn’t be better, with food riots in Haiti, oil topping $120 a barrel and a gnawing sense that there’s just less of everything — rice, fossil fuels, credit — to go around. Of course, we’ve been here before. In the 19th century, Thomas Malthus teased out the implications of humans reproducing more rapidly than the supply of food could grow. In 1972, the Club of Rome published, to much hoopla, a book entitled “Limits to Growth.” The thesis: There are too many people and too few natural resources to go around. In 1978, Mr. Smith, my sixth-grade science teacher, proclaimed that there was sufficient petroleum to last 25 to 30 years. Well, as Yogi Berra once may have said, “It’s hard to make predictions, especially about the future.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  And yet. Even congenital optimists have good reason to suspect that this time the prophets of economic doom may be on point, with the advent of seemingly unstoppable developments like climate change and the explosive growth of China and India. Which is why Sachs’s book — lucid, quietly urgent and relentlessly logical — resonates. Things are different today, he writes, because of four trends: human pressure on the earth, a dangerous rise in population, extreme poverty and a political climate characterized by “cynicism, defeatism and outdated institutions.” These pressures will increase as the developing world inexorably catches up to the developed world.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  By 2050, he writes, the world’s population may rise to 9.2 billion from 6.6 billion today — an increase of 2.6 billion people, which is “too many people to absorb safely.” The combination of climate change and a rapidly growing population clustering in coastal urban zones will set the stage for many Katrinas, not to mention “a global epidemic of obesity, cardiovascular disease and adult-onset diabetes.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  

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  Watch out, they spit Free exchange Economist.com:

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  "FREE EXCHANGE has been keeping an eye on the many unexpected consequences associated with rising food and energy prices. It is remarkable to see the interconnectedness of the economy in vivid relief. Today's story, from the Financial Times and courtesy of Greg Mankiw, involves the cross price elasticity of demand between oil and...well, just read for yourself [camelos]:..."


























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  FT.com The Economists’ Forum Food crisis is a chance to reform global agriculture#comment-11083 de Paul Collier (ver em May 2nd, 2008 at 10:03 am Report this comment How not to address the food crisis Free exchange Economist.com uma informação sobre esta nota).

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  "The sharp increase in the world price of staple foods is an inconvenience for consumers in the rich world, but for consumers in the poorest countries, especially in Africa, it is a catastrophe. Despite the predominance of peasant agriculture, most African countries are net food importers and food accounts for over half of the budget of low-income households. This is the result of decades of agricultural stagnation combined with growing populations. Although many of the net purchasers are rural, evidently the problem is at its most intense in the urban slums. These slums are political powder kegs and so rising food prices have already triggered riots. Indeed, they sow the seeds of an ugly and destructive populist politics. Why have food prices rocketed? Paradoxically, this squeeze on the poorest has come about as a result of the success of globalization in reducing world poverty.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  As China develops, helped by its massive exports to our markets, millions of Chinese households have started to eat better. Better means not just more food but more meat, the new luxury. But to produce a kilo of meat takes six kilos of grain. Livestock reared for meat to be consumed in Asia are now eating the grain that would previously have been eaten by the African poor. So what is the remedy? The best solution to a problem is often not closely related to its cause (a proposition that that might be recognized in the climate change debate).

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  China’s long march to prosperity is something to celebrate. The remedy to high food prices is to increase food supply, something that is entirely feasible. The most realistic way to raise global supply is to replicate the Brazilian model of large, technologically sophisticated agro-companies supplying for the world market. To give one remarkable example, the time between harvesting one crop and planting the next, in effect the downtime for land, has been reduced an astounding thirty minutes. There are still many areas of the world that have good land which could be used far more productively if it was properly managed by large companies. For example, almost 90% of Mozambique’s land, an enormous area, is idle.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  Unfortunately, large-scale commercial agriculture is unromantic. We laud the production style of the peasant: environmentally sustainable and human in scale. In respect of manufacturing and services we grew out of this fantasy years ago, but in agriculture it continues to contaminate our policies. In Europe and Japan huge public resources have been devoted to propping up small farms. The best that can be said for these policies is that we can afford them. In Africa, which cannot afford them, development agencies have oriented their entire efforts on agricultural development to peasant style production. As a result, Africa has less large-scale commercial agriculture than it had fifty years ago.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  Unfortunately, peasant farming is generally not well-suited to innovation and investment: the result has been that African agriculture has fallen further and further behind the advancing productivity frontier of the globalized commercial model. Indeed, during the present phase of high prices the FAO is worried that African peasants are likely to reduce their production because they cannot finance the increased cost of fertilizer inputs. While there are partial solutions to this problem through subsidies and credit schemes, large scale commercial agriculture simply does not face this problem: if output prices rise by more than input prices, production will be expanded because credit lines are well-established.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  Our longstanding agricultural romanticism has been compounded by our new-found environmental romanticism. In the United States fears of climate change have been manipulated by shrewd interests to produce grotesquely inefficient subsidies for bio-fuel. Around a third of American grain production has rapidly been diverted into energy production. This switch demonstrates both the superb responsiveness of the market to price signals, and the shameful power of subsidy-hunting lobby groups. Given the depth of anti-Americanism in Europe it is, of course, fashionable to criticize the American folly with bio-fuels. But Europe has its equivalent follies.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  First, the European Commission is now imitating the American bio-fuels policy. At present the programme is small enough to be unimportant, but we need to pull it back before it does real damage. We have surely learnt enough about European agriculture to realize how important it is to kill this incipient scam before we are engulfed by it. But the true European equivalent of America’s folly with bio-fuels is the ban on GM. Europe’s distinctive and deep-seated fears of science have been manipulated by the agricultural lobby into yet another form of protectionism. The ban on both the production and import of genetically modified crops has obviously retarded productivity growth in European agriculture: again, the best that can be said of it is that we are rich enough to afford such folly. But Europe is a major agricultural producer, so the cumulative consequence of this reduction in the growth of productivity has most surely rebounded onto world food markets.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  Further, and most cruelly, as an unintended side-effect the ban has terrified African governments into themselves banning genetic modification in case by growing modified crops they would permanently be shut out of selling to European markets. Africa definitely cannot afford this self-denial. It needs all the help it can possibly get from genetic modification. Not only is Africa currently being hit by rising food prices, over the longer term it will face climatic deterioration in the context of a rapidly growing population. While the policies needed for the long term have been befuddled by romanticism, the short term global response has been pure beggar-thy-neighbour. It is easier for urban slum dwellers to riot than for farmers: riots need streets, not fields. And so, in the internal tussles between the interests of poor consumers and poor producers, the interests of consumers have prevailed.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  Governments in grain-exporting countries have swung price favour of their consumers and against their farmers by banning exports. These responses further politicize and fragment an already confused global food market. They increase the risks of investing in commercial-scale food production and drive up prices further in the food-importing countries. Unfortunately, trade in agriculture has been the main economic activity to have resisted being subject to global rules. We need stronger and fairer globalization, not less of it."

Produção local da comida versus sua importação

- ver em The World's Fair : Your Foodometer: Eat Less Oil.

O vídeo apresenta a quantificação de aspectos básicos do consumo alimentar dos EUA: mas fornece (deveria fornecer) elementos de reflexão a todos nós - contudo, não sejam apressados a tirar conclusões, considerando que a complexidade do problema é de tal ordem que elas seriam, muito possivelmente, erradas.

Aquecimento global e o gado

A este propósito ver também a conferência TED reproduzida aqui (há mais referências sob as etiquetas desta nota).

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  "Livestock are responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse-gas emissions as measured in carbon dioxide equivalent, reports the FAO. This includes 9 percent of all CO2 emissions, 37 percent of methane, and 65 percent of nitrous oxide. Altogether, that's more than the emissions caused by transportation. The latter two gases are particularly troubling – even though they represent far smaller concentrations in atmosphere than CO2, which remains the main global warming culprit. But methane has 23 times the global warming potential (GWP) of CO2 and nitrous oxide has 296 times the warming potential of carbon dioxide."

- ver em Humans' beef with livestock: a warmer planet csmonitor.com.

Mark Bittman: o que está mal com aquilo que comemos? - TED

About this talk:

In this fiery and funny talk, New York Times food writer Mark Bittman weighs in on what's wrong with the way we eat now (too much meat, too few plants; too much fast food, too little home cooking), and why it's putting the entire planet at risk.

Why you should listen to him:

Although Mark Bittman never formally trained as a chef, his pursuits as a curious and tenacious foodie have made him a casual culinary master. His weekly New York Times food column, The Minimalist, meshes accessible and inexpensive ingredients with "anyone-can" cooking techniques to produce exceedingly delicious dishes. Bittman's funny, friendly attitude and trademark informal approach to food-craft extend to his blockbuster TV programs (which retain delays and mishaps that other producers would edit out) and ambitious cookbooks, like How to Cook Everything and The Best Recipes in the World.

After a decade as the "Minimalist," Bittman has emerged a respected spokesperson on all things edible: He's concerned about the ecological and health impacts of our modern diet, which he characterizes as overwhelmingly meat-centered and hooked on fast food. His criticism has the world listening: His revolutionary How to Cook Everything Vegetarian (sequel to How to Cook Everything), is a bestseller, and his memorable talk at the 2007 EG Conference (available now on TED.com) delivered a stinging condemnation of the way we eat now. A subsequent New York Times article pursued the same argument.

- ver em TED Talks Mark Bittman: What's wrong with what we eat (video).

China: segurança alimentar e globalização

Curioso: é mais um sinal dos tempos que correm - a notícia originária saiu no Financial Times e diz respeito ao passos que a China está a dar para assegurar o abastecimento alimentar do seu país no futuro: ver em China's coming land grab Gristmill: The environmental news blog Grist. Um excerto:

"In a global economic system built to maximize transnational trade, nations maximize their "comparative advantage," and look abroad for goods they don't produce "efficiently." For China, that means tapping its massive pools of cheap labor and cheap coal to become a manufacturing powerhouse -- and looking to places like Brazil to grow food."

Crise alimentar a nível mundial (II)

E continua.

Esta crise é um bom exemplo do perigo da complacência nos tempos de agora e, principalmente, do futuro, nesta (e noutras) matérias. Esta crise alimentar não resulta da falta (física - escassez absoluta) de alimentos - existem cereais em quantidade suficiente para alimentar todos no mundo: o que acontece é que a alimentação é só uma das suas utilizações possíveis (biocombustíveis, produção de carne, ...) e é a concorrência entre essas utilizações diferentes (mas não só - e.g., seca em regiões agrícolas estratégicas...) que alimenta a subida dos preços, a escassez relativa, a especulação (os cereais como um qualquer activo que se valoriza, num momento em que o dólar desvaloriza). Temos a procura solvível dos ricos (biocombustíveis, produção de carne, alimentação...) face a falta de solvibilidade da procura dos mais pobres (alimentação).

A história é mais complexa do que digo acima - os artigos que referencio são úteis por isso mesmo - e tem lições para o futuro. Nós caminhamos para uma situação onde a população do mundo se aproximará dos 9 mil milhões de pessoas (ver aqui), e com essa aproximação a ocorrer no momento em que as consequências do aquecimento global se estiverem a efectivar de modo inequívoco - (mesmo agora muitos se questionaram se as secas já não eram prenúncio desse estado de coisas). O sistema de produção alimentar mundial é vulnerável - esta crise prova-o. Esta crise irá passar, mas outras crises se perfilarão no horizonte porque essa vulnerabilidade irá aumentar.

Ligações (das mais recentes para as mais antigas):

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  The mirror, not Malthus Gristmill: The environmental news blog Grist: "Perhaps you saw the recent UNESCO report on the future of agriculture. It calls for a major paradigm shift in agriculture away from fossil fuels toward organic agriculture and greater equity of distribution. Wow, I wonder why no one ever thought of that before?
  
  
  
  
  
  








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  "There is no food shortage Gristmill: The environmental news blog Grist:...There isn't a food shortage, at least not yet. There is a food price crisis, which is a very different beast."
  
  
  





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  Food prices: The need for insurance vox - Research-based policy analysis and commentary from leading economists: "After being stable for several decades, foodstuff prices began to rise again in 2005, and in 2007, their increase was phenomenal. From March 2007 to March 2008, the average world price for corn increased 30%; for rice, it increased 74%; for soybeans, 87%; and for wheat, 130% (the BBC has a nice summary of what is happening to food prices)."
  
  
  
  






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  Economist's View: "Freer Trade Could Fill the World’s Rice Bowl".
  
  




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  Food Crisis Is Depicted As 'Silent Tsunami' - washingtonpost.com
  

Razões para o aumento do preço da alimentação

É mais informação sobre a situação actual nos mercados dos bens alimentares (ver aqui e também sob a etiqueta primário). Tem o interesse de tentar apresentar de modo exaustivo o conjunto de factores que estão a determinar o aumento dos preços da comida a nível mundial - ver em Sticker shock! Gristmill: The environmental news blog Grist. Ter em atenção, igualmente, os comentários à nota (apontam outras causas).

Quem beneficia com o aumento do preço da alimentação?

Boa pergunta. Ver em Who's cashing in on the high price of food? Gristmill: The environmental news blog Grist (e aqui). Transcrição da nota:

"A recent Financial Times displayed this staggering map of the globe: Black dots marked each of the countries were food riots have been sparked in outrage against the rising prices of food. Thirty dots in all. A recent CNN report noted that "Riots, instability spread as food prices skyrocket." These surging costs, warns World Bank President Robert Zoellick, "could mean 'seven lost years' in the fight against worldwide poverty."

"With the food crisis as front page news, I couldn't help but notice which agribusiness company has just reported an 86 percent jump in its quarterly earnings. Cargill, one of the world's largest private companies, noted that these strong earnings are being driven mainly by its commodities division, the booming demand for biofuels, as well as increasing demand in new markets, especially Asia. Last year, Cargill posted total sales topping $88 billion, and a net profit of $2.34 billion. To put that in context: $2.3 billion is the GDP of Belize."

Carne

"Meat production, particularly beef, is responsible for a large proportion of the world's greenhouse gas emissions due to the energy required to grow animal feed, the clearing of land for feed crops, N2O emissions from fertilizer application and both N2O and CH4 emissions from the animals themselves.

The graph at right shows the consistent rise in per capita consumption in the Americas and Asia over the past 45 years. Meat production and consumption is expected to continue to rise due to rising demand in China and other parts of Asia.The demand for animal feed, coupled the demand for biofuels, is being felt most of all in the Amazon, the one large area of "unused" and potentially productive farmland left on the planet.

The rate of Amazonian deforestation increased in the last few months, and may increase further in the rainy months to come, when most illegal cutting usually occurs."

- ver maribo: Greenhouse gases, meat consumption and the Amazon; ver também aqui.

Crise alimentar a nível mundial

Tenho aqui um conjunto de artigos sobre a crise alimentar a nível mundial. O problema tem causas próximas (uma é retratada no gráfico acima - ver em Econbrowser: Food prices ) e outras, que o não são tanto, já que se prendem com o enquadramento político, e a evolução económica tecnológica, do sector agrícola nos últimos 15 a 20 anos. Uma questão que se coloca é a rapidez com que esta crise será resolvida e o que terá de ser tido em linha de conta na transformação da actividade nos próximos anos - e.g., subsidiação da agricultura, comércio internacional de produtos alimentares, produtos agrícolas geneticamente modificados... Isto tudo servindo de alerta à necessidade de se estar atento às consequências das alterações climáticas na actividade agrícola - por exemplo, uma das modificações previstas como decorrendo daquelas será o aumento, em quantidade e em intensidade, dos surtos de seca...

• Econbrowser: Food prices: Comentário à política de subsidiação da produção de etanol a partir do milho:

  "As a result of ethanol subsidies and mandates, the dollar value of what we ourselves throw away in order to produce fuel in this fashion could be 50% greater than the value of the fuel itself. In other words, we could have more food for the Haitians, more fuel for us, and still have something left over for your other favorite cause, if we were simply to use our existing resources more wisely. We have adopted this policy not because we want to drive our cars, but because our elected officials perceive a greater reward from generating a windfall for American farmers. But the food price increases are now biting ordinary Americans as well."

• Geoorge Monbiot: Credit crunch? The real crisis is global hunger. And if you care, eat less meat Comment is free The Guardian:

  "Never mind the economic crisis. Focus for a moment on a more urgent threat: the great food recession that is sweeping the world faster than the credit crunch. You have probably seen the figures by now: the price of rice has risen by three-quarters over the past year, that of wheat by 130%. There are food crises in 37 countries. One hundred million people, according to the World Bank, could be pushed into deeper poverty by the high prices. But I bet that you have missed the most telling statistic. At 2.1bn tonnes, the global grain harvest broke all records last year - it beat the previous year's by almost 5%. The crisis, in other words, has begun before world food supplies are hit by climate change. If hunger can strike now, what will happen if harvests decline? There is plenty of food. It is just not reaching human stomachs. Of the 2.13bn tonnes likely to be consumed this year, only 1.01bn, according to the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organisation, will feed people."

• FT.com / Comment & analysis / FT Columnists - A modest proposal for preventing world famine:

  "...Manila has not been able to buy enough rice abroad to secure food for its people, because no one has wanted to sell. ...The price of rice has more than doubled in a year. ... Riots over food prices have erupted across Africa .... It is tempting to assume that the problem is purely one of supply and can be fixed by genetically modified plants or investment in a new “green revolution” to boost crop yields.

  The three most productive solutions, however, are all matters of policy.

  First, there is an urgent need for a sustained liberalisation of agricultural trade. The immediate cause of this crisis is not – perhaps surprisingly – a shortage of food. The problem is the sudden reluctance of traditional exporters to sell their surpluses. ... Trust in the efficiency and liquidity of the market has collapsed. Farm protectionism is not new and international markets are grotesquely distorted by tariffs and subsidies. The main producers – particularly the European Union and the US – have jealously protected their farm sectors from foreign competition, partly on food security grounds. International farm trade has nevertheless managed satisfactorily for decades to redistribute surpluses of staple foods. The current seizures in the markets are therefore a cause for general alarm. ...

  The second level at which policies need to change is national. Like international trade, domestic trade in farm produce is often highly distorted. While developed nations tend to support their farmers at the expense of consumers, developing countries typically subsidise city-dwellers at the expense of rural smallholders, who receive low prices and have no incentive to increase their output.

  Third and last, governments need to examine their population policies and limit population growth. Although there is enough grain to go round at the moment, you do not need to be a neo-Malthusian to worry about the demand implications of a global population rising by about 80m people a year or to notice that countries with fast-growing populations... are especially vulnerable to disruptions in the world’s food trade. Perhaps we should not worry too much that global rice stocks are expected to fall this year to the lowest level in 25 years. Some of the changes recommended above for international and domestic food trade regimes could reverse the decline, probably within a few years.

  A more disturbing thought is that we may in the longer term be approaching the limits of our ability to exploit the natural resources required for food production – crude oil, cultivable land, soil fertility and available fresh water, to name a few. Strains on one resource, furthermore, quickly lead to additional strains on another. To make fresh water, more cities are burning fuel to desalinate seawater, but that helps push up the price of oil. To make substitutes for crude oil, farmers are being encouraged to switch to biofuel production, but that uses almost as much fuel as it produces and contributes in its turn to shortages of food."

• Crop Prospects and Food Situation, No.2,April 2008 Across Globe, Empty Bellies Bring Rising Anger - New York Times.

• A Drought in Australia, a Global Shortage of Rice - New York Times:
  "The collapse of Australia’s rice production is one of several factors contributing to a doubling of rice prices in the last three months — increases that have led the world’s largest exporters to restrict exports severely, spurred panicked hoarding in Hong Kong and the Philippines, and set off violent protests in countries including Cameroon, Egypt, Ethiopia, Haiti, Indonesia, Italy, Ivory Coast, Mauritania, the Philippines, Thailand, Uzbekistan and Yemen."

• Food The silent tsunami Economist.com:

  "Agriculture is now in limbo. The world of cheap food has gone. With luck and good policy, there will be a new equilibrium. The transition from one to the other is proving more costly and painful than anyone had expected. But the change is desirable, and governments should be seeking to ease the pain of transition, not to stop the process itself."

• Food and the poor The new face of hunger Economist.com:

  "But the food scare of 2008, severe as it is, is only a symptom of a broader problem. The surge in food prices has ended 30 years in which food was cheap, farming was subsidised in rich countries and international food markets were wildly distorted. Eventually, no doubt, farmers will respond to higher prices by growing more and a new equilibrium will be established. If all goes well, food will be affordable again without the subsidies, dumping and distortions of the earlier period. But at the moment, agriculture has been caught in limbo. The era of cheap food is over. The transition to a new equilibrium is proving costlier, more prolonged and much more painful than anyone had expected."

Aditamento (08.04.21)

A-propósito ver também Les biocarburants sont-ils coupables ? Telos.

Produção de proteínas animais: factos

Números sobre a produção de proteínas animais:

1. Produção de carne (frango, porco, vaca e outra) em 2006, 276 milhões de toneladas - 4 vezes mais do que em 1961; o dobro nos últimos 45 anos.

2. Captura de peixe em 2005, 140 milhões de toneladas - 8 vezes mais do que em 1950; o quádruplo nos últimos 55 anos.

Conclusão:

• "Industrial meat production and fish harvests have dropped the economic cost of animal proteins in recent decades. But much of that fiscal savings has come at the expense of the environment. Wastes are not captured and destroyed or recycled. They're allowed to run into the ground or waterways, degrading ecosystems all along the way. These are costs that are not captured in traditional accounting."

- Ver em Food for Thought: The Costs of Meat and Fish, Science News Online.

Frases

"To call a practice or system unsustainable is not just to lodge an objection based on aesthetics, say, or fairness or some ideal of environmental rectitude. What it means is that the practice or process can’t go on indefinitely because it is destroying the very conditions on which it depends. It means that, as the Marxists used to say, there are internal contradictions that sooner or later will lead to a breakdown."

- ver em Michael Pollan - Agriculture - Disease Resistant Staph - Concentrated animal Feed Operations - Sustainability - New York Times

"It would take more than five Earths to be able to sustain the world population if everyone consumed resources at the same rate as the United States, according to the New Economics Foundation (NEF)."

- ver em Natural News

PS: as frases são demasiado boas para não serem destacadas assim, mas o que os artigos nos dizem é mesmo relevante - o primeiro, o abuso dos adubos, dos antibióticos, etc. na produção agro-pecuária; o segundo, relata as conclusões de um estudo da News Economics Foundation sobre o nível de sustentabilidade da Terra face a diferentes cenários de evolução dos padrões de consumo.

Casas de banho e desenvolvimento

Ver em 2.6 Billion With No Place to Go (to the Toilet) - Dot Earth - Climate Change and Sustainability - New York Times Blog o impacto da falta de casa de banho no desenvolvimento dos países, na pobreza e saúde das populações (700 000 crianças mortas por ano devido a doenças ligadas à contaminação fecal).

O vídeo fala-nos de uma solução que não só resolve este problema como ajuda a resolver outros.

Factos...

Os produtos alimentares viram subir o seu preço em 41% desde Outubro passado, passando a haver 36 países em que esse aumento os impurrou para uma situação de crise (21 em África) de acordo com a FAO - Food Crisis - washingtonpost.com.

Ver mais sobre este tópico, neste blogue, sob a etiqueta agricultura.

Agricultura e aquecimento global

A Science Daily referencia investigação sobre diversos cenários, decorrentes do aquecimento global, com que a agricultura, à escala global, poderá ter de se defrontar, ao longo de século XXI, em Toll Of Climate Change On World Food Supply Could Be Worse Than Thought quando: "In order to keep pace with population growth, current production of grain--from which humans derive two-thirds of their protein--will probably have to double, to 4 billion tons a years before 2100."

"Bread-line time?"

Nota do Gristmill sobre a situação no mercado mudial dos cereais: Bread-line time? Gristmill: The environmental news blog Grist. Neste blogue já houve referências ao problema (ver sob a etiqueta agricultura). Sem mais comentários - a nota merece ser lida pela informação e pela discussão das alternativas - alguns excertos da nota:

"Since the rise of industrial agriculture after World War II, no industrialized nation has experienced a proper famine. That's why it was so jarring when William Doyle (CEO of the Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan, the world's largest fertilizer company) raised the possibility in an interview with Bloomberg published yesterday. Reacting to global grain stocks at their lowest levels since the USDA began keeping score in 1960, Doyle declared: "If you had any major upset where you didn't have a crop in a major growing agricultural region this year, I believe you'd see famine."

"This, even as industrial ag worldwide hits on all cylinders, cranking out more food than ever: "We keep going to the cupboard without replacing and so there is enormous pressure on agriculture to have a record crop every year. We need to have a record crop in 2008 just to stay even with this very low inventory situation."

PS(08.02.22): Neste artigo do The Economist sobre o comportamento recente dos mercados de matérias primas (procura forte apesar da situação económica), poderão ver um gráfico que associa a evolução descendente dos stocks de trigo, ao longo destes últimos anos, e o preço deste.