Pasta Strike

This week in Italy the people have posed a one day strike on purchasing pasta. The recent rise in the cost of the Italian staple has brought attention from public citizens who are complaining at the rising cost of pasta. Luckily the strike is on buying pasta, not eating it, as many families have a stocked supply of pasta, as to not run out, making the strike mostly symbolic. The price of pasta has increased by up to twenty percent, anywhere from 16-19 cents will be added to the $0.83-1.25 price tag of a 1-pound package of pasta.
The increase in the price pasta stems from the rising cost of wheat. Wheat prices have gone from $5 a bushel to nearly $9 a bushel in only four months.The prices of wheat have gone up worldwide, the demand for wheat in an array products from, increasing demands for bio-fuels, and improved diets of emerging countries where putting more meat on the table is causing a greater need for feed for livestocks. The result being a depleted wheat stocks of a magnitude unseen before. Toni De Amicus, leader of Italian farm lobby Coldretti, said during a protest in Rome "Prices increases by five times between production and consumption," he claims the way to reduce the prices would be to shorten the gap between production and consumption.
So the problem here is that more wheat is needed on a large scale and the supply is not being replaced as quickly as the demand depletes it. With all the subsidies and government programs the problem seems as though it should have been addressed before we got to this point. Personally I am convinced that someone in a position of power is intentionally pushing grain prices up for personal gain, all the wheat fields I have seen as a child seem to be ample enough, and has never been an issue. There has to be some external factor other than increased use of wheat by emerging countries and new technology like bio-fuels depleting the stocks.


source:
www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/09/13/italy.pasta.ap/index.html