In the close of the month of Ramadan, the holy month for Muslims around the world, observed through fasting from dawn till dusk, food prices have risen exceptionally. It is relatively common for food prices to inflate at this time of the year as Muslims tend to gather more often for large family meals. However, the exception this year is that due to a shortage of meat, the cost of meat products such as beef and mutton have gone up almost a third. Meat prices have soared throughout the Middle East causing alarm for people throughout the region. Essentially, this article illustrates a very simple demand and supply problem where high demand and a shortage of resources has caused a tremendous price increase.
The reason why I chose this article was to illustrate that even though one can easily assume that the demand for food would mostly decrease in a month where fasting is observed for almost twelve hours (in some cases more), it is the opposite. Furthermore, in a region where the poverty and unemployment rate is pretty high, this is a very alarming situation.
2 comments:
I cannot see the article because I'm not registered with the site, but in regards to the problem of poverty in the Middle East, I would ask: Did other food prices rise as much as the price of meat? Perhaps those who cannot afford meat could afford alternatives. How necessary is beef and mutton to the Arabic diet? Does meat play a religious or traditional role in the celebration of Eid?
I agree that this is a very alarming situation, but I am also not surprised, as this is probably another unfortunate result of the intense population growth in the Middle East. This could be another illustration of how population growth changes economic systems, and I wonder if and what governments are doing to prevent further inflation and food shortages in the Middle East.
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