Cabbage in South Korea
To outsiders it is just another vegetable. To South Koreans, the long-leafed cabbage is part of the national identity as the most common staple ingredient of kimchi, the spicy pickled vegetable dish that accompanies every meal.
But a frosty spring and hot summer followed by autumn floods ruined this year's crop and caused prices to rise between three- and fivefold – though some whisper darkly that hoarders have contributed to the problem.
Chinese press reported that heads of cabbage were selling at a record high of 13,800 won (£7.75) in Seoul last month. Radishes, also used in kimchi, are two to three times more expensive than last year. Some restaurants have even started charging for kimchi – a development akin to McDonald's asking people to pay for ketchup.
Opposition politicians blame the government, saying a river project has reduced farmland. Though the government dismisses the claims, it knows how important the issue is to the public. The president has made a personal sacrifice – promising to eat only kimchi made from round cabbages – and has slashed tariffs on Chinese vegetables.
Already, exporters have shipped hundreds of tonnes of cabbages to South Korea, leading some Chinese media to warn of knock-on effects at home. But wholesalers in Beijing said prices were broadly stable. For now, it is only in Seoul that the cabbage crisis burns as hot as kimchi on the tongue.
Garlic in China
It is good news for vampires but bad news for gourmets. Garlic was last year's best-performing commodity in China, Morgan Stanley says, and it has continued to appreciate.
Until last spring, it cost as little as four jiao [4p] a kilo, prompting many farmers to turn to other crops. But by April last year, demand was far outstripping supply and the price began to rocket. A bad harvest this year sent it up again and caused speculators to pile in; some reportedly made hundreds of thousands of pounds trading warehousefuls. This July, the price hit a high of 13 yuan (£1.24) – where it remains.
For Chinese consumers, it is only the most painful example of rising food prices, in many cases caused by bad weather; last month saw a year-on-year increase of around 8%.
Wu Fei, a 30-year-old accountant, said her family's food costs had almost doubled over the past two years, particularly because they love eating meat.
"The price of ribs has never come down since it doubled a year ago. My favourite crispy dates were 6 yuan a pack, but now they are 11 and the contents are smaller. The cooking oil we use was about 60 yuan a bottle; now it's 100," she said.
Sadly, she added, "the increases in price are not matched by that of salaries in Beijing".
Research by Cui Zheng
Tomatoes in Israel
They are as much part of the Middle Eastern diet as hummus and olive oil, but the rocketing price of tomatoes has led many families to treat them as an expensive delicacy.
The cost of a kilogram of the usually ubiquitous red fruit has risen seven- or eightfold in Israel and Palestine in the past month as a result of the scorching summer, with some retailers charging up to 14 or 15 shekels (around £2.50).
"People are still buying tomatoes but they are buying fewer of them," said one Jerusalem retailer. "I am hoping the price will drop soon."
The Israeli government has waived taxes on imported tomatoes for the rest of the year to help counter shortages resulting from the unusual heat.
The exemption applies to 4,000 tonnes of the fruit, mainly from the Netherlands.
The crisis is easing as a new crop of tomatoes, grown after the intense heat of the summer, are coming on to the market, said an Israeli ministry of agriculture spokeswoman. "One of the problems has been that tomatoes don't last long once ripe," she said.
According to Gidon Bromberg of Friends of the Earth Middle East, "We're seeing the impact of global warming. We can see real changes having to take place on how we grow food for our basic dietary needs."
In Egypt, there have been reports of street protests over the cost of tomatoes.
In recent weeks, the price of tomatoes has tripled in Turkey – the third biggest tomato producer in the world after China and the US – prompting the government to look for European imports.
Corn in the United States
Corn prices in the US have soared this month amid fears of shortages, a rise that could lead to higher food costs.
The market has been volatile, with prices surging after a federal government report of reduced crops because of weather extremes in the corn belt, fluctuating between too much rain and too much heat.
Although prices have been dropping over the past few days, they are still way above average.
With the US slow to come out of recession and owing to high unemployment, food prices generally are competitive, and specialists do not predict an significant increase in the cost of bread, tortillas, cornflakes and other basics. Grain makes up only a small proportion of the costs of such items, much of which goes on transport and marketing.
But the increases could have other consequences. Corn is a prime source of feed for dairy cattle and the rising costs could force farmers to reduce their herds, leading in turn to reduced supplies and modest price increases. Poultry too is, to a large extent, dependent on cornfeed.
Corn prices would need to remain high for months on end before the impact would be felt in the shops.
Corn prices, which had risen after reports of poor crops elsewhere around the world, shot up further when a US agricultural report forecast that corn crops would be 3% down on last year.
The impact on farmers, struggling after years of recession, will be mixed, with those growing grain benefiting from higher prices and those with dairy farms suffering a fresh blow.
About a third of grain supplies in the US is used for the production of ethanol.
Bread in Russia
The price of bread has risen dramatically in Russia following the heatwave in August, which wiped out more than a fifth of the country's grain crop and caused devastating wildfires in the European part of the country.
Prices have risen by at least 20% over the past two months, with further rises likely. Before August's drought, a loaf of white bread cost around 16 roubles, or 33p. Now it is 20 roubles. A loaf of brown once cost 20 roubles (41p); now it costs 24 roubles. "The price of bread has definitely gone up. It's stayed the same for other things like biscuits," Olga, a bread-seller at a Moscow kiosk, said today.
Agricultural producers have also warned of sharp hikes next year on meat and milk products, following a doubling from 2009 of the price of animal feed. The Kremlin responded to the August drought by banning grain exports, a move that prompted accusations of protectionism and led to an increase in grain prices worldwide. Russia has also seen a shortage of its beloved grecheka, or buckwheat.
With the Russian economy still struggling to emerge from recession, president Dmitry Medvedev has criticised food price speculators who, he said, were taking advantage of the crisis. He has also popped into several supermarkets to check the prices for himself. (The opposition paper Novaya Gazeta reported that on one occasion shopkeepers lowered prices just before the president's visit and put them up again as soon as he walked out of the door.)
So far, however, there seems no solution to Russia's food inflation.
Sugar in Pakistan
Wheat may be Pakistan's staple food, but milky chai (tea) is the national drink. And as most Pakistanis will testify, such tea without a mound of sugar is barely worthy of the name. One recent survey found that Pakistanis considered a cup of sweet tea to be their second most important food source after bread; annual consumption of sugar is around 4m tonnes. It is also the country's second largest cash crop, after cotton. Consequently, the price of sugar is of great importance – and in recent years the news has been unremittingly bad.
In recent years, demand for sugarcane has dramatically outstripped supply, pushing prices up and leading to stiff political consequences. Since December 2008 sugar prices have more than doubled, to about $1 per kg, according to the Pakistan economic survey, heaping misery on a country already labouring under severe flooding, power shortages, unemployment and looming economic collapse.
There is a strong perception that politicians control prices, and there has certainly been evidence that some corrupt officials have made fortunes from sugar. But, according to economist Haris Gazdar, the sugar spike is mostly a product of soaring world prices. "In Pakistan, real prices move with world prices. It's impossible to get away from them," he said.
Sugar is also a source of crime and corruption: unscrupulous dealers smuggle it across the border into Afghanistan, where it fetches a higher price. And since the 1980s, some of the country's largest sugar mills have been in the hands of powerful politicians, who have earned a fortune.