Milk and palm oil
Chinese government with its “Half litre milk per child per day” program has cause the price of milk and milk products in Germany increased by 50%. In a country where dairy products are considered staple in daily diet, that must be a hard hit on consumer side. The dairy farms, however, are happy with the price increase after facing long years of stagnant price.
In Indonesia, the price of palm oil also increased significantly because of high international demand for biofuel, mostly from European countries. Palm estates are happy, but domestic consumers cry out because of sharp increase in cooking oil price. Households have to cut back cooking oil consumption, which is particularly hard when it is a necessity in alot of local dishes from the simplest to the most fancy ones.
I found these two stories particularly interesting. Germans are obviously richer than Indonesians… so increase in milk price probably doesn’t bother them as much as Indonesian consumers are bothered by the increase of cooking oil price. But for once, consumers in developed countries experience something that consumers in developing countries often bear.
