El pan de cada día: La guerra y el precio de comer

I spent time in Buenos Aires in the nineties, during the economic crisis there, and what I remember is how quickly food anxiety changes the mood of a city.

People stop going out.

They stop buying.

The market stalls get quieter.

It's a very particular kind of dread.

Es que la comida es muy personal.

The thing is, food is very personal.

No es solo dinero.

It's not just money.

Es familia, es casa.

It's family, it's home.

No, you're absolutely right about that.

And I think that's why these protests happen.

It's not just that something costs more.

It's that something that felt secure, something that felt like a baseline certainty, suddenly feels fragile.

Food is supposed to be there.

When it isn't, or when you can't afford it, that's a different kind of fear than, say, a stock market drop.

Bueno, en España muchas familias no tienen mucho dinero.

Well, in Spain many families don't have a lot of money.

El supermercado es muy importante.

The supermarket is very important.

So let's talk about the politics here.

Because food prices have a history of toppling governments.

That's not an exaggeration.

The Arab Spring in 2011, one of the triggers was bread prices in Tunisia and Egypt.

When people can't eat, they go into the street.

A ver, en España hay protestas también.

Well, in Spain there are also protests.

Los agricultores están muy enfadados.

The farmers are very angry.

The farmers.

Right.

And European farmers have been protesting for a couple of years now, predating this war.

There's the issue of cheap grain imports, there's the climate regulations, there's fuel costs.

The war just turned up the pressure on a system that was already under strain.

La verdad es que el agricultor trabaja mucho.

The truth is that the farmer works a lot.

Y gana poco dinero.

And earns little money.

Esto no es justo.

This isn't fair.

And yet the food system kind of depends on that injustice.

We've built an entire global supply chain around cheap food.

Cheap because someone somewhere is absorbing the real cost.

The farmer, the migrant worker picking the fruit, the truck driver on a twelve-hour shift.

The price tag in the supermarket doesn't reflect any of that.

Mira, yo compro en el mercado, no en el supermercado grande.

Look, I shop at the market, not the big supermarket.

El mercado es mejor.

The market is better.

I know.

You've told me this.

Several times.

You are very committed to your market.

But is that a solution, or is that something only certain people can afford to do?

Because the local market, fresh produce, small vendors, that's often more expensive, not less.

Es que...

The thing is...

sí, tienes razón.

yes, you're right.

El mercado no es para todo el mundo.

The market isn't for everyone.

Es caro.

It's expensive.

That's a genuine concession and I appreciate it.

So here's the bigger picture question.

South Korea just approved an emergency budget, partly to give cash directly to thirty-five million people to help them cope with the economic effects of this war.

That's a government saying: we know this hurts and here's money.

Is that the answer?

Or is it just a patch?

Bueno, el dinero ayuda.

Well, money helps.

Pero el problema no desaparece.

But the problem doesn't disappear.

La guerra continúa.

The war continues.

The war continues.

And here's the brutal arithmetic of it.

Even if there's a ceasefire tomorrow, supply chains don't snap back instantly.

Shipping companies rerouting around the Strait of Hormuz, those new routes stay expensive for months.

The price of bread doesn't fall the day the guns go quiet.

La verdad es que los precios suben rápido.

The truth is that prices go up fast.

Pero bajan muy despacio.

But they come down very slowly.

Siempre.

Always.

Always.

That asymmetry is maddening.

I've watched it in every country I've ever covered.

Prices spike in a crisis, and then when the crisis eases, somehow the prices don't ease the same way.

The supermarkets and the distributors, they find reasons to keep the margin.

Mira, el supermercado grande gana mucho dinero.

Look, the big supermarket earns a lot of money.

Esto no es un secreto.

This is not a secret.

Right.

And there's actually been a whole political fight in Europe about this.

In Spain, in France, there were investigations into supermarket profits during the inflation period a couple of years ago.

Because when everything gets more expensive, some companies absorb the pain and some companies pass it to the customer and quietly improve their margin at the same time.

Es que esto pasa en España también.

This happens in Spain too.

El gobierno habla de los precios.

The government talks about prices.

Pero el problema continúa.

But the problem continues.

The government talks.

A lot.

And I'm not being cynical, actually, because governments are in a genuinely difficult position here.

You can't control a global oil market by passing a law.

You can subsidize, you can give cash, you can cap certain prices.

But you're fighting against forces that are much larger than any single country's policy toolkit.

Bueno, la Unión Europea puede hacer más.

Well, the European Union can do more.

Es grande, es poderosa.

It's big, it's powerful.

The EU.

This is interesting.

Because one of the lessons from the Ukraine war, a couple of years back, was that Europe was dangerously dependent on Russian gas.

And there was this whole scramble to diversify.

The question now is whether there's an equivalent reckoning about food.

Where does Europe's food actually come from?

How secure is it?

A ver, España produce mucho.

Well, Spain produces a lot.

Fruta, verdura, aceite.

Fruit, vegetables, oil.

Pero necesitamos también importar.

But we also need to import.

Every country does.

And that's the thing about food security in the modern world.

Total self-sufficiency is almost impossible for any large economy.

You're always dependent on something from somewhere.

The question is how diversified your dependencies are, and whether you have reserves and systems in place for when the supply chain breaks.

Mira, en España la gente come bien.

Look, in Spain people eat well.

Pero ahora come con más preocupación.

But now they eat with more worry.

Esto es diferente.

This is different.

Eating with more worry.

I love that phrase.

Because it captures something real.

Food, at its best, is pleasure, it's culture, it's the thing you gather around.

And when it becomes a source of anxiety, when you're calculating at the checkout, you lose something beyond the money.

You lose the ease of it.

And I think that's what the protests in Ireland and Norway, and the anger in Spain, are really about.

La verdad es que la comida es amor.

The truth is that food is love.

En España, en toda Europa.

In Spain, across Europe.

Y el amor no debe tener un precio muy alto.

And love shouldn't have too high a price.

And on that note, which is genuinely one of the nicest things you've ever said on this show, I think we should leave it there.

The connection today: a war in the Gulf, fuel protests in Dublin and Oslo, and a tortilla de patatas that costs more than it used to.

It's all one story.

Gracias, Octavio.

Bueno, de nada, Fletcher.

Well, you're welcome, Fletcher.

Y por favor, no pongas hielo en el aceite de oliva.

And please, don't put ice in the olive oil.