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From 2013.igem.org

Food Economics

Relationship of our Project to the Price of Meat

Wholesale price of meat in U.S. dollars. The data is from 2013. The prices for pork, beef, poultry, and salmon came from index Mundi, tuna prices came from the Seafood Connection, swordfish prices came from The Seafood Source, and the price of cod came from Alaska Fisheries Science Center.

With the exception of fish, punitive data shows that an increase in the efficiency in the stomach of an organism will increase the overall size of the organism. This essentially would cause a higher quantity yield of usable meat. Our project, if applied to poultry, cattle, and the like, would do just this, thus causing the wholesale price of meat to be lowered significantly.

Relationship of our Project to the Price of Grains

Figure 3: The price per metric ton of the three top most traded grains (corn, wheat, and rice). This information was acquired at http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities, and http://www.reuters.com/article.Figure 3: The price per metric ton of the three top most traded grains (corn, wheat, and rice). This information was acquired at http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities, and http://www.reuters.com/article.

Due to the increased efficiency of nutritional absorption in cattle, and other livestock, agricultural worker’s demand for these grains, particularly corn, will decrease significantly. This will cause a lower overhead for farmers and other agricultural workers. A lower overhead would directly result in a lower sale price for beef, chicken, and other domesticated meats.

Stunting

Stunting is a direct and crippling effect of malnutrition that specifically effects child development. As an effect of our project, the individual’s stomach would absorb nutrients more efficiently. By increasing the stomach’s efficiency, individuals could continue consuming the same amount of food they currently surviving on with greatly increased nutritional benefit from said food. This would cause the levels of malnutrition to decrease substantially in all affected income brackets, therefore, causing the prevalence levels in the graph to decrease.

Our Project and Food Prices

: A breakdown of the current overall cost of food. This information can be accredited to http://www.unric.org.

The decrease in the cost of meat and shipping will significantly decrease the amount of overhead for companies involved in food services and retail trade. As a result of a lower overhead margin the prices of food services and retail trade will decrease significantly thus decreasing the total amount of money spent in that faction.

Potential effects on GDPs

GDP's (Gross Domestic Product) per capita of individual country by http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD

As a result of the decrease in shipping and meat prices, the governments will have more money available. If money is saved instead of spend on these commodities, the GDP of the country will increase, and thus result in an increase in the GDP per capita.

Underweightedness

Shows the prevalence of underweight individuals in an income category. This chart can be accredited to the world health organization at http://www.who.int/nutgrowthdb/jme_unicef_who_wb.pdf

Being underweight is a significant dilemma in countries of low income and lower middle income as seen in the graph above. Individuals suffering from being underweight due to the lack of food availability will benefit greatly from our project. By increasing the efficiency of nutrition absorption in their stomachs, they can increase the nutritional benefit of the food available to them, thus reducing the effects of malnutrition.