H2 VJC 2024 Prelims

2024 JC2 H2 Economics TJC T4 ERP 2024 VJC Prelims 1 STRICTLY FOR INTERNAL CIRCULATION Adapted from 2024 VJC Prelims Paper 1 Question 1: Food! We need it but can we pay for it? Figure 1: Food prices and supermarket profits in Australia, 2018 – 2022 (2018 = 100) Year Source: Australia Bureau of Statistics Extract 1: Is your trolley getting lighter? It is no surprise that the cost of filling up your trolley costs more in 2022 than it did three years ago. According to official numbers from the Consumer Price Index, the prices of groceries have risen by 4.2 per cent between December 2019 and December 2021 alone. The chairman of SPC – one of Australia’s biggest food manufacturers – also warned that the cost of all supermarket products would increase by 10 to 20 per cent. He said the price increases were due to a “double whammy” of disrupted global supply chain issues, as well as food production and rising oil costs. “You’ve got the war between Russia and Ukraine, which impacted the oil, and means the oil price has gone up … and impacted the food because Ukraine used to produce a lot of the food that went into Europe” he continued. “In a globalised economy, when you have a war in Europe like this, it is bound to have an impact on the rest of the planet.” Source: www.news.com.au, 4 April 2022 Extract 2: Breaking the breadbasket Ukraine has long been a land of natural bounty, not just for its own population but also for people around the world. Products made from its wheat, corn and sunflowers can be found in markets and kitchens from Estonia to Egypt. Its farmland is cheaper to run than that in Europe and the US, and its deep seaports have given it easy access to international markets. The combination has allowed Ukraine to become a key exporter of agricultural commodities, and to be described as the breadbasket of Europe.

2024 JC2 H2 Economics TJC T4 ERP 2024 VJC Prelims 2 STRICTLY FOR INTERNAL CIRCULATION Now the basket has been overturned. With swaths of farmland turning into battlefields and Ukraine’s road and port infrastructure being attacked by Russian missiles and bombs, the country’s food supply chain has stalled. The war has also left a global supply gap. Ukraine accounts for 8 per cent of global wheat exports, 13 per cent of corn flows, and more than one third of the sunflower oil trade. Normally the country exports 40 to 50 million tonnes of cereals every year, but Russia’s invasion has meant export volumes in March were a quarter of those in February, according to the agriculture ministry. Source: The Financial Times, 27 April 2022 Extract 3: Two titans down under Coles and Woolworths are household supermarket names in Australia. Over the years, this concentrated supermarket sector has faced criticism and scrutiny, and it has been reaching fever pitch again in recent months, with a number of investigations underway into their business practices durin