The Warring States of NPF - Global food shortage

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Global food shortage

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/18/wo...in&oref=slogin

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PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti � Hunger bashed in the front gate of Haiti�s presidential palace. Hunger poured onto the streets, burning tires and taking on soldiers and the police. Hunger sent the country�s prime minister packing.

Haiti�s hunger, that burn in the belly that so many here feel, has become fiercer than ever in recent days as global food prices spiral out of reach, spiking as much as 45 percent since the end of 2006 and turning Haitian staples like beans, corn and rice into closely guarded treasures.

Saint Louis Meriska�s children ate two spoonfuls of rice apiece as their only meal recently and then went without any food the following day. His eyes downcast, his own stomach empty, the unemployed father said forlornly, �They look at me and say, �Papa, I�m hungry,� and I have to look away. It�s humiliating and it makes you angry.�

That anger is palpable across the globe. The food crisis is not only being felt among the poor but is also eroding the gains of the working and middle classes, sowing volatile levels of discontent and putting new pressures on fragile governments.

In Cairo, the military is being put to work baking bread as rising food prices threaten to become the spark that ignites wider anger at a repressive government. In Burkina Faso and other parts of sub-Saharan Africa, food riots are breaking out as never before. In reasonably prosperous Malaysia, the ruling coalition was nearly ousted by voters who cited food and fuel price increases as their main concerns.

�It�s the worst crisis of its kind in more than 30 years,� said Jeffrey D. Sachs, the economist and special adviser to the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon. �It�s a big deal and it�s obviously threatening a lot of governments. There are a number of governments on the ropes, and I think there�s more political fallout to come.�

Indeed, as it roils developing nations, the spike in commodity prices � the biggest since the Nixon administration � has pitted the globe�s poorer south against the relatively wealthy north, adding to demands for reform of rich nations� farm and environmental policies. But experts say there are few quick fixes to a crisis tied to so many factors, from strong demand for food from emerging economies like China�s to rising oil prices to the diversion of food resources to make biofuels.

There are no scripts on how to handle the crisis, either. In Asia, governments are putting in place measures to limit hoarding of rice after some shoppers panicked at price increases and bought up everything they could.

Even in Thailand, which produces 10 million more tons of rice than it consumes and is the world�s largest rice exporter, supermarkets have placed signs limiting the amount of rice shoppers are allowed to purchase.

But there is also plenty of nervousness and confusion about how best to proceed and just how bad the impact may ultimately be, particularly as already strapped governments struggle to keep up their food subsidies.

�Scandalous Storm�

�This is a perfect storm,� President El�as Antonio Saca of El Salvador said Wednesday at the World Economic Forum on Latin America in Canc�n, Mexico. �How long can we withstand the situation? We have to feed our people, and commodities are becoming scarce. This scandalous storm might become a hurricane that could upset not only our economies but also the stability of our countries.�

In Asia, if Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi of Malaysia steps down, which is looking increasingly likely amid postelection turmoil within his party, he may be that region�s first high- profile political casualty of fuel and food price inflation.

In Indonesia, fearing protests, the government recently revised its 2008 budget, increasing the amount it will spend on food subsidies by about $280 million.

�The biggest concern is food riots,� said H.S. Dillon, a former adviser to Indonesia�s Ministry of Agriculture. Referring to small but widespread protests touched off by a rise in soybean prices in January, he said, �It has happened in the past and can happen again.�

Last month in Senegal, one of Africa�s oldest and most stable democracies, police in riot gear beat and used tear gas against people protesting high food prices and later raided a television station that broadcast images of the event. Many Senegalese have expressed anger at President Abdoulaye Wade for spending lavishly on roads and five-star hotels for an Islamic summit meeting last month while many people are unable to afford rice or fish.

�Why are these riots happening?� asked Arif Husain, senior food security analyst at the World Food Program, which has issued urgent appeals for donations. �The human instinct is to survive, and people are going to do no matter what to survive. And if you�re hungry you get angry quicker.�

Leaders who ignore the rage do so at their own risk. President Ren� Pr�val of Haiti appeared to taunt the populace as the chorus of complaints about la vie ch�re � the expensive life � grew. He said if Haitians could afford cellphones, which many do carry, they should be able to feed their families. �If there is a protest against the rising prices,� he said, �come get me at the palace and I will demonstrate with you.�

When they came, filled with rage and by the thousands, he huddled inside and his presidential guards, with United Nations peacekeeping troops, rebuffed them. Within days, opposition lawmakers had voted out Mr. Pr�val�s prime minister, Jacques-�douard Alexis, forcing him to reconstitute his government. Fragile in even the best of times, Haiti�s population and politics are now both simmering.

�Why were we surprised?� asked Patrick �lie, a Haitian political activist who followed the food riots in Africa earlier in the year and feared they might come to Haiti. �When something is coming your way all the way from Burkina Faso you should see it coming. What we had was like a can of gasoline that the government left for someone to light a match to it.�

Dwindling Menus

The rising prices are altering menus, and not for the better. In India, people are scrimping on milk for their children. Daily bowls of dal are getting thinner, as a bag of lentils is stretched across a few more meals.

Maninder Chand, an auto-rickshaw driver in New Delhi, said his family had given up eating meat altogether for the last several weeks.

Another rickshaw driver, Ravinder Kumar Gupta, said his wife had stopped seasoning their daily lentils, their chief source of protein, with the usual onion and spices because the price of cooking oil was now out of reach. These days, they eat bowls of watery, tasteless dal, seasoned only with salt.

Down Cairo�s Hafziyah Street, peddlers selling food from behind wood carts bark out their prices. But few customers can afford their fish or chicken, which bake in the hot sun. Food prices have doubled in two months.

Ahmed Abul Gheit, 25, sat on a cheap, stained wooden chair by his own pile of rotting tomatoes. �We can�t even find food,� he said, looking over at his friend Sobhy Abdullah, 50. Then raising his hands toward the sky, as if in prayer, he said, �May God take the guy I have in mind.�

Mr. Abdullah nodded, knowing full well that the �guy� was President Hosni Mubarak.

The government�s ability to address the crisis is limited, however. It already spends more on subsidies, including gasoline and bread, than on education and health combined.

�If all the people rise, then the government will resolve this,� said Raisa Fikry, 50, whose husband receives a pension equal to about $83 a month, as she shopped for vegetables. �But everyone has to rise together. People get scared. But we will all have to rise together.�

It is the kind of talk that has prompted the government to treat its economic woes as a security threat, dispatching riot forces with a strict warning that anyone who takes to the streets will be dealt with harshly.

Niger does not need to be reminded that hungry citizens overthrow governments. The country�s first postcolonial president, Hamani Diori, was toppled amid allegations of rampant corruption in 1974 as millions starved during a drought.

More recently, in 2005, it was mass protests in Niamey, the Nigerien capital, that made the government sit up and take notice of that year�s food crisis, which was caused by a complex mix of poor rains, locust infestation and market manipulation by traders.

�As a result of that experience the government created a cabinet-level ministry to deal with the high cost of living,� said Moustapha Kadi, an activist who helped organize marches in 2005. �So when prices went up this year the government acted quickly to remove tariffs on rice, which everyone eats. That quick action has kept people from taking to the streets.�

The Poor Eat Mud

In Haiti, where three-quarters of the population earns less than $2 a day and one in five children is chronically malnourished, the one business booming amid all the gloom is the selling of patties made of mud, oil and sugar, typically consumed only by the most destitute.

�It�s salty and it has butter and you don�t know you�re eating dirt,� said Olwich Louis Jeune, 24, who has taken to eating them more often in recent months. �It makes your stomach quiet down.�

But the grumbling in Haiti these days is no longer confined to the stomach. It is now spray-painted on walls of the capital and shouted by demonstrators.

In recent days, Mr. Pr�val has patched together a response, using international aid money and price reductions by importers to cut the price of a sack of rice by about 15 percent. He has also trimmed the salaries of some top officials. But those are considered temporary measures.

Real solutions will take years. Haiti, its agriculture industry in shambles, needs to better feed itself. Outside investment is the key, although that requires stability, not the sort of widespread looting and violence that the Haitian food riots have fostered.

Meanwhile, most of the poorest of the poor suffer silently, too weak for activism or too busy raising the next generation of hungry. In the sprawling slum of Haiti�s Cit� Soleil, Placide Simone, 29, offered one of her five offspring to a stranger. �Take one,� she said, cradling a listless baby and motioning toward four rail-thin toddlers, none of whom had eaten that day. �You pick. Just feed them.�

Thought I would post this though I don't have a whole lot to add past "So that's terrible."

Interestingly this may be strongly linked to US Federal monetary policy according to well it's a guy on the internet so FWIW.

Amazing.

I had always thought that the world's food problems weren't so bad. I mean, I hear about how farmers here in the US are in trouble because they can't sell all their crops and need subsidies. I figured that if there was tremendous demand in other parts of the world some businessman would try to cash in by shipping to other areas. Looks like I was way off. I know I'm not the most well informed person around(or even close to it), but man, global riots? Governments on the verge of toppling? I must say that when I heard about this I was, well, astounded.

Government's most basic function is to ensure that their people can stay alive. Ren� Pr�val "taunting the populace" makes me sick. People like him should not be running countries.

Hunger isn't exactly a new problem. The fact that people are rioting about it now just means that it has started to affect those, who till recently were not starving. Those who have been starving for longer allready have no strength to start and protest (as the article notes in the end).

It's funny how hunger can make you really grumpy and ultimately very angry. And I'm just talking about how I myself might go for a day without eating well and I'll allready start getting a bit more edgy. What happens with people who go on like that for weeks or months (or even more, at which point they propably start to starve) it must be a hell of a lot worse, something we I can only try and imagine.

But will rioting actually solve anything?

I'm not even going to go to how much food we (westerners) eat compared to how much people in poor(er) countries eat and how much we waste food (both by throwing it away and by consuming more than we need).

What I want to know is why are all these countries' agricultural infrastructure in such shambles? In the US and Europe we have more people dieing from over nourishment than under, what set of circumstances has the reverse in other places? I think it might have to do with all the factories that have been exported over the last couple of decades taking young people off the farms in their countries, but can that really account for all of it?

On a bit of a side note, the Free Trade Agreement between South Korea and the US is being protested here because it would push food prices for imported food too low - below the cost of production in many cases. As far as I'm aware Japanese farmers are having similar problems. These two problems don't make any sense in tandem.

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Money. Money, money, money.

And behind that? Look at history. Imperialism, maybe? And of course after that tons of other reasons. Like for example what you said

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taking young people off the farms in their countries

(also closely linked to 'over reproducing').

I'm sorry I can't come up with a wider answer, but I think this pretty much sums it up.

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Originally Posted by Mannix

To cite an example of continental proportions, much more money leaves the continent in Africa due to neo-imperialist infrastructure loans than go into it for "aid" or "development". Africa is the most-resource rich part of the world at this point. Western aid to Africa nearly always falls into these countries modern sectors, which, surprise, also happen to be the most corrupt segments of society (they are controlled by establishment, which only helps people like Mugabe or Ren� Pr�val). If aid is to be given, it needs to be given to the traditional segments of society, where the actual people of these countries live.

These situations tend to happen when your country is siphoned of resources and people for hundreds of years. They tend to happen when your country is forced to adopt an economy that suits the needs of an entirely different continent instead of their own people. They tend to happen when you have racist western groups oppressing blacks of all economic and self-growth as recently as 1994.

Being more specific, let's talk about Zimbabwe: years of paying back useless IMF loans and lack of proper handling of land issues has forced Zimbabwe into a hunger and rioting state.

Thatcher did not want to spend enough time sorting out the mess in 1980 to restore equity completely, and Zimbabwe was forced to make concessions regarding the unresolved land issue which still placed rich white farmers at the most arable pieces of land.
Zimbabwe needed to take loans in 1987 to help bolster its receeding economy, the IMF requiring Zimbabwe to undergo "democratic" reforms with land under a "willing buyer-willing-seller program" (read: no change in land holding).
1998 comes around, Zimbabwe is forced to take one of the IMF's ever popular African Structural Adjustment Program to meet their IMF loan requirements (with a clause stating land must not be redistributed).
Zimbabwe riots, trade unions go on strike because they're out of jobs, owing to the new free-market approach to grain importation. More people move into Harare from rural areas because they can't find jobs and their land is unrewarding.
Mugabe takes land from white areas, scared to death of what's going to happen to him. USA + International media paint a picture of Democracy versus Dictator to put the blame solely on Mugabe for the situation in Zimbabwe.
USA enacts trade embargos to further fuel hyperinflation. Mugabe does a lot of bad, making it easier for people to paint him as bad guy.

Grantedly, the economy has gone to shit all in part due to the land now being crap, but really if the issue was addressed in the first place, this problem would have never been there to begin with in this particular instance.

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Originally Posted by Regulus Tera

To cite an example of continental proportions, much more money leaves the continent in Africa due to neo-imperialist infrastructure loans that go into it for "aid" or "development". Africa is the most-resource rich part of the world at this point. Western aid to Africa nearly always falls into these countries modern sectors, which, surprise, also happen to be the most corrupt segments of society (they are controlled by establishment, which only helps people like Mugabe or Ren� Pr�val). If aid is to be given, it needs to be given to the traditional segments of society, where the actual people of these countries live.

These situations tend to happen when your country is siphoned of resources and people for hundreds of years. They tend to happen when your country is forced to adopt an economy that suits the needs of an entirely different continent instead of their own people. They tend to happen when you have racist western groups oppressing blacks of all economic and self-growth as recently as 1994.

Being more specific, let's talk about Zimbabwe: years of paying back useless IMF loans and lack of proper handling of land issues has forced Zimbabwe into a hunger and rioting state.

Thatcher did not want to spend enough time sorting out the mess in 1980 to restore equity completely, and Zimbabwe was forced to make concessions regarding the unresolved land issue which still placed rich white farmers at the most arable pieces of land.
Zimbabwe needed to take loans in 1987 to help bolster its receeding economy, the IMF requiring Zimbabwe to undergo "democratic" reforms with land under a "willing buyer-willing-seller program" (read: no change in land holding).
1998 comes around, Zimbabwe is forced to take one of the IMF's ever popular African Structural Adjustment Program to meet their IMF loan requirements (with a clause stating land must not be redistributed).
Zimbabwe riots, trade unions go on strike because they're out of jobs, owing to the new free-market approach to grain importation. More people move into Harare from rural areas because they can't find jobs and their land is unrewarding.
Mugabe takes land from white areas, scared to death of what's going to happen to him. USA + International media paint a picture of Democracy versus Dictator to put the blame solely on Mugabe for the situation in Zimbabwe.
USA enacts trade embargos to further fuel hyperinflation. Mugabe does a lot of bad, making it easier for people to paint him as bad guy.

Almost all of those exact conditions exist/ed in South America, but the article doesn't mention if they're having the same problems which makes me think it may not be as bad there. Why would basically the same actions produce such (presumably) different results? I'm not saying South America is a paradise, but it appears they at least have food in their bellies. It seems a little too easy to blame the whole thing on racist white people.

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Originally Posted by Mannix

Because most countries in South America have stopped relying on developed countries thanks to the help of the Mercosur Regional Trade Agreement, aiding the continent bolster its economy. While the situation in there is not as noteworthy as in the countries previously mentioned, the block at least has developed a working environment in which they can stabilise the economy (and consequently, food prices) up to a certain point.

To give an example, take Mexico, one of the countries which haven't become full-time members due to the influence of the United States. While all the economies in the South are slowly becoming more autonomous, ours is entering a recession along with our neighbours of the North, no thanks in part due to the extreme dependability we have on you guys. Although the situation is not as harsh as Africa's, more than half of the population lived in conditions of extreme poverty in 2003. Not only did the Fox presidency do nothing about this, but the Calder�n office is more interested in appeasing foreign business demands than on feeding its own people. One of the most logical solutions to this problem would be opening our markets to the South and Cuba, but this goes against United States mantra of not collaborating with radical (Castro and Ch�vez) governments.

I'm not blaming the whole thing on racist white people at all. A big (and probably the major) part of the problem has to do with the corrupt leaders of each country and how they keep the wealth for themselves when everybody in the streets is dying. I'm blaming the whole thing on powerful entrepreneurs and governments who accentuate the problem by creating economical environments which only help keeping turmoil in its current state (see the United States involvement in Central America in the 90's and the recent "donation" by China of thousands of ammunition to Zimbabwe).

While I've no doubt that gov't corruption is responsible on some level for this... circumstance... I can't help but wonder if the world is just getting too darn crowded?

I mean it's not like we can keep supporting a globally increasing population forever and ever if the food supplies simply cannot keep up. All the medical advances available aren't gonna do anything for an empty stomach!

I wonder who could be eating all the food? hmmmm...which country has a server obesity problem...a problem so bad that their airlines need to use more fuel to actually make the planes fly...maybe it's the same country the consumes most of the world's resources...maybe it's the country who's imminent economic collapse will send the world in to chaos

I am of course talking about the United States. I mean do we really need all the food we're eating? If we ate our farmers' food they'd be ok and we could send other food to other countries. I think that would just about end it

I might be going a little crazy and may have misread some other posts but I could have sworn that some people wrote that Africa wasn't in any trouble in terms of food...They really are though...At least in most areas...like how about Darfur? You know where genocide is happening? I seriously doubt they have a lot of time to grow food before they are killed. And since half the continent is afflicted with AIDS or HIV I don't think that they have quite a few problems on their hands

So instead of saying Africa is fed well enough I think we need to look at who is eating the most food and then distribute it more fairly.

DBS