The World Food Program describes the current global food crisis
as a silent tsunami, with billions of people going hungry. Hunger is,
indeed, coming in waves, but not everyone will drown in famine. The
recurrent food crises are making a handful of corporations very
rich-even as they put the rest of the planet at risk.
First Lady Michelle Obama was heartily cheered last week when she visited a food bank and then went home to break ground for an organic "victory garden" on the White House lawn. Mrs. Obama's high-profile activities are good news to anti-hunger groups and advocates of good, local, healthy food. This upbeat news contrasts starkly with the increasing probability of a return to the 2008 global food crisis.
LONDON - The number of chronically hungry people has surpassed the 1bn mark for the first time as the economic crisis compounds the impact of high food prices, the United Nations' top agriculture official has warned.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Jacques Diouf, director-general of the Food and Agriculture Organisation, warned that the increasing numbers of undernourished people could trigger political instability in developing countries.
Today I want to highlight an example of remarkably good and important journalism, namely, a story in the Washington Post
by Karin Brulliard that opens the door, a crack at least, on the
effects of the worldwide economic crisis on the most vulnerable: people
who live in Africa and other "least developed" countries.
The story is called: "Zambia's Copperbelt Reels from Global Crisis."
A "perfect storm" of food shortages,
scarce water and high-cost energy will hit the global economy before
2030, said the government's chief scientific adviser, John Beddington,
last week.
While
the economic contraction is apparently slowing in the advanced
industrial countries and may reach bottom in the not-too-distant
future, it's only beginning to gain momentum in the developing world,
which was spared the earliest effects of the global meltdown.
Food security is non-negotiable; we must provide more food and we
must ensure that people have access to it. We are not "out of the
woods" in terms of the food crisis. Food prices have fallen since the
highs of 2008, but for the world's "bottom billion" that record
increase in food prices has had a devastating effect, pushing a further
million people into food poverty. Maize is 100 per cent more expensive
than a year ago, while the price of wheat in Afghanistan is 60 per cent
higher. Food security will increasingly become an issue of peace and
stability.
The economic crisis has now spread from Wall Street to Main Street to the places where there are no streets.
In
slums and shacks around the world, hunger is gnawing again as job
opportunities shrink but food prices do not. Global cereal prices are
71% higher than they were in 2005, according to the International
Monetary Fund, but the wages of many workers are falling.
As our government enacts a stimulus package
and President Barack Obama announces bold initiatives to stem home
mortgage foreclosures, disaster threatens family farmers and their
communities.
UNITED NATIONS - The food crisis that spilled over from last year could take a turn for the worse in the next decade if there are no explicit answers to a rash of growing new problems, including declining agricultural production, a faltering distribution network and a deteriorating environment worldwide.
