[mukto-mona] Food security concerns in East Asia

SAN-Feature Service SOUTH ASIAN NEWS-FEATURE SERVICE May 6,2008   Food security concerns in East Asia P. S. Suryanarayana   In a fundamental sense, the ongoing 'globalisation' process has had a dramatic negative impact on the prices of food, including rice, across this region, which comprises all 16 member-states of the East Asia Summit.   SAN-Feature Service: The gathering crisis across the world of rising prices of food, of rice and other staple items in particular, has not as yet messed up the political and social landscape in any country in Greater East Asia. However, the region, home to some leading rice exporters and also big consumers, is not immune to the crisis. India has, in this context, expressed its support for Thailand's leadership in organising a Rice Summit.   In a fundamental sense, the ongoing 'globalisation' process has had a dramatic negative impact on the prices of food, including rice, across this region, which comprises all 16 member-states of the East Asia Summit. There are several reasons for this, but a political reality stands out. The United States continues to deploy its space-age war-machine in Iraq for the so-called "war on terror." A major spin-off, actually a worldwide economic consequence, is the space-age velocity with which the price of oil has been driven up. Such a negative spin-off can be traced to three factors: the politics of external intervention in Iraq, the confrontational attitude of the U.S. towards the oil-rich governments considered to be hostile to its global interests, and the inevitable backlash to such "neo-hegemonic" tendencies.   In these circumstances, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) has, without of course making a compelling political reference to the U.S., declared that "the era of cheap food is over, if the era of cheap oil [for fuel] is over."   Surely, the linkage between crude oil, on the one side, and food and curry, on the other, is not nullified by different perceptions about the meaning of low prices on either side of the worldwide development divide. Moreover, it requires no special insight to recognise the cascading effect of fuel prices on costs of production in the farm sector and, therefore, on the retail prices of rice and other commodities.   Political leaders and economists do not, of course, see the brewing crisis through the solitary prism of fuel prices. Other identified factors include the conversion of farmland into special economic zones and the like in the developing countries; the diminishing productivity since the gains of the decades-old Green Revolution in several parts of the world; and the obsession of the developed bloc with biofuels.   As an institution committed to 'globalisation,' the Manila-based ADB is of course very circumspect in its assessments of the emerging East Asian food situation. Its Managing Director-General, Rajat M. Nag, said in Singapore a few days ago that the rice stocks in Asia "are the lowest in decades" but that there was no cause for "a doomsday picture of huge scarcity." However, he agreed that stocks were not always available in the right quantities at the right places and at the right time — in essence, that it is a distribution challenge.   The huge magnitude of the escalating distribution challenge, caused in part by the rise in demand due to growth of incomes across Asia, is acknowledged by the region's political leaders. An economic contradiction, at another but related level, is that 'globalisation' has not brought cheer to the poor. Without directly blaming 'globalisation' for this, the ADB estimates that nearly 1.2 billion people in Asia are now in a highly vulnerable category. Among them, roughly 600 million make the equivalent of less than $1 a day, while almost a similar number of people have daily earnings of just over that benchmark level.   The poverty profile of Asia makes it vulnerable to the phenomenally high food costs. The prices of finer varieties of rice in Thailand, the largest exporter of the commodity, zoomed past the $1000-a-tonne mark at one stage in recent weeks. No less important to the regional scene are the supply vagaries noticed during this period and the fears of future scarcities. The rice export restrictions imposed independently by Vietnam and India, in a calibrated fashion to protect domestic supplies, have come in for adverse attention. Thailand has been at pains to proclaim its intention to refrain from resorting to an export ban. Moreover, moves are under way to launch a Thailand-initiated organisation of rice-exporting countries.   The marketplace, however, is dominated by the mood of the price-sensitive buyers among the vulnerable sections; and they tend to be sceptical about long-term supplies as well.   In the eyes of the affected people, the balancing acts of the rice-exporting countries, in their search for domestic and global food security, can well be politics on a different planet.   The public protests in several pockets of South-East Asia, including in Indonesia and the Philippines, have been largely overshadowed by the 'panic-buying' at outlets retailing subsidised rice. While food riots of the kind witnessed in some other parts of the world did not mark the initial reactions of East Asians to the current rice crisis, there is no denying the crisis itself in this region.   Thailand, and Vietnam, another key export-player, are under the spotlight in East Asia. India and China are invariably watched on the regional stage as regards a variety of issues. China, currently preoccupied with Olympics-related matters, is known to set, and act on, its own terms, very often successfully, on the regional front. And, Japan has announced plans to extend food aid of the order of $100 million to vulnerable countries, including those in East Asia. On May Day, President George W. Bush, too, pledged new food aid, which would take the total U.S. pledges to nearly $1 billion to help tide over the global crisis. Significantly, in this context, East Asia, which the U.S. treats as its own backyard for geopolitical and geo-economic reasons, might also stand to benefit.   This keeps the East Asian focus on India, a major rice-exporter, in high intensity. The ADB has suggested that India should not resort to curbs on its exportof non-basmati varieties and must desist from imposing price controls. In this situation, New Delhi may face a leadership test in the region over the rice crisis, after having come under the spotlight on climate change and the India-U.S. civil nuclear energy deal.—SAN-Feature Service Courtesy: The Hindu,India

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