--- In vinnomot@yahoogroups.com, "T.I.Ruben" <twhdl@...> wrote:
>
Please listen to our Binodon Radio discussion on impending food crisis.
http://is.rediff.com/filemusic.php?id=68947
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Biplab
> After the Oil Crisis, a Food Crisis?
> Friday, Nov. 16, 2007 By KATHLEEN KINGSBURY
>
http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1684910,00.html
> Fresh baby corn is unloaded and prepared for shipment to the UK in
Kibwezi, Kenya
> Evelyn Hockstein / Polaris
>
> Is the world headed for a food crisis? India, Mexico and Yemen have
seen food riots this year. Argentines boycotted tomatoes during the
country's recent presidential elections when the vegetable became more
expensive than meat; and in Italy, shoppers organized a one-day
boycott of pasta to protest rising prices. In late October, the
Russian government, hoping to ease tensions ahead of parliamentary
elections early next year, announced a price freeze for milk, bread
and other foods through the end of January.
>
> Scarcely a dozen years ago, in the short span of two months, the
Organization of Petroleum Exporting...
> What's the cause for these shortages and price hikes? Expensive oil,
for the most part.
> The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) reported
last week that, at nearly $100 a barrel, the price of oil has sent the
cost of food imports skyrocketing this year. Add in escalating crop
prices, the FAO warned, and a direct consequence could soon be an
increase in global hunger â€" and, as a consequence, increased social
unrest. Faced with internal rumblings, "politicians tend to act to
protect their own nationals rather than for the good of all," says Ali
Ghurkan, a Rome-based FAO analyst who co-authored the report. Because
of the lack of international cooperation, he adds, "Worldwide markets
get tighter and the pain only lasts longer."
> What's more, worldwide food reserves are at their lowest in 35
years, so prices are likely to stay high for the foreseeable future.
"Past shocks have quickly dissipated, but that's not likely to be the
case this time," says Ghurkan. "Supply and demand have become
unbalanced, and... can't be fixed quickly."
> The world's food import bill will rise in 2007 to $745 billion, up
21% from last year, the FAO estimated in its biannual Food Outlook. In
developing countries, costs will go up by a quarter to nearly $233
billion. The FAO says the price increases are a result of record oil
prices, farmers switching out of cereals to grow biofuel crops,
extreme weather and growing demand from countries like India and
China. The year 2008 will likely offer no relief. "The situation could
deteriorate further in the coming months," the FAO report cautioned,
"leading to a reduction in imports and consumption in many low-income
food-deficit countries."
> Hardest hit will likely be sub-Saharan Africa, where many of the
world's poorest nations depend on both high-cost energy as well as
food imports. Cash-poor governments will be forced to choose between
the two, the FAO says, and the former has almost always won out in the
past. That means more people will go malnourished. Further
exacerbating the problem are the current record prices for freight
shipping brought on by record fuel prices. An estimated 854 million
people, or one in six in the world, already don't have enough to eat,
according to the World Food Programme.
> Nearly every region of the world has experienced drastic food price
inflation this year. Retail prices are up 18% in China, 17% in Sri
Lanka and 10% or more throughout Latin America and Russia. Zimbabwe
tops the chart with a more than a 25% increase. That inflation has
been driven by double-digit price hikes for almost every basic
foodstuff over the past 12 months. Dairy products are as much as 200%
more expensive since last year in some countries. Maize prices hit a
10-year high in February. Wheat is up 50%, rice up 16% and poultry
nearly 10%.
> On the demand side, one of the key issues is biofuels. Biofuels,
made from food crops such as corn, sugar cane, and palm oil, are seen
as easing the world's dependence on gasoline or diesel. But when crude
oil is expensive, as it is now, these alternative energy sources can
also be sold at market-competitive prices, rising steeply in relation
to petroleum.
> With one-quarter of the U.S. corn harvest in 2007 diverted towards
biofuel production, the attendant rise in cereal prices has already
had an impact on the cost and availability of food. Critics worry that
the gold rush toward biofuels is taking away food from the hungry.
Jean Ziegler, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on The Right to Food,
recently described it as a "crime against humanity" to convert food
crops to fuel, calling for a five-year moratorium on biofuel production.
> Leaders in the biofuel industry respond that energy costs are more
to blame for high food prices than biofuels. "Energy is the blood of
the world, so if oil goes up then other commodities follow," Claus
Sauter, CEO of German bioenergy firm Verbio said following Ziegler's
comments. Others argue that cleaner-burning biofuels could help stem
the effects of climate change, another factor identified by the FAO as
causing food shortages. Ghurkan notes that scientists believe climate
change could be behind recent extreme weather patterns, including
catastrophic floods, heat waves and drought. All can diminish food
harvests and stockpiles. But so can market forces.
>
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