Hunger, costs of food staples on the rise

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By Rachael Lundy

As the world faces an extreme hunger crisis, humanitarian organizations across the world are questioning what actions need to be implemented in order to immediately curtail this food shortage. On the rise are the costs of food staples such as rice, wheat, corn and other essential foods, causing those in developing nations to go without food.

“People are simply being forced out of food markets,” said Josette Sheeran, Director of the World Food Program, in an article in the Washington Post.

With a food shortage at hand, one would think the simple solution would be to plant more crops; however, this theory is flawed.

“Farmers have no access to credit, so when prices go up, they can’t afford to plant,” Sheeran told the Post.

Those nations that depend on food imports are greatly affected by the decrease in the food being planted, and the citizens living in those poor nations must wonder where they will find their next meal.

The World Bank’s president Robert Zoellick states on the organization’s Web site (http://web.worldbank.org), “Based on a very rough analysis, we estimate that doubling of food prices over the last three years could potentially push 100 million people in low-income countries deeper into poverty.”

Due to this extreme climb in the price of provisions, protests and riots have broken out in Indonesia, Haiti, Mexico, Egypt and the Philippines, as said by CNN. Some protestors have even died during these food riots, as people are desperately seeking aid against approaching starvation.

The mass panic has forced authorities to protect the food that is still available.

“In Pakistan and Thailand, army troops have been deployed to avoid food being seized from fields and warehouses,” according to aljazeera.net.

“Much of the world is waking up to the fact that food does not spontaneously appear on grocery store shelves,” said Sheeran in the Post article.

Studies have indicated that there are three main causes of this food crisis, with only one of those factors having a control mechanism outside of natural causes. The root causes of this food emergency are “increased demand from growing populations and the transfer of land use from food to biofuel production; poor weather; and climate change,” stated CNN.

The United States as well as other European nations must take the blame for contributing to this unanticipated food crisis across the world. While these nations’ energy solutions are not the only causing factor of this food catastrophe, they are the only controllable factor figured into this dilemma.

Because of the 2007 Energy Bill, the use of corn in the production of ethanol has been encouraged and, in turn, very much played a part in this food shortage. Instead of exporting corn to the poorest nations that depend on this for their livelihood, the Western nations recently found it necessary to create alternate fuel sources. By doing so, the previously exported foods have in turn been used as a biofuel, inadvertently affecting food costs across the world.

Time magazine has suggested the following three practical solutions for solving this food crisis: “Giving farmers in poor countries access to high-yield seeds and fertilizer; stop the biofuel nonsense; and help farmers protect crops from drought and other disasters, by creating rain-collecting ponds.”

It is imperative that immediate actions be taken to save those non-Western citizens from dying as a result of the mistakes made by wealthier Western nations.

“With one child dying every five seconds from hunger-related causes, the time to act is now,” British Prime Minister Gordon Brown told the Washington Post.

“We need to look closely at the impact on food prices and the environment,” said Brown to CNN.

Brown also told the BBC that “tackling hunger now is a moral challenge to each of us and it is also a threat to the political and economic stability of nations.”

Originally Published: Issue 607 - May 6, 2008

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