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Posts Tagged ‘food shortage’

Spike in world food prices: It’s more than bad weather

January 21, 2011 Comments off

A global index for food prices, as measured by the UN, reached a record high last month. This on the heels of a food crisis in 2007-08. The weather isn’t the only culprit — or solution.

Of all the world headlines that Sen. Richard Lugar could have highlighted this week – the visit of China’s president in Washington, for instance, or the revolt in Arab Tunisia – the most burning issue for him was … alfalfa.

The plant, used for animal feed, was the surprising topic of the senator’s opening remarks at a Monitor breakfast with reporters Jan. 18. Alfalfa holds a special interest for this active Indiana farmer who is also the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Alfalfa, he notes, is one example of why world food prices have risen so sharply – the second such rise in just over two years.

Last month the global food price index reached a record high, according to the Food and Agricultural Organization, a United Nations body. It surpassed the levels of the last food crisis in 2007-2008, when rising prices caused riots in more than 30 countries.

The human misery from unaffordable – or unavailable – food isn’t as widespread this time, because the price of rice – a staple for more than 3 billion people – is relatively stable. Also, Africa and Asia have seen some good harvests, helping feed local populations. Read more…

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World is ‘one poor harvest’ from chaos, new book warns

January 17, 2011 1 comment

Like many environmentalists, Lester Brown is worried. In his new book “World on the Edge,” released this week, Brown says mankind has pushed civilization to the brink of collapse by bleeding aquifers dry and overplowing land to feed an ever-growing population, while overloading the atmosphere with carbon dioxide.

If we continue to sap Earth’s natural resources, “civilizational collapse is no longer a matter of whether but when,” Brown, the founder of Worldwatch and the Earth Policy Institute, which both seek to create a sustainable society, told AFP.

What distinguishes “World on the Edge” from his dozens of other books is “the sense of urgency,” Brown told AFP. “Things could start unraveling at any time now and it’s likely to start on the food front.

“We’ve got to get our act together quickly. We don’t have generations or even decades — we’re one poor harvest away from chaos,” he said.

“We have been talking for decades about saving the planet, but the question now is, can we save civilization?”

In “World on the Edge”, Brown points to warning signs and lays out arguments for why he believes the cause of the chaos will be the unsustainable way that mankind is going about producing more and more food. Read more…

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The Future of Food Riots

January 12, 2011 Comments off
By Gwynne Dyer, January 9, 2011

This is a map of the countries in which there have been food riots

If all the food in the world were shared out evenly, there would be enough to go around.

That has been true for centuries now: if food was scarce, the problem was that it wasn’t in the right place, but there was no global shortage. However, that will not be true much longer.

The food riots began in Algeria more than a week ago, and they are going to spread. During the last global food shortage in 2008, there was serious rioting in Mexico, Indonesia, and Egypt. We may expect to see that again this time, only bigger and more widespread.

Most people in these countries live in a cash economy, and a large proportion live in cities. They buy their food, they don’t grow it.

That makes them very vulnerable, because they have to eat almost as much as people in rich countries do, but their incomes are much lower.

The poor, urban multitudes in these countries (including China and India) spend up to half of their income on food, compared to only about 10 percent in the rich countries. When food prices soar, these people quickly find that they simply lack the money to go on feeding themselves and their children properly—and food prices now are at an all-time high.

“We are entering a danger territory,” said Abdolreza Abbassian, chief economist at the Food and Agriculture Organization, on January 5.

The price of a basket of cereals, oils, dairy, meat, and sugar that reflects global consumption patterns has risen steadily for six months. It has just broken through the previous record, set during the last food panic in June 2008.

“There is still room for prices to go up much higher,” Abbassian added, “if, for example, the dry conditions in Read more…

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