Wednesday-Night

Feeding the future (IPS news round-up)
The World Bank Group’s New Deal on Global Food Policy

August 20
Enough food aid is once more pouring in to stave off serious famine; but it will not remedy Ethiopia’s deepening aid dependency and rural despair. With a smaller — because more mobile — landowning rural population, able to access loans to invest in higher-yield seeds, tractors and drip irrigation, Ethiopia could feed itself.|
Times associate editor Rosemary Righter. full story.

Food security measures should target Africa’s poor, IMF says
African governments looking to mitigate the effects of rising food prices on their populations should look to targeted measures specifically geared towards aiding poor families and avoiding unnecessary waste, the International Monetary Fund’s Managing Director said Friday. “In our view, the best way is to try to help the poor by direct income support, targeted safety nets like food-for-work programs, and to avoid general subsidies which waste resources and don’t help the poor,” Dominique Strauss-Kahn said. AlertNet.org/Reuters (8/1)
22 July
China calls on ASEAN+3 to cement ties to tackle food crisis
“We should give greater priority to 10+3 cooperation in agriculture”, said [the] Chinese foreign minister.
He said China will work closely with other countries and provide support to ASEAN countries, including sharing agricultural expertise, expanding agro-technology cooperation and strengthening personnel training to help ASEAN countries improve agricultural productivity, raise food self-sufficiency rate and promote economic growth and social stability.
ASIA: Rice Prices Add to Inflation Woes
BANGKOK, Jul 15 (IPS) - In Singapore, where almost 100 percent of foodstuff is imported, the government has allowed private importers to increase buffer stocks. The Philippines, the world’s largest importer of rice, has been busy shopping for the grain from producers such as China and Pakistan.
Whether producer or importer, countries in Asia — a region that produces and consumes the most quantities of the staple — continue to feel the pinch of the rise in rice prices amid inflation that has been climbing in many countries over the last four months.
4 July
Secret report: biofuel caused food crisis
Internal World Bank study delivers blow to plant energy drive
Biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75% - far more than previously estimated - according to a confidential World Bank report obtained by the Guardian.
The damning unpublished assessment is based on the most detailed analysis of the crisis so far, carried out by an internationally-respected economist at global financial body.
The figure emphatically contradicts the US government’s claims that plant-derived fuels contribute less than 3% to food-price rises. It will add to pressure on governments in Washington and across Europe, which have turned to plant-derived fuels to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and reduce their dependence on imported oil.
Senior development sources believe the report, completed in April, has not been published to avoid embarrassing President George Bush.
Top African Policymakers Address Agricultural Policies Needed to End Hunger and Achieve Food Security
Meeting Convened by AGRA Focuses on Policies for an African Green Revolution
Nairobi, Kenya, 27 June, 2008 — As the world grapples with the food crisis, senior policy makers in Africa are developing appropriate policies to achieve a Green Revolution that will rapidly raise agricultural productivity for small-scale farmers in Africa. More than 90 senior policy makers and leaders from the private sector, academia, civil society and farmers organizations convened early this week to identify priority policies and institutions needed to achieve a uniquely African Green Revolution.
Thursday 05 June 2008
OTTAWA: GOVT. CRITICIZED FOR NOT ATTENDING UN FOOD CONFERENCE
The opposition in the House of Commons on Wednesday attacked the Conservative government for not sending the agriculture minister, Gerry Ritz, to the Food and Agriculture conference in Rome. Liberal Member of Parliament Maria Minna asked the minister why he wasn’t in Rome defending Canada’s interests when Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe, who is generally thought to have destroyed his country’s agricultural sector, is defending his nation’s. Mr. Ritz responded that Mr. Mugabe’s presence precisely defines the credibility of the event, a remark which Mrs. Minna called “totally inappropriate and totally irresponsible.” Canada is represented at the FAO meeting by the ambassador to Italy. The conference is being held as world food prices have skyrocketed and several poor countries have experienced food riots. The minister noted that Canada does take the crisis serious and that when the World Food Program asked for emergency contributions in April, Canada responded with an additional $50 million.
4 June
US attacked at food summit over biofuels
(The Guardian) The US came under intense criticism yesterday for its policy of promoting biofuels, which a senior UN official claimed was diverting food away from the hungry “to satisfy a thirst for fuel for vehicles”.
The biofuel issue quickly emerged as the most contentious at a summit on the global food crisis being held in Rome. American claims that its subsidies for the production of corn ethanol were not playing a significant role in sharp increases in the price of food triggered an angry response during a closed-door meeting, and was contradicted by UN figures.
Food summit seeks ‘green revolution’ for Africa
ROME (Reuters) - A U.N. summit on the global food crisis asked rich nations on Wednesday to help “revolutionize” farming in Africa and the developing world to produce more food for nearly 1 billion people facing hunger.
“The global food crisis is a wake-up call for Africa to launch itself into a ‘green revolution’ which has been over-delayed,” Nigerian Agriculture Minister Sayyadi Abba Ruma said on the second day of the three-day summit.
3 June
‘Obscene’: Mugabe’s arrival at food summit provokes outrage
He inflicted starvation on his nation. Now Mugabe has arrived in Europe for a UN summit to tackle the global food crisis
An FAO spokesman said the UN can exercise no influence over who a given member state chooses to represent it at the meeting, “nor should it”. He said that 185 of the UN’s 191 members will be represented, “and who they choose to represent them is entirely their business”. The Mugabes will not even have to put their hands in their pockets: the UN has set up a trust fund to pay an allowance for the delegations from poorer countries.
ChinaDialogue.net
May 30
Challenges for the food summit
The open question is whether the planet will be able to feed a population of nine billion by the end of the century. Some food experts are sceptical about whether this can be achieved.
… Underlying these scenarios are questions of how the environment will cope with all the increased agricultural demand.
Every farm expansion affects wildlife. Water is already scarce in many areas and will have to be used more frugally.
Computer models of climate change cannot offer good guidance on whether key agricultural areas will become drier or wetter in future. But every hectare of virgin land ploughed for agriculture releases more carbon from the soil.
May 29
UN warns about higher food costs
Higher food prices may be here to stay as demand from developing countries and production costs rise, says an influential report.
A report by the UN’s Food & Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the body for rich nations, the OECD, said prices will fall, but only gradually. It said the current price spike was higher than previous records, partly due to bad weather ruining crops.
But factors, such as rising biofuel demand, will keep future costs high.
The FAO said speculators were also to blame for volatile commodity markets.
May 28
How Ethanol Fuels the Food Crisis
(Foreign Affairs) Food prices are rising rapidly across the globe, threatening many of the world’s poor with starvation. In this update to their May/June 2007 article, “How Biofuels Could Starve the Poor,” C. Ford Runge and Benjamin Senauer argue that the heavily subsidized ethanol industry is exacerbating the food crisis and harming the environment.
WFP searches for affordable rice
(The Christian Science Monitor) The UN World Food Programme, which purchases tons of rice every year, is facing the dual problems of rising prices and increasing numbers of export bans. The price of rice has increased 122% in the past year, while some countries are also banning the export of rice to keep local food prices low. The shortage in rice has forced the WFP to cut back in order to meet its budget. (5/22)
Agencies criticized over lack of safety net for poor
Criticism is growing that decades of faulty planning by food agencies such as the World Bank and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and World Food Programme have failed in their mission to provide a safety net for the world’s poor. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has convened a multi-agency task force to create a plan to lower trade barriers and increase agricultural production. The Washington Post (5/19)
UNFAO: Food inflation may be peaking
New data released by the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization shows that soaring food prices, which have caused growing malnutrition and political instability in many poor countries over the last year, finally may be peaking. For the first time in 15 months, the UNFAO’s food price index fell in April, led by declining prices for dairy, wheat, soyabean and sugar. Financial Times (5/14)
Haiti, among the countries hit hardest by the global food crisis, should return to more homegrown food staples such as corn, experts say. But in this analysis of why the Caribbean country’s food crisis runs so deep, the Los Angeles Times reports that local farmers see such a path to be riddled with obstacles. Los Angeles Times (free registration) (5/13)
May 12, 2008
We were introduced to freerice.com some time ago and have found the game quite addictive. It’s a great cause and a fun way to test/improve your vocabulary. Doing well by doing good!
Students Fight Hunger with Internet Game
With food prices and world hunger on the rise, some Atlanta students have found a fun way to help - by using an Internet game. FREE RICE IS A VOCABULARY GAME THAT HELPS DELIVER RICE TO COUNTRIES IN NEED. So far, according to the site, the World Food Programme’s total donations is over 32 billion grains of rice [and counting].
May 9
CHINA: Buying Farmland Abroad, Ensuring Food Security
BEIJING, May 9 (IPS) - Rattled by rapidly rising global grain prices,
April 26
UNITED NATIONS The secretary general of the United Nations says rising food prices have become a global crisis. Ban Ki-moon is urging immediate action to curb the steeply-rising cost of food. The World Food Program says the UN agency faces a 40 per cent increase in the cost of food. THE WFP has issued an appeal for food aid to help countries deal with the increase. Meanwhile, Cameroun has launched an emergency plan to raise food production. Several West African and neighbouring states including Gabon, Senegal, Liberia, Burkina Faso, Mali, Guinea and Mauritania have taken steps aimed at combating rising food prices.
A Global Crisis
The [Washington] Post explored causes and effects of the world’s worst food crisis since the 1970s in a five-day special series.
A complex combination of poor harvests, competition with biofuels, higher energy prices, surging demand in China and India, and a blockage in global trade is driving food prices up worldwide. Some countries, especially in Africa, are facing an increasingly dire situation while even consumers in wealthy nations are being forced to adjust.
April 17
The silent tsunami
(The Economist) PICTURES of hunger usually show passive eyes and swollen bellies. The harvest fails because of war or strife; the onset of crisis is sudden and localised. Its burden falls on those already at the margin.
Today’s pictures are different. “This is a silent tsunami,” says Josette Sheeran of the World Food Programme, a United Nations agency. A wave of food-price inflation is moving through the world, leaving riots and shaken governments in its wake. For the first time in 30 years, food protests are erupting in many places at once. Bangladesh is in turmoil (see article); even China is worried (see article). Elsewhere, the food crisis of 2008 will test the assertion of Amartya Sen, an Indian economist, that famines do not happen in democracies.
Famine traditionally means mass starvation. The measures of today’s crisis are misery and malnutrition. The middle classes in poor countries are giving up health care and cutting out meat so they can eat three meals a day. The middling poor, those on $2 a day, are pulling children from school and cutting back on vegetables so they can still afford rice. Those on $1 a day are cutting back on meat, vegetables and one or two meals, so they can afford one bowl. The desperate—those on 50 cents a day—face disaster.
Roughly a billion people live on $1 a day. If, on a conservative estimate, the cost of their food rises 20% (and in some places, it has risen a lot more), 100m people could be forced back to this level, the common measure of absolute poverty. In some countries, that would undo all the gains in poverty reduction they have made during the past decade of growth. Because food markets are in turmoil, civil strife is growing; and because trade and openness itself could be undermined, the food crisis of 2008 may become a challenge to globalisation.
April 8
Who caused the world food crisis?
We are now by all accounts in the midst of a global food crisis: key grain prices were up 40% to 130% in the last year, people are protesting and hardship is mounting. But it could soon be worse. Governments and agencies all over the world are gearing up for a global “New Deal” on agriculture policy to solve the food crisis, which means the people who brought us the food crisis are the same people who now want to fix it.
The World Bank reports that prices of staples have jumped 80% since 2005. The price of rice hit a 19-year high last month, and wheat rose to a 28-year high, twice the average price of the last 25 years. Factors behind the surge in prices are varied, including bad weather in some regions, soaring demand from growing populations, and US$100-a-barrel oil.
Jan 7, 2008
Forget oil, the new global crisis is food
BMO strategist Donald Coxe warns credit crunch and soaring oil prices will pale in comparison to looming catastrophe
A new crisis is emerging, a global food catastrophe that will reach further and be more crippling than anything the world has ever seen. The credit crunch and the reverberations of soaring oil prices around the world will pale in comparison to what is about to transpire, Donald Coxe, global portfolio strategist at BMO Financial Group said at the Empire Club’s 14th annual investment outlook in Toronto on Thursday.
Mr. Coxe said the sharp rise in raw food prices in the past year will intensify in the next few years amid increased demand for meat and dairy products from the growing middle classes of countries such as China and India as well as heavy demand from the biofuels industry.
“The greatest challenge to the world is not US$100 oil; it’s getting enough food so that the new middle class can eat the way our middle class does, and that means we’ve got to expand food output dramatically,” he said.