Tuesday, April 29, 2008, The Japan Times online
EDITORIAL http://search.japantimes.co.jp/mail/ed20…

Hunger in a world of plenty.
The world faces serious shortages of food. Markets are failing and people are starving. Despite historical levels of wealth, unequaled access to technology and unparalleled communications, experts now forecast a structural shift in global demand that will keep prices high and people hungry. This is shameful. Steps can and must be taken.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reports that food prices have risen 45 percent on average since last summer. This follows an increase of 37 percent over the previous two years. The World Bank says the average price of staple foods has risen 80 percent since 2005.

The prices of wheat and rice have doubled in the last year, and maize is now one-third more expensive. Already this year, rice prices hit a 19-year high, wheat prices rose to a 28-year high and are almost two times the average price of the last 25 years. The FAO expects the price of cereals to climb 56 percent this year. And this is despite an anticipated 2.6 percent increase in production to a record 2.16 billion tons.

While climbing food prices hit all consumers, their impact on less developed countries is far greater: Those citizens spend 50-60 percent of their income on food. It is no surprise, then, that food riots have broken out in a number of African countries, Haiti, Indonesia and the Philippines. Army troops have been deployed to guard food warehouses in Thailand and Pakistan. The FAO estimates that 37 countries face food crises and the possibility of serious social unrest as a result of food shortages.

There is no single or simple answer to explain the shortages. Bad weather in food producing countries — drought in Canada and Australia, excessive rain and cold in the United States — has been a factor. Seed prices have not been immune to rising prices worldwide: The FAO reckons maize seeds are 36 percent more expensive, and wheat seeds have increased twice that much.

Skyrocketing oil prices have pushed the price of fertilizer up 59 percent and feed is now 62 percent more expensive. Ironically, other experts identify rising affluence as a contributing factor. An Indian official noted that “going from one meal a day to two meals a day for 300 million people increases demand a lot.” New wealth in China compounds that demand.

As prices rise, producers are holding off on sending foods to the market, hoping they will make even more money as supplies fall. (That is a self-fulfilling prophecy.) But some governments are making matters worse by restricting food exports — a natural response to shortages, but one that adds to upward pressure on international prices. India and Vietnam, two key rice producers, slammed the doors shut earlier this year, creating a 40 percent spike in prices in just three days.

It is now reported that other governments are responding with bilateral deals with food producers to secure their own supplies. Those agreements provide some certainty for importers, but they also decrease supplies on the global market, and keep prices high.

A final contributing factor has been the push to develop greener fuels and to decrease reliance on oil from the Middle East. It is estimated that 8 million hectares of land that once produced maize, wheat, soya and other crops for animal feed and food have been taken out of production in the U.S. and are now being devoted to biofuels. A similar diversion of land is occurring in Argentina, Brazil, Canada and Eastern Europe. Mr. Lester Brown, director of the Earth Policy Institute, a U.S. think tank, argues that the land now used for biofuels would have fed nearly 250 million people: “In the last two years the U.S. has diverted 60 million tons of food to fuel.”

Plainly, only a coordinated multilateral response will have an impact. First, and most immediately, governments have to provide funds to help stave off crises. That means providing the World Food Program with at least $500 million to cover existing funding shortfalls. In addition, developing countries need money to buy seeds, fertilizer and feed. The FAO puts that price tag at between $1.2 billion and $1.7 billion. The World Bank will make a start by doubling its aid to the agriculture sector in Africa from $450 million to $800 million.

Over the longer term, investment in agricultural infrastructure is essential to ensure that crops get from the fields to the market. Energy efficiency must also increase. Perhaps the most important step forward would be the successful completion of the Doha Round of trade negotiations — as originally intended. These talks were supposed to focus on developing country needs. That meant lifting barriers to agricultural markets in developed countries. Sadly, that ambitious — and critical — objective has not been met. As a result, trade-distorting agricultural subsidies and protection continue, hurting the world’s poorest and weakest citizens. Enough is enough.

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Once more, our take on this is that the interests that want to keep selling us their snake-oil, tell the world now that it is the attempt to promote and use Green Energy as   reason for some people being hungry. But the truth is that much of this land used for fuel production, would not have been used for food production anyway. Further, besides having 300 million people in China and India requesting now better standards, it really is the need to switch to less meat production – a very innefficient way of food production – that would allow any shadow of shortages of food.