Food, Fuel and Famine

In recent days we have repeatedly heard news reports of the rising cost of food and food shortage. The effects have been mild to moderate in wealthy, developed nations like the US, more worrisome in Asia and severe in some poorer parts of the world. Namibia and Haiti have already seen food riots. The cause of the shortage and soaring prices are manifold, some of it brought about ironically, by rising standards of living in Asia and a proportionate increase in demand for food. 

The recent issue of the Economist calls the burgeoning world food crisis The Silent Tsunami and suggests ways to bring it under control - generous aid from richer nations, scientific innovations for high yield crops, end of government interventions to manipulate international food markets and re-assessing the cost of biofuels .

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.

Among the many causes cited in the article, the alarm bell about the negative effects of diverting staple crops like corn, wheat and soy to manufacture fuel has been sounded by many in the past. Not only has the practice made those crops too expensive for poor people who depend on them for food, it has also raised the price of other staples like rice because farmers are increasingly choosing to grow crops for fuel rather than for food. While the idea surrounding ethanol as the clean-green fuel has gained successful foothold in wealthier nations concerned about pollution and global warming, biofuels are coming under increasing attack in less affluent countries. 

(See also Anna's article of February 2006 where among other things, she argued that ethanol as the affordable and environmentally friendly fuel is a notion that is mostly bunk, promoted by the corn lobby)

PARIS (AFP) - Hailed until only months ago as a silver bullet in the fight against global warming, biofuels are now accused of snatching food out of the mouths of the poor.

Billions have been poured into developing sugar- and grain-based ethanol and biodiesel to help wean rich economies from their addiction to carbon-belching fossil fuels, the overwhelming source of man-made global warming.

Heading the rush are the United States, Brazil and Canada, which are eagerly transforming corn, wheat, soy beans and sugar cane into cleaner-burning fuel, and the European Union (EU) is to launch its own ambitious programme.

But as soaring prices for staples bring more of the planet's most vulnerable people face-to-face with starvation, the image of biofuels has suddenly changed from climate saviour to a horribly misguided experiment.

On Friday, the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said biofuels "posed a real moral problem" and called for a moratorium on using food crops to power cars, trucks and buses.

The vital problem of global warming "has to be balanced with the fact that there are people who are going to starve to death," said Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

"Producing biofuels is a crime against humanity," the UN's special rapporteur for the right to food, Jean Ziegler of Switzerland, said earlier.

Biofuels may still be in their infancy but they are growing rapidly, with annual production leaping by double-digit percentages. ...

Comments

[Sujatha]

I'm not completely convinced that the increase in biofuel production is the prime mover in the food price increases. This article addresses it from a wider perspective. I don't see an extraordinary increase in cars running on ethanol blends either, though that could be just a peculiarity of the S-W PA demographic.
As for grain prices, it could stabilize next year, if these reports on record grain production in the 2007-08 year are any indication.

[Ruchira]

It is not the "prime" mover but is definitely a factor. The problem first showed up when poor villagers in southern Mexico began to go hungry due to a corn shortage. Now a similar phenomenon has been observed in rice growing countries like Indonesia wher rice farmers have begun growing soybeans for fuel. Most poor Indonesians are dependent almost wholly on rice as their major staple. Price of rice due to reduced supply has gone up and caused much hardship. Farmers will do what is profitable. Afghan farmers grow poppy for cash while villagers there go hungry.

The ethanol story is promoted enthusiastically by environmentalists as the solution for "low cost," clean and renewable fuel. While the last two are correct, the "low cost" part is not.

[Sujatha]

Whatever the actual supply situation for rice, it's definitely true that the 'shortage of rice' meme has now spread like wildfire and is being covered prominently by all news agencies. This, despite some efforts to tamp it down. Those who have invested in rice futures must be rubbing their hands in glee at this sudden windfall with the sharp rise in rice prices (up by 300% over the last year).

[Ruchira]

Roger Cohen of the New York Times says that it is not the production of ethanol per se that is causing the hike in food prices but the source of that ethanol. Again, he too blames farm politics.

I saw the news report about the "rationing" of rice in mega markets like Sam's Club and Costco. I buy my rice at Asian stores. I haven't checked what the situation there is regarding availability. But the price of Basmati rice as well as that of most other foods in my regular grocery store is definitely up.

[Judith Shapiro]

Silent no more. Everywhere we turn we read about this escalating problem. Sometimes I just don't understand.