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Topic: Crises arrives, deepening expected. Another way for biofuel & war to kill. (Read 435 times) |
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Hermit
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Crises arrives, deepening expected. Another way for biofuel & war to kill.
« on: 2008-03-01 11:10:51 » |
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Soaring prices force US to cut food aid
Source: Agence France-Presse
Authors: Not credited (correspondents in Washington)
Dated: 2008-03-02
THE US will drastically reduce emergency food aid to some of the poorest countries this year due to soaring food prices, The Washington Post reports today.
Citing unnamed officials, the newspaper said the US Agency for International Development (USAID) was drafting plans to cut down the number of recipient nations and the amount of food provided to them.
A 41 per cent surge in prices of wheat, corn, rice and other cereals over the past six months has generated a $US120 million ($126.5 million) budget shortfall that will force the USAID to reduce emergency operations, the report said.
That deficit is projected to rise to $US200 million ($211 million) by the end of the year.
The USAID is reviewing all of the agency's emergency programs, which target countries like Ethiopia, Iraq, Somalia, Honduras and Sudan's Darfur region.
"We're in the process now of going country by country and analyzing the commodity price increase on each country,'' The Post quotes Jeff Borns, director of USAID's Food for Peace program as saying.
"Then we're going to have to prioritise.''
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Hermit
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Re:Crises arrives, deepening expected. Another way for biofuel & war to kill.
« Reply #1 on: 2008-03-12 22:08:21 » |
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The New Face Of Hunger
Source: Washington Post
Authors: Ban Ki-moon (UN Secretary General)
Dated: 2008-03-08
The price of food is soaring. The threat of hunger and malnutrition is growing. Millions of the world's most vulnerable people are at risk.
An effective and urgent response is needed.
The first of the Millennium Development Goals, set by world leaders at the U.N. summit in 2000, aims to reduce the proportion of hungry people by half by 2015. This was already a major challenge, not least in Africa, where many nations have fallen behind. But we are also facing a perfect storm of new challenges.
The prices of basic staples -- wheat, corn, rice -- are at record highs, up 50 percent or more in the past six months. Global food stocks are at historic lows. The causes range from rising demand in major economies such as India and China to climate- and weather-related events such as hurricanes, floods and droughts that have devastated harvests in many parts of the world. High oil prices have increased the cost of transporting food and purchasing fertilizer. Some experts say the rise of biofuels has reduced the amount of food available for humans.
The effects are widely seen. Food riots have erupted from West Africa to South Asia. In countries where food has to be imported to feed hungry populations, communities are rising to protest the high cost of living. Fragile democracies are feeling the pressure of food insecurity. Many governments have issued export bans and price controls on food, distorting markets and presenting challenges to commerce.
In January, to cite one example, Afghan President Hamid Karzai appealed for $77 million to help provide food for more than 2.5 million people pushed over the edge by rising prices. He drew attention to an alarming fact: The average Afghan household now spends about 45 percent of its income on food, up from 11 percent in 2006.
This is the new face of hunger, increasingly affecting communities that had previously been protected. Inevitably, it is the "bottom billion" who are hit hardest: people living on one dollar a day or less. When people are that poor, and inflation erodes their meager earnings, they generally do one of two things: They buy less food, or they buy cheaper, less nutritious food. The result is the same -- more hunger and less chance of a healthy future. The U.N. World Food Program is seeing families that previously could afford a diverse, nutritious diet dropping to one staple and cutting their meals from three to two or one a day.
Experts believe that high food prices may be here to stay. Even so, we have the tools and technology to beat hunger and meet the Millennium Development Goals. We know what to do. What is required are political will and resources, directed effectively and efficiently.
First, we must meet urgent humanitarian needs. This year, the World Food Program plans to feed 73 million people globally, including as many as 3 million people each day in Darfur. To do so, the program requires an additional $500 million simply to cover the rise in food costs. (Note: 80 percent of the agency's purchases are made in the developing world.)
Second, we must strengthen U.N. programs to help developing countries deal with hunger. This must include support for safety-net programs to provide social protection, in the face of urgent need, while working on longer-term solutions. We also need to develop early-warning systems to reduce the impact of disasters. School meals -- at a cost of less than 25 cents a day -- can be a particularly powerful tool.
Third, we must deal with the increasing consequences of weather-related shocks to local agriculture, as well as the long-term consequences of climate change -- for example, by building drought and flood defense systems that can help food-insecure communities cope and adapt.
Last, we must boost agricultural production. World Bank President Robert Zoellick has rightly noted that there is no reason Africa can't experience a "green revolution" of the sort that transformed Southeast Asia in previous decades. U.N. agencies such as the Food and Agriculture Organization and the International Fund for Agricultural Development are working with the African Union and others to do just this, introducing vital science and technologies that offer permanent solutions for hunger.
Simply improving market efficiency can have a huge effect. Roughly a third of the world's food shortages could be alleviated to a significant degree by improving local agricultural distribution networks and helping to better connect small farmers to markets.
But that is for the future. In the here and now, we must help the hungry people hit by rising food prices. That means, for starters, recognizing the urgency of the crisis -- and acting.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Re:Crises arrives, deepening expected. Another way for biofuel & war to kill.
« Reply #2 on: 2008-04-10 05:49:26 » |
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Food price rises threaten global security - UN
Hunger riots will destabilize weak governments, says senior official
Source: The Guardian
Authors: David Adam ( environment correspondent)
Dated: 2008-04-09
(This article appeared in the Guardian on Wednesday April 09 2008 on p1 of the Top stories section. It was last updated at 09:55 on April 09 2008.)
Rising food prices could spark worldwide unrest and threaten political stability, the UN's top humanitarian official warned yesterday after two days of rioting in Egypt over the doubling of prices of basic foods in a year and protests in other parts of the world.
Sir John Holmes, undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs and the UN's emergency relief coordinator, told a conference in Dubai that escalating prices would trigger protests and riots in vulnerable nations. He said food scarcity and soaring fuel prices would compound the damaging effects of global warming. Prices have risen 40% on average globally since last summer.
"The security implications [of the food crisis] should also not be underestimated as food riots are already being reported across the globe," Holmes said. "Current food price trends are likely to increase sharply both the incidence and depth of food insecurity."
He added that the biggest challenge to humanitarian work is climate change, which has doubled the number of disasters from an average of 200 a year to 400 a year in the past two decades.
As well as this week's violence in Egypt, the rising cost and scarcity of food has been blamed for:- Riots in Haiti last week that killed four people
- Violent protests in Ivory Coast
- Price riots in Cameroon in February that left 40 people dead
- Heated demonstrations in Mauritania, Mozambique and Senegal
- Protests in Uzbekistan, Yemen, Bolivia and Indonesia
UN staff in Jordan also went on strike for a day this week to demand a pay rise in the face of a 50% hike in prices, while Asian countries such as Cambodia, China, Vietnam, India and Pakistan have curbed rice exports to ensure supplies for their own residents.
Officials in the Philippines have warned that people hoarding rice could face economic sabotage charges. A moratorium is being considered on converting agricultural land for housing or golf courses, while fast-food outlets are being pressed to offer half-portions of rice.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation says rice production should rise by 12m tonnes, or 1.8%, this year, which would help ease the pressure. It expects "sizable" increases in all the major Asian rice producing countries, especially Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Burma, the Philippines and Thailand.
Holmes is the latest senior figure to warn the world is facing a worsening food crisis. Josette Sheeran, director of the UN World Food Programme, said last month: "We are seeing a new face of hunger. We are seeing more urban hunger than ever before. We are seeing food on the shelves but people being unable to afford it."
The programme has launched an appeal to boost its aid budget from $2.9bn to $3.4bn (£1.5bn to £1.7bn) to meet higher prices, which officials say are jeopardising the programme's ability to continue feeding 73 million people worldwide.
Robert Zoellick, president of the World Bank, said "many more people will suffer and starve" unless the US, Europe, Japan and other rich countries provide funds. He said prices of all staple food had risen 80% in three years, and that 33 countries faced unrest because of the price rises.
In the UK, Professor John Beddington, the new chief scientific adviser to the government, used his first speech last month to warn the effects of the food crisis would bite more quickly than climate change. He said the agriculture industry needed to double its food production, using less water than today.
He said the prospect of food shortages over the next 20 years was so acute it had to be tackled immediately: "Climate change is a real issue and is rightly being dealt with by major global investment. However, I am concerned there is another major issue along a similar time-scale - that of food and energy security."
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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