Views > April 15, 2008

As Hunger Rises, Chew on This

By Terry J. Allen

A diet of bread and water used to be emblematic of poverty. Now a global food crisis is transforming that meager meal into a luxury for much of the world.

The prices of the world’s three main grains — corn, rice and wheat — more than doubled last year. The causes include poor harvests linked to climate change, diversion of cropland to biofuels, population increases, rising meat consumption, emerging diseases and soaring fuel prices.

In a globalized economy, issues of food scarcity and inflation should be a matter not only of humanitarian concern, but also of national security. A food crisis is exploding.

Last year, spiraling food prices sparked protests and riots in Cameroon, Egypt, Guinea, India, Mauritania, Mexico, Morocco, Pakistan, Senegal, Uzbekistan and Yemen.

Children in Yemen marched to draw attention to their hunger. Farmers in Thailand slept in fields to prevent rice crop theft. Hundreds of construction workers in the United Arab Emirates torched cars and ransacked buildings to demand higher wages to counter surging inflation.

The problem is not just price but actual shortage. World grain stores have not been this low since the end of World War II. Argentina and Vietnam have risked treaty violations to impose protectionist trade caps and taxes aimed at stabilizing supply and stanching inflation. The Philippine government asked fast food restaurants to serve less rice to ease shortages.

The poorest are the worst hit, especially as the lifeline U.N. World Food Program (WFP) frays. In late March, it warned that unless donor countries immediately kick in $500 million to offset price hikes, WFP will start rationing food aid that feeds 73 million people — from Darfur’s genocide refugees to Haiti’s children.

Wealthy countries also feel the pangs. Despite dim-wittedly sunny U.S. government statistics on inflation, consumers — who are already staggered by fuel prices — have seen the cost of food staples soar.

In my own agriculture-heavy Vermont, Chris Barkyoumb, head of Hillcrest Foods, reports “an extreme shortage of wheat. And there’s hardly a food item that’s not going up. A lot of people are scared out there.”

The most intractable factors are the evil twins of climate change and fossil fuel dependence. Global wheat production has fallen behind demand for seven of the past eight years, as historic droughts have hit major wheat-producing countries like Australia, Canada, Russia and Uzbekistan.

Part of the price rise in Hillcrest’s wheat is due to a 30 percent fuel surcharge it passes to customers. And because most of the world’s fertilizers are petroleum-based, farmers are damned by low yield if they scrimp, and by high costs if they don’t. From January 2007 to January 2008, global fertilizer prices surged by an unprecedented 200 percent, as farmers tried to maximize production of corn — now used for ethanol. Hardest hit are African farmers, many of whom need fertilizer to replenish nutrient-depleted soils.

Adding to the shortages and price spikes is an insane policy that pits the world’s 850 million chronically hungry against its 800 million motorists. Despite the nearly even numbers, it is not a fair fight. In an October 2007 address, Jean Ziegler, the U.N. special rapporteur on the right to food, called the biofuel boom “a crime against humanity.”

Another vast diversion of world grain is animal products. One pound of meat requires up to 40 pounds of grain input. Not only does the earth have more mouths to feed every second, but more of them are chewing meat as rising living standards in China and India make it affordable. China’s per capita meat consumption jumped from 44 pounds in 1980 to 110 pounds today — still half the U.S. average. According to the Sierra Club, “America could feed most of Africa with the grains we feed to livestock.”

Adding to global fear is a virulent wheat disease that began in Uganda in 1999. It recently reached Iran and is threatening crops in India and Pakistan. The fungus, known as Ug-99, “can spread rapidly and has the potential to cause global crop epidemics,” U.N. expert Dr. Jacques Diouf said this March. In the ’50s, a similar plague killed 40 percent of North America’s spring wheat.

According to the New Scientist magazine, “U.S. Department of Homeland Security met in March 2007 to discuss the possibility that someone could transport Ug-99 deliberately.”

While the Bush administration scares the nation with visions of bin Laden lurking under our beds, greed and willful blindness are precipitating a global catastrophe of hunger that endangers not only America’s security, but the world’s.

• subscribe to print magazine

  First Name Last Name Home Address City State Zip Code Email

  2-year, 24-issues, $44.95 1-year, 12-issue, $24.95

• stay in touch with our email newsletter

  Subscribe to our regular weekly e-mail newsletter. It's packed with updates on recent and upcoming stories, events, campaigns and things every progressive should be informed about. Check out a sample.

   

• email this article to a friend

  Your Name Your Email Recipient Email

  Personal message Thought you might be interested in this article from In These Times.

   

  Please help us prevent spam by verifying the word you see in the image above

  Send to multiple recipients. Just separate each email address with a comma.

• Reader Comments

  Here in the Philippines, where rice is not only the staple food but also an aspect of Filipino cultural identity, food prices for basics have nearly doubled within the past year. Some have gone beyond doubling. Lots of poor local people can’t switch out to another calorie source because there simply isn’t an equivalent that’s consistently affordable. Noodles is the next option, but wheat prices have driven up those prices as well. Also, the Phils has an inordinately large population relative to its land area (~88M, and growing at a rate of between 2 and 3% annually… at that sustained growth rate, the population would double in roughly 25 years). And as you might expect, the median family size of poorer families can be double or triple the median family size of the more well-to-do classes.

  We have not had food riots here yet, but I will not be surprised when they happen. The government has been importing megatons of Vietnamese and Thai rice, but those sources are also feeding many other southeast Asian countries, not least themselves. And as prices climb, the Phils will be less and less able to make up the shortfall. It aint a rich country. Local and international NGOs are trying to alleviate suffering where they can, but there’s a lot of apprehension out there about the future, both in the short and long terms.

  It surely does seem obvious that the people who for decades have been counseling a more parsimonious approach to the good things of life (including having several meals in a day… at one time this was considered a luxury!) had a point. We didn’t want to listen to them because it would mean having to think about nearly everything we purchase and the knock-on effects of having made those purchases, and we’d really rather just make our choices, enjoy them, and not give it another thought.

  That’s a way of thinking that appears to have reached the limit of its useful life; I think it reached that limit a long time ago, whether people acknowledged it or not. Definitely a “rich world” attitude, although it looks like the rich world isn’t immune from the effects of the factors that have combined to create this situation. Maybe that can mean that something substantive might finally begin that will steer us away from considering last generation’s luxuries to be this generation’s necessities. Things like that almost only do occur when rich folks are affected.

  We may just have to finally actively consider eating less, driving less (ride a bike or walk!), flying less, burning less, throwing less away, and simply using less of our many lovely treats. Maybe they’ll become treats in our minds once again, because now they’re regarded as essentials to happiness. Not exactly the most adaptive mindset one could take on, in this day and age.

  Posted by Kuya on Apr 16, 2008 at 12:21 AM

  consider ... less

  Exactly! Less means more for someone else.

  Posted by Jiminy Cricket on Apr 16, 2008 at 10:09 PM

  Kuya,

  We have several tug of war areas contributing to these global problems. Corn for food/corn for energy, substitute foods/foods people want, entrenched wasteful habits/new conservative methods, large families/shrinking food sources, land for agriculture/massive building programs.

  I’m afraid the “rich world” attitude is precisely not only what has caused many of the problems, but will prevent any large scale attempt to institute the solutions which you list — eating less, driving less (ride a bike or walk!), flying less, burning less, throwing less away, and simply using less. This is obviously the sensible approach.

  Too many people are able to afford what they want and care too little about the too many who cannot get what they need.  Money and power usually win out until desperation leads to war.

  These same issues contributed to both WW1 and WW2. This next global one may solve the problems more efficiently — rapidly reducing the number of mouths to feed and eliminating the rich and powerful along with the not so well off.

  We seem to be slow learners compared to the animal world where even the strongest predators only eat their fill.

  Posted by whattheheck on Apr 17, 2008 at 9:44 AM

  “Exactly! Less means more for someone else.”

  Understand however, that this sort of thiking is anathema to the American Paradigm; to (the unenlightened) Americans (yep, I’m one too!), this sort of thinking smacks of “Socialism”, and that’s, well, just plain evil. Here in UhMurrikka, it’s all about “Me, me, me… and maybe also, me.” The governing thought of society here is: “I’m going to get mine, if you don’t get yours, well that’s your problem, isn’t it?”
  I’m not being facetious - this is really how we are nurtured here, from birth. Hummers & Cadillac Escalades are not “luxuries”, they are a birthright; forget food & blankets, we’ll go to war over the right to drive a huge car.
  (Retarded? You bet!)

  Posted by ptbSFO on Apr 17, 2008 at 10:05 AM

  Hi whattheheck,
  I think you’re right on the mark with your point about how humans are so slow on the uptake in comparision with other creatures, when it comes to our decisions about how much to consume. I think we can easily compare runaway pursuit of luxuries and treats to addictive tendencies, as we expend enormous amounts of energy and wealth to get our fix, even being willing to do things that are victimizing upon others or destructive to ourselves.

  (As you know, my opinion about the Iraq War smacks of this sort of addiction-based crime, doing whatever is needed as long as we can get what we’re jonesing for. Maybe that point would be regarded by some as a smidgen off-topic, but I think it’s still within sniffing distance of it.)

  I can’t predict this with 100% assuredness, but in my more hopeful and optimistic moments I think there’s a chance that in the world of the near future, those who are able to unhook from the culturally-instilled habit of melding necessity with luxury (as per the point made by ptbSFO above) will be able to enjoy a better quality of life. Not that they’ll have more stuff, because they’ll have less, but just that they’ll be able to appreciate the good things they do have more and (perhaps) decouple from the manic chase after more and more of our transient goodies.

  It’s not confusing, any creature will form an attachment to excessive treats if they have them in large amounts or they’re easy to get, as has been the case for Americans for so long (an animal example is the way some people’s pets get hooked on table food and won’t touch the regular pet food… we’re not immune from that tendency, but of course we have a greater ability to consider what we’re doing rationally and alter our behavior, if we’ll but use it). Scaling back won’t be easy for a lot of people, but those who do will at least potentially benefit. At least, I think enjoying a feeling of contentment with one’s life while spending less of hard-earned money qualifies as a benefit, surely better than its treadmill-like, rat-race opposite, with which I’m also very acquainted.

  My kids are getting some great lessons right now since their comparatively flush expat lives have ended and they’re having to punch a clock and strictly budget their cash to make ends meet (they’re in gap years before college, not to travel but to get state residency and especially to work… it’s my insistence). I give them a bit of help but believe me, it’s strictly limited and not enough to insulate them from what is going down in America these days. It’s cool, it’s what I want for them. Every reality check is a good thing, even if it sucks at the time. I’ll take lean, smart, and adaptable instead of overfed and overentertained any day, inshallah those will be the outcomes for them.

  Posted by Kuya on Apr 17, 2008 at 9:09 PM

• extended discussion >>>Continued...

  Discussions with more than 5 comments are continued on our special discussion page to encourage continuity and ease of use. There are currently 7 posts.

Member Login

Also by Terry J. Allen

• As Hunger Rises, Chew on This
  
• Vermont Argues Iraq War is ‘Mission Expired’
  
• Pig Intestines, Downer Cows
  
• The Malign Magic of Misdirection
  
• Nanotech: Tiny Particles, Big Risks
  
• Warning: Drug Ads Can Make You Sick
  A $4.2 billion annual drug industry incessantly reinforces the medicalization of complaints through direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising

Your financial support of In These Times is critical, because working together, a crusading press and an informed public can change the world.

Donate now and get a Kurt Vonnegut mug or t-shirt!