In connection with the on-going G-8 Summit, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown has called on the world particularly the British families to cut back on the wasteful use of food. Based on studies, about one-third of the food supplies bought by Britons and Americans either go to waste or becomes stale. The UK Government even revealed that food wastage in their country totals to 4 tons per annum with each household having at food leftovers pegged at £8.
But after the pronouncement, the prime minister was served 24 different dishes just on his first day of the summit. This, of course, sparked condemnation from different political and civil society groups.
Meanwhile, an alleged World Bank study confirmed the fears that biofuels caused the skyrocketing of food prices as food production slowed down. The study was not released, according to the report, as the same may cause embarrassment to US President George Bush. Earlier, the US government had been claiming that plant-derived fuels contributed to only 3% of the price increases in food products which was debunked by the study that pegged the effect at 75%.
The World Bank study supports the Gallagher report which found out "that the rush to develop biofuels has played a "significant" role in the dramatic rise in global food prices, which has left 100 million more people without enough to eat."
Monday, July 7, 2008
Walk-the Talk: Gordon Brown, Food Crisis and Alternative Fuels
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
FOOD CRISIS: ‘The greatest demonstration of the historical failure of the capitalist model’
By Ian Angus
“If the government cannot lower the cost of living it simply has to leave. If the police and UN troops want to shoot at us, that’s OK, because in the end, if we are not killed by bullets, we’ll die of hunger.” — A demonstrator in Port-au-Prince, Haiti
In Haiti, where most people get 22% fewer calories than the minimum needed for good health, some are staving off their hunger pangs by eating “mud biscuits” made by mixing clay and water with a bit of vegetable oil and salt.[1]
Meanwhile, in Canada, the federal government is currently paying $225 for each pig killed in a mass cull of breeding swine, as part of a plan to reduce hog production. Hog farmers, squeezed by low hog prices and high feed costs, have responded so enthusiastically that the kill will likely use up all the allocated funds before the program ends in September.
Some of the slaughtered hogs may be given to local Food Banks, but most will be destroyed or made into pet food. None will go to Haiti.
This is the brutal world of capitalist agriculture — a world where some people destroy food because prices are too low, and others literally eat dirt because food prices are too high.
Record prices for staple foods
We are in the midst of an unprecedented worldwide food price inflation that has driven prices to their highest levels in decades. The increases affect most kinds of food, but in particular the most important staples — wheat, corn, and rice.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organization says that between March 2007 and March 2008 prices of cereals increased 88%, oils and fats 106%, and dairy 48%. The FAO food price index as a whole rose 57% in one year — and most of the increase occurred in the past few months.
Another source, the World Bank, says that that in the 36 months ending February 2008, global wheat prices rose 181% and overall global food prices increased by 83%. The Bank expects most food prices to remain well above 2004 levels until at least 2015.
The most popular grade of Thailand rice sold for $198 a tonne five years ago and $323 a tonne a year ago. On April 24, the price hit $1,000.
Increases are even greater on local markets — in Haiti, the market price of a 50 kilo bag of rice doubled in one week at the end of March.
These increases are catastrophic for the 2.6 billion people around the world who live on less than US$2 a day and spend 60% to 80% of their incomes on food. Hundreds of millions cannot afford to eat.
This month, the hungry fought back.
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Thursday, April 17, 2008
The Price of Rice Protectionism
The global price of rice is soaring, and for the Philippines – the world's largest importer of rice annually – that's bad news. Food queues and fears of riots are real fears. But this is a problem of Manila's own making.
Alone among World Trade Organization member nations, the Philippines imposes quantitative restrictions on rice imports, implemented by a government monopoly. Since the 1970s, the state-owned and controlled National Food Authority (NFA) has maintained tight controls on rice imports. This policy has stood in sharp contrast to other countries such as Vietnam, Indonesia and Bangladesh, which have abolished, privatized or sharply reduced the authority and scale of their food monopolies – and enjoyed more efficient production and cheaper consumer prices.
Read more here >>>
