Warning over food price 'time bomb'

Ferretlover

3 hours ago--Rising food prices could cause worldwide turmoil and political instability the UN's top humanitarian official has warned.
Sir John Holmes, the under-secretary general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief co-ordinator, said climate change combined with recent steep increases in basic foods was a volatile mix.
"The security implications (of food crisis) should also not be underestimated as food riots are already being reported across the globe," he said.
His comments came after two days of rioting in Egypt over economic conditions where the prices for many staple products have doubled in the past year.
"Current food price trends are likely to increase sharply both the incidence and depth of food insecurity," he said, noting a 40% average rise worldwide since mid-2007.
Sir John said that the biggest challenge to humanitarian work was the effects of climate change and the resulting "extreme weather" which has doubled the number of recorded disasters from an average of 200 a year to 400 year in the past two decades.
Adding food scarcity and expensive fuel to the mix have made for a very volatile situation, he said.
One of the factors pushing food prices higher is the increased cost of diesel fuel, which is used to transport most of the world's food, sparking protests all over the world.
On Monday there were riots over food scarcity in Haiti, clashes with police over high prices in northern Egypt and in Jordan UN employees staged a day long strike for pay raises due to a 50% rise in prices there.
Volatile situation

Food riots Rock Yemen By Bill Weinberg
(WW4 Report) -- Tanks have been deployed in parts of southern Yemen after a fifth day of angry protests by thousands of mostly young people. Youth are blocking roads and burning tires, and up to 100 have been arrested. In al-Dalea, two police station were torched, and military vehicles burned, while riot police fired into the air and used tanks against street barricades. In response, armed protesters threw up roadblocks on the main road between the capital, Sanaa, and the port of Aden, halting traffic.
The unrest started in the Radfan region of al-Dalea province March 30 and spread the next day to the province of Lahj. President Ali Abdullah Saleh called an emergency meeting of the National Defense Council on April 3. Al-Dalea residents report that one of at least 14 people wounded had died. The official Saba news agency said April 2 there were no fatalities.
Rising food prices helped trigger the protests. The price of wheat has doubled since February, while rice and vegetable oil have gone up 20%. Disaffection in southern Yemen has been long-standing following the civil war of 1994, in which the south lost its independence. Southerners say a government amnesty granting former southern soldiers re-admission to the army has not been fulfilled, and that they are kept out of government jobs ...
Yemen

Recipe for Catastrophe: Climate, Fuel, and Food By Rowan Wolf
(The Intelligence Daily) -- Food riots turn deadly in Haiti. Food riots fear after rice price hits a high. And so it starts. Globally there has been roughly a 25% increase in food prices. In some areas - such as Haiti - food prices have increased almost 50% in the last year. The poor of the planet who always live on the razor's edge of survival, are getting hit by multiple blows aimed directly at the food supply. …
This didn't start with the current economic crisis which comes with the so-called "mortgage crisis." It doesn't start with the recent sky rocketing increase in oil and gasoline. It started with the U.S. turn to bio-fuels production. It has been accelerated by multiple other issues. …
Haiti
_________________
"RRrrruuuunnnn!!!" ~Apocalypto

alecifel

What is most dismal is that this is happening so quickly. Oil is still cheap and relatively plentiful. The tanks up the road in Cushing still have a million barrels sitting in them. There's still a spot market. And climate change has barely gotten started.

Here, when I see the price of rice go from 35 cents to 70 cents, I may grumble a little but it doesn't really impact me. $17 an hour can buy quite a bit of rice at just about any price.

But for the over 1/4 of the world that earns $1 a day, that means that instead of one pound of rice costing 35% of their income, it now costs 70%. Well then, they can forget paying the tuition and pull their children out of school. If it goes up again next month, they'll have to eat less. If it goes up again after that...?

We are about to witness a catastrophe. I don't throw in with all the doomers who think America and Western Europe are going to suddenly collapse. But the starvation, disease, war and every other terrible thing that is about to hit Africa and Asia is unimaginable in scope. And those people will seek refugee status here. It would be immoral and wrong to deny it to them when we have so much, but it's also going to cause problems.

Of course the current immigration atmosphere in the US will turn them away.

All of this happening against the backdrop of oil that's only $110 and a slight dip in crop yields. What happens at $150 a barrel? $200? What happens when the stocks are depleted and there's no cushion? What happens when "Gaia" really unleashes the fires of climate hell against the rice paddies and wheat fields?
_________________
Nick J. Allen
Hilton, Oklahoma

"The Chinese have many hells. This one is the hell of valueless currency." -- J. Albertson

Jack · Dark Lord Joined: Aug 11, 2004 Posts: 5088

Twilight · Expert Joined: Mar 02, 2007 Posts: 2971 Location: UK

Ferretlover

catbox

Have a friend in Dafur who is overseeing an aid station. She said with everything they are trying to do, the biggest problem is food, blankets and water containers turning up missing all the time. Not just a few but the whole lot and they have to sit there with nothing to give to people. Even if the aid gets there, it gets ripped off right away.

Sounds like in another few years, there might not be any use for aid stations over there.

cb
_________________
President Bush: “There’s no question about it. Wall Street got drunk—that’s one of the reasons I asked you to turn off the TV cameras. It got drunk, and now it’s got a hangover."