A brutal convergence of events has hit an unprepared global market, and grain prices are sky high. The world's poor suffer most.
That is the subtitle of a piece called The New Economics of Hunger which takes 3 of the four columns of my Sunday Washington Post's front page, above the fold and slightly below. When one jumps to the continuation on page A22 the subtitle reads "The Anatomy of a Massive Price Shock." At the very top of the page, above the title, one sees a black box with the words all in caps: GLOBAL FOOD CRISIS If one examines the online version, one sees the same Accompanying this lead story is another piece on the front of the Outlook section entitled A Full Plate Today, Uncertainty Tomorrow Clearly the issue of hunger is now of concern in our national capital, as the Post has validated the issue
The main story is accompanied by all sorts of charts and summaries (which are available online, if one clicks on the link to VIEW ALL ITEMS IN THIS STORY that appears in the box on the left. There is also an accompanying photo gallery) But perhaps all we need to know appears as the caption of a small photograph of baguettes on the front page:
World food prices have increased 80% since 2005, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization
The bolding I have used does not do justice the emphasis used by the Post, as the percentage appears twice as large and the letters of text surrounding it.
One extended chart inside, on p. A13, is two column inches wide and the full length of this broadsheet. It is entitled and subtitled as follows:
REASONS FOR RISING FOOD PRICES
No single factor can be blamed for the global food crisis. An unlucky confluence of events over the past several years contributed to the soaring prices
Let me offer the structure, without the illustrations, of that chart (the link for which is here, which is constructed in a series of five Causes and Effects, which in order are Trade Restrictions, Increased Demand in Asia, Weather, Biofuels, and Fuel Prices (here I
note they do NOT include the subject of additional pressures on prices such as the Stem Rust about which I wrote yesterday, and thus paint a somewhat incomplete portrait, no matter how frightening what they offer is). I will summarize the text of the Causes and Effects, and the words in the parenthesis will offer descriptions of parts of the accompanying graphics. Any words within the parens in bold represent my commentary.
Trade Restrictions
CAUSE Major exporting nations introduced/increased iexport taxes, bans and other restrictions to keep down domestic prices
EFFECT These further strained already githt supplies added pressure on prices. (Among the nations with such restrictions are Russia, China, Indonesia, Ukraine and Egypt).
Increased Demand in Asia
CAUSE Economic development and income growth in emerging countries, especially China and India, are changing diets away from starchy foods toward more meat and dairy in China, where per capita meat consumption is up 40% since 1980.
EFFECT More grain needed to feed livestock, thus less for human food. (7-8.5 pounds of grain for one pound of beef, 5-7 for one pound of pork, and as per capita consumption has gone up by nearly half, the population has gone from .98 to over 1.3 billion).
Weather
CAUSE Heat waves, droughts and excessive rain in grain-producing countries taking toll on crops in recent years.
EFFECT World cereal stocks have fallen. (true even in US, from 71.7 million metric tons in 2006 to a projected 48.1 in 2008)
Biofuels
CAUSE The push to produce biofuels increasing demand for corn, with US, exporter of 66% of world's corn using increasing amounts for ethanol.
EFFECT Corn prices up more than 50 percent since last year, causing European nations to turn to less expensive sorghum to feed livestock, driving up the price of a grain heavily used by poor people (from 98/metric ton in 2004-5 to 191 in 2007-8).
Fuel Prices
CAUSE All the chart offers is "Rising Fule Prices." Of course, we know our actions in Iraq are a major contributor to that rise, but so is increasing motorization of the developing world, especially China
EFFECT costlier to produce/transport grain (from Gulf Coast to Japan up from 60 to 110 per ton, and 97% more to ship to Europe. those figures do not begin to address the increases in planting and plowing, nor in in the use of petroleum based fertilizers)
There is one other chart I want to mention, that shows the global grain trade in terms of have and have-nots. It uses green circles for importation of grain and pink circles for exports. The use has a small green circle representing 24,8 million metric tons and a huge pink one representing 130.2 By contrast East Asia has 47.2 green dwarfing the 5.4 pink, and Africa is even worse: 19.6 to 2.6 in the Sub-Saharan portion of the second largest continent, and 29.5 to 1.0 in North Africa. Even more frightening, the Middle East is 32.6 to 2.9 in a region already disrupted by conflict in Iraq and instability in many other nations.
Today's article is the first of a series. Monday will examine Africa more closely, noting how some countries are now losing the fight to feed their people. The following three days will be an examination of our own nation. Tuesday will focus on wheat, Wednesday on corn, and Thursday on us, the American consumers.
The final text of today's article is critical, because it shows how complicated it will be to address the crisis:
The European Union doles out about $41 billion a year in agriculture subsidies, with France getting the biggest share, about $8.2 billion. The 27-nation bloc also has set a target for biofuels to supply 10 percent of transportation fuel needs by 2020 to combat global warming.
The French, whose farmers over the years have become addicted to generous government handouts, argue that agriculture subsidies must be continued and even increased in order to encourage more food production, especially with looming shortages.
Last week, French Agriculture Minister Michel Barnier warned E.U. officials against "too much trust in the free market."
"We must not leave the vital issue of feeding people," he said, "to the mercy of market laws and international speculation."
It is true that massive numbers of people will starve if the current situation is addressed only by the mechanisms of the free market. It is probably equally true that many smaller producers will quickly fail without some form of assistance from governments, particularly given the rising cost of fuel. But the words of the French minister should frighten us at least as much as our own American profligacy in what we eat and how we produce it.
We already know that the world is past its carrying point for human population were everyone to live at the "standard of living" (or rather, the consumption level) of the American people. Even in my own lifetime I have seen the consumption of meat escalate, both in frequency and in the size of portions. And think of this: McDonald's now has over 30,000 restaurants around the world, thus propagating our destructive tendency to consume too much meat. It is too much both for our own health and in the environmental costs it imposes.
We are often challenged to think globally and act locally. Clearly we Americans are far too casual about our own eating patterns, and this is something we will need to address over time. It is also incumbent upon us to think about how the actions we take, say for energy independence, help create a real crisis in the basic existence of others: as we decrease the amount of corn we export because we are turning to ethanol, we exacerbate the extant food shortages for many of the world's poorest communities.
How we choose to live is a moral statement. And perhaps if we care we need to examine our actions, in what we eat, in how we drive, in the fuel we use, in how we heat and cool our homes. We have helped to create the current crisis in the world, and we cannot isolate ourselves from its effects.
We cannot act alone. Not as individuals or families, nor as a nation. This is a crisis that connects all of humanity. It includes elements the article does not properly address, such as the continuing expansion of populations beyond the abilities of their nations to feed them.
And this is an issue as important as any we face. It should be a far greater part of our political discussion. Those who seek to be our political leaders have a responsibility to ensure that the American people know we cannot solve our problems in a world in disorder because of spreading hunger and famine. And this also represents a global health crisis because people whose nutrition is insufficient are far more vulnerable to the ever-present diseases. And given the interconnectedness of the world, an explosion of any disease can quickly spread.
The series that has started in the Washington Post is insufficient, for it does not address all of the causes. But it is a start. I encourage people to follow the series, and to think about those things they can do in their own lives not to make the situation worse.
Peace.