Dramatically increasing food prices and the implications for poverty and hunger around the world have commanded front-page headlines for the past six months. Serious attention is now being given to the long-term challenges posed by this food crisis. The Food Summit in Rome during the first week of June, convened by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), was intended to address short, medium, and long-term challenges. Last month, I wrote in Daily Kos about the role of ‘markets’ in addressing this food crisis. Here, I address interrelated issues of resource limits and technological change.

Here are the stark numbers today:

Global food prices force about 100 million people into hunger.

High food prices are pushing 30 million Africans into poverty.

About 850 million people are suffering from chronic hunger worldwide.

Food prices have hit the highest levels in real terms in 30 years.

Price of rice has gone up by 75% globally.

Global food prices rose by 43% in 2007 alone.

The US has diverted about 40 million tons of maize to produce ethanol.

An acre of maize produces only 50 gallons of gasoline.

EU plans to get 10% of auto fuel from Bio-energy by 2020.

Food riots and food wars are not just taking place in the streets of Egypt and in Mexico, they are taking place in the corridors of the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN)

The Farm Bill embodies the "pour something into every trough" approach to legislation that has ballooned our deficit, undercut our currency, and make our government the unabashed tool of special interests. I'm very happy to see that Hispanic farm workers are supposed to benefit from this bill--except there seems to be a remarkable lack of detail on how that is supposed to happen aside from a vague trickle-down promise that Latino farmers will get some of the $1.6 billion allocated for fresh fruit and vegetable production and field workers will have a better life once the checks for pesticide research funds are cashed by the chemical companies. Sorry--I ain't drinking that Kool-Aid.
The school lunch program and food stamps aside, If the entire list of recipients of this largess were every published, we'd find that 99.999% of it is going into corporate pockets. When you add in the effect of this legislation on world food supplies, it makes the U.S. a major contributor to recurring famine. It's disgraceful. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton should be ashamed of themselves for approving it.

  Have any secrets to the perfect garden?  Have any great links?  Just want to brag about your garden?  Post it here and lets all get ready for the food shortage together!

  What's Better horse, cow, or chicken manure?  My wife, who used to be married to a big time cotton farmer, says that "gin dirt" is the best fertilizer.  Gin Dirt is from the cotton seed husks left over after ginning the cotton (she says). So anyway have at it and lets get Organic Gardening Open thread planted :)

    Events of the past two years have made food an increasingly worrisome item in household budgets and in the budgets of nations. In early 2008, food prices to the American consumer were 25 percent greater than two years earlier. This reflected dramatic increases in farm beef prices, while farm corn prices were double and wheat prices triple those of early 2006. Clearly something new has happened to a food market which has historically fed Americans well and for a uniquely small proportion of their income.

A series of events was associated with these price adjustments. In 2005 the U.S. dollar began to depreciate and a major realignment of international currencies set underway. (1) [A series of crop failures and poor harvests around the world magnified the food problem].  Finally, Congress adopted legislation that drastically altered the framework of American agriculture....
         - Foreign Affairs  (2)
    Add to this a "guns 'n' butter" fiscal policy of protracted war without either budget cutbacks or raising taxes to pay for it, and the recipe for World Food Crisis was created.

I began this two-part series Monday with a piece, "The World Food Crisis: A Hydra-headed Monster." Trivializing human suffering on a scale impossible to imagine by this writer and those who read what I write is easy. How can you wrap your mind around this reality?

"We are the canary in the mine," says Josette Sheeran, the head of the UN's World Food Programme, the largest distributor of food aid. Usually, a food crisis is clear and localised. The harvest fails, often because of war or strife, and the burden in the affected region falls heavily on the poorest. This crisis is different. It is occurring in many countries simultaneously, the first time that has happened since the early 1970s. And it is affecting people not usually hit by famines. "For the middle classes, it means cutting out medical care. For those on $2 a day, it means cutting out meat and taking the children out of school. For those on $1 a day, it means cutting out meat and vegetables and eating only cereals. And for those on 50 cents a day, it means total disaster."

Read on below the fold.

Crossposted on Blog de Ford

Last semester (I'm in my final weeks of an MA in Philanthropic Studies), James Morris, the former head of the UN World Food Program spoke to my History of Humanitarian Assistance class about his role in that program. He was an engaging, compassionate speaker whose best line was: "When I took the job, I was moderate Republican. I left it as a radical feminist." That line was in reference how hard the women of the world have to work and how much they have to sacrifice just to make sure that their families are fed.

He ended his talk with us on a hopeful note by saying how easy it would be to end world hunger. Wealthy countries would have to give so many billions of dollars (I can't remember the figures, so I don't want to make them up, but the amount was pretty low compared to how much the US spends in Iraq each year) to end global hunger.

[Promoted by DHinMI: When the candidates aren't fending off questions of vital importance to the survival of the planet like why they don't wear a flag pin on their lapel, they've occasionally discussed huge issues such as energy and global warming.  What hasn't been discussed much is a related and often neglected question: agriculture policy.  In fact, because of the importance of Iowa, candidates have to pledge their fealty to our policy of subsidizing the production of ethanol produced with corn.  Our ethanol policies are having unintended consequences, contributing to the kinds of problems that led to the "tortilla riots" in Mexico, and the worldwide move toward biofuels is contributing to the worldwide spike in food prices.  Let's hope that when the media is done with flag pins, they try to pin down the candidates on their plans for agriculture, in the US and around the world.]

It took more than 400 scientists and three years of haggling, wrangling and heated arguments to come up with the report by the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) as dire warnings from the World Bank, the IMF and the UN's World Food Programme splashed the front pages of the world press in the last few weeks (the Executive summary, the Global summary and all its regional summaries are here in both pdf & HTML forms, a great trove of information for those who are interested). I have read all summaries and will endeavor to read the regional pieces as well in the next few weeks.

The 2,500 pages report concluded that while advances over the last fifty years had resulted in the world's food production increasing at a much faster rate than its population, the present system of production and trade meant the benefits were spread unevenly, and as we know, at intolerable price paid by the small farmers, workers and rural communities and of course, the environment.

Crossposted on Blog de Ford.

I’ve been reading snippets about the international grain crisis here and there, but it hasn’t yet sunken in to the consciousness of American news consumers (probably because we’re too busy watching the Hillary and Barack show). It really should be a real concern to all of us as we think about our candidates, the policies they propose, our nation’s place in the world and our own lives.