Threat to millions as food aid scheme runs out of money

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"This is the new face of hunger," she said. "People are simply being priced out of food markets. It's the first time we have been hit by a dramatic market surprise. We have never before had a situation where aggressive rises in food prices keep pricing our operations out of our reach."

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"It's a situation that is changing nearly every day. We used to adjust our basic food prices every year or two but now it's weekly or even daily because the changes are so quick and, unfortunately, all seem to go in the same direction"

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Rice last week jumped to a three-decade high, experiencing the same sort of spike that has already affected wheat, corn and soybeans. The price of these staple foods has been driven skywards by increased demand for food from the newly prospering parts of south and east Asia, damage to crops by natural disasters, and by the growing demand for biofuels. "It's a global phenomenon which is hitting the most vulnerable populations hard," Ms Sheeran said.

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North Korea food crisis looms as aid flow dries up

North Korea, which even with a good harvest still falls about 1 million tonnes, or around 20 percent, short of the food needed to feed its own people, relies heavily on aid from China, South Korea and UN aid agencies to make up the gap.

"If the South and the global community fail to send food aid to the North, we might see a food crisis even worse than the one in the 90s," said Kwon Tae-jin, an expert on the North's agriculture sector at the South's Korea Rural Economic Institute.

A famine in the mid-to-late 1990s killed more than 1 million North Koreans in a country of about 23 million.

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Rice now too costly to give away

BANGKOK - Soaring global rice prices are hitting the stomachs of Asia's poorest citizens. The people of East Timor, where nearly 40% live on less than 0.55 US cents a day, have just been told they may not receive their annual quota of food aid.

"We have been forced to provide less food to East Timor; provide less rice than we intended to," Paul Risely, Asia spokesperson for the United Nations food agency, told Inter Press Service (IPS). "We have requested the people of East Timor to look for local substitutes."

Part of the problem stems from poor planning with the Dili government urging the World Food Program (WFP) to step in only after finding that it could not afford to purchase sufficient quantities of the grain from Vietnam, due to high prices.

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Bangladesh Patronizing Terror?

According to latest information from Bangladesh, rice, which is the main food for Bangladeshis, is becoming expensive almost every day. Present price of rice is much beyond buying capacity of at least sixty-eight per cent of the population. But, the military backed government is trying its best in suppressing information on such acute food crisis, silent famine and even death of people due to lack of food.

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One million face famine after rats feast on crops

The people of Mizoram, a tiny, remote state of north-east India squeezed between Burma and Bangladesh, have known for the past 48 years that they would face famine in 2008. Confirmation came last November when the local species of bamboo that dominates the state's landscape began to burst into flower - a peculiar ecological phenomenon that happens about twice a century.

A plague of rats rapidly followed, feasting on the bamboo's protein-rich avocado-like fruit, before swarming to consume the farmers' rice paddies, grain harvests and food stockpiles. Now up to a million people are facing hunger, according to aid agencies.

Mrinal Gohain, of charity Action Aid, said: 'There were rats all over the fields. Farmers would go to harvest their crops and find that the entire field had been eaten overnight.'

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Global Food Crisis

The United States (US) is currently using about 9% of its wheat, 25% of its corn and about 15% of its grain in general to produce biofuel. The United Kingdom (UK) has committed to large increases in the use of biofuels over coming decades, has recently announced subsidies for biofuel and supports the European Commission (EU) target requiring 10 per cent of petrol station fuel to be plant-derived biofuel within 12 years. However the huge and intrinsically genocidal US diversion of 15% of its grain crop to biofuel production has had a huge impact already on soaring global food prices – the world is already facing a global food crisis with alarm being expressed by UN, FAO and other scientific experts.

Thus the UK Chief Scientific Adviser, Professor John Beddington CMG, FRS (Professor of Applied Population Biology at Imperial College, London.) has described the devastating potential of food shortages as an "elephant in the room" problem commensurate with that from climate change and warns that biofuel diversion (e.g. for canola oil- or palm oil-derived biodiesel and grain- or sugar-derived ethanol) is threatening world food production and the lives of “billions” (see: here): "It's very hard to imagine how we can see the world growing enough crops to produce renewable energy and at the same time meet the enormous demand for food. The supply of food really isn't keeping up."

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The world may be seeing the commencement of a re-run - on a possibly 100-fold greater scale - of the man-made World War 2 Bengali Holocaust in which 6-7 million people perished in Bengal and in the adjoining provinces of Assam, Bihar and Orissa under the merciless British “scorched earth policy” when the price of rice doubled and finally doubled again (see: here ). Ten years ago I published a book entitled “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History” in which I described horrendous man-made, market-forces famines in British-ruled India from the 1769-1770 Great Bengal Famine (10 million deaths or one third of the Bengali population) to the World War 2 Bengal Famine (6-7 million deaths in the Bengal region).

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EXPERTS SOUND ALARM ON FUTURE AVAILABILITY OF RICE

Land endowment determines which countries have enough of the cereal, say the world’s foremost rice experts.

Thailand, India, Vietnam, Myanmar, Cambodia and Bangladesh are all blessed with broad riverine deltas and plains with huge tracts suitable for rice farming, and allot more than half of their arable land to it, said International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) economist David Dawe.

Rice importers by contrast are island or peninsular nations with more varied landscapes favoring maize, palm oil or coconut.

Rice yields in the Philippines are nearly double those of Thailand, the world’s top exporter, yet as in Indonesia “there is just not enough land,” said IRRI President Robert Zeigler, who spoke to Agence France-Presse in a joint interview with Dawe.

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Originally posted by loam

Originally posted by spaznational

Originally posted by Riposte
My first thought was to get into the rice farming business, not a global rioting meltdown. Be thankful we don't live in a planned economy. Supply and demand, people.

I'm glad you mentioned this. This is how crisis is avoided. If rice prices are high then it is a great time to grow rice. Likewise for any other food. Out of all the posts so far in this thread you are the only one who saw this. That is kinda sad.

Saying a thing is not the same a making the thing happen.

EXPERTS SOUND ALARM ON FUTURE AVAILABILITY OF RICE

Land endowment determines which countries have enough of the cereal, say the world’s foremost rice experts.

Thailand, India, Vietnam, Myanmar, Cambodia and Bangladesh are all blessed with broad riverine deltas and plains with huge tracts suitable for rice farming, and allot more than half of their arable land to it, said International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) economist David Dawe.

Rice importers by contrast are island or peninsular nations with more varied landscapes favoring maize, palm oil or coconut.

Rice yields in the Philippines are nearly double those of Thailand, the world’s top exporter, yet as in Indonesia “there is just not enough land,” said IRRI President Robert Zeigler, who spoke to Agence France-Presse in a joint interview with Dawe.

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...not to mention the other challenges mentioned in the article.

US Rice plantings of 2.76 million acres were 77,000 acres below a year ago. The area decline was primarily due to strong prices for competing crops and high fuel and fertilizer prices.

Food Stamp Use at Record Pace as Jobs Vanish

Driven by a painful mix of layoffs and rising food and fuel prices, the number of Americans receiving food stamps is projected to reach 28 million in the coming year, the highest level since the aid program began in the 1960s.

The number of recipients, who must have near-poverty incomes to qualify for benefits averaging $100 a month per family member, has fluctuated over the years along with economic conditions, eligibility rules, enlistment drives and natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina, which led to a spike in the South.

But recent rises in many states appear to be resulting mainly from the economic slowdown, officials and experts say, as well as inflation in prices of basic goods that leave more families feeling pinched. Citing expected growth in unemployment, the Congressional Budget Office this month projected a continued increase in the monthly number of recipients in the next fiscal year, starting Oct. 1 — to 28 million, up from 27.8 million in 2008, and 26.5 million in 2007.

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One in 6 West Virginians is on food stamps

About one in every six West Virginians gets food stamps, the highest level of participation in at least 30 years.

mid rising food and fuel costs, the assistance is becoming worth less and less.

And supplemental food programs for poor families are struggling to keep up with the added demand as donations are on the decline.

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Tensions rise as world faces short rations

Food prices are soaring, a wealthier Asia is demanding better food and farmers can't keep up. In short, the world faces a food crisis and in some places it is already boiling over.

Around the globe, people are protesting and governments are responding with often counterproductive controls on prices and exports -- a new politics of scarcity in which ensuring food supplies is becoming a major challenge for the 21st century.

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In 2007 alone, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization's world food index, dairy prices rose nearly 80 percent and grain 42 percent.

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...food shortages and inflation are fueling political unrest: "Since January, thousands of troops have been deployed in Pakistan to guard trucks carrying wheat and flour. Protests have erupted in Indonesia over soybean shortages, and China has put price controls on cooking oil, grain, meat, milk and eggs. Food riots have erupted in recent months in Guinea, Mauritania, Mexico, Morocco, Senegal, Uzbekistan and Yemen."

World Bank President Robert Zoellick rang the alarm bell in a speech yesterday. He noted that since 2005, the prices of staples have risen 80 percent. The real price of rice rose to a 19-year high last month, he said, while the real price of wheat hit a 28-year high.

Zoellick warned that this inflation is having political repercussions: "The World Bank Group estimates that 33 countries around the world face potential political and social unrest because of the acute hike in food and energy prices."

Link.

The situation in Africa, and particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, remains critical. Recent food price riots in some African countries are likely to expand in the coming months.

'The escalation of social unrest we have seen in Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Mauritania and Senegal may become commonplace in other African countries,'...

Link.

In the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, the combination of rising prices and falling dollar purchasing power has sparked riots and protests by migrant workers, many of whom live in squalor among the skyscrapers and sports car showrooms.

Link.

Rice Jumps to Record on Philippine Imports, Curbs on Exports

April 8 (Bloomberg) -- Rice climbed to a record for a fourth day as the Philippines, the biggest importer, announced plans to buy 1 million tons and some of the world's largest exporters cut sales to ensure they can feed their own people.

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``We're in for a tough time,'' Roland Jansen, chief executive officer of Pfaffikon, Switzerland-based Mother Earth Investments AG, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television from Zurich today. Unless prices decline, ``you will have huge problems of daily nutrition for half the planet.''

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China, Egypt, Vietnam and India, accounting for more than a third of global rice exports, curbed sales this year to protect domestic stockpiles. The World Bank in Washington says 33 nations from Mexico to Yemen may face ``social unrest'' after food and energy costs increased for six consecutive years.

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Philippines threatens rice hoarders with life imprisonment

Filipinos face life in prison if they're caught hoarding rice.

"The Department of Justice is preparing economic sabotage or plunder charges that carry a life sentence against traders found to be hoarding rice, the price of which has risen sharply amid a tight global supply," The Inquirer reports. "Although the country has yet to experience a shortage, Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez Thursday vowed to hale to court hoarders and other unscrupulous rice traders for acts 'inimical to the public interest.'"

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