[graffis-l] GLOBAL FOOD CRISES & FUEL

[Guest guest]

At 08:32 AM 11/5/07, you wrote:

>Global food crisis looms as climate change and fuel shortages bite

>Posted by: " Mark Graffis " mgraffis mgraffis

>Sun Nov 4, 2007 10:23 am (PST)

>

>http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/nov/03/food.climatechange

>

>Global food crisis looms as climate change and fuel shortages bite

>Soaring crop prices and demand for biofuels raise fears of political

>instability

>

>a.. John Vidal, environment editor

>b.. The Guardian

>c.. Saturday November 3 2007

>

>Algae stained mud carpets the drought ravaged Gayngaru wetlands of Arnhem

>Land in Australia's Northern Territory. Photograph Torsten Blackwood/AFP

>

>Empty shelves in Caracas. Food riots in West Bengal and Mexico. Warnings

>of hunger in Jamaica, Nepal, the Philippines and sub-Saharan Africa.

>Soaring prices for basic foods are beginning to lead to political

>instability, with governments being forced to step in to artificially

>control the cost of bread, maize, rice and dairy products.

>

>Record world prices for most staple foods have led to 18% food price

>inflation in China, 13% in Indonesia and Pakistan, and 10% or more in

>Latin America, Russia and India, according to the UN Food and Agricultural

>Organisation (FAO). Wheat has doubled in price, maize is nearly 50% higher

>than a year ago and rice is 20% more expensive, says the UN. Next week the

>FAO is expected to say that global food reserves are at their lowest in 25

>years and that prices will remain high for years.

>

>Last week the Kremlin forced Russian companies to freeze the price of

>milk, bread and other foods until January 31, for fear of a public

>backlash with a parliamentary election looming. " The price of goods has

>risen sharply and that has hit the poor particularly hard, " said Oleg

>Savelyev, of the Levada Centre polling institute.

>

>India, Yemen, Mexico, Burkina Faso and several other countries have had,

>or been close to, food riots in the last year, something not seen in

>decades of low global food commodity prices. Meanwhile, there are

>shortages of beef, chicken and milk in Venezuela and other countries as

>governments try to keep a lid on food price inflation.

>

>Boycotts have become commonplace. Argentinians shunned tomatoes during the

>recent presidential election campaign when they became more expensive than

>meat. Italians organised a one-day boycott of pasta in protest at rising

>prices. German leftwing politicians have called for an increase in welfare

>benefits so that people can cope with price rises.

>

> " If you combine the increase of the oil prices and the increase of food

>prices then you have the elements of a very serious [social] crisis in the

>future, " said Jacques Diouf, head of the FAO, in London last week.

>

>The price rises are a result of record oil prices, US farmers switching

>out of cereals to grow biofuel crops, extreme weather and growing demand

>from countries India and China, the UN said yesterday.

>

> " There is no one cause but a lot of things are coming together to lead to

>this. It's hard to separate out the factors, " said Ali Gurkan, head of the

>FAO's Food Outlook programme, yesterday.

>

>He said cereal stocks had been declining for more than a decade but now

>stood at around 57 days, which made global food supplies vulnerable to an

>international crisis or big natural disaster such as a drought or flood.

>

> " Any unforeseen flood or crisis can make prices rise very quickly. I do

>not think we should panic but we should be very careful about what may

>happen, " he warned.

>

>Lester Brown, president of the Washington-based Worldwatch Institute

>thinktank, said: " The competition for grain between the world's 800

>million motorists, who want to maintain their mobility, and its 2 billion

>poorest people, who are simply trying to survive, is emerging as an epic

>issue. "

>

>Last year, he said, US farmers distorted the world market for cereals by

>growing 14m tonnes, or 20% of the whole maize crop, for ethanol for

>vehicles. This took millions of hectares of land out of food production

>and nearly doubled the price of maize. Mr Bush this year called for steep

>rises in ethanol production as part of plans to reduce petrol demand by

>20% by 2017.

>

>Maize is a staple food in many countries which import from the US,

>including Japan, Egypt, and Mexico. US exports are 70% of the world total,

>and are used widely for animal feed. The shortages have disrupted

>livestock and poultry industries worldwide.

>

> " The use of food as a source of fuel may have serious implications for the

>demand for food if the expansion of biofuels continues, " said a spokesman

>for the International Monetary Fund last week.

>

>The outlook is widely expected to worsen as agro-industries prepare to

>switch to highly profitable biofuels. according to Grain, a

>Barcelona-based food resources group. Its research suggests that the

>Indian government is committed to planting 14m hectares (35m acres) of

>land with jatropha, an exotic bush from which biodiesel can be

>manufactured. Brazil intends to grow 120m hectares for biofuels, and

>Africa as much as 400m hectares in the next few years. Much of the growth,

>the countries say, would be on unproductive land, but many millions of

>people are expected to be forced off the land.

>

>This week Oxfam warned the EU that its policy of substituting 10% of all

>car fuel with biofuels threatened to displace poor farmers.

>

>The food crisis is being compounded by growing populations, extreme

>weather and ecological stress, according to a number of recent reports.

>This week the UN Environment Programme said the planet's water, land, air,

>plants, animals and fish stocks were all in " inexorable decline " .

>According to the UN's World Food Programme (WFP) 57 countries, including

>29 in Africa, 19 in Asia and nine in Latin America, have been hit by

>catastrophic floods. Harvests have been affected by drought and heatwaves

>in south Asia, Europe, China, Sudan, Mozambique and Uruguay.

>

>This week the Australian government said drought had slashed predictions

>of winter harvests by nearly 40%, or 4m tonnes. " It is likely to be even

>smaller than the disastrous drought-ravaged 2006-07 harvest and the worst

>in more than a decade, " said the Bureau of Agricultural and Resource

>Economics.

>

>According to Josette Sheeran, director of the WFP, " There are 854 million

>hungry people in the world and 4 million more join their ranks every year.

>We are facing the tightest food supplies in recent history. For the

>world's most vulnerable, food is simply being priced out of their reach. "

>

>Food for thought Possible scenarios

>

>Experts describe various scenarios for the precarious food supply balance

>in coming years. An optimistic version would see markets automatically

>readjust to shortages, as higher prices make it more profitable once again

>to grow crops for people rather than cars.

>

>There are hopes that new crop varieties and technologies will help crops

>adapt to capricious climactic conditions. And if people move on to a path

>of eating less meat, more land can be freed up for human food rather than

>animal feed.

>

>A slowdown in population growth would naturally ease pressures on the food

>market, while the cultivation of hitherto unproductive land could also

>help supply.

>

>But fears for even tighter conditions revolve around deepening climate

>change, which generates worsening floods and droughts, diminishing food

>supplies. If the price of oil rises further it will make fertilisers and

>transport more expensive, and at the same time make it more profitable to

>grow biofuel crops.

>

>Supply will be further restricted if fish stocks continue to decline due

>to overfishing, and if soils become exhausted and erosion decreases the

>arable area.

 

******

Kraig and Shirley Carroll ... in the woods of SE Kentucky

http://www.thehavens.com/

thehavens

606-376-3363

 

 

---

Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.

Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).

Version: 6.0.859 / Virus Database: 585 - Release 2/14/05