Food Crisis Should be Campaign Issue
Rising prices for wheat and rice have created a food crisis in much of the world.
People cannot afford the food they need to eat. Here is an “Economist” story on this subject.
Below is an excerpt from the “Economist” article—
Last year wheat prices rose 77% and rice 16%. These were some of the sharpest rises in food prices ever. But this year the speed of change has accelerated. Since January, rice prices have soared 141%; the price of one variety of wheat shot up 25% in a day. Some 40km outside Abidjan, Mariam Kone, who grows sweet potatoes, okra and maize but feeds her family on imported rice, laments: “Rice is very expensive, but we don’t know why.”
The prices mainly reflect changes in demand—not problems of supply, such as harvest failure. The changes include the gentle upward pressure from people in China and India eating more grain and meat as they grow rich and the sudden, voracious appetites of western biofuels programmes, which convert cereals into fuel. This year the share of the maize (corn) crop going into ethanol in America has risen and the European Union is implementing its own biofuels targets. To make matters worse, more febrile behaviour seems to be influencing markets: export quotas by large grain producers, rumours of panic-buying by grain importers, money from hedge funds looking for new markets.
Here is a “New York Times” story on the topic discussing the global implications of the crisis.
Given that a portion of the crisis has to do with biofuel demand in the United States and that we are all connected in this world, it would be good to hear Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Barack Obama address this subject as an important campaign topic.
It’s easy to say that we won’t have “cowboy” foreign policy any more. Let’s back up these words with a genuine outreach to people suffering in the world.
