Die Neue Zeit
3rd November 2007, 22:05
More and more, the material necessities of revolutionizing food production become apparent. Of course, the current liberal-capitalist system is incapable of doing this.
[I had two (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=68361&st=0) threads (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=70417) here in this forum, as well as an old thread in the History forum (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=65638), on one possible solution.]
An expensive dinner (http://economist.com/daily/news/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10085859&top_story=1)
“THE world’s most vulnerable who spend 60% of their income on food have been priced out of the food market,” is the alarming warning from Josette Sheeran, head of the United Nations’ World Food Programme (WFP). As the price of wheat, maize, corn and other commodities that make up the world’s basic foodstuffs is soaring the poorest people in the poorest countries are the hardest hit. And as prices shoot up helping them is getting tougher too. The WFP’s food costs increased by more than 50% over the past five years. Ms Sheeran predicts that they will increase by another 35% in the next couple of years too.
For many years the least developed nations have worried about food security, especially countries at war and those battling droughts and other climatic hardships. Meanwhile the world’s richest nations have produced more than enough for their needs and spent more time and effort worrying about the problems related to an abundance of food. These range from the health risks associated with ballooning rates of obesity to subsidies for uncompetitive farmers, particularly from the European Union. Despite efforts to tackle spending on farm subsidies, over 40% of the entire EU budget still goes towards supporting agriculture.
...
Food is scarcer now thanks to market liberalisation, which helped to cut excess production and lower stocks. At the same time demand for grains and other food commodities has shot up in China, India and other countries with rapidly growing economies. The biofuel industry is gobbling up an increasing share of the corn and sugar crops. And this year floods and droughts around the world destroyed much of the harvest in countries such as Britain, which had one of the wettest years in recent history, and Australia, which had one of the driest.
Concern about the cost of food is even spreading beyond the world’s poor countries. Last month Italians took to the street in Rome and Milan to protest against an increase in pasta prices. They are eating less too: Italians’ pasta and bread consumption dropped 7.4% and milk consumption fell by 2.6% in the first eight months of the year according to Coldiretti, a farmers’ association.
...
And efforts to alleviate one problem, finding an alternative to oil, has brought strong condemnation from a proponent of another, feeding the world’s starving poor. Jean Ziegler, the UN’s independent expert on the right to food, calls the growing use of crops to replace petrol as a crime against humanity and wants a five-year moratorium on biofuel production.
Another UN official chimed in on this particular biofuel problem earlier. (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=68361&st=0)
Periods of high prices followed by times of low prices are common in agricultural markets. What makes the current cycle different from previous periods of high prices is the rise has hit nearly all food commodities. In the past farmers producing a plentiful crop attracting low prices would switch to one in shorter supply that would earn them more.
[I had two (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=68361&st=0) threads (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=70417) here in this forum, as well as an old thread in the History forum (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=65638), on one possible solution.]
An expensive dinner (http://economist.com/daily/news/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10085859&top_story=1)
“THE world’s most vulnerable who spend 60% of their income on food have been priced out of the food market,” is the alarming warning from Josette Sheeran, head of the United Nations’ World Food Programme (WFP). As the price of wheat, maize, corn and other commodities that make up the world’s basic foodstuffs is soaring the poorest people in the poorest countries are the hardest hit. And as prices shoot up helping them is getting tougher too. The WFP’s food costs increased by more than 50% over the past five years. Ms Sheeran predicts that they will increase by another 35% in the next couple of years too.
For many years the least developed nations have worried about food security, especially countries at war and those battling droughts and other climatic hardships. Meanwhile the world’s richest nations have produced more than enough for their needs and spent more time and effort worrying about the problems related to an abundance of food. These range from the health risks associated with ballooning rates of obesity to subsidies for uncompetitive farmers, particularly from the European Union. Despite efforts to tackle spending on farm subsidies, over 40% of the entire EU budget still goes towards supporting agriculture.
...
Food is scarcer now thanks to market liberalisation, which helped to cut excess production and lower stocks. At the same time demand for grains and other food commodities has shot up in China, India and other countries with rapidly growing economies. The biofuel industry is gobbling up an increasing share of the corn and sugar crops. And this year floods and droughts around the world destroyed much of the harvest in countries such as Britain, which had one of the wettest years in recent history, and Australia, which had one of the driest.
Concern about the cost of food is even spreading beyond the world’s poor countries. Last month Italians took to the street in Rome and Milan to protest against an increase in pasta prices. They are eating less too: Italians’ pasta and bread consumption dropped 7.4% and milk consumption fell by 2.6% in the first eight months of the year according to Coldiretti, a farmers’ association.
...
And efforts to alleviate one problem, finding an alternative to oil, has brought strong condemnation from a proponent of another, feeding the world’s starving poor. Jean Ziegler, the UN’s independent expert on the right to food, calls the growing use of crops to replace petrol as a crime against humanity and wants a five-year moratorium on biofuel production.
Another UN official chimed in on this particular biofuel problem earlier. (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=68361&st=0)
Periods of high prices followed by times of low prices are common in agricultural markets. What makes the current cycle different from previous periods of high prices is the rise has hit nearly all food commodities. In the past farmers producing a plentiful crop attracting low prices would switch to one in shorter supply that would earn them more.