For its part, the World Bank pathetically plans $10 million in "emergency aid" for a country with over eight million starving people. It also plans to double its African agricultural lending next year to $800 million and thus make a bad situation worse. It'll go to hugely indebted nations, unable to help feed their people as a consequence, and World Bank policy always is opposite of what these countries need.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon barely commented, made merely pro forma statements about the crisis and its seriousness, was as dismissive as Alexis, offered no remedial aid, is as uncaring as World Bank officials, and never forgets that his bosses are in Washington. Instead of doing his job and helping, he called on Haiti's leaders to restore stability because the country's security is threatened. Starving poor people aren't his concern. Let 'em eat mud cookies.
That's apparently Rene Preval's solution as well. Belatedly (on April 12), he announced a plan to cut rice prices 15%. It will do nothing to relieve the crisis, and Reuters (on April 15) reported that vendors still demand the higher price for supplies already in stock. It provoked new clashes on the streets, Haitians continue to starve, and "government officials were not immediately available for comment."
Raj Patel's new book explains the state of things today. It's titled "Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System." In an April 14 statement, he said: "What's happening in Haiti is an augury to the rest of the developing world. Haiti is the poster child of an economy that liberalized its agricultural economy and removed the social safety nets for the poor...." Two conditions create food riots:
-- "price shocks (and) modern development policies" (tariffs, corporate subsidies, grain reserve policies) make food unaffordable for many millions; and
-- "riots (then) happen when there are no other ways (to make) powerful people listen...." They'll continue to happen "with increasing frequency until governments realize that food isn't a mere commodity, it's a human right."
World Hunger - A Growing Problem for All Nations
The situation is so dire, protests may erupt anywhere, any time, and rich countries aren't immune, including America. Poverty in the world's richest country is growing, and organizations like the Center for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) and Economic Policy Institute (EPI) document it. They report on a permanent (and growing) underclass of over 37 million people earning poverty-level wages and say that official statistics understate the problem. They note an unprecedented wealth gap between rich and poor, a dying middle class, and growing millions in extreme poverty.
It affects the unemployed as well in times of economic distress, but official government data conceals to what extent. If employment calculations were made as originally mandated, the true rate would be around 13% instead of the Department of Labor's 5.1%. The same is true for inflation that's around 12% at the retail level instead of the official 4% that's hooey.
Under conditions of duress, hunger is the clearest symptom, it's rising, and current food inflation threatens to spiral it out of control if nothing is done to address it. It's the highest in decades with 2007 signaling what's ahead - eggs up 25% last year; milk 17%; rice, bread and pasta 12%, and look at prices on the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT):
-- grains and soy prices are at multi-year highs;
-- wheat hit an all-time high above $12 a bushel with little relief ahead in spite of a temporary pullback in price; the US Department of Agriculture forecasts that global wheat stocks this year will fall to a 30 year low of 109.7 million metric tons; USDA also projected US wheat stocks by year end 2008 at 272 million bushels - the lowest level since 1948;
-- corn and soybeans are also at record levels; soybeans are at over $15 a bushel; corn prices shot above $6 a bushel as demand for this and other crops soar in spite of US farmers planting as much of them as possible to cash in on high prices.
Growing demand, a weak dollar, but mostly another factor to be discussed below is responsible - the increased use of corn for ethanol production with farmers diverting more of their acreage from other crops to plant more of what's most in demand. Forty-three per cent of corn production is for livestock feed, but around one-fifth is for biofuels according to the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA). Other estimates are as high as 25 - 30% compared to 14% two years ago, and NCGA estimates one-third of the crop in 2009 will be for ethanol, not food. It's fueling US and world food inflation with five year forecasts of it rising even faster.
In the world's poorest countries, people starve. Here, they go on food stamps with a projected unprecedented 28 million Americans getting them this year as joblessness increases in a weak economy. However, many millions in need aren't eligible as social services are cut to finance foreign wars and tax cuts for the rich, with poor folks at home losing out as a result. A family of four only qualifies now if its net monthly income is at or below $1721 or $20,652 a year. Even then, it gets the same $542 monthly amount recipients received in 1996 to cover today's much higher prices or around $1 dollar a meal per person and falling.
This is the UN's World Food Program (WFP)'s dilemma worldwide at a time donations coming in are inadequate. Its Executive Director, Josette Sheeran, said "Our ability to reach people is going down just as needs go up....We are seeing a new face of hunger in which people (can't afford to buy food)....Situations that were previously not urgent" are now desperate. WFP's funding needs keep rising. It estimates them at $3.5 billion, they'll likely go higher, and they're for approved projects to feed 73 million people in 78 counties worldwide. WFP foresees much greater potential needs for unseen emergencies and for far greater numbers of people in need.
I am a 72 year old, retired, progressive small businessman concerned about all the major national and world issues, committed to speak out and write about them.
Again, thanks to Stephen Lendman for an eye-opening expose' on hunger. I would have reservations on some points:
All of those predatory actions by the agribusinesses are fundamentally to blame, but the rapidity with which the crisis has come to a head points directly to the inflation of the money supply by the Federal Reserve Board - both to accommodate federal government borrowing and to prop up the American stock market. As the stock market rises, so do prices and so do the numbers of hungry. The fact that the world monetary system has been linked to the dollar since 1948 makes the cheapening of the dollar a world crisis. The situation demands removal of all obstacles to issuing of local currency.
It was, in fact, the inflation that followed Richard Nixon's U.S. detachment, in 1974,from the commitment to buy and sell gold at $35/oz, which in turn was followed in the 1980s by steep interest rates to control that inflation, which wiped out many small American farmers and placed third world countries in bondage to American banks. It seems that it was in this period that American agribusinesses got the big jump on third world food production, probably because of IMF demands on nation borrowers.
I also am not sure about the major effect that biofuel production has on world food output. It would seem that ethanol and other biofuels are to young to be having that steep an effect.
However, the agribusiness giants are extremely suspect that they are stockpiling grain commodities with the expectation of controlling food prices and reaping huge profits.
In the end, it comes down to the 536 members of the U.S. Congress, who control the massive US military arsenal, which is used as the "big stick" of U.S. corporations. It is a serious responsibility of the American people; we seem to be the only ones who can stop this madness.
And that leads to election integrity, which I see as the critical issue from now to November, even more important than the Clean Election Campaign, and Media Reform.
by
MyTwoCents (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 36 comments)
on Wednesday, April 23, 2008 at 5:05:15 PM
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