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“There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread,” – Mohandas K. Gandhi
Why is it that only a select few continue to roll in riches while everyone else struggles to make it through the day?
Instead of celebrities telling the world that we need hope, perhaps they should be telling governments and corporations to stop hoarding the earth’s food supply.
There are nearly 11.5 million people starving in the Horn of Africa, including 3.7 million in Somalia. Everyone knows this but no one cares.
Globally, the world’s population has doubled since 1970, which means every year another 80 million people need to be fed. Sadly, most will not even be able to afford a piece of bread.
Despite having enough food produced to feed the global population, which is expected to hit 10 billion by 2100, there are still a billion hungry.
Raj Patel is an award-winning writer, activist and academic. He is also a fellow The Institute for Food and Development Policy, aka Food First. Patel’s prescience about the food crisis not only makes him an expert but also a visionary. It’s with great pleasure to share with you an interview I did with Patel on the crisis.
Hidden Cost of Consumption
The increase in the price of oil is affecting food production because it means that fertilizers and transport costs for food become expensive. On top of that, when the demand for oil increases then the demand for biofuels also increases.
This means that there are more incentives to divert land away from the production of food into the production of soya, which has caused enormous devastation to the environment.
You’ve also got legal and illegal speculation with corporations colluding to drive up the price of bread, for example. In South Africa recently there was a company fined 100 million rand for jacking up the price of bread.
There’s also the legalized kind of hoarding and speculation that happens in international commodity markets. And that speculative force also matters in driving up the price of food.
Particularly, when there are also droughts in Russia and irregular unseasonable rains in Argentina, this also contributes to driving up the price of foods by making harvests much more variable. With that variability and uncertainty comes fuel and fodder for market speculation.
Tricky Trade Agreements
We now live in a world that is much more connected in terms of markets, whereas in the past strange weather in one part of the world would have very little impact on food availability in other parts. However, the phenomenon of binding the world ever more tightly through international trade agreements is also increasing food prices.
Before these trade agreements kicked in there were a range of interventions and policies that governments had like buying up grains at a specified price so that farmers knew what to expect. So there wasn’t much room for speculation in commodity prices. At least not at the magnitude we’re seeing today.
For instance, grain stores – which were removed to foster market efficiency – have been abolished. The logic being that it was inefficient to have all this grain sitting around for a rainy day when international markets would act as a grain stocker. Meaning that when there was a shortage of grain, it would be shipped from where it was available to where it was needed.
Grain stores that the US once had were removed under the Clinton administration. Getting rid of that stock has made the economy much more vulnerable to external shocks then it has in the past. It’s time that a range of countries, not only the US, start thinking more seriously about domestic grain reserves not just as support mechanisms for farmers but also for consumers.
By getting rid of these buffers or stocks, economically insufficient as they seem to be in the short term, we’ve made ourselves vulnerable to these longer-term shocks that we’re seeing right now.
Hunger vs Gender
If you are poor now is a particularly precarious time because prices are going up but the control over entitlements that may assist in weathering the storm are also increasingly under threat.
In terms of the number of people going hungry today, more than 60% are women and girls. The situation of global hunger always has a gender characteristic to it.
That means that the most vulnerable people in society are always going to be in the front line.
In addition, finding food at higher costs with less money to go around and increased demands to find sources of income, women are structurally in a much harder position to make ends meet. Amongst the poor, women tend to be poorer than men.
Food Rebellions
Here at Food First we don’t like to consider them food riots but rather food rebellions because food riots makes it sound as if people are taking to the streets demanding food.
In fact, the protests or rebellions that are happening around the world are very sophisticated because demands not only center on food but also change in government accountability, policy and calls for leaders to resign.
We’re seeing these protest increasing in a number of places like China, India and the whole of Africa due to the failure of government to live up to their promises.
In addition to not being able to afford food, is the feeling of having one’s dignity assaulted by what one is expected to live with and by how one is expected to suffer. And this much less quantifiable issue of human dignity helps explain why more people are taking to the streets even if they do have enough to eat.
Using this idea of food rebellions is not just about a growling sensation in the pit of your stomach, it’s also about a certain political analysis that helps you point a finger at governments. Resulting in people taking to the streets demanding accountability.
Cheap Food
This idea of cheap food as a way of forestalling rebellions is an old sort of Cold War and Malthusian approach. Meaning that if you keep the poor quiet by silencing the growling of their stomachs then they will behave themselves.
That’s the logic behind many governments cheap food programs.
Cheap food is all well and good if you have the money to buy the food but the problem is that many don’t have the money.
Policymakers that are serious about tackling hunger and poverty have to do more than merely just opening their wallets and throwing money out of helicopters to the poor.
This is about people demanding more dignity and accountability, which is something that governments find it hard to give but the people are unprepared to live without.
