PEACE & SECURITY | Creating a more stable world
14 April 2008
Rising Global Food Prices Likely to Continue, Say Experts
Higher food costs have led to increasing civil unrest
Washington –- Sharply rising costs for food staples and fuel are leading to deadly clashes in impoverished countries and likely will continue for some time, say international experts.
"The problem is very serious around the world due to severe price rises, and we have seen riots in Egypt, Cameroon, Haiti and Burkina Faso," says Jacques Diouf, director-general of the U.N.'s Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). "There is a risk that this unrest will spread in countries where 50 [percent] to 60 percent of income goes to food."
The FAO attributes rising food prices to a combination of factors, including reduced production because of climate change, historically low levels of food stocks, higher consumption of meat and dairy products in emerging economies, increased demand for biofuels production, drought and the higher cost of energy and transportation.
President Bush expressed significant concern about the crisis during a Cabinet meeting April 14 in Washington. "We are in a process right now of looking at ways to meet some of the ongoing food needs of certain countries beyond what has already been provided," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said. "The president has raised the issue with his national security advisers and he's asked that the State Department and USAID [U.S. Agency for International Development] look at what can be done in the near term."
International agencies such as the World Food Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organization are holding conferences in the next several weeks to address the urgent demands for relief and to find longer-term solutions. And the U.S. Agriculture Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development are hosting their 10th annual International Food Aid Conference in Kansas City, Missouri, April 14-16, to address many of the more dire food shortage issues that have begun emerging in recent weeks across the globe. (See "Kansas City, Missouri, to Host International Food Aid Conference.")
Diouf, speaking at the Global Agro-Industries Forum in New Delhi April 9, said that world food prices have risen 45 percent in the last nine months and that there are severe shortages of rice, wheat and maize (corn). The FAO also has reported incidents of civil unrest in Indonesia, Côte d'Ivoire, Mauritania, Mozambique, Bolivia, Senegal and Uzbekistan over food prices.
The FAO is organizing a high-level conference on "World Food Security: the Challenges of Climate Change and Bioenergy" June 3-5 at its headquarters in Rome. The meeting will offer heads of state a forum to discuss the challenges they face in achieving global food security and allow them to adopt effective solutions, the FAO says.
The Washington-based World Bank estimates that 33 countries face social unrest because of rising food and energy prices.
"The United States, the European Union, Japan and other OECD [Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development] countries must act now to fill this gap -- or many more people will suffer and starve," World Bank President Robert Zoellick said in a recent speech. "Food policy needs to gain the attention of the highest political levels, because no one country or group can meet these interconnected challenges."
The United States remains the world's largest contributor of global food aid. The U.S. Agency for International Development operates the 54-year-old Food for Peace program to provide humanitarian food assistance to developing countries. In the fiscal year 2008 federal budget, the United States appropriated more than $1.4 billion for food aid programs. Bush had asked Congress for an additional $350 million supplemental appropriation to cover help for the Darfur region in Sudan and other needy areas.
The government of Haiti fell April 12 when senators fired Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis after recent food riots. The government of President René Préval had convinced rioters to end more than a week of civil strife stemming from higher food prices. Rioters looted government warehouses and used rocks to attack shops, according to news reports. According to U.N. officials, the price of staples such as rice, beans, fruit and condensed milk has gone up 50 percent in the past year, while the cost of pasta has more than doubled in Haiti. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged donor countries to provide emergency aid.
The World Bank announced April 12 in Washington that it was providing a $10 million grant for Haiti to help the government respond to the increasing unaffordability of food for poor families. "With this new $10 million grant, the World Bank will support government efforts to rapidly scale up social safety net programs, including school feeding, while pursuing longer-term measures to create jobs," said Yvonne Tsikata, World Bank director for the Caribbean. The grant is expected to cover the provision of food for poor children and other vulnerable groups, partly through an expansion of the bank's existing school feeding program, and job creation through labor-intensive public works.
And the bank is sending a team of experts to Haiti in a few days to work with the government and its international partners to put the emergency assistance in place.
The World Food Programme (WFP) appealed to the international community for urgent funds to support its operations in Haiti. "Riots in Haiti underline the additional need for lifesaving food assistance," WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran said April 7. "At this critical time, we need to stand with the people of Haiti and other countries hardest-hit by rising food prices."
In March, WFP launched an appeal for an additional $500 million to respond to dramatic increases in global food and fuel prices, which have risen by 55 percent since June 2007. The WFP says it has received only 13 percent, or $12.4 million, of the $96 million necessary to assist the 1.7 million people of Haiti.
"What we see in Haiti is what we're seeing in many of our operations around the world –- rising prices that mean less food for the hungry. A new face of hunger is emerging: even where food is available on the shelves, there are now more and more people who simply cannot afford it," Sheeran says.
In Egypt, the government granted bonuses to workers after two days of riots over rising food costs and declining wages. "The security implications should also not be underestimated as food riots are already being reported across the globe," John Holmes, chief of U.N. humanitarian operations, told the Associated Press April 8.
A World Bank report said that global wheat prices increased 181 percent over the 36 months leading up to February 2008, and overall global food prices increased by 83 percent from a year ago.
"Food crop prices are expected to remain high in 2008 and 2009 and then begin to decline, but they are likely to remain well above the 2004 levels through 2015 for most food crops," the World Bank report said.
