Escalating Food Crisis
By Dr. Hassan Isfahani • May 19th, 2008 • Category: Politics, Worth A Second Look • 20 CommentsIntensifying food shortage across the globe, and especially in the third world countries like Pakistan has got many nightmares in store, which are steadily becoming reality one by one, and the heightening inflation, rampant hoarding, lack of water, dearth of harvesting land, and mismanagement of crops have made the matters worst.
It’s a rancid vituperative fact that the obesity rates in United States are very high, whereas in the Asia and Africa millions of people are dying due to hunger and malnutrition. Majority of the developing nations depend upon the staple food like wheat and rice for their survival, and despite of producers of this staple food, these countries are finding it hard to even meet the basic food requirements of their own people.
The multinationals of United States, in the name of globalization and free trade control the harvest of developing countries, and most of the food either gets exported or get smuggled for the need of developed world. This need is fulfilled either in the home countries of US or UK, or they it is sent to the troops deployments in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere. The neo-libera’s notion of leaving everything at the mercy of market forces has pushed the world at the brink of global famine.
Nature is very generous and not cruel. There is enough food on this planet for everyone, and every incoming child comes with his quote of food. It’s this mal-distribution of food which is causing the problem. Things are rapidly becoming very precarious in the developing world, where food riots are becoming a norm.
Pakistani is an agricultural country and more than 70% of our population lives in the villages and their profession is the agriculture. Pakistan’s Punjab province is famous for it’s wheat and rice production, and this area has been fulfilling the needs of the whole country for all these years and each year the surplus wheat and rice was exported. There are still those bumper crops and there are still those farmers and their lands, but the problem now is that they are controlled by large corporations, who just keep their profits in perspectives.
Another problem with Pakistan is that much of the wheat and rice is smuggled to Afghanistan to appease the appetite of NATO forces, and you know about the termite-like appetite of these marines. They have eaten Pakistan out, and they are demanding more. The famine like situation in Pakistan is due to this smuggling, and the fainthearted Pakistani government doesn’t have the guts to stop it.
This is yet another aspect of Bush’s war on terror. In the name of this bloody war on terror, Bush is accumulating oil from Iraq and food from Afghanistan.
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“Pakistan’s Punjab province is famous for it’s wheat and rice production…..”
Doctor Sahab, you might want to find out the meaning of “it’s”. Also check the difference between -
“its” and “it’s”.
Maybe people should just stop having so many children if they can’t afford to feed them?
By Leonardo da Vinci: “The time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look on the murder of men.”
The World Food Programme (WFP) has said that high food prices are creating the biggest challenge that WFP has faced in its 45-year history, a silent tsunami threatening to plunge more than 100 million people on every continent into hunger
Thanks God, you didn’t talk about biofuel. The push for biofuel is nothing short of a huge farm subsidy, a traditional corporate boondoggle that is putting unforgivable pressure on global food stocks.
We need to examine the two phenomena – increased shortages due to a decline in the growth of supply, and price increases related to speculation and securitization of several commodities – in conjunction to fully understand what has happened and what is likely to happen next. There is no question that the securitization of various food commodity markets in early 2008 has played an important role in this crisis, especially over recent months.
Very nice assertions, indeed Dr. Isphahani.
I have this bad feeling about future events. Public opinion everywhere seems to be gradually comprehending that China is a totalitarian rathole on a MASSIVE scale. [The World Health Organization states that China has one of the worst health care systems in the industrialized world. They have one of the highest suicide rates in the world...rate for women is higher than for men ... very unusual ... very high pollution levels and so on.] At the same time China is building up its military and space war capability in order to close the gap on America in that area. If a “progressive” authoritarianism is elected in the next US election the mood is being set for an “anti-fascist” war with China in the future perhaps ten or fifteen years. This would also be a way to “declaw” genuinely radical options such as anarchist/libertarian socialism which ARE gaining ground in many places. As I’ve said in earlier postings Germany had essentially unlimited medicare beginning in 1935. An expanded welfare state could be a way to both solve current problems AND set the stage for acceptance of a “rational” authoritarianism which can be peddled as an advance over theocracy.
We may have to give up on meat which means I’ll probably get diabetes and die sooner than most but that’s okay, becaue it’s a world I wouldn’t want to live in.
There is no food shortage. Grains are redirected to the manufacture of fuel for higher profit. Even more motivation for production this year. The problem is that people cannot afford to buy the food, now that food has the associated value of fuel.
The problem is more like the problem with energy. Multiple sources will be needed, both meat and grain. Animals raised on free range native grasses do not compete with people for grains. But then its all about mismanagement and lack of any scientific methods in Pakistan.
2007 February: Appears to be highly encouraging for Pakistan as several international financial institutions have painted a very upbeat picture of the current and future outlook for its economy.
Summary of the three reports of the J. P Morgan, the Merrill Lynch, and the City Group on the performance of Pak economy have already appeared in the press in addition to a very positive report of the World Bank released in Washington on “Doing Business in South Asia - 2007, which gives high marks to Pakistan in improving its business environment.
March 2007: What happens ONE MONTH LATER to obstruct & destroy PAK’s bright economic future?
“Itne Jootey Parney chahyiey in logon ko ke shakal badal jaey, jinhon ne Pakistan ka kabara kar dia sirf sawa sal mein”
Aey Allah, in Pakistan ke dushmano ko is dunya mein mein bhi saza dey aur aakhirat mein bhi jo sirf apni ana aur khooshi ki khatir mulk ka satyanas kar rahen hein
Inshah Allah, ab logon ko jald pata chal jaega key kon acha tha aur kon bura.
Aameen!
Jiya,
I agreed with you. In fact, one must not marry if he could not afford
Food went out or the commodities business, hoarding etc is the reason.
Pakistan is an agricultural country, in last decade or so policies of government had not supported the farmer in any way, from purchase of seed to market the crop and timely payments to farmer. He was poor and he is getting poor. Thay is why farmer has left growing those crops which dont earn right money in the right time.
Being an agricultural country claiming for food shortage is a lame excuse.
Second, cement is going to cover major portions of our lands replacing crops with constructions. better town planning is required.
Our last government tried to earn money by exporting those crops which only meet the local requirements so prices went on higher side may be out of the reach of common man.
Third, until habit of capturing of world resources is not stopped by USA this crises will more deepen by the paasage of time.
Farid Masood : You have lump everything together from agriculture(farmers and seeds, lands etc) , to cement, to Pakistani policies, and what American must be doing or better still what we should be doing to them. No mean accomplishment - I like it!
The writer, Mr Masood, has managed to convince himself that he has solutions for all the complex issues of this era - it is hard to believe how one can be so full oneself. It certainly would be wonderful if we all were so simple minded and could get some kicks out of our fantasies.
An other reason for food shortage, which is yet not discussed in these comments is Using Agriculture Land for Housing Societies and Industrial Sectors. Its really killing Agriculture Growth. We can easily use non agriculture land for Housing Societies or can start building Multi storey Buildings on existing areas.
Lot of issues are there for food shortages. Waste of our Food is also very high. We feels proud by wasting lot of food. Its fact. If you cooks calculated then your own relatives will start talking that your mom or sister or wife is miser. Lot of small small things leads to big problem. Best way to tackle these issues is to address big reason first and small reasons later on…
Dr. Saheb,
It is easy to blame USA/UK for everything and get kudos. Why cannot you say the real responsibility lies with REAP who will not allow export ban on rice as India has done to feed its poor.The pressure by Saudies and UAE on Pakistan so that they will not stop the export is known to government circles. India has to bow to this pressure and allow basmathi export.
Agricultural land going for SEZ near big cities like lahore,karachi etc to land sharks
Big FAT CATS of industry make a killing by exporting where there is shortage.
But farmers are the sufferers as escalating food crisis is a problem for the governing party.
USA/EU subsidse their farmers by clever ways.
Hoarders and black marketers also make hay and india is learning the hard way how futures market in commodities is manipulated by foreign sharks.
Forget oil, the new global crisis is food:
By: Alia McMullen, Financial Post
A new crisis is emerging, a global food catastrophe that will reach further and be more crippling than anything the world has ever seen. The credit crunch and the reverberations of soaring oil prices around the world will pale in comparison to what is about to transpire, Donald Coxe, global portfolio strategist at BMO Financial Group said at the Empire Club’s 14th annual investment outlook in Toronto on Thursday.
“It’s not a matter of if, but when,” he warned investors. “It’s going to hit this year hard.”
Mr. Coxe said the sharp rise in raw food prices in the past year will intensify in the next few years amid increased demand for meat and dairy products from the growing middle classes of countries such as China and India as well as heavy demand from the biofuels industry.
“The greatest challenge to the world is not US$125 oil; it’s getting enough food so that the new middle class can eat the way our middle class does, and that means we’ve got to expand food output dramatically,” he said.
The impact of tighter food supply is already evident in raw food prices, which have risen 22% in the past year.
Mr. Coxe said in an interview that this surge would begin to show in the prices of consumer foods in the next six months. Consumers already paid 6.5% more for food in the past year.
Wheat prices alone have risen 92% in the past year, and yesterday closed at US$9.45 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade.
At the centre of the imminent food catastrophe is corn - the main staple of the ethanol industry. The price of corn has risen about 44% over the past 15 months, closing at US$4.66 a bushel on the CBOT yesterday - its best finish since June 1996.
This not only impacts the price of food products made using grains, but also the price of meat, with feed prices for livestock also increasing.
“You’re going to have real problems in countries that are food short, because we’re already getting embargoes on food exports from countries, who were trying desperately to sell their stuff before, but now they’re embargoing exports,” he said, citing Russia and India as examples.
“Those who have food are going to have a big edge.”
With 54% of the world’s corn supply grown in America’s mid-west, the U.S. is one of those countries with an edge.
But Mr. Coxe warned U.S. corn exports were in danger of seizing up in about three years if the country continues to subsidize ethanol production. Biofuels are expected to eat up about a third of America’s grain harvest in 2007.
The amount of U.S. grain currently stored for following seasons was the lowest on record, relative to consumption, he said.
“You should be there for it fully-hedged by having access to those stocks that benefit from rising food prices.”
He said there are about two dozen stocks in the world that are going to redefine the world’s food supplies, and “those stocks will have a precious value as we move forward.”
Mr. Coxe said crop yields around the world need to increase to something close to what is achieved in the state of Illinois, which produces over 200 corn bushes an acre compared with an average 30 bushes an acre in the rest of the world.
“That will be done with more fertilizer, with genetically modified seeds, and with advanced machinery and technology,” he said.
The above two articles that Saleem Khan has kindly put here simply mean that we, the Pakistanis and Pakistan, are not and can not be immune to the present crisis the world is trying to cope with.
Now, you all know the problem.
It is not fault of President Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz that the world is facing these acute problems. Hopefully, you all finally accept your gullibility and realize how grandly you have been duped by the manufacturers of disinformation and Musharraf haters.