World Food Shortage Crisis

Photo by Mr. Kris'

What do higher oil prices, increasing demand for biofuels, drought in Australia, pestilence, and overall decreases in rice production worldwide have in common?

All of these and more are factors contributing to increased prices for food throughout the world. Rice, which is the number one food staple worldwide, has increased in price by more than 50 percent in the last 12 months. It is not just rice either wheat another important food staple has increased in price just as steadily as rice and the price of food in general has increased around 40 percent.

In the last week alone major riots have broken out in various countries such as Haiti, Egypt, Ivory Coast, and Uzbekistan. The worst of these riots so far occurred in Cameroon that left 40 people dead back in February after food prices increased and people could not afford to purchase even the staple foods.

While these trends affect typically the poorest of the poor, do not be surprised if you are affected by these trends as well, as some food retailers and major grocery chains limit what you can purchase.

That is right; believe it or not, right here in the United States people are being told they can only purchase a limited amount of rice when they go to the store.

This I personally do not believe is a bad thing as rice is badly needed in other parts of the world. But, it just goes to show how bad the food shortage is getting. Some are calling it the worst food shortage since World War II and 1 in 6 countries right now is facing a food shortage. It may also lead to further rationing here in the United States.

Some experts are calling this just the beginning and are expecting the problem to grow like UN under-secretary general for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes, who said; “We could be seeing even more trouble in more countries.”

"What we are seeing so far is relatively limited, I'm glad to say, but there have been very severe protests in Haiti, for example. [There have been] riots and deaths in Egypt in bread queues and we've seen unrest in different counties in Africa," he said.

"Now I don't want to exaggerate this or be alarmist about it. When food prices go up for people who are right on the edge of food insecurity of marginal survival to start with, then as soon as they rise beyond a certain point, they have no money to cover their needs or no money for anything else, and that's why the social unrest arises."

Mr Holmes believes the situation is getting worse because global price rises have been so steep and rapid.

"Most of the stapes of people's diet - wheat and rice - have risen more than 50 per cent in the last 12 months and they've risen even more steeply than that very recently," he said.

"There are some fundamental factors behind this. This is not just, I think, a sort of quick blip in prices which will return to normal shortly, it's because there are these fundamental factors of the population rising, crops being used for bio-fuels, more sophisticated diets in places like India and China.

He also cited: "[A] lack of strategic grain reserves and maybe also the effects of climate change and, for example, the drought in Australia affecting wheat production in recent years. That's not helped either.

"What we fear is that if this is a long-term trend, then we really could see in the poorest, most vulnerable countries, in the poorest, most vulnerable sections of the population of those countries, real problems, which is a particular problem from a humanitarian point of view."

He says "the World Food Program is already feeding 80 million people a year around the world."

"That's not really touching everybody who is on the edge of food insecurity. But they could have to face much, much bigger demands than that if the worst comes to the worst."

While Mr. Holmes said he does not want to be alarmist or exaggerate the problem, I think he is being overly cautious. The World Food Programme saw it as a big enough problem to launch their “Silent Tsunami” campaign yesterday in the hopes of gaining world wide attention.

Throughout this post and below are links that you can follow in order to learn more about this crisis and ways you can help.

Listen to an audio interview from ABC News.

International Rice Research Institute
IRRI Rice Crisis Solutions
PDF from IRRI
Five Facts About Rice

Click Here To Donate To The World Food Programme

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