Free Republic

Bread and Rosy Scenarios by: Brooke Rieder, July 10, 2008 The current food shortage has no lack of scapegoats, ranging from the newfound carnivorous habits of the Chinese, to global warming. But Finance Consultant Kel Kelly sets out to debunk these and similar theories about the food crisis in the Free Market newsletter put out by the Ludwig von Mises Institute. He takes on New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, setting out to discredit Krugman’s four main causal arguments for the current food shortage, which include increased demand from China, high oil prices, bad weather, and reduced available farmland. Kelly...

Gordon Brown and his fellow world leaders have sparked outrage after it was disclosed they enjoyed a six-course lunch followed by an eight-course dinner at the G8 summit where the global food crisis tops the agenda. G8 leaders make a toast: The lavish dining will embarrass Mr Brown, who has made tackling the global food crisis a key priority The Prime Minister was served 24 different dishes during his first day at the summit – just hours after urging the world to reduce the "unnecessary demand" for food and calling on British families to cut back on their wasteful use...

Biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75% - far more than previously estimated - according to a confidential World Bank report obtained by the Guardian. The damning unpublished assessment is based on the most detailed analysis of the crisis so far, carried out by an internationally-respected economist at global financial body. The figure emphatically contradicts the US government's claims that plant-derived fuels contribute less than 3% to food-price rises. It will add to pressure on governments in Washington and across Europe, which have turned to plant-derived fuels to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and reduce their dependence on...

Government-Induced Food Insecurity by: Emily Miller, June 18, 2008 The recent food crisis and rising global food prices are short-term problems, said CATO Institute Research Fellow for India and Asia Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar last week. “I firmly believe the current food crisis will soon blow over and we are going to be back very soon to the issues of overproduction through subsidies,” said Aiyar in a discussion about trade and food security at the Heritage Foundation. “I do believe that the current phase is a temporary one.” Aiyar blamed export caps, which forty countries currently impose on grain, for...

Food riots. Scores of panicked people protesting, burning effigies and chanting. Shops being ransacked, supplies running out as soon as they come in, and stricken communities stockpiling rice, bread and water for fear of going without. These have happened in Haiti and Egypt in recent months as the price of scarce food has soared. But what if they happened on the streets of Bromley? Or Newcastle? Or Bath? As bizarre as this might seem, the prospect of UK food shortages has started to be taken seriously by food manufacturers and retailers. The global food shortage has raced to the top...

RomeThe Summit on soaring food prices, convened by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), has concluded with the adoption by acclamation of a declaration calling on the international community to increase assistance for developing countries, in particular the least developed countries and those that are most negatively affected by high food prices."There is an urgent need to help developing countries and countries in transition expand agriculture and food production, and to increase investment in agriculture, agribusiness and rural development, from both public and private sources," according to the declaration. Donors and international financial institutions are urged to provide "balance...

JOHANNESBURG, June 4 (Reuters) - President Robert Mugabe's government is using food as a weapon ahead of Zimbabwe's June 27 presidential run-off election, U.S.-based group Human Rights Watch said on Wednesday. The accusation came a day after CARE International said the government had ordered it to suspend its operations in Zimbabwe over allegations it was backing opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai's presidential campaign. It denies the charge.

Gordon Brown says world 'cannot afford to fail' on food crisis By Tom Peterkin Last Updated: 11:54PM BST 03/06/2008 Gordon Brown warned that the world "cannot afford to fail" to deal with the global food crisis, which is resulting in 9,000 under-fives starving to death each day. Speaking as heads of state prepared to meet for a United Nations summit on soaring food prices, the Prime Minister said it was vital to increase food production in the world's poorest countries. "The fact that food prices have reached record levels can only worsen these already devastating figures," Mr Brown said in...

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came under attack on Monday for attending a U.N. food summit, accused by Western leaders and rights groups of inflicting suffering on their own people. ADVERTISEMENT Britain and Australia said Mugabe's presence at the June 3-5 conference on soaring food prices and their impact on the world's poor was obscene, while the World Jewish Congress deplored that Ahmadinejad would steal the limelight at meeting. "I'm outraged by his attendance, "said International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander, who will represent Britain. "We don't see Robert Mugabe as gaining any... credibility from attending this...

As leaders gather in Rome to discuss the global food crisis, our task is clear, but not sim­ple: to help those in danger today and ensure that the poor do not suffer this tragedy again. What has been described as a silent tsunami is not a natural catastrophe, but is man-made. The nexus between high energy and food prices is unlikely to be broken, and will be exacerbated by global climate change. The results have been rising production and transport costs for agriculture, falling food stocks and land shifted out of food production to produce energy substitutes. This is a...

The Bush administration has slipped a controversial ingredient into the $770 million aid package it recently proposed to ease the world food crisis, adding language that would promote the use of genetically modified crops in food-deprived countries.

World food price crisis 'here to stay' By David Blair in New York Last Updated: 1:43AM BST 19/05/2008EPA Sir John Holme said the world needed a "green revolution" High food prices are here to stay and the world needs a "green revolution" to feed its rising population, the senior humanitarian official at the United Nations has told The Telegraph. Sir John Holmes, Britain's former ambassador to Paris who now serves as the UN's under-secretary for humanitarian affairs, said structural changes in the global economy are the cause of the sudden rise in food prices. "It is possible that in the...

Obese people are contributing to the world food crisis and climate change, experts say. The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine calculated the obese consume 18% more calories than average. They are also responsible for using more fuel, which has an environmental impact and drives up food prices as transport and agriculture both use oil. The result is that the poor struggle to afford food and greenhouse gas emissions rise, the Lancet reported. It comes as the World Health Organization predicts the obese population will double by 2015 to 700m. In the UK, nearly a quarter of adults are...

Two years after questions arose regarding the viability of the U.S. rice industry, the sector has emerged stronger and has a very promising outlook with total U.S. rice exports forecast to increase around 20 percent, according to a new Rabobank report, “U.S. Rice.” “The outlook for U.S. rice growers remains strong, with more cause for optimism than concern. However, with global rice stocks already at low levels, prices are especially susceptible to any shocks,” said Michael Whitehead, food and agribusiness research and advisory vice president. “Adverse weather in a particular rice-growing region could be one cause of price increases, while...

There are "seven meals between civilization and anarchy," says Josette Sheeran, executive director of United Nation's World Food Program. What takes those meals away, driving citizens to base needs and destabilizing countries? Growing demand, changing diets, weather disruption and, sadly enough, restricted trade. There has been little good news for food relief. A forecast today from Goldman Sachs said oil prices could rise to $150 to $200 per barrel in the next two years--dramatically driving up the price of producing and transporting food for the foreseeable future. The rising price of oil makes ethanol and other biofuels more viable, furthering...

In a region beset by runaway food costs, the socialist government of Hugo Chávez's Venezuela and its leftist allies appear to have found fertile ground to plant the seeds of revolutionary discourse. At an emergency food-security summit held Wednesday in Managua, Nicaragua, 14 Latin American and Caribbean nations convened under the umbrella of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), the leftist trade bloc founded in 2004 by Cuba and Venezuela as an alternative to United States free-trade agreements. The summit was supposed to focus on how the countries can prevent food shortages and unrest as the global food crisis...

May 4, 2008 By Greg Evensen NewsWithViews.com Hyperbole is not something I engage in for shock value alone and it is definitely not something I enjoy contemplating while discussing our national state of affairs. However, it is becoming more and more commonplace in discussions that deal with the United States and its immediate future. If, as casual readers of current events, you have become aware of the escalating sense of urgency, with the impending multiple world crises, then you are most likely comprehending the current history making events as they unfold. Wars and rumors of war, pestilence, mysterious shakings in...

April 22, 2008 Wall Street Journal I don't want to alarm anybody, but maybe it's time for Americans to start stockpiling food. No, this is not a drill. You've seen the TV footage of food riots in parts of the developing world. Yes, they're a long way away from the U.S. But most foodstuffs operate in a global market. When the cost of wheat soars in Asia, it will do the same here. Reality: Food prices are already rising here much faster than the returns you are likely to get from keeping your money in a bank or money-market fund....

UNITED NATIONS - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Monday he is moving "at full speed" pushing efforts to tackle the world food crisis. Ban said he will hold the first meeting of his recently formed United Nations task force on food next Monday. He also said he is sending invitations to all world leaders to join him at a high-level meeting to work out a strategy for addressing food shortages and soaring prices. The conference, organized by the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization, will be June 3-5 in Rome. "This crisis did not come out of the blue," Ban told...

MOGADISHU, Somalia -- Troops fired into tens of thousands of rioting Somalis on Monday, killing two people in the latest eruption of violence over soaring food prices around the world. Wielding thick sticks and hurling stones that smashed the windshields of several cars and buses, the rioters jammed the narrow streets of the Somali capital, screaming, "Down with those suffocating us!" In Mogadishu, protesters including women and children marched against the refusal of traders to accept old 1,000-shilling notes, blaming them and a growing number of counterfeiters for rising food costs. Within an hour, a reporter for The Associated Press...

Inconvenient Truths and Global Crises by: Bethany Stotts, May 05, 2008 Many of the world’s tragedies can be traced back to radical environmentalist movements, argued Competitive Enterprise Institute Fellow Iain Murray at a recent book forum. He said, “Rather…the mainstream model, the paradigm if you will, for receiving very desirable environmental ends has an inbuilt capacity for enduring disaster.” In his new book, The Really Inconvenient Truths, Murray argues that most destructive environmentalist movements following Rachel Carson display a similar trajectory: 1. “create a populist moral fervor;” 2. “deride anyone who opposes you as evil;” 3. “get the laws passed;”...

LONDON: Growing unease in the Indian restaurant industry over the shortage and rising prices of basmati rice has reached the House of Commons with an early day motion condemning the European Union for imposing tariffs on the grain. Philip Davies, Conservative MP from Shipley, north England, tabled the motion following several complaints by Indian restaurant owners in his constituency as well as in Bradford. The early day motion titled 'Basmati Rice' reads: "That this House is concerned about the rising cost of rice which is causing problems for many South Asian restaurants and takeaways; condemns the EU for imposing tariffs...

For a slight increase in output, there is a much greater input of chemicals. The excess chemicals are washed away and a large quantity reaches the sea. Some biologists fear that in the near future these chemicals will increase the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico in which little, if any, life can be found. The irony is that we are sitting on an ocean of oil. If Congress, instead of burning food for motorfuel, would allow the exploitation of our own natural resources, the price of gasoline could be brought down to $1.50 per gallon. This would strengthen...

With food shortages emerging in many parts of the developing world, it's time to ask which we put more value on, human life or an extra car in the garage? Because whether we want to admit it or not, the two have become intricately intertwined. The biofuel industry came to Saint John a few weeks ago. The occasion was the Atlantic BIOEnergy Conference and the industry leaders made all the right noises: Biofuels are good. They are environmentally-friendly. Atlantic Canada can become a leader in biofuel production, if only the government helps it along with a bit of money (although...

KABUL, Afghanistan - Hungry Afghans looking for their next meal eye bread scraps piled up like heaps of trash at a Kabul market as a vendor weighs out fistfuls of the stale crusts on a scale. A Pashtun woman waits with an empty plastic sack. She isn't scavenging — she's paying for leftovers that in better times were sold for feeding to sheep and cows. The woman said her household of 14 people had to give up fresh bread a month ago as the price spiraled out of reach. Rising global food prices have hit few places as hard as...

The UN's new top adviser on food has urged a freeze on biofuel investment, saying the blind pursuit of the policy is "irresponsible". Olivier de Schutter also wants curbs on investors whose speculation is, he says, driving food prices higher. UN officials liken the rise in food prices to a silent tsunami, threatening 100 million of the world's poorest. The use of food crops for alternative sources of energy like ethanol is one factor behind the price hike. Mr de Schutter did not go quite as far as his predecessor in the job, Jean Ziegler, the BBC's Laura Trevelyan reports...

Vast amounts of money are flooding the world's commodities markets, driving up prices of staple foods like wheat and rice. Biofuels and droughts can't fully explain the recent food crisis -- hedge funds and small investors bear some responsibility for global hunger. Not long ago, Dwight Anderson welcomed reporters with open arms. He liked to entertain them with stories from the world of big money. Anderson is a New York hedge fund manager, and as recently as last October he would talk with enthusiasm about his visits to Malaysian palm-oil plantations and Brazilian grain farms. "You could clearly see how...

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, April 27 (UPI) -- The Rev. Jesse Jackson and several leaders of Florida's Haitian community arrived in Haiti Sunday to study the country's food crisis, Haitian radio reported. Jackson and others are expected to discuss food-price inflation with Haitian leaders, according to officials of his Rainbow Push Coalition. Protests over spiking food prices left at least seven people dead this month and prompted lawmakers to oust Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis. On Sunday, Ericq Pierre, a former senior adviser with the Inter-American Development Bank, was named Alexis' successor.

Reports about shortages of rice in the United States probably apply only to several imported varieties, and definitely not to the domestic supply of the popular grain. “Are we running out of rice? The answer is no,” said Dr. Mark Welch, Texas AgriLife Extension Service agricultural economist. This week’s news that two large box retailers in the United States were limiting customer purchases of rice was shocking in a nation where food shortages are rare. Retailers Sam’s Club and Costco reportedly limited bulk sales of some varieties of rice – all of which are imported from other countries – in...

The damage that trade restrictions cause is probably most evident in the case of rice. Although rice is the major foodstuff for about half of the world, it is highly protected and regulated. Only about 5 to 7 percent of the world’s rice production is traded across borders; that’s unusually low for an agricultural commodity. So when the price goes up — indeed, many varieties of rice have roughly doubled in price since 2007 — this highly segmented market means that the trade in rice doesn’t flow to the places of highest demand. Export restrictions send a message to farmers...

The globe's worst food crisis in a generation emerged as a blip on the big boards and computer screens of America's great grain exchanges. At first, it seemed like little more than a bout of bad weather. In Chicago, Minneapolis and Kansas City, traders watched from the pits early last summer as wheat prices spiked amid mediocre harvests in the United States and Europe and signs of prolonged drought in Australia. But within a few weeks, the traders discerned an ominous snowball effect -- one that would eventually bring down a prime minister in Haiti, make more children in Mauritania...

The Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman once said, "One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results."When Congress passed legislation to greatly expand America's commitment to biofuels, it intended to create energy independence and protect the environment. But the results have been quite different. America remains equally dependent on foreign sources of energy, and new evidence suggests that ethanol is causing great harm to the environment. In recent weeks, the correlation between government biofuel mandates and rapidly rising food prices has become undeniable. At a time when the U.S. economy is...

Reporting on the food crisis in Haiti last week, The Washington Times introduced its readership to the term "Clorox hunger," described as "a hunger so painful it feels like your stomach is being eaten by bleach or battery acid." It's horrifying stuff. But that's what the global food crisis -- which many economists now believe will push 100 million people into "absolute poverty," and which will do far worse to those already below the absolute poverty line -- looks like. Higher food prices mean less food. In America, that's an annoyance. In other countries, that's a death sentence. And it's...

Despite bumper crops in Vietnam and India, export limits and bans have created a global shortage and driven up prices. At the Costco in San Francisco, rice is all the rage. Not long after the 10 a.m. opening on Apr. 24, the warehouse club was well on its way to selling out the day's supply of Thai jasmine rice. Within an hour, customers cleared three pallets loaded with 50-lb. bags of Super Lucky Elephant brand jasmine rice from Thailand. Real estate broker Mary Jane Galviso snapped up two bags—the limit imposed by this particular store. "This is very frightening," says...

The current food shortage is going to get worse before it gets better – at least that’s the way the founder of CNN sees it. Ted Turner was interviewed by CNBC’s Bob Pisani on the April 25 “Closing Bell.” He addressed the recent food shortages causing rationing and riots all over the globe and said it’s just a sign of things to come. “There are a lot of different problems being caused by an ever-increasing number of people in a finite-sized world,” Turner said. “The resources of the planet just can’t keep up with the demand and I’m afraid this...

David Kotok, chairman and chief investment officer of Cumberland Advisors, said the deadly fungus, Puccinia graminis, is now spreading through some areas of the globe where "crop losses are expected to reach 100 percent.” Losses in Africa are already at 70 percent of the crop, Kotok said. "The economic losses expected from this fungus are now in the many billions and growing. Worse, there is an intensifying fear of exacerbated food shortages in poor and emerging countries of the world,” Kotok told investors in a research note. "The ramifications are serious. Food rioting continues to expand around the world. We...

UNITED NATIONS - The World Food Program appealed for hundreds of millions of dollars to cope with rising food prices that have sparked protests and food riots and led to bans on food exports in dozens of countries. Josette Sheeran, the WFP's executive director, said the U.N. agency is facing a 40 percent increase in the cost of food and requests for food aid from countries unable to cope with the rising prices. It expects additional requests from nations like Haiti whose citizens are becoming part of "the new face of hunger," she told a video news conference from Rome...

Food Crisis Eclipsing Climate Change By JOSH GERSTEIN, Staff Reporter of the Sun | April 25, 2008 The campaign against climate change could be set back by the global food crisis, as foreign populations turn against measures to use foodstuffs as substitutes for fossil fuels. With prices for rice, wheat, and corn soaring, food-related unrest has broken out in places such as Haiti, Indonesia, and Afghanistan. Several countries have blocked the export of grain. There is even talk that governments could fall if they cannot bring food costs down. One factor being blamed for the price hikes is the use...

World consumption of rice continues to rise and outpace production. The trend will continue in 2008, bringing with it a host of factors that will impact U.S. rice producers. Speaking at the recent Mid-South Farm and Gin Show in Memphis, Tenn., Carl Brothers, senior vice president of Riceland Foods, outlined the current status of the U.S. rice industry and gave a summary of key issues on the horizon. Global ending stocks finished in December 2007 at 72 million tons, an all-time low in supply/use comparison. “If we look at these low stock numbers and the demand we’re seeing around the...

North Korea 'faces food crisis' North Korea is facing a humanitarian crisis caused by acute food shortages, a UN agency has warned. The situation there was "clearly bad and getting worse", a senior World Food Programme official said, and help was needed to avert serious tragedy. North Korea has been dependent on international food aid for years. But severe flooding last year compounded its problems, devastating large swathes of agricultural land and leading to a poor harvest. WFP estimates that 6.5 million North Koreans, out of a total population of 23 million, do not have enough to eat - and...

In the last year, the price of wheat has tripled, corn doubled, and rice almost doubled. As prices soared, food riots have broken out in about 20 poor countries including Yemen, Haiti, Egypt, Pakistan, Indonesia, Ivory Coast, and Mexico. In response some countries, such as India, Pakistan Egypt and Vietnam, are banning the export of grains and imposing food price controls. Are rising food prices the result of the economic dynamism of China and India, in which newly prosperous consumers are demanding more food—especially more meat? Perennial doomsters such as the Earth Policy Institute's Lester Brown predicted more than a...

Storm Warning The world could be one crop failure away from an actual food crisis. Market panic has already started. George Wehrfritz and Jason Overdorf NEWSWEEK Updated: 11:36 AM ET Apr 5, 2008 When all goes well, thunderheads tower above India's southwestern state of Kerala in early June, drenching the region's vital rice fields and ensuring a bountiful harvest. From there the summer monsoon plods northward to soak the baking plains and irrigate vital breadbasket regions that feed 1.1 billion people before arriving at the foot of the Himalayas in August. Forecasting this complex meteorological process has always been an...

ROME (AFP) - Despite projections of a bumper grain crop this year, 33 countries will not have enough food, with Iraq and Zimbabwe among the hardest hit, the UN food agency said Tuesday. Countries with "widespread lack of access to food" include Afghanistan, North Korea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Haiti, Liberia, Mauritania, Nepal, Niger and Sierra Leone, according to the April issue of the Food and Agriculture Organisations "Crop Prospects and Food Situation" report. Hardest hit, with an "exceptional shortfall" in food production and supplies, are Iraq, Lesotho, the Philippines, Swaziland and Zimbabwe, the FAO said. In eastern Africa, millions "still depend...

N. Korean Defector Calls on U.S. to Stand ToughNorth Korean defector and Chosun Ilbo journalist Kang Chol-hwan called on U.S. leaders to reject any South Korean requests for aid to the Stalinist country. In an article for the Wall Street Journal titled "Give Us an 'Eclipse Policy,'" Kang said there were many signs that North Korea is faced with imminent regime collapse just as it was in 1998. Kang said the food crisis was affecting even North Korea's ruling class, with reports that food rationing has been curtailed even in Pyongyang, and this was probably the reason the North asked...

Hot summer sparks global food crisis By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor 31 August 2003 This summer's heatwave has drastically cut harvests across Europe, plunging the world into an unprecedented food crisis, startling new official figures show. Separate calculations by two leading institutions monitoring the global harvest show that the scorching weather has severely reduced European grain production, ensuring that the world will not produce enough to feed itself for the fourth year in succession, and plunging stocks to the lowest level on record. And experts predict that the damage to crops will be found to be even greater when the...