U.N. Warns Of "Silent Tsunami" Of Hunger
World Food Program Says 100 Million People Threatened By Crisis In Food Prices And Supply
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A homeless girl gets a little help from her elder relative as she eats her lunch in Manila's Quezon City, Friday, April 18, 2008. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez)
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Egyptians buy government subsidized bread from a bakery in Cairo, Egypt Wednesday, April 16, 2008. Egypt's government is struggling to contain a political crisis sparked by rising world food prices. Violent clashes have broken out at long lines for subsidized bread, and the president, worried about unrest, has ordered the army to step in to provide more. (AP Photo/Hossam Ali)
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Rice farmers harvest their crops in Malang, East Java, Indonesia, Saturday, April 12, 2008. A sharp rise in the price of rice in the past months has raised fears of public turmoil in the many parts of Asia where rice is a staple. (AP Photo/Trisnadi)
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Josette Sheeran, executive director of the U.N.'s World Food Program, shows a cup to illustrate the food ration given to children by the organization's school feeding programs in parts of the developing world, during a news conference to discuss the impact of global food price rises on the WFP's plans to feed more than 70 million people in around 80 countries this year, in central London, April 22, 2008. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)
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Interactive Science On The Plate Explore the history of bioengineered food. Find out more about the contentious debate over its safety.
"It's almost like new oil or gas fields; they'll tend to be the hardest to reach places, that need new roads and new infrastructure to be viable," he said.
The will to increase food production exists, as does most of the necessary skills, but there are major obstacles, including a lack of government investment in agriculture and - in Africa particularly - a scarcity of fertilizers, good irrigation and access to markets.
"Many African farmers are very entrepreneurial, but they simply aren't connected to markets," said Lawrence Haddad, an economist and director of Britain's Institute of Development Studies. "They find there are no chilling plants for milk and no grinding mills for coffee."
Haddad said the likely impact of food price increases should have been anticipated. "The fact no one has previously made the link between agriculture and poverty is quite incredible," he said.
Just as new land for farming is available in Russia and Brazil, new genetically modified crops resistant to drought, or which deliver additional nutrients, could be better targeted to different regions of the developing world, Evans said. "The solutions are more nuanced than we previously thought," he added.
Sheeran said developing world governments, particularly in Africa, will need to dedicate at least 10 percent of future budgets to agriculture to boost global production.
Some experts predict other countries could follow the example of Pakistan, which has revived the use of ration cards for subsidized wheat.
The production of biofuels also needs to be urgently re-examined, Brown said.
He acknowledged that Britain this month introduced targets aimed at producing 5 percent of transport fuel from biofuels by 2010, but said his government and others should review their policies.
Production of biofuel leads to the destruction of forests and takes up land available to grow crops for food.
Brown said the impact of the food crisis won't just be felt in the developing world, but also in the checkout lane of Western supermarkets. "It is not surprising that we see our shopping bills go up," Brown said.
Many analysts, including Britain's opposition leader David Cameron, claim that people in the West will need to eat less meat - and consume, or waste, less food in general. Some expect the shift in attitudes to herald the end of supermarket giveaways and cost-cutting grocery stores that stack goods to the ceiling and sell in bulk.
Citizens in the West, China and India must realize that the meat on their plate and biofuels in their expensive cars carry a cost for those in the developing world, Evans said.
Sheeran believes many already understand the impact. "Much of the world is waking up to the fact that food does not spontaneously appear on grocery store shelves," she said.
© MMVIII The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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See all 97 CommentsPosted by s1ckd09 at 11:32 AM : Apr 25, 2008
No, i discredited you because you referred to my post, ignored my point, then went off on multiple weird rush yakking points that had nothing to do with my point.
At least you''re not denying you get your info from rush, a guy who is a lying, 7-time loser, drug-addicted hate-radio comedian.
great source to live by... yeah... sure...
More weird suppositions and hate-radio lies. I never said any of that, but you knee-jerked to your script, ignoring my point; the push to develop and market ethonol long pre-dates the publicizing of Global Warming. The major contribution to crippling the food supply is the price of oil. Period.
Read: Posted by rusmen at 04:50 PM : Apr 23, 2008
When rush is talking, he''''s either lying, or setting you up for a big lie.
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Posted by actornaught at 12:15 PM : Apr 24, 2008
Nothing I said was a supposition, and nothing you said disputes any of it. Instead, you try to discredit me based on some fallback argument involving Rush. You need to write CBS and tell THEM they have the story wrong, not me.
More weird suppositions and hate-radio lies. I never said any of that, but you knee-jerked to your script, ignoring my point; the push to develop and market ethonol long pre-dates the publicizing of Global Warming. The major contribution to crippling the food supply is the price of oil. Period.
Read: Posted by rusmen at 04:50 PM : Apr 23, 2008
When rush is talking, he''s either lying, or setting you up for a big lie.
You almost have it right, the Democrats say, "vote us in, and we will work to end the discrimination", which they then fail to do. Kennedy had the civil rights bill on his desk, but wanted to let people suffer until his "second term". We all know how that one went.
The Republicans, on the other hand pander to the David Dukes, Pat Robertsons, and such filth to attract the sociopath vote, but then claim to be "compassionate conservatives" a concept having no meaning whatsoever, and is in itself a contradiction of terms. Like the GOP clown that speaks for a Hitler rally the other day, while claiming he is not a racist.
On one hand (Democrat,)there is the corruption, but there is also the as yet unfulfilled promise of hope, on the other, (Republican) there is insult, corruption, and advocacy to hatred and intolerance.
We know which side you are on.
It''s the old toilet paper scam from 1973 see "Johnny Carson jokingly told his NBC Tonight Show audience that there was a TP shortage. People horded, draining supplies. Johnny then said, "just kidding," but the store shelves were out of TP, so people thought he was part of some shortage cover-up scam, and they horded some more."
In the name of oil profit, we have destroyed the world.
I agree with you that BioFuel also got direct and indirect environment costs not included. However, you avoid comparing side-by-side indirect costs between gasoline and BioFuels. I am not for BioFuel if that got you tense. I am for Sacrifice by everyone. I am sure the solution that requires the most sacrifice by human is the greeness for our planet and therefore civilization. Let''s stop been selfish by looking at the easy, cheap or most convenience ways.
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Posted by Element51 at 05:35 PM : Apr 23, 2008
I completely agree... which is why I think we will eventually find something that works. But right now, there isn''t anything better than fossil fuels on a large scale. There''s only two ways to go: 1) find an ''on demand'' energy source that never fluctuates or 2) find a way to store, transport, and deliver to the end user large quantities of an alternative energy source. I don''t think #1 exists, and #2 is the biggest obstacle to any change in an energy source because it may require the need to completely overahaul the entire country''s infrastructure. That can''t be done overnight, and so the energy source has to be the right one before it is selected as the "next big thing".
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Posted by lovegetpeace at 05:52 PM : Apr 23, 2008
Wrong... this article disproves that by looking at the cost of just using a LITTLE or the worlds farming capacity for biofuels. It takes 40-200 times more water to produce biofuels than it does to produce the same amount of fossil fuels. What would the environmental impact of an increased demand of that much water be? Regardless, I am all for alternative fuels. But I have said in many other discussions, you cannot force or mandate technological advances. Remember, we used to rely on steam engines for everything, but found better technology eventually. Do you think that there is ANY big energy business on this planet that ISN''T investing a boat load of money in alternative energy? And guess what? You are going to be complaining when Exxon turns into Big Geothermal...
Posted by IRLiberal at 05:16 PM : Apr 23, 2008
Care to back up any of YOUR claims with data?
Want to look at the temperature changes for the last 450,000 years? What you''ll see is that you are proven absolutely wrong, with real data. Of course, if you want to look at a smaller period of time, you could MAKE the data support what you say, but you have to do that by limiting the amount of data you consider. Of course, I could ALSO do the same thing and go back to the Medieval Warm Period and show NO warming trend. Or I could go back farther to the Halocene Maximum and show a cooling trend. I could also rely on satellite data instead of ground based stations affected by the urban heat island effect to show no significant warming in the last 18 years. Which do you prefer?
We should clone you 300 million times because America needs good citizens like you.
Go to your public library and read Popular Mechanics magazine for the last 30 years. You will find at least a millions ideas of alternative energy, a thousand ways to travel without gasoline.
Capitalism forces us to Gasoline because its still the cheapest way to travel. However, if we include the cost to the environment among other indirect costs, gasoline becomes the most expensive alternative form of energy.
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Posted by Element51 at 04:37 PM : Apr 23, 2008
Absolutely. I would be glad to have a beer with you some time. It''s always nice to have an intelligent conversation with someone who has an opposing view. I welcome hearing both sides of the story and actively seek them out. As far as the price of oil is concerned, I would have to disagree and say that it does matter where it comes from. Whether we choose to import it or drill for it ourselves depends entirely on the price it costs to import or to drill for it, and the availability of both. If Canada was to go through some crisis, we would see oil prices skyrocket because Canada is our leading supplier of oil. If we added an additional source of oil, the price would go down because we are one of the largest consumers of oil in the world, and countries depend on our imports of their oil (See Venezuela).
Wrong. It''s warming, much, much faster than ever before.
"on the same time period it always has,"
Wrong. See above.
"and by the same amounts it always has (actually less)?"
Wrong. The temperature increase per amount of time measured is much, much higher.
"Or the fact that man''''s contribution to global warming has never been proven,"
Mathematical proofs are tricky business. You don''t need to touch the sun in the sky to know it''s there.
Wow. You''re vastly ignorant. That''s ok. Lots of folks here are.
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