Food Crisis - a silent Tsunami.

[dancing-loon]

Soaring global food prices could unleash a “silent tsunami” that would plunge 100 million people who previously did not require help to buy food into hunger and poverty, the top United Nations food official said.

“This is the new face of hunger,” ...
“The response calls for large-scale, high-level action by the global community.”

In the latest unrest, demonstrators took to the streets in the Afghan city of Jalalabad and the Gabonese capital, Libreville.

Delegates at a UN meeting pledged to work with the G-8 and European Union toward a global strategy to tackle price rises and increase support for the world’s poorest nations. There was also agreement for a “more selective approach” to biofuels, cited by some for causing the food price surge.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/wo...ld&oref=slogin
-------------------------------------------------------------------
IF we could take all the money spent on wars, we could feed the world's hungry easily!!!

 

[Zzarchov]

Option 2.) Developing countries could use the opportunity of high food prices to kick start their own agricultural sectors they claim have been decimated by artificially low food prices from the first world.

 

[eh1eh]

They could shop at Walmart. They just had a price break.

 

[darkbeaver]

6

​

Chavez says food prices "massacre" of world's poor
Brian Ellsworth
Reuters Africa
Wed, 23 Apr 2008 00:00 EDT







Soaring food prices are a "massacre" of the world's poor and are creating a global nutritional crisis, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Tuesday, calling it a sign that capitalism is in decline.
©N/A His comments came only hours after the United Nations' World Food Program called more expensive food a "silent tsunami" that threatens to plunge more than 100 million people on every continent into hunger.
"It is a true massacre what is happening in the world," Chavez said in a televised speech, citing U.N. statistics about deaths caused by hunger and malnourishment.
"The problem is not the production of food ... it is the economic, social and political model of the world. The capitalist model is in crisis."
The self-styled revolutionary and Cuba ally has won popular support by subsidizing food for the OPEC nation's poor majority, although his administration struggled last year to keep products such as milk and sugar on store shelves.
Cuban Vice President Carlos Lage, visiting Caracas to meet with Chavez and other allied leaders on Wednesday, accused developed countries of spurring food prices through biofuels.
"Developed countries want to feed the cars of the rich with food -- this is the irrational world we live in today," Lage said, echoing Chavez's frequent accusations that Washington's promotion of biofuel is boosting prices of staples like corn.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon warned earlier this week that high food prices could wipe out progress in reducing poverty and hurt global economic growth.
Riots in poor Asian and African countries have followed steep rises in food prices caused by a range of factors including pricier fuel, bad weather and the conversion of land to grow crops for biofuel.

 

[L Gilbert]

Yeah. I hope this wakes a few people up. (I posted a similar thread in the food section...... http://forums.canadiancontent.net/food-cooking-recipes/72041-food-waste.html

 

[Zzarchov]

Seriously, did no one see a problem with not producing enough food to feed your own country before now?

 

[gopher]

The world needs to take this problem FAR more seriously than it has up to now.

 

[karrie]

The world needs to take this problem FAR more seriously than it has up to now.

i can't help have this statement jar in my mind with the last post you just made, about the 'freerice' website on the internet.

There's this glaring clash between an educated, well off person sitting in the comfort of their home or, at the least, their public library, playing on their highspeed internet connection, at a game designed to strengthen your vocabulary, in order to give grains of rice to the starving citizens of some other country, who could probably never fathom having such time to waste in luxury. And we think we're taking it seriously, or really doing something about it.

 

[YoungJoonKim]

Well, its not just rise of oil prices.
Food production stayed relatively flat during the last decade, it has not "boomed."
We are also talking about California going "desert" [and much of the agricultural industry with it] and global warming [let's face it, Earth HAS BEEN getting warmer and farmers around the world know it].
Food crisis is likely to get worse and within less than a decade, WE might have face some food shortages as well.

Just wait until that oil prices hit $1.5 per liter....[shivers]

 

[gopher]

"glaring clash"

There is a very common myth that all Americans are swimming in money and have the finest luxuries in the world. As for me, I was born on the floor of a tin hut, nearly died in my infancy because my parents could not afford medical care, grew up in poverty, and never rose above working class status. Therefore, you can understand my deep sympathy for those who suffer in poverty throughout the world.

 

[karrie]

"glaring clash"

There is a very common myth that all Americans are swimming in money and have the finest luxuries in the world. As for me, I was born on the floor of a tin hut, nearly died in my infancy because my parents could not afford medical care, grew up in poverty, and never rose above working class status. Therefore, you can understand my deep sympathy for those who suffer in poverty throughout the world.

You have a computer, electricity, an internet connection, and a roof over your head to put all that in. You're exceedingly well off compared to most of the world.

I get the sympathy. It's just that the way we in North America (not you gopher... I'm not trying to make this about you) go about dealing with it that seems, well, 'slacktivist'. "I'll help so long as it's entertaining and easy to do so." Sites like freerice seem a far cry from taking the issue seriously. At least other sponsor driven slacktivist sites like www.thehungersite.com don't expect you to play games. They give a clear and concise break down of what sponsors are willing to give for your time visiting that site. 1.1 cup of rice for the click of one button. Straightforward.

 

[earth_as_one]

Not so quiet in Haiti:

Haitians Riot, Loot Over Food Prices
By JONATHAN M. KATZ – Apr 8, 2008

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Hungry Haitians stormed the presidential palace Tuesday to demand the resignation of President Rene Preval over soaring food prices and U.N. peacekeepers battled rioters with rubber bullets and tear gas.

Rioters were chased away from the presidential palace but by late afternoon had left trails of destruction across Port-au-Prince. Concrete barricades and burned-out cars blocked streets, while windows were smashed and buildings set on fire from the capital's center up through its densely populated hills.

Outnumbered U.N. peacekeepers watched as people looted businesses near the presidential palace, not budging from the building's perimeter. Nearby, but out of sight of authorities, another group swarmed a slow-moving car and tried to drag its female driver out the window.

"We are hungry! He must go!" protesters shouted as they tried to break into the presidential palace by charging its chained gates with a rolling dumpster. Moments later, Brazilian soldiers in blue U.N. helmets arrived on jeeps and assault vehicles, firing rubber bullets and tear gas canisters and forcing protesters away from the gates.

Food prices, which have risen 40 percent on average since mid-2007, are causing unrest around the world. But nowhere do they pose a greater threat to democracy than in Haiti, one of the world's poorest countries where in the best of times most people struggle to fill their bellies.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5geZrL5OB_kHM3gx_HW4bPRSgT3YwD8VU18SG0

 

[gopher]

"'slacktivist'"


The site also provides an opportunity to make direct donations. No one need go hungry and it is groups like this that help those who need the most help. I agree with you that more can be done. But until the day comes when the problem is eradicated, we can each do our part to help alleviate it.

 

[Lester]

Zimbabwe was a model for Africa, but when mugabe took all the successful commercial farms and gave them to the poor, their Agriculture collapsed along with the rest of their economy- They had it, they f*cked it up and I for one am worried for my countrymen not them. All that food aid we give them goes straight to feeding one dictator or anothers cronies, all monetary aid goes into their caymen bank account.

 

[Tonington]

Well, the same market forces that make our food more expensive are making the food prices in poor countries more expensive. So even if we were to keep the aid levels where they are now, we're paying more for the same amount of food to ship there.

We're paying more for grains fort a number of reasons, in part because they've been replaced preferentially for higher value crops like corn for biofuel, and that forces soy, wheat and other grains to go up in price. Not just biofuels, but we've used huge stores of grains to produce alternative products, rather than drive those grain prices down. Products like livestock feed, sweeteners, and the raw materials used in plastic. By far, oil has the largest impact on food prices. On farm inputs, processing, bottling, shipping to market, that's been the largest factor.

It seems like a perfect storm to me. We can't seem to separate food from fuel any longer. After all, in the end it's all the same, calories.

 

[Lester]

Unfortunately it takes ten calories of energy to produce one calorie of food. as you say poorer countries can't afford the fuel to run farm equipment let alone tranport it to the processors- I think this food and fuel crises will effectively end Globalization.

 

[FUBAR]

I think the message will get through when some of the food you buy from abroad becomes scarce or disappears. If food starts to become that scarce you will find governments unwilling to let it leave like is already happening with some rice exports..

Feed Article | Business |

Check out what is imported food next time you're shopping and see what you can do without. How many countries do you think will let their people riot while the west happily munches away........

 

[Logic 7]

Soaring global food prices could unleash a “silent tsunami” that would plunge 100 million people who previously did not require help to buy food into hunger and poverty, the top United Nations food official said.

“This is the new face of hunger,” ...
“The response calls for large-scale, high-level action by the global community.”

In the latest unrest, demonstrators took to the streets in the Afghan city of Jalalabad and the Gabonese capital, Libreville.

Delegates at a UN meeting pledged to work with the G-8 and European Union toward a global strategy to tackle price rises and increase support for the world’s poorest nations. There was also agreement for a “more selective approach” to biofuels, cited by some for causing the food price surge.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/wo...ld&oref=slogin
-------------------------------------------------------------------
IF we could take all the money spent on wars, we could feed the world's hungry easily!!!

We can say big thankx to heil harper to have change corn to ethanol, what a bunch of retarded crooks.

 

[MikeyDB]

Not right Logic 7

You can "thank/blame" a population that believed and embraced the social conditioning of the wealthy to consume regardless of consequence. By a car and drive that sucker from St.Johns to Vancouver...and you'll be happy....keep buying those fashionable garmets in the Gap and Old Navy....you'll be reaping the benefits of slaves working in sweatshops who wouldn't have even that amount of income if it weren't for you.....Buy that big-screen TV and every household gadget known to man...because happiness is siponing away the energy of a world to mix your cocktails and watch Homer Simpson.....

 

[CDNBear]

We can say big thankx to heil harper to have change corn to ethanol, what a bunch of retarded crooks.

:lol:

Not right Logic 7

You can "thank/blame" a population that believed and embraced the social conditioning of the wealthy to consume regardless of consequence. By a car and drive that sucker from St.Johns to Vancouver...and you'll be happy....keep buying those fashionable garmets in the Gap and Old Navy....you'll be reaping the benefits of slaves working in sweatshops who wouldn't have even that amount of income if it weren't for you.....Buy that big-screen TV and every household gadget known to man...because happiness is siponing away the energy of a world to mix your cocktails and watch Homer Simpson.....

Beautifully put Mikey.