I have been away for a while so might as well start with what has been catching widespread attention in the media (the great gender versus race debate not withstanding) -Global food crisis. I have been racking my brains and trying with my short sight to divine between the lines of the famous and the infamous but haven’t yet figured out if there is a shortage of food worldwide or not. Don’t get me wrong, I am not trying to prove the World Bank wrong- I do believe that global food prices have risen 83 percent in the last three years and I better believe that there is an acute shortage of rice in this part of the world. V and I made two trips to little India in the past week to get one bag of rice for twice the usual price. Yes, we have started witnessing the much talked about rationing and hoarding of grains. The part that I haven’t figured out yet is whether we are in a situation where in the world demand for food has already surpassed the production yet, have we reached the Malthusian line yet?
I have read reports that quote the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) saying that the world cereal production was a record in 2007 and is expected to hit a new record in 2008. But as the world cereal consumption has been slightly faster than production for seven years, the world stocks have fallen to about 400 million tonnes. Ok that makes sense – we have low food stocks.
Why do we have low food stocks? That information too was not that difficult to come by. Apparently, higher income among the growing middle class of developing countries such as India and China has played a major role in generating a high demand for food. This piece of erudite information from the respectable President has been thoroughly derided by many scholars Indian and otherwise. Some of them went to uncover the “real” culprit – increased demand and enhanced subsidies (by the US who else) for bio-fuel raw materials such as – yes- wheat, maize, and palm oil! The lesser sensationalists among them have also pointed towards other causes for this rise in food prices: climate change (inducing change in rainfall patterns and in some cases such as Australia causing long periods of drought), falling dollar (commodities being priced in dollars, any fall in the dollar rate will increase prices), protective government policies (about 40 countries including India have curbed food exports to control domestic prices), speculation, falling productivity of the agriculture sector (diversification of agricultural lands, poor irrigation practices, diminishing returns from overused land) as well as high oil prices that make it expensive to use petroleum-based fertilizer, operate farm machinery or to transport agricultural products.
I have also read plenty of op-eds and the likes on the consequences of this global food crisis which have already led to riots in places like Haiti and Pakistan and will push almost one sixth of the world’s population below the poverty line. In short, if left alone this “silent Tsunami” is going to wreck havoc in every part of the world. Pretty scary prospect.
And yet, I haven’t yet read any analysis of what the current situation is in terms of demand and supply. I haven’t found for example anywhere that I tried to look an analysis of how much food stocks we have, how much are we expected to have to not fall below the Malthusian line of catastrophe. In other words, if say by next year we have persuaded the 40 odd counties to give up the export bans/duties and have managed to get Mr. Bush to slash bio-fuel subsidies, would we have sufficient for everyone to eat? I cannot for the life of me believe that no one has done that analysis. Clearly, someone did but no one is really interested. It goes on to say how information is managed in these supposedly utopian days of information sharing. Everyone is out to put the blame on each other and pontification seems to be the order of the day in the media of today.
Well, I have vented my bit of fury into the cyber world. I can still afford the rationed rice that we are able to buy here. Would that be enough then? What can we as individuals do to decrease the burden of increasing global prices? I think I can definitely and effectively prevent people that I can influence from hoarding. I can also restrict the amount of food that goes to the bin whether it is in my kitchen or in a restaurant. I can stop complaining about the rise in food prices because, I can afford to have two meals a day as opposed to millions in the world. I can certainly try raising awareness among some of my ignorant acquaintances who think the issue is “blown out of proportion by the media”.
Will that change the world? Perhaps not – but hell! Who would have predicted a couple of hundred years ago that the small change man made towards industrialization will lead to today’s situation of global warming? Remember, the butterfly effect?
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