Food Isn't Reaching Those Who Need It
Posted on: Friday, 9 May 2008, 06:00 CDT
By Rasa Dawson
If you're like me, you've noticed an increase in your grocery bills. The price of eggs has jumped almost a dollar in the past year. The cost of a gallon of milk has shot up. And I am paying a lot more for a loaf of bread
than just six months ago. According to the Bureau of Statistics, overall U.S. food prices rose 5 percent this year.
And we're the lucky ones.
The increase in food prices has been much more dramatic outside our country: Prices for rice, wheat, and corn have risen 83 percent worldwide over the past three years. While you and I spend about a tenth of our income on food, the poorest people around the world spend 50-80 percent. Any increase in food prices is bound to increase hunger while reducing access to education and health care, especially for those already living on the edge.
Until recently, farmers have been bearing the brunt of high energy prices - but now that is affecting the cost of food, too. So is the increased demand for commodities from India and China, as well as for biofuels. And have you noticed how unpredictable Virginia's weather has been in recent years? Tornadoes, warm winters, a drought. This erratic weather, partly due to climate change, is being felt globally and is having negative impacts on crops.
More than 840 million people around the world are chronically hungry, meaning that they are not getting the necessary sustenance to live healthy lives. But given high prices, this number is likely to climb considerably.
RISING CEREAL prices could put 300 million people in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh at risk of starvation. In Bangladesh, almost half of the families live on just $1 a day and are already spending around 70 percent of their income on food. Higher prices are now pushing even some in the middle class into poverty.
Oxfam's staff members in Senegal report that families are lowering the quantity and quality of their meals, children are getting pulled out from
school, and there are increased tensions between different groups over such natural resources as land and water.
People in Haiti are also affected, as that country imports nearly all of its food, including more than 80 percent of its rice. Once- productive farmland has been abandoned as farmers couldn't compete with years of cheap subsidized rice from the United States. A week of riots has left the country destabilized.
Food riots have erupted in other countries, from Mexico to Egypt, from Tanzania to Burkina Faso. People living on the margins are now being faced with horrific decisions. Do they feed one child and let the other go hungry? Feed them both but not enough for either? It's no wonder people are angry. The World Bank estimates that 33 countries face potential social unrest because of the acute hike in food and energy prices.
To address the crisis, we need to rethink biofuels mandates and make considerable investment in smarter development, especially focusing on agriculture in developing countries.
BUT THE MOST pressing need is helping poor people access food today.
President Bush provided $240 million in additional food aid, and is calling on Congress to provide an additional three-quarters of a billion dollars in order to avert a potential humanitarian disaster. Congress now urgently needs to reform food aid programs.
While America provides half of the world's food aid, this generosity is undermined by legal restrictions and bureaucracy, as food aid must be purchased in the U.S. and transported on U.S.- flagged ships. As a result, food aid takes months to deliver and costs twice as much.
President Bush has long advocated changes to our food aid program so that a quarter of the food aid budget be shifted from commodities to cash. If aid agencies are allowed to purchase food regionally rather than having it shipped in from halfway around the world, more food can get to more people faster, while encouraging local food production to avert future disasters.
But Congress has so far refused to seriously consider much- needed reforms of our food aid policies as part of the ongoing consideration of the new Farm Bill.
Even in this eleventh hour, Congress can urgently address the crisis through the Farm Bill by shifting funds from unnecessary agricultural subsidies for large-scale farms to food aid to meet the needs of the poor. In the end, that family in Morocco, or Haiti, or Bangladesh shouldn't have to choose which child gets to eat. There is enough food in this world to feed everyone - we just need to make sure it does.
-- Rasa Dawson is the lead organizer, Fast and Emergencies Outreach, for Oxfam America. Contact her at (804) 779-2788, or
find out what you can do to address the crisis at www.oxfamameri-
ca.org/emergency_action.
ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO, DRAWING
MEMO: GLOBAL CRISIS
(c) 2008 Richmond Times - Dispatch. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.
Source: Richmond Times - Dispatch
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