-Look at the map carefully and read the legend
-Notice the number of planned cities larger than 10,000.
-Do you see any in New Mexico?
Verse:
John 3:16; Jn 3:16; John 3
Keyword:
Salvation, Jesus, Gospel
With Operators:
AND, OR, NOT, “ â€
Showing posts with label 3rd Seal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 3rd Seal. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Monday, December 08, 2008
Swat Team conducts food raid in rural Ohio
December 4, 2008
See also Community Policing & Training an army of world servers
Note: The report below was not written by me (Berit), but I did add these quotes:
"Over the past 20 years Congress has encouraged the U.S. military to supply intelligence, equipment, and training to civilian police. That encouragement has spawned a culture of paramilitarism in American law enforcement. The 1980s and 1990s have seen marked changes in the number of state and local paramilitary units, in their mission and deployment, and in their tactical armament." --Cato Institute (more information below)
"We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded." --Barack Obama, "Obama's Civilian National Security Force"
"At the World Food Programme we have recognized what a valuable tool food aid can be in changing behaviour. In so many poorer countries food is money, food is power....." --Catherine Bertini, Executive Director of the World Food Program, "The UN Plan for Food and Land"
On Monday, December 1, a SWAT team with semi-automatic rifles entered the private home of the Stowers family in LaGrange, Ohio, herded the family onto the couches in the living room, and kept guns trained on parents, children, infants and toddlers, from approximately 11 AM to 8 PM. The team was aggressive and belligerent. The children were quite traumatized. At some point, the “bad cop” SWAT team was relieved by another team, a “good cop” team that tried to befriend the family. The Stowers family has run a very large, well-known food cooperative called Manna Storehouse on the western side of the greater Cleveland area for many years. [Update]
There were agents from the Department of Agriculture present, one of them identified as Bill Lesho. The search warrant is reportedly suspicious-looking. Agents began rifling through all of the family’s possessions, a task that lasted hours and resulted in a complete upheaval of every private area in the home. Many items were taken that were not listed on the search warrant. The family was not permitted a phone call, and they were not told what crime they were being charged with. They were not read their rights. Over ten thousand dollars worth of food was taken, including the family’s personal stock of food for the coming year. All of their computers, and all of their cell phones were taken, as well as phone and contact records. The food cooperative was virtually shut down. There was no rational explanation, nor justification, for this extreme violation of Constitutional rights.
Presumably Manna Storehouse might eventually be charged with running a retail establishment without a license. Why then the Gestapo-type interrogation for a 3rd degree misdemeanor charge? This incident has raised the ominous specter of a restrictive new era in State regulation and enforcement over the nation’s private food supply.
This same type of abusive search and seizure was reported by those innocents who fell victim to oppressive federal drug laws passed in the 1990s. The present circumstance raises the obvious question: is there some rabid new interpretation of an existing drug law that considers food a controlled substance worthy of a nasty SWAT operation? Or worse, is there a previously unrecognized provision(s) pertaining to food in the Homeland Security measures? Some have suggested that it was merely an out-of-control, hot-to-trot ODA agent, and, if so, this would be a best-case scenario. Anything else might spell the beginning of the end for the freedom to eat unregulated and unmonitored food.
One blogger familiar with the Ohio situation has reported that:
“Interestingly, I believe they [Manna Storehouse] said a month or so ago, an undercover ODA official came to their little store and claimed to have a sick father wanting to join the co-op. Both the owner and her daughter-in-law had a horrible feeling about the man, and decided not to allow him into the co-op and notified him by certified mail. He came back to the co-op demanding to be part of it. They refused and gave him names of other businesses and health food stores closer to his home. Not coincidentally, this man was there yesterday as part of the raid.”
The same blog also noted that the Ohio Department of Agriculture has been chastised by the courts in several previous instances for its aggression, including trying to entrap an Amish man in a raw milk “sale,” which backfired when it became known that the Amish believe in a literal interpretation of “give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away” (Matthew 5:42)
The issue appears to be the discovery of a bit of non-institutional beef in an Oberlin College food service freezer a year ago that was tracked down by a county sanitation official to Manna Storehouse. Oberlin College’s student food coop is widely known for its strident ideological stance about eating organic foods. It seems that the Oberlin student food cooperative had joined the Manna Storehouse food cooperative in order to buy organic foods in bulk from the national organic food distributor United, which services buying clubs across the nation. The sanitation official, James Boddy, evidently contacted the Ohio Department of Agriculture. After the first contact by state ODA officials, Manna Storehouse reportedly wrote them a letter requesting assistance and guidelines for complying with the law. This letter was never answered. Rather, the ODA agent tried several times to infiltrate the coop, as described above. When his attempts failed, the SWAT team showed up!
Food cooperatives and buying clubs have been an active part of the American landscape for over a generation. In the 1970s, with the rise of the organic food industry (a direct outgrowth of the hippie back-to-nature movement) food coops started up all over the country. These were groups of people who freely associated for the purpose of combining their buying power so that they could order organic food items in bulk and case lots. Anyone who was part of these coops in the early era will remember the messy breakdown of 35 pounds of peanut butter and 5 gallon drums of honey!
These buying clubs have persisted and flourished over the years due to their ability to purchase high quality organic foods at reduced prices in bulk quantities. Most cooperatives have participated greatly in the local agrarian economies, supporting neighborhood organic farmers with purchases of produce, eggs, chickens, etc. The groups also purchase food from a number of different local, regional and national distributors, many of them family-based businesses who truck the food themselves. Some of these food cooperatives have become large enough to set up mini-storefront operations where members can drop in and purchase items leftover from case lot sales. Manna Storehouse had established itself in such a manner, using a small enclosed breezeway attached to their home. It was a folksy place with old wooden floors where coop members stopped by to chat and snack on bags of organic corn chips.
The state of Ohio boasts the second largest Amish population in the country. Many of the Amish live on acreages where they raise their own food, not unlike Manna Storehouse, and sell off the extras to neighbors and church members. There is a sense of foreboding that this state crackdown on a longstanding, reputable food cooperative operation could adversely impact the peaceful agrarian way of life not only for the Amish, but homeschoolers and those families living off the land on rural acreages. It raises the disturbing possibility that it could become a crime to raise your own food, buy eggs from the farmer down the road, or butcher your own chickens for family and friends – bustling activities that routinely take place in backwater America.
The freedom to purchase food directly form the source is increasingly under attack. For those who have food allergies and chemical intolerances, or who are on special medical diets, this is becoming a serious health issue. Will Americans retain the right to purchase food that is uncontaminated by pesticides, herbicides, allergens, additives, dyes, preservatives, MSG, GMOs, radiation, etc.? The melamine scare from China underscores the increasingly inferior and suspect quality of modern processed institutional foods. One blog, commenting on the bizarre and troubling Manna Storehouse situation, observed that:
“No one is saying exactly why. At the same time the FDA says it is safe to eat the 40% of tainted beef found in Costco's and Sam's all over the nation. These farm raids are very common now. Every farmer needs to fully equipped [sic] for the possibility of it happening to them. The Farmer To Consumer Legal Defense Fund was created just for this purpose. The USDA just released their plans to put a law into action that will put all small farmers out of business. Animals for the sale of meat or milk will only be allowed in commercial farms, even the organic ones.” December 3, 2008 7:09 PM
"The police paramilitary units also conduct training exercises with active duty Army Rangers and Navy SEALs. State and local police departments are increasingly accepting the military as a model for their behavior and outlook.... The problem is that the mindset of the soldier is simply not appropriate for the civilian police officer. Police officers confront not an 'enemy' but individuals who are protected by the Bill of Rights. Confusing the police function with the military function can lead to dangerous and unintended consequences...." (Diane Cecilia Weber, Cato Institute, "Warrior Cops: The Ominous Growth of Paramilitarism in Police Departments")
Seems U.S. forgot to tell Navy Seabee Chad Stowers the Real War Is being fought here...and he’s the enemy: "When officers from the Lorain County Sheriff’s Office in Ohio arrived last Monday at the Manna Storehouse food cooperative in LaGrange with weapons drawn and trained on Katie Stowers and her children, along with her in-laws, there was one member of the family missing. Katie’s husband, Chad, is a U.S. Navy Seabee, helping in construction projects in the midst of combat in Iraq. He’s been there, separated from his family, for the last five months, supposedly protecting our rights from abuse—the sort of abuse that appears to be taking place on an ever-more-frequent basis at farms and food outlets around the country."
Since globalist leaders plan to control food and supplements, water, physical and mental health, energy, and "human settlements" – and as the unthinkable global standards and surveillance system are being implemented -- they will obviously need paramilitary forces to control the unhappy masses.
The Stowers family has been financially devastated by this atrocity. They have not broken any law -- no charges have been filed -- yet they have lost all of their own personal food for the coming year. If you would like to help them, the contact information is posted on their website: www.mannastorehouse.com
“The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the strength of my life; Of whom shall I be afraid? ...
Though an army may encamp against me, My heart shall not fear;
Though war should rise against me, in this I will be confident."
Psalm 27:1-2
See also Community Policing & Training an army of world servers
Note: The report below was not written by me (Berit), but I did add these quotes:
"Over the past 20 years Congress has encouraged the U.S. military to supply intelligence, equipment, and training to civilian police. That encouragement has spawned a culture of paramilitarism in American law enforcement. The 1980s and 1990s have seen marked changes in the number of state and local paramilitary units, in their mission and deployment, and in their tactical armament." --Cato Institute (more information below)
"We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded." --Barack Obama, "Obama's Civilian National Security Force"
"At the World Food Programme we have recognized what a valuable tool food aid can be in changing behaviour. In so many poorer countries food is money, food is power....." --Catherine Bertini, Executive Director of the World Food Program, "The UN Plan for Food and Land"
On Monday, December 1, a SWAT team with semi-automatic rifles entered the private home of the Stowers family in LaGrange, Ohio, herded the family onto the couches in the living room, and kept guns trained on parents, children, infants and toddlers, from approximately 11 AM to 8 PM. The team was aggressive and belligerent. The children were quite traumatized. At some point, the “bad cop” SWAT team was relieved by another team, a “good cop” team that tried to befriend the family. The Stowers family has run a very large, well-known food cooperative called Manna Storehouse on the western side of the greater Cleveland area for many years. [Update]
There were agents from the Department of Agriculture present, one of them identified as Bill Lesho. The search warrant is reportedly suspicious-looking. Agents began rifling through all of the family’s possessions, a task that lasted hours and resulted in a complete upheaval of every private area in the home. Many items were taken that were not listed on the search warrant. The family was not permitted a phone call, and they were not told what crime they were being charged with. They were not read their rights. Over ten thousand dollars worth of food was taken, including the family’s personal stock of food for the coming year. All of their computers, and all of their cell phones were taken, as well as phone and contact records. The food cooperative was virtually shut down. There was no rational explanation, nor justification, for this extreme violation of Constitutional rights.
Presumably Manna Storehouse might eventually be charged with running a retail establishment without a license. Why then the Gestapo-type interrogation for a 3rd degree misdemeanor charge? This incident has raised the ominous specter of a restrictive new era in State regulation and enforcement over the nation’s private food supply.
This same type of abusive search and seizure was reported by those innocents who fell victim to oppressive federal drug laws passed in the 1990s. The present circumstance raises the obvious question: is there some rabid new interpretation of an existing drug law that considers food a controlled substance worthy of a nasty SWAT operation? Or worse, is there a previously unrecognized provision(s) pertaining to food in the Homeland Security measures? Some have suggested that it was merely an out-of-control, hot-to-trot ODA agent, and, if so, this would be a best-case scenario. Anything else might spell the beginning of the end for the freedom to eat unregulated and unmonitored food.
One blogger familiar with the Ohio situation has reported that:
“Interestingly, I believe they [Manna Storehouse] said a month or so ago, an undercover ODA official came to their little store and claimed to have a sick father wanting to join the co-op. Both the owner and her daughter-in-law had a horrible feeling about the man, and decided not to allow him into the co-op and notified him by certified mail. He came back to the co-op demanding to be part of it. They refused and gave him names of other businesses and health food stores closer to his home. Not coincidentally, this man was there yesterday as part of the raid.”
The same blog also noted that the Ohio Department of Agriculture has been chastised by the courts in several previous instances for its aggression, including trying to entrap an Amish man in a raw milk “sale,” which backfired when it became known that the Amish believe in a literal interpretation of “give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away” (Matthew 5:42)
The issue appears to be the discovery of a bit of non-institutional beef in an Oberlin College food service freezer a year ago that was tracked down by a county sanitation official to Manna Storehouse. Oberlin College’s student food coop is widely known for its strident ideological stance about eating organic foods. It seems that the Oberlin student food cooperative had joined the Manna Storehouse food cooperative in order to buy organic foods in bulk from the national organic food distributor United, which services buying clubs across the nation. The sanitation official, James Boddy, evidently contacted the Ohio Department of Agriculture. After the first contact by state ODA officials, Manna Storehouse reportedly wrote them a letter requesting assistance and guidelines for complying with the law. This letter was never answered. Rather, the ODA agent tried several times to infiltrate the coop, as described above. When his attempts failed, the SWAT team showed up!
Food cooperatives and buying clubs have been an active part of the American landscape for over a generation. In the 1970s, with the rise of the organic food industry (a direct outgrowth of the hippie back-to-nature movement) food coops started up all over the country. These were groups of people who freely associated for the purpose of combining their buying power so that they could order organic food items in bulk and case lots. Anyone who was part of these coops in the early era will remember the messy breakdown of 35 pounds of peanut butter and 5 gallon drums of honey!
These buying clubs have persisted and flourished over the years due to their ability to purchase high quality organic foods at reduced prices in bulk quantities. Most cooperatives have participated greatly in the local agrarian economies, supporting neighborhood organic farmers with purchases of produce, eggs, chickens, etc. The groups also purchase food from a number of different local, regional and national distributors, many of them family-based businesses who truck the food themselves. Some of these food cooperatives have become large enough to set up mini-storefront operations where members can drop in and purchase items leftover from case lot sales. Manna Storehouse had established itself in such a manner, using a small enclosed breezeway attached to their home. It was a folksy place with old wooden floors where coop members stopped by to chat and snack on bags of organic corn chips.
The state of Ohio boasts the second largest Amish population in the country. Many of the Amish live on acreages where they raise their own food, not unlike Manna Storehouse, and sell off the extras to neighbors and church members. There is a sense of foreboding that this state crackdown on a longstanding, reputable food cooperative operation could adversely impact the peaceful agrarian way of life not only for the Amish, but homeschoolers and those families living off the land on rural acreages. It raises the disturbing possibility that it could become a crime to raise your own food, buy eggs from the farmer down the road, or butcher your own chickens for family and friends – bustling activities that routinely take place in backwater America.
The freedom to purchase food directly form the source is increasingly under attack. For those who have food allergies and chemical intolerances, or who are on special medical diets, this is becoming a serious health issue. Will Americans retain the right to purchase food that is uncontaminated by pesticides, herbicides, allergens, additives, dyes, preservatives, MSG, GMOs, radiation, etc.? The melamine scare from China underscores the increasingly inferior and suspect quality of modern processed institutional foods. One blog, commenting on the bizarre and troubling Manna Storehouse situation, observed that:
“No one is saying exactly why. At the same time the FDA says it is safe to eat the 40% of tainted beef found in Costco's and Sam's all over the nation. These farm raids are very common now. Every farmer needs to fully equipped [sic] for the possibility of it happening to them. The Farmer To Consumer Legal Defense Fund was created just for this purpose. The USDA just released their plans to put a law into action that will put all small farmers out of business. Animals for the sale of meat or milk will only be allowed in commercial farms, even the organic ones.” December 3, 2008 7:09 PM
"The police paramilitary units also conduct training exercises with active duty Army Rangers and Navy SEALs. State and local police departments are increasingly accepting the military as a model for their behavior and outlook.... The problem is that the mindset of the soldier is simply not appropriate for the civilian police officer. Police officers confront not an 'enemy' but individuals who are protected by the Bill of Rights. Confusing the police function with the military function can lead to dangerous and unintended consequences...." (Diane Cecilia Weber, Cato Institute, "Warrior Cops: The Ominous Growth of Paramilitarism in Police Departments")
Seems U.S. forgot to tell Navy Seabee Chad Stowers the Real War Is being fought here...and he’s the enemy: "When officers from the Lorain County Sheriff’s Office in Ohio arrived last Monday at the Manna Storehouse food cooperative in LaGrange with weapons drawn and trained on Katie Stowers and her children, along with her in-laws, there was one member of the family missing. Katie’s husband, Chad, is a U.S. Navy Seabee, helping in construction projects in the midst of combat in Iraq. He’s been there, separated from his family, for the last five months, supposedly protecting our rights from abuse—the sort of abuse that appears to be taking place on an ever-more-frequent basis at farms and food outlets around the country."
Since globalist leaders plan to control food and supplements, water, physical and mental health, energy, and "human settlements" – and as the unthinkable global standards and surveillance system are being implemented -- they will obviously need paramilitary forces to control the unhappy masses.
The Stowers family has been financially devastated by this atrocity. They have not broken any law -- no charges have been filed -- yet they have lost all of their own personal food for the coming year. If you would like to help them, the contact information is posted on their website: www.mannastorehouse.com
“The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the strength of my life; Of whom shall I be afraid? ...
Though an army may encamp against me, My heart shall not fear;
Though war should rise against me, in this I will be confident."
Psalm 27:1-2
Monday, November 24, 2008
Farm’s Open Harvest Draws 40,000 in Colorado
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
PLATTEVILLE, Colo. (AP) — A farm couple received a big surprise when they opened their fields to anyone who wanted to take away vegetables left over from the harvest: 40,000 people showed up.
The fields of the couple, Joe and Chris Miller, were picked so clean Saturday that a second day of harvesting was canceled Sunday, The Denver Post reported.
“Overwhelmed is putting it mildly,” Ms. Miller said. “People obviously need food.”
She said she expected 5,000 to 10,000 people to show up Saturday to collect potatoes, carrots and leeks. Instead, an estimated 11,000 vehicles snaked around cornfields and backed up more than two miles. About 30 acres of the 600-acre farm, 37 miles north of Denver, became a parking lot.
“Everybody is so depressed about the economy,” said Sandra Justice of Greeley, Colo., who works at a technology company. “This was a pure party. Everybody having a great time getting something for free.”
Ms. Justice and her mother and son picked about 10 bags of vegetables.
Ms. Miller said she and her husband opened the farm for the public harvest for the first time this year after hearing reports of food being stolen from churches. It was meant as a thank-you for customers.
The farm’s operations manager, Dave Patterson, said that in previous years the Millers had allowed schoolchildren and some church groups to harvest their own food on the farm in the fall.
He estimated that about 600,000 pounds of produce was harvested Saturday.
PLATTEVILLE, Colo. (AP) — A farm couple received a big surprise when they opened their fields to anyone who wanted to take away vegetables left over from the harvest: 40,000 people showed up.
The fields of the couple, Joe and Chris Miller, were picked so clean Saturday that a second day of harvesting was canceled Sunday, The Denver Post reported.
“Overwhelmed is putting it mildly,” Ms. Miller said. “People obviously need food.”
She said she expected 5,000 to 10,000 people to show up Saturday to collect potatoes, carrots and leeks. Instead, an estimated 11,000 vehicles snaked around cornfields and backed up more than two miles. About 30 acres of the 600-acre farm, 37 miles north of Denver, became a parking lot.
“Everybody is so depressed about the economy,” said Sandra Justice of Greeley, Colo., who works at a technology company. “This was a pure party. Everybody having a great time getting something for free.”
Ms. Justice and her mother and son picked about 10 bags of vegetables.
Ms. Miller said she and her husband opened the farm for the public harvest for the first time this year after hearing reports of food being stolen from churches. It was meant as a thank-you for customers.
The farm’s operations manager, Dave Patterson, said that in previous years the Millers had allowed schoolchildren and some church groups to harvest their own food on the farm in the fall.
He estimated that about 600,000 pounds of produce was harvested Saturday.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Food scarcity hits 11 pct of U.S. households-gov't
Reuters, Monday November 17 2008
By Charles Abbott
WASHINGTON, Nov 17 (Reuters) - Some 36.2 million Americans struggle to get enough food to eat and one-third of them go hungry from time to time, the government said on Monday in a survey that was taken before this year's economic downturn.
Antihunger groups said hunger has worsened since the government's survey of 45,600 households at the end of 2007. They want Congress to increase food stamp benefits, at least temporarily, in an economic stimulus package this week.
Overall, 11.1 percent of U.S. households, or 36.2 million people, were food insecure during 2007, up from 10.9 percent, or 35.5 million people in 2006, the Agriculture Department said.
Food insecurity is defined as having difficulty obtaining enough food to meet basic nutritional needs.
USDA said 4.1 percent of households, or 11.9 million people -- classified as "very low food security" -- had to cut back on meals or skip them occasionally. The rate has climbed steadily for a decade from 3.7 percent and 3.8 million people in 1998.
"That's where the bigger growth is coming from," said Jim Weill of the Food Research and Action Center. He said U.S. poverty data and other reports show a rising portion of people among the worst-off Americans.
With the Thanksgiving holiday next week, FRAC and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities urged an increase in food stamp benefits. Food stamps help poor people buy food. At latest count, a near-record 29.5 million Americans received food stamps.
Stacy Dean of the Center on the Budget, said food stamp enrollment increased by 2 million people in the first eight months of this year.
"If the data we are reviewing today reflected food insecurity data from the last 12 months, it would be even more shocking," said Vicki Escarra of Feeding America, a network of 200 food banks.
USDA said the typical "food secure" American household spent 35 percent more on food than households with problems acquiring enough food. Food-insecure households compensate by eating less varied diets, enrolling in the food stamp program or turning to charities.
"These households at some time during the year had difficulty providing enough food for all their members due to lack of resources," said USDA.
In the worst-off households, people ate less or their eating patterns were "disrupted."
"On average, households classified as have very low food security experienced the condition in seven months of the year, for a few days in each of those months," said USDA.
Food insecurity rates were highest in the South, among minority groups, among poor people and in households headed by a single woman with children. (Reporting by Charles Abbott; Editing by David Gregorio)
By Charles Abbott
WASHINGTON, Nov 17 (Reuters) - Some 36.2 million Americans struggle to get enough food to eat and one-third of them go hungry from time to time, the government said on Monday in a survey that was taken before this year's economic downturn.
Antihunger groups said hunger has worsened since the government's survey of 45,600 households at the end of 2007. They want Congress to increase food stamp benefits, at least temporarily, in an economic stimulus package this week.
Overall, 11.1 percent of U.S. households, or 36.2 million people, were food insecure during 2007, up from 10.9 percent, or 35.5 million people in 2006, the Agriculture Department said.
Food insecurity is defined as having difficulty obtaining enough food to meet basic nutritional needs.
USDA said 4.1 percent of households, or 11.9 million people -- classified as "very low food security" -- had to cut back on meals or skip them occasionally. The rate has climbed steadily for a decade from 3.7 percent and 3.8 million people in 1998.
"That's where the bigger growth is coming from," said Jim Weill of the Food Research and Action Center. He said U.S. poverty data and other reports show a rising portion of people among the worst-off Americans.
With the Thanksgiving holiday next week, FRAC and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities urged an increase in food stamp benefits. Food stamps help poor people buy food. At latest count, a near-record 29.5 million Americans received food stamps.
Stacy Dean of the Center on the Budget, said food stamp enrollment increased by 2 million people in the first eight months of this year.
"If the data we are reviewing today reflected food insecurity data from the last 12 months, it would be even more shocking," said Vicki Escarra of Feeding America, a network of 200 food banks.
USDA said the typical "food secure" American household spent 35 percent more on food than households with problems acquiring enough food. Food-insecure households compensate by eating less varied diets, enrolling in the food stamp program or turning to charities.
"These households at some time during the year had difficulty providing enough food for all their members due to lack of resources," said USDA.
In the worst-off households, people ate less or their eating patterns were "disrupted."
"On average, households classified as have very low food security experienced the condition in seven months of the year, for a few days in each of those months," said USDA.
Food insecurity rates were highest in the South, among minority groups, among poor people and in households headed by a single woman with children. (Reporting by Charles Abbott; Editing by David Gregorio)
Thursday, October 30, 2008
The 2008 land grab for food and financial security
Grain
October 29, 2008
Today’s food and financial crises have, in tandem, triggered a new global land grab. "Food insecure" governments that rely on imports to feed their people are snapping up farms all over the world to outsource their own food production and escape high market prices. Private investors, hungry for profits in the midst of the deepening financial crisis, are eyeing overseas farms as an important new source of revenue. As a result of both trends, fertile agricultural land is being swiftly privatised and consolidated by foreign companies in some of the world’s poorest and hungriest countries. A new report from GRAIN examines 100 cases of agricultural land grabbing — whether for food or simply for profit — that have exploded this year.
Saudi Arabia and China are just two nations out buying farms, from Sudan to Cambodia, to satisfy their own food needs. In these cases, governments, sometimes through sovereign wealth funds, are negotiating rights to foreign land — whether by purchase, concession or lease — so that their corporations can come in and produce food to export back home. In return, they are offering oil contracts, soft loans, infrastructure projects and development funds. The food-hungry land grabbers include China, India, Japan, Malaysia, Korea, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates. Those giving up their land, in exchange for the oil deals or investments, include the Philippines, Mozambique, Thailand, Cambodia, Burma, Laos, Indonesia, Pakistan, Sudan, Uganda, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan and Zimbabwe.
Investing in farms abroad to produce food for a tight world market is also, apparently, a hot way to make money these days. Throughout this year, an army of investment houses, private equity managers and hedge funds have been out purchasing farmland throughout the world. The plan is to capitalise on low land costs and high food prices wherever fertile farmland is available, such as in Ukraine, China, Russia, Nigeria, Argentina, Brazil and Kazakhstan. The money-hungry land grabbers include familiar names such as Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, BlackRock and Louis Dreyfus, but there are plenty of others. And they are getting help from agencies like the World Bank, its International Finance Corporation and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, who are pressing target countries to change their laws and make stronger land ownership by foreigners possible.
While political leaders and UN bodies are trying to "manage" the potential backlash, farmers’ organisations, opposition parties, human rights groups and others are challenging and resisting these deals. But much more needs to be done to stop this massive sell-out of the very basis of food sovereignty.
===============================
GRAIN, "Seized: The 2008 land grab for food and financial security", GRAIN briefing, October 2008, (11 pp) + Annex (11 pp). Available at:
http://www.grain.org/go/landgrab
October 29, 2008
Today’s food and financial crises have, in tandem, triggered a new global land grab. "Food insecure" governments that rely on imports to feed their people are snapping up farms all over the world to outsource their own food production and escape high market prices. Private investors, hungry for profits in the midst of the deepening financial crisis, are eyeing overseas farms as an important new source of revenue. As a result of both trends, fertile agricultural land is being swiftly privatised and consolidated by foreign companies in some of the world’s poorest and hungriest countries. A new report from GRAIN examines 100 cases of agricultural land grabbing — whether for food or simply for profit — that have exploded this year.
Saudi Arabia and China are just two nations out buying farms, from Sudan to Cambodia, to satisfy their own food needs. In these cases, governments, sometimes through sovereign wealth funds, are negotiating rights to foreign land — whether by purchase, concession or lease — so that their corporations can come in and produce food to export back home. In return, they are offering oil contracts, soft loans, infrastructure projects and development funds. The food-hungry land grabbers include China, India, Japan, Malaysia, Korea, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates. Those giving up their land, in exchange for the oil deals or investments, include the Philippines, Mozambique, Thailand, Cambodia, Burma, Laos, Indonesia, Pakistan, Sudan, Uganda, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan and Zimbabwe.
Investing in farms abroad to produce food for a tight world market is also, apparently, a hot way to make money these days. Throughout this year, an army of investment houses, private equity managers and hedge funds have been out purchasing farmland throughout the world. The plan is to capitalise on low land costs and high food prices wherever fertile farmland is available, such as in Ukraine, China, Russia, Nigeria, Argentina, Brazil and Kazakhstan. The money-hungry land grabbers include familiar names such as Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, BlackRock and Louis Dreyfus, but there are plenty of others. And they are getting help from agencies like the World Bank, its International Finance Corporation and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, who are pressing target countries to change their laws and make stronger land ownership by foreigners possible.
While political leaders and UN bodies are trying to "manage" the potential backlash, farmers’ organisations, opposition parties, human rights groups and others are challenging and resisting these deals. But much more needs to be done to stop this massive sell-out of the very basis of food sovereignty.
===============================
GRAIN, "Seized: The 2008 land grab for food and financial security", GRAIN briefing, October 2008, (11 pp) + Annex (11 pp). Available at:
http://www.grain.org/go/landgrab
Saturday, August 23, 2008
FDA Inspectors Say Peppers May Be Linked to Salmonella Outbreak
Note: Salmonella was found on a single peeper!
By Paul Sisco
Washington
23 July 2008
U.S. government inspectors searching for the cause of a recent salmonella outbreak have a new lead. Inspectors at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration have linked a Mexican grown jalepeno pepper to the outbreak that has spread through the United States and into Canada. VOA's Paul Sisco reports.
Researchers thought the initial outbreak, in April, came from tomatoes. But now they are not so sure.
Mexican grown Jalepeno pepper may be the source of salmonella bacteria
Mexican-grown Jalepeno pepper may be the source of salmonella bacteria
Federal regulators said Monday that salmonella bacteria was found on a single Mexican grown Jalepeno pepper at this distribution facility in Texas.
The Food and Drug Administration is asking consumers to avoid fresh jalepeno peppers, and products made with them, until further notice.
Where the pepper became tainted -- on the farm, at the Texas plant, or at some stop in between -- is a mystery.
For months, authorities have been looking for the source of the outbreak that has sickened 1,200 people in North America.
FDA Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach, in June, warned consumers to avoid certain tomatoes.
"..raw red round, and red plum, and red roma tomatoes," von Eschenbach said.
That warning has been lifted.
The FDA says interviews indicate the first cases came from tomatoes. Recent cases may point to certain peppers mixed with tomatoes.
Assistant FDA Commissioner David Acheson says, "We are equally frustrated and anxious and working very hard to try and figure out this outbreak. It makes nobody happy that people are still getting sick."
Acheson says the contaminated jalepeno is an important lead in the ongoing investigation.
By Paul Sisco
Washington
23 July 2008
U.S. government inspectors searching for the cause of a recent salmonella outbreak have a new lead. Inspectors at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration have linked a Mexican grown jalepeno pepper to the outbreak that has spread through the United States and into Canada. VOA's Paul Sisco reports.
Researchers thought the initial outbreak, in April, came from tomatoes. But now they are not so sure.
Mexican grown Jalepeno pepper may be the source of salmonella bacteria
Mexican-grown Jalepeno pepper may be the source of salmonella bacteria
Federal regulators said Monday that salmonella bacteria was found on a single Mexican grown Jalepeno pepper at this distribution facility in Texas.
The Food and Drug Administration is asking consumers to avoid fresh jalepeno peppers, and products made with them, until further notice.
Where the pepper became tainted -- on the farm, at the Texas plant, or at some stop in between -- is a mystery.
For months, authorities have been looking for the source of the outbreak that has sickened 1,200 people in North America.
FDA Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach, in June, warned consumers to avoid certain tomatoes.
"..raw red round, and red plum, and red roma tomatoes," von Eschenbach said.
That warning has been lifted.
The FDA says interviews indicate the first cases came from tomatoes. Recent cases may point to certain peppers mixed with tomatoes.
Assistant FDA Commissioner David Acheson says, "We are equally frustrated and anxious and working very hard to try and figure out this outbreak. It makes nobody happy that people are still getting sick."
Acheson says the contaminated jalepeno is an important lead in the ongoing investigation.
US Tomato Industry Demands US$100 Million Compensation over Salmonella Outbreak
Source: FLEXNEWS
25/07/2008
25 July, 2008 - The US tomato industry is demanding up to US$100 million in compensation following the recent alert that the fruit was responsible for a nationwide salmonella outbreak.
Daily News Alerts
- We respect your privacy -
Tomato producer and Florida Democratic politician Tim Mahoney introduced legislation earlier this week seeking US$100 million as compensation for losses incurred by the country’s producers and shippers during the alarm.
The US Department of Agriculture will make a decision on the claim.
The move comes as suspicion for the cause of the spate of salmonella incidences that affected almost 1,300 people shifted to jalapeno peppers this week. However, federal officials have yet to officially clear tomatoes.
The issue flared on 7 June when FDA officials warned consumers against eating certain kinds of raw tomatoes suspected of being contaminated with the Saintpaul salmonella strain. This led to thousands of tonnes of tomatoes being dumped by consummers, retailers and restaurants. However, even after the alarm was raised, the number of salmonella cases continued to climb and all tests on the red fruit proved negative.
25/07/2008
25 July, 2008 - The US tomato industry is demanding up to US$100 million in compensation following the recent alert that the fruit was responsible for a nationwide salmonella outbreak.
Daily News Alerts
- We respect your privacy -
Tomato producer and Florida Democratic politician Tim Mahoney introduced legislation earlier this week seeking US$100 million as compensation for losses incurred by the country’s producers and shippers during the alarm.
The US Department of Agriculture will make a decision on the claim.
The move comes as suspicion for the cause of the spate of salmonella incidences that affected almost 1,300 people shifted to jalapeno peppers this week. However, federal officials have yet to officially clear tomatoes.
The issue flared on 7 June when FDA officials warned consumers against eating certain kinds of raw tomatoes suspected of being contaminated with the Saintpaul salmonella strain. This led to thousands of tonnes of tomatoes being dumped by consummers, retailers and restaurants. However, even after the alarm was raised, the number of salmonella cases continued to climb and all tests on the red fruit proved negative.
Irradiating fresh vegetables
Washington - The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is preparing to release a statement to the effect that irradiating fresh vegetables such as iceberg lettuce and spinach.
This practice would remove any chance of E. coli and other dangerous germs from fresh veggies, a fact that could go a long way to ease the minds of worried Americans when it comes to eating healthy vegetables.
This would not however, mean that consumers of fresh veggies should stop washing their veggies when they buy them.
The act of irradiating vegetables, involves zapping them with just enough radiation to rid them of dangerous toxins.
The push to approve this method of dealing with fresh veggies comes on the heal of an E. coli outbreak back in 2006, which was linked to spinach and resulted in 3 deaths.
“What this does is give producers and processors one more tool in the toolbox to make these commodities safer and protect public health,” said Dr. Laura Tarantino, FDA’s chief of food additive safety.
This practice would remove any chance of E. coli and other dangerous germs from fresh veggies, a fact that could go a long way to ease the minds of worried Americans when it comes to eating healthy vegetables.
This would not however, mean that consumers of fresh veggies should stop washing their veggies when they buy them.
The act of irradiating vegetables, involves zapping them with just enough radiation to rid them of dangerous toxins.
The push to approve this method of dealing with fresh veggies comes on the heal of an E. coli outbreak back in 2006, which was linked to spinach and resulted in 3 deaths.
“What this does is give producers and processors one more tool in the toolbox to make these commodities safer and protect public health,” said Dr. Laura Tarantino, FDA’s chief of food additive safety.
Monday, July 07, 2008
G8 summit: Gordon Brown has eight-course dinner before food crisis talks
By Robert Winnett, Deputy Political Editor in Hokkaido, Japan
Last updated: 2:51 PM BST 07/07/2008
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.
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 of food.
Mr Brown and his wife Sarah were among 15 guests at the "blessings of the earth and the sea social dinner".
The dinner consisted of 18 dishes in eight courses including caviar, smoked salmon, Kyoto beef and a "G8 fantasy dessert".
The banquet was accompanied by five different wines from around the world including champagne, a French Bourgogne and sake.
African leaders including the heads of Ethiopia, Tanzania and Senegal who had taken part in talks during the day were not invited to the function.
The dinner came just hours after a "working lunch" consisting of six courses including white asparagus and truffle soup, crab and a supreme of chicken.
The lavish dining arrangements – disclosed by the Japanese Government which is hosting the summit in Hokkaido – come amid growing concern over rising food prices triggered by a shortage of many basic necessities.
On the flight to the summit, Mr Brown urged Britons to cut food waste as part of a global drive to help avert the food crisis.
Opposition politicians and charities condemned the extravagant meals.
Dominic Nutt, of Save the Children, said: "It is deeply hypocritical that they should be lavishing course after course on world leaders when there is a food crisis and millions cannot afford a decent meal to eat.
"If the G8 wants to betray the hopes of a generation of children, it is going the right way about it. The food crisis is an emergency and the G8 must treat it as that."
Andrew Mitchell, the shadow International Development Secretary, said: "The G8 have made a bad start to their summit, with excessive cost and lavish consumption.
"Surely it is not unreasonable for each leader to give a guarantee that they will stand by their solemn pledges of three years ago at Gleneagles to help the world's poor. All of us are watching, waiting and listening."
Mr Brown arrived at the G8 summit held on the holiday island of Hokkaido in northern Japan on Monday morning.
He arrived on a plane chartered from Texas, America, which had to fly empty for thousands of miles to pick up the Prime Minister and his entourage.
Unlike other countries, Britain does not have an official plane to transport the Prime Minister.
The lavish dining will embarrass Mr Brown, who has made tackling the global food crisis a key priority.
On the flight to the summit, the Prime Minister urged British people to cut food waste and "reduce unnecessary demand".
He said: "We need a global plan to deal with rising food prices that are affecting millions of families in Britain. That's why I am proposing that we take action to both increase the global supply of food and reduce unnecessary demand.
"If we are to get food prices down, we must also do more to deal with unnecessary demand, such as by all of us doing more to cut our food waste which is costing the average household in Britain around £8 per week."
Talks between world leaders at the summit will focus on dealing with soaring food and oil prices.
There is also hope for a breakthrough on protracted talks to secure a new global trade deal.
However, the leaders are facing criticism amid allegations that pledges for development aid promised for the third world at a previous G8 summit in Scotland have been watered down.
The Prime Minister's spokesman declined to comment on the menus.
Last updated: 2:51 PM BST 07/07/2008
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.
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 of food.
Mr Brown and his wife Sarah were among 15 guests at the "blessings of the earth and the sea social dinner".
The dinner consisted of 18 dishes in eight courses including caviar, smoked salmon, Kyoto beef and a "G8 fantasy dessert".
The banquet was accompanied by five different wines from around the world including champagne, a French Bourgogne and sake.
African leaders including the heads of Ethiopia, Tanzania and Senegal who had taken part in talks during the day were not invited to the function.
The dinner came just hours after a "working lunch" consisting of six courses including white asparagus and truffle soup, crab and a supreme of chicken.
The lavish dining arrangements – disclosed by the Japanese Government which is hosting the summit in Hokkaido – come amid growing concern over rising food prices triggered by a shortage of many basic necessities.
On the flight to the summit, Mr Brown urged Britons to cut food waste as part of a global drive to help avert the food crisis.
Opposition politicians and charities condemned the extravagant meals.
Dominic Nutt, of Save the Children, said: "It is deeply hypocritical that they should be lavishing course after course on world leaders when there is a food crisis and millions cannot afford a decent meal to eat.
"If the G8 wants to betray the hopes of a generation of children, it is going the right way about it. The food crisis is an emergency and the G8 must treat it as that."
Andrew Mitchell, the shadow International Development Secretary, said: "The G8 have made a bad start to their summit, with excessive cost and lavish consumption.
"Surely it is not unreasonable for each leader to give a guarantee that they will stand by their solemn pledges of three years ago at Gleneagles to help the world's poor. All of us are watching, waiting and listening."
Mr Brown arrived at the G8 summit held on the holiday island of Hokkaido in northern Japan on Monday morning.
He arrived on a plane chartered from Texas, America, which had to fly empty for thousands of miles to pick up the Prime Minister and his entourage.
Unlike other countries, Britain does not have an official plane to transport the Prime Minister.
The lavish dining will embarrass Mr Brown, who has made tackling the global food crisis a key priority.
On the flight to the summit, the Prime Minister urged British people to cut food waste and "reduce unnecessary demand".
He said: "We need a global plan to deal with rising food prices that are affecting millions of families in Britain. That's why I am proposing that we take action to both increase the global supply of food and reduce unnecessary demand.
"If we are to get food prices down, we must also do more to deal with unnecessary demand, such as by all of us doing more to cut our food waste which is costing the average household in Britain around £8 per week."
Talks between world leaders at the summit will focus on dealing with soaring food and oil prices.
There is also hope for a breakthrough on protracted talks to secure a new global trade deal.
However, the leaders are facing criticism amid allegations that pledges for development aid promised for the third world at a previous G8 summit in Scotland have been watered down.
The Prime Minister's spokesman declined to comment on the menus.
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
Food prices trigger second day of Mogadishu riots
Tue May 6, 2008 10:20am EDT
By Abdi Sheikh and Abdi Mohamed
MOGADISHU, May 6 (Reuters) - Angry Mogadishu residents protested for a second day on Tuesday against food traders who rejected old currency notes, blocking roads and stoning cars.
Witnesses said at least one storekeeper was stabbed by protesters after one demonstrator was shot and killed on Monday.
"I'm hungry and yet cannot even buy food," Abdifatah Hussein, 25, told Reuters, clutching a bunch of Somali shillings. "I fear we might start eating one another. We will never stop protesting until traders accept the notes."
Police commissioner Abdi Hassan Awale Qaybdiid said Islamist militants from the al Shabaab group had infiltrated the protests on Monday and killed "several civilians".
But there was no independent confirmation of his report, and the insurgents could not immediately be reached for comment.
Many shopkeepers have rejected the old notes, which are still legal currency, saying wholesale traders and currency traders will not take them. Most of them are demanding dollars, or newer Somali shillings.
Somalia's shilling is valued at about 34,000 to the dollar, and many blame a fall in value of nearly 150 percent over the past year on counterfeiters who mint the notes and then exchange them for dollars.
That has ramped up inflation already triggered by rising food prices. Though agriculturally fertile, Somalia's violence and anarchy makes it largely dependent on food imports.
Local authorities and traders met in Mogadishu on Tuesday in a desperate move to quell the growing anger among residents of one of the world's most impoverished and well-armed cities.
As spokesman for traders in Bakara Market, the city's biggest, said they had agreed to accept all genuine Somali bank notes, and to take tough action against anyone using fakes.
The Horn of African country has been without any kind of real government since the 1991 ouster of a dictator. An interim administration in place since late 2004 is fighting the rebels and is largely unable to address the daily needs of citizens. (Additional reporting by Ibrahim Mohamed in Jowhar; Writing by Guled Mohamed; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Myra MacDonald) (For full Reuters Africa coverage and to have your say on the top issues, visit: africa.reuters.com/)
By Abdi Sheikh and Abdi Mohamed
MOGADISHU, May 6 (Reuters) - Angry Mogadishu residents protested for a second day on Tuesday against food traders who rejected old currency notes, blocking roads and stoning cars.
Witnesses said at least one storekeeper was stabbed by protesters after one demonstrator was shot and killed on Monday.
"I'm hungry and yet cannot even buy food," Abdifatah Hussein, 25, told Reuters, clutching a bunch of Somali shillings. "I fear we might start eating one another. We will never stop protesting until traders accept the notes."
Police commissioner Abdi Hassan Awale Qaybdiid said Islamist militants from the al Shabaab group had infiltrated the protests on Monday and killed "several civilians".
But there was no independent confirmation of his report, and the insurgents could not immediately be reached for comment.
Many shopkeepers have rejected the old notes, which are still legal currency, saying wholesale traders and currency traders will not take them. Most of them are demanding dollars, or newer Somali shillings.
Somalia's shilling is valued at about 34,000 to the dollar, and many blame a fall in value of nearly 150 percent over the past year on counterfeiters who mint the notes and then exchange them for dollars.
That has ramped up inflation already triggered by rising food prices. Though agriculturally fertile, Somalia's violence and anarchy makes it largely dependent on food imports.
Local authorities and traders met in Mogadishu on Tuesday in a desperate move to quell the growing anger among residents of one of the world's most impoverished and well-armed cities.
As spokesman for traders in Bakara Market, the city's biggest, said they had agreed to accept all genuine Somali bank notes, and to take tough action against anyone using fakes.
The Horn of African country has been without any kind of real government since the 1991 ouster of a dictator. An interim administration in place since late 2004 is fighting the rebels and is largely unable to address the daily needs of citizens. (Additional reporting by Ibrahim Mohamed in Jowhar; Writing by Guled Mohamed; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Myra MacDonald) (For full Reuters Africa coverage and to have your say on the top issues, visit: africa.reuters.com/)
Friday, April 25, 2008
UN agency chief warns of food crisis 'civil war'
1 hour ago
PARIS (AFP) — UN food agency chief Jacques Diouf on Friday warned of civil war in some countries because of global food shortages and called for a revamp of the international food system.
The head of the Food and Agriculture Organization said on France 24 television that international leaders had failed to act on warnings from his agency leading to what he called a "predictable catastrophe".
Diouf said that "elected governments" must take "primary responsibility" before their people.
While demonstrations and riots over rising prices of staples such as rice and corn have the government in Haiti, Diouf said he sees "civil war" as a potential danger for countries in sub-Saharan Africa but also in Asia and Latin America.
Asked if he agreed with International Monetary Fund head Dominique Strauss-Kahn's assessment that "those kind of questions sometimes end in war," Diouf said "with the qualification, civil war".
"Within countries, if, once again, all the necessary measures are not taken, there risks being clashes. We know there have already been deaths in some countries."
Diouf went on: "Unfortunately, we always wait until there is a catastrophe in this world before we react."
Unrest tied to the food inflation has already erupted in Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Mauritania, Ethiopia, Madagascar, the Philippines and Indonesia.
Diouf bemoaned the competing politics of different international organisations, sometimes under the same UN umbrella, and said this had often made the implementation of FAO policies fall foul to those of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
"It's true that the World Bank and the (IMF) have, over the past two decades, policies which have dismantled systems put in place to protect farmers in Third World countries, notably in Africa," he said.
"(But) I should say that the World Bank has done a mea culpa, because it has recognised its policies in Africa were not good and that it has to change them."
However, he denied that price rises of up to 120 percent in rice's case would prove beneficial to developing world farmers.
"There has to be investment in the management of water," he said. "In Africa, on 96 percent of land, production is dependent upon rainfall.
"When you factor in poor rural transport networks ... and inadequate storage facilities, (these countries) lose between 40 and 60 percent of production each year.
The FAO director-general welcomed an idea for global institutions to establish a food security fund, in the way the international community rallied to battle AIDS from the 1980s.
"I think that this proposition merits serious examination," Diouf said. "But how do we make sure that funds are in addition to resources mobilised by the World Bank, regional development banks, the EU and its bilateral aid programmes?
Diouf stopped short of calling for a moratorium on biofuel development -- which the UN's Special Rapporteur for the Right to Food, Jean Ziegler, recently called a "crime against humanity".
He called instead for a conference on food security in Rome on June 3-5, -- which will be attended by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Brazil's Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva -- to trigger informed research.
Diouf also pulled back from developing world calls to lower agriculture subsidies and open up access to markets in the United States and Europe -- instead pressing for similar subsidies for farmers in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
"There are two solutions: end subsidies everywhere, or give them to everyone. I prefer the latter," he said.
Diouf said the the international credit crunch and faults in global financial markets could not be blamed for food price rises.
"Obviously, there are always interactions, but the real problem of the food crisis is insufficient global supply due to climactic phenomenons, already low stocks and growing demand among emerging countries such as China and India.
"To that you can add the demand for biofuels which has diverted food towards energy.
"The growth in world population is 78.5 million people each year, and by 2050, the global population will have risen from six to nine billion," Diouf said.
PARIS (AFP) — UN food agency chief Jacques Diouf on Friday warned of civil war in some countries because of global food shortages and called for a revamp of the international food system.
The head of the Food and Agriculture Organization said on France 24 television that international leaders had failed to act on warnings from his agency leading to what he called a "predictable catastrophe".
Diouf said that "elected governments" must take "primary responsibility" before their people.
While demonstrations and riots over rising prices of staples such as rice and corn have the government in Haiti, Diouf said he sees "civil war" as a potential danger for countries in sub-Saharan Africa but also in Asia and Latin America.
Asked if he agreed with International Monetary Fund head Dominique Strauss-Kahn's assessment that "those kind of questions sometimes end in war," Diouf said "with the qualification, civil war".
"Within countries, if, once again, all the necessary measures are not taken, there risks being clashes. We know there have already been deaths in some countries."
Diouf went on: "Unfortunately, we always wait until there is a catastrophe in this world before we react."
Unrest tied to the food inflation has already erupted in Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Mauritania, Ethiopia, Madagascar, the Philippines and Indonesia.
Diouf bemoaned the competing politics of different international organisations, sometimes under the same UN umbrella, and said this had often made the implementation of FAO policies fall foul to those of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
"It's true that the World Bank and the (IMF) have, over the past two decades, policies which have dismantled systems put in place to protect farmers in Third World countries, notably in Africa," he said.
"(But) I should say that the World Bank has done a mea culpa, because it has recognised its policies in Africa were not good and that it has to change them."
However, he denied that price rises of up to 120 percent in rice's case would prove beneficial to developing world farmers.
"There has to be investment in the management of water," he said. "In Africa, on 96 percent of land, production is dependent upon rainfall.
"When you factor in poor rural transport networks ... and inadequate storage facilities, (these countries) lose between 40 and 60 percent of production each year.
The FAO director-general welcomed an idea for global institutions to establish a food security fund, in the way the international community rallied to battle AIDS from the 1980s.
"I think that this proposition merits serious examination," Diouf said. "But how do we make sure that funds are in addition to resources mobilised by the World Bank, regional development banks, the EU and its bilateral aid programmes?
Diouf stopped short of calling for a moratorium on biofuel development -- which the UN's Special Rapporteur for the Right to Food, Jean Ziegler, recently called a "crime against humanity".
He called instead for a conference on food security in Rome on June 3-5, -- which will be attended by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Brazil's Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva -- to trigger informed research.
Diouf also pulled back from developing world calls to lower agriculture subsidies and open up access to markets in the United States and Europe -- instead pressing for similar subsidies for farmers in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
"There are two solutions: end subsidies everywhere, or give them to everyone. I prefer the latter," he said.
Diouf said the the international credit crunch and faults in global financial markets could not be blamed for food price rises.
"Obviously, there are always interactions, but the real problem of the food crisis is insufficient global supply due to climactic phenomenons, already low stocks and growing demand among emerging countries such as China and India.
"To that you can add the demand for biofuels which has diverted food towards energy.
"The growth in world population is 78.5 million people each year, and by 2050, the global population will have risen from six to nine billion," Diouf said.
Rising food prices are "global crisis" - UN Chief
Fri 25 Apr 2008, 12:37 GMT
(Adds details on meeting, demonstrations)
By Sylvia Westall
VIENNA, April 25 (Reuters) - Rising food prices have developed into a global crisis, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Friday.
Concerns about food security mounted this week as rice prices hit records in Asia and the United States warned that staples for the world's hungry were getting much more expensive.
"This steeply rising price of food has developed into a real global crisis," Ban told journalists in Vienna.
Anger over high food and fuel costs in recent months has sparked protests in several countries.
In Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas, protests have brought down the government and killed six, while in Cameroon at least 24 have died in protests linked partly to rising living costs.
Governments of several food-growing countries, worried about domestic shortages, have imposed export curbs, spooking markets at a time when world inventories are down sharply.
Ban said the crisis would be discussed at a meeting of U.N. agency heads, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund on April 28-29 in Berne, Switzerland.
"The United Nations is very much concerned as all members of the international community (are)," he said. "We must take immediate action in a concerted way."
Ban said world leaders should discuss ways to improve food distribution systems and production.
Japan announced $100 million in emergency food aid on Friday and World Food Program's executive director said on Thursday the cost of feeding the world's hungry had spiked nearly 40 percent amid spiralling food costs and oil prices.
International Monetary Fund has said it is in talks with governments in 10 countries, mostly in Africa, about increasing financial assistance to cover the soaring cost of food.
(Adds details on meeting, demonstrations)
By Sylvia Westall
VIENNA, April 25 (Reuters) - Rising food prices have developed into a global crisis, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Friday.
Concerns about food security mounted this week as rice prices hit records in Asia and the United States warned that staples for the world's hungry were getting much more expensive.
"This steeply rising price of food has developed into a real global crisis," Ban told journalists in Vienna.
Anger over high food and fuel costs in recent months has sparked protests in several countries.
In Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas, protests have brought down the government and killed six, while in Cameroon at least 24 have died in protests linked partly to rising living costs.
Governments of several food-growing countries, worried about domestic shortages, have imposed export curbs, spooking markets at a time when world inventories are down sharply.
Ban said the crisis would be discussed at a meeting of U.N. agency heads, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund on April 28-29 in Berne, Switzerland.
"The United Nations is very much concerned as all members of the international community (are)," he said. "We must take immediate action in a concerted way."
Ban said world leaders should discuss ways to improve food distribution systems and production.
Japan announced $100 million in emergency food aid on Friday and World Food Program's executive director said on Thursday the cost of feeding the world's hungry had spiked nearly 40 percent amid spiralling food costs and oil prices.
International Monetary Fund has said it is in talks with governments in 10 countries, mostly in Africa, about increasing financial assistance to cover the soaring cost of food.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Britain: World Food Crisis a ‘silent Tsunami’
World Briefing | Europe
By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
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 at a conference on the growing crisis in London. “This is the new face of hunger,” the official, Josette Sheeran, left, the executive director of the World Food Program, added. “The response calls for large-scale, high-level action by the global community.” She was one of 25 experts in the field who attended the conference hosted by Prime Minister Gordon Brown at his Downing Street office. Prices for basic foods like rice and wheat have risen rapidly since the last quarter of 2007, leading to riots and protests in a number of countries. In the latest unrest, demonstrators took to the streets in the Afghan city of Jalalabad and the Gabonese capital, Libreville. A statement from Mr. Brown’s office released after the meeting said that delegates 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 fueling the food price surge.
By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
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 at a conference on the growing crisis in London. “This is the new face of hunger,” the official, Josette Sheeran, left, the executive director of the World Food Program, added. “The response calls for large-scale, high-level action by the global community.” She was one of 25 experts in the field who attended the conference hosted by Prime Minister Gordon Brown at his Downing Street office. Prices for basic foods like rice and wheat have risen rapidly since the last quarter of 2007, leading to riots and protests in a number of countries. In the latest unrest, demonstrators took to the streets in the Afghan city of Jalalabad and the Gabonese capital, Libreville. A statement from Mr. Brown’s office released after the meeting said that delegates 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 fueling the food price surge.
Era of cheap food ends as prices surge
Steve Hawkes, Greg Hurst and Valerie Elliott
Families have been warned that the prices of basic foods will rise steeply again because of acute shortages in commodity markets.
Experts told The Times yesterday that prices of rice, wheat and vegetable oil would rise further. They also forecast that high prices and shortages — which have caused riots in developing countries such as Bangladesh and Haiti — were here to stay, and that the days of cheap produce would not return. Food-price inflation has already pushed up a typical family’s weekly shopping bill by 15 per cent in a year.
A further 15 per cent increase in the price of a standard Kingsmill loaf would push it up from £1.09 to to £1.24. Butter has gone up by 62 per cent in the past year. A similar rise would bring the price of a 250g pack to £1.52.
The price of rice, which has almost tripled in a year, rose 2 per cent on the Chicago Board of Trade yesterday as the United Nations food agency gave warning that millions faced starvation because aid agencies were unable to meet the additional financial burden.
Gordon Brown responded to mounting concerns about the global rise in food prices by signalling that he might scale back Britain’s commitment to biofuels, which critics say has exacerbated the food crisis because land has been given over to grow crops for energy rather than food.
John Bason, finance director of Associated British Foods, one of Britain’s biggest food producers, said that wheat prices had doubled in a year and supermarkets would have to raise the price of bread again. Vegetable oil was also likely to soar in price because the price of corn oil in the US had almost tripled, he said.
Poor harvests and fierce competition for food supplies has already meant the price of eggs, rice, bread and pasta in supermarkets has rocketed.
MySupermarket.co.uk said that eggs from free-range poultry in Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury’s were 47 per cent more expensive than a year ago; basmati rice was up 61 per cent and fusilli pasta 81 per cent.
At a meeting at Downing Street yesterday, Mr Brown asked farmers, supermarkets and consumer groups to agree steps to rein in rising food costs. He said that Britain must become “more selective” in how it supported environmental initiatives to counter climate change.
“If our UK review shows that we need to change our approach, we will also push for change in EU biofuels targets,” he wrote on Downing Street’s website.
Britain is now likely to press the European Union to recast its target for 10 per cent of transport fuels to be supplied from biofuels by 2020.
Downing Street sources said that ministers would press for any such target to be introduced in a more “sustainable” way and that Britain would not go beyond its own target for 5 per cent of fuels to come from biofuels by 2010. Rising food costs will pile the pressure on Mr Brown, coming after double-digit increases in household fuel bills earlier this year and the continuing row over tax increases for millions of low-paid workers.
Yesterday’s meeting on food prices also focused on the impact on developing countries of global increases in food costs, driven by higher production costs as oil prices soar and increased demand due to population growth.
The Department for International Development announced that it would allocate £400 million over five years to research into hardier and higher-yielding crops. It also promised £30 million to the World Food Programme for countries where the risk of hunger is greatest, plus £25 million in aid for Ethiopia alone.
The Government will meet consumer groups to discuss how households are coping with higher prices. Jonathan Shaw, the Rural Affairs Minister, will host the meeting next Thursday as part of a study into the impact of the higher household bills on the poorest, most vulnerable groups in society.
Opposition parties accused Mr Brown of making the squeeze on families worse.
Philip Hammond, Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, said: “At a time when families are facing soaring food, fuel and mortgage bills, Gordon Brown’s response is to clobber them with higher taxes.”
Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrats’ Treasury spokesman, said: “Rising food bills will hit families already struggling to keep their heads above water following big rises to many utility bills.
“The Government must show more urgency in ensuring the current world talks on agricultural trade no longer drift hopelessly because of a lack of political will.”
The United Nations Food Agency said that rising food prices threatened to plunge 100 million people across the world into hunger.
Josette Sheeran, head of the UN’s World Food Programme, said before yesterday’s meeting: “This is the new face of hunger — the millions of people who were not in the urgent hunger category six months ago but now are.”
Families have been warned that the prices of basic foods will rise steeply again because of acute shortages in commodity markets.
Experts told The Times yesterday that prices of rice, wheat and vegetable oil would rise further. They also forecast that high prices and shortages — which have caused riots in developing countries such as Bangladesh and Haiti — were here to stay, and that the days of cheap produce would not return. Food-price inflation has already pushed up a typical family’s weekly shopping bill by 15 per cent in a year.
A further 15 per cent increase in the price of a standard Kingsmill loaf would push it up from £1.09 to to £1.24. Butter has gone up by 62 per cent in the past year. A similar rise would bring the price of a 250g pack to £1.52.
The price of rice, which has almost tripled in a year, rose 2 per cent on the Chicago Board of Trade yesterday as the United Nations food agency gave warning that millions faced starvation because aid agencies were unable to meet the additional financial burden.
Gordon Brown responded to mounting concerns about the global rise in food prices by signalling that he might scale back Britain’s commitment to biofuels, which critics say has exacerbated the food crisis because land has been given over to grow crops for energy rather than food.
John Bason, finance director of Associated British Foods, one of Britain’s biggest food producers, said that wheat prices had doubled in a year and supermarkets would have to raise the price of bread again. Vegetable oil was also likely to soar in price because the price of corn oil in the US had almost tripled, he said.
Poor harvests and fierce competition for food supplies has already meant the price of eggs, rice, bread and pasta in supermarkets has rocketed.
MySupermarket.co.uk said that eggs from free-range poultry in Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury’s were 47 per cent more expensive than a year ago; basmati rice was up 61 per cent and fusilli pasta 81 per cent.
At a meeting at Downing Street yesterday, Mr Brown asked farmers, supermarkets and consumer groups to agree steps to rein in rising food costs. He said that Britain must become “more selective” in how it supported environmental initiatives to counter climate change.
“If our UK review shows that we need to change our approach, we will also push for change in EU biofuels targets,” he wrote on Downing Street’s website.
Britain is now likely to press the European Union to recast its target for 10 per cent of transport fuels to be supplied from biofuels by 2020.
Downing Street sources said that ministers would press for any such target to be introduced in a more “sustainable” way and that Britain would not go beyond its own target for 5 per cent of fuels to come from biofuels by 2010. Rising food costs will pile the pressure on Mr Brown, coming after double-digit increases in household fuel bills earlier this year and the continuing row over tax increases for millions of low-paid workers.
Yesterday’s meeting on food prices also focused on the impact on developing countries of global increases in food costs, driven by higher production costs as oil prices soar and increased demand due to population growth.
The Department for International Development announced that it would allocate £400 million over five years to research into hardier and higher-yielding crops. It also promised £30 million to the World Food Programme for countries where the risk of hunger is greatest, plus £25 million in aid for Ethiopia alone.
The Government will meet consumer groups to discuss how households are coping with higher prices. Jonathan Shaw, the Rural Affairs Minister, will host the meeting next Thursday as part of a study into the impact of the higher household bills on the poorest, most vulnerable groups in society.
Opposition parties accused Mr Brown of making the squeeze on families worse.
Philip Hammond, Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, said: “At a time when families are facing soaring food, fuel and mortgage bills, Gordon Brown’s response is to clobber them with higher taxes.”
Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrats’ Treasury spokesman, said: “Rising food bills will hit families already struggling to keep their heads above water following big rises to many utility bills.
“The Government must show more urgency in ensuring the current world talks on agricultural trade no longer drift hopelessly because of a lack of political will.”
The United Nations Food Agency said that rising food prices threatened to plunge 100 million people across the world into hunger.
Josette Sheeran, head of the UN’s World Food Programme, said before yesterday’s meeting: “This is the new face of hunger — the millions of people who were not in the urgent hunger category six months ago but now are.”
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Food-Shortage Rx: Globalization
April 15, 2008
Food-Shortage Rx: Globalization
As the U.S. struggles with what the Associated Press is calling the “worst food inflation in 17 years” and reports of global food shortages are pouring in, new light is being shed on the politics of anti-meat, trans-fat free, and “all natural” activism. While food cops fight to take away our cupcakes and green groups try desperately to convince people that less efficient agriculture is the way to go, the voices of reason are focusing on the big picture.
It’s getting easier separate sound advice from the crass, petty world of knee-jerk activism, and today’s message from Oxford University Professor Paul Collier is a prime example of the former: “If we’re to solve this global problem [of hunger], we need more globalization and less sentimentality.” Collier’s guest column in the London Times, “Food shortages: think big,” makes some important points about the “Super Size Me” anti-globalization trend of recent years:
The remedy to high food prices is to increase supply … There are still many areas of the world -- including large swaths of Africa -- that have good land that could be used far more productively if it were properly managed by large companies. To contain the rise in food prices we need more globalization, not less …
Unfortunately, large-scale commercial agriculture is deeply, perhaps irredeemably, unromantic. We laud the production style of the peasant: environmentally sustainable and human in scale…
Africa has less large-scale commercial agriculture than it had 60 years ago. Unfortunately, peasant farming is not well suited to innovation and investment. The result has been that African agriculture has fallen farther and farther behind.
Lo and behold, the answer to global food shortages is to make more of it available by increasing efficiency -- even if the companies able to do that for us might (gasp!) make a profit.
But the anti-capitalist crowd isn’t the only group that has its priorities out of whack. Following the recent departure from anti-technology hysteria by Britain’s Country Life magazine last month, Collier points out that yet another unintended consequence of giving in to knee-jerk activist fears has reared its ugly head:
In Europe deep-seated fears of science have been manipulated into a ban on both the production and import of genetically modified [GM] crops. This has obviously retarded productivity growth in European agriculture. Again the best that can be said of it is that we are rich enough to afford such folly. But as an unintended side-effect it has terrified African governments into banning GM lest their farmers be shut out of European markets. Africa definitely cannot afford this self-denial. It needs all the help it can possibly get from GM drought-resistant crops.
URL: http://www.consumerfreedom.com/news_detail.cfm/headline/3612
Food-Shortage Rx: Globalization
As the U.S. struggles with what the Associated Press is calling the “worst food inflation in 17 years” and reports of global food shortages are pouring in, new light is being shed on the politics of anti-meat, trans-fat free, and “all natural” activism. While food cops fight to take away our cupcakes and green groups try desperately to convince people that less efficient agriculture is the way to go, the voices of reason are focusing on the big picture.
It’s getting easier separate sound advice from the crass, petty world of knee-jerk activism, and today’s message from Oxford University Professor Paul Collier is a prime example of the former: “If we’re to solve this global problem [of hunger], we need more globalization and less sentimentality.” Collier’s guest column in the London Times, “Food shortages: think big,” makes some important points about the “Super Size Me” anti-globalization trend of recent years:
The remedy to high food prices is to increase supply … There are still many areas of the world -- including large swaths of Africa -- that have good land that could be used far more productively if it were properly managed by large companies. To contain the rise in food prices we need more globalization, not less …
Unfortunately, large-scale commercial agriculture is deeply, perhaps irredeemably, unromantic. We laud the production style of the peasant: environmentally sustainable and human in scale…
Africa has less large-scale commercial agriculture than it had 60 years ago. Unfortunately, peasant farming is not well suited to innovation and investment. The result has been that African agriculture has fallen farther and farther behind.
Lo and behold, the answer to global food shortages is to make more of it available by increasing efficiency -- even if the companies able to do that for us might (gasp!) make a profit.
But the anti-capitalist crowd isn’t the only group that has its priorities out of whack. Following the recent departure from anti-technology hysteria by Britain’s Country Life magazine last month, Collier points out that yet another unintended consequence of giving in to knee-jerk activist fears has reared its ugly head:
In Europe deep-seated fears of science have been manipulated into a ban on both the production and import of genetically modified [GM] crops. This has obviously retarded productivity growth in European agriculture. Again the best that can be said of it is that we are rich enough to afford such folly. But as an unintended side-effect it has terrified African governments into banning GM lest their farmers be shut out of European markets. Africa definitely cannot afford this self-denial. It needs all the help it can possibly get from GM drought-resistant crops.
URL: http://www.consumerfreedom.com/news_detail.cfm/headline/3612
Sunday, April 13, 2008
World Bank echoes food cost alarm
The rapid rise in food prices could push 100m people in poor countries deeper into poverty, the head of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick, has said.
His warning follows that from the leader of the International Monetary Fund, who said hundreds of thousands of people are at risk of starvation.
Mr Zoellick proposed an action plan to boost long-run agricultural production.
There have been food riots recently in a number of countries, including Haiti, the Philippines and Egypt.
"Based on a rough analysis, we estimate that a doubling of food prices over the last three years could potentially push 100 million people in low-income countries deeper into poverty," Mr Zoellick said.
His proposal for a "new deal" to tackle the international food crisis was endorsed by the World Bank's steering committee of finance and development ministers at a meeting in Washington.
The World Bank and its sister organisation, the IMF have held a weekend of meetings that addressed rising food and energy prices as well as the credit crisis upsetting global financial markets.
Spiralling inflation
Food prices have risen sharply in recent months, driven by increased demand, poor weather in some countries that has ruined crops and an increase in the use of land to grow crops for transport fuels.
GLOBAL FOOD PRICE RISES
Wheat: 130%
Soya: 87%
Rice: 74%
Corn: 31%
Time: Year to March 2008
Source: Bloomberg
The price of staple crops such as wheat, rice and corn have all risen, leading to an increase in overall food prices of 83% in the last three years, the World Bank has said.
The sharp rises have led to protests and unrest in many countries, including Egypt, Ivory Coast, Ethiopia, the Philippines and Indonesia.
In Haiti, protests last week turned violent, leading to the deaths of five people and the fall of the government.
In the capital, Port-au-Prince, a UN peacekeeper from Nigeria was fatally shot on Saturday.
'Hungry mouths'
Restrictions on rice exports have been put in place in major producing countries such as India, China, Vietnam and Egypt.
Importers such as Bangladesh, the Philippines and Afghanistan have been hit hard.
"We have to put out money where our mouth is now so that we can put food into hungry mouths," Mr Zoellick said. "It's as stark as that."
He called for more aid to provide food to needy people in poor countries and help for small farmers. He said the World Bank was working to provide money for seeds for planting in the new season.
He also urged wealthy donor countries to quickly fill the World Food Programme's estimated $500m (£250m) funding shortfall.
Mr Zoellick's "New Deal for Global Food Policy" also seeks to boost agricultural policy in poor countries in the longer-term.
On Saturday, the head of the IMF, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, warned of mass starvation and other dire consequences if food prices continue to rise sharply.
"As we know, learning from the past, those kind of questions sometimes end in war," he said.
He said the problem could lead to trade imbalances that may eventually affect developed nations, "so it is not only a humanitarian question".
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/business/7344892.stm
Published: 2008/04/13 22:39:44 GMT
His warning follows that from the leader of the International Monetary Fund, who said hundreds of thousands of people are at risk of starvation.
Mr Zoellick proposed an action plan to boost long-run agricultural production.
There have been food riots recently in a number of countries, including Haiti, the Philippines and Egypt.
"Based on a rough analysis, we estimate that a doubling of food prices over the last three years could potentially push 100 million people in low-income countries deeper into poverty," Mr Zoellick said.
His proposal for a "new deal" to tackle the international food crisis was endorsed by the World Bank's steering committee of finance and development ministers at a meeting in Washington.
The World Bank and its sister organisation, the IMF have held a weekend of meetings that addressed rising food and energy prices as well as the credit crisis upsetting global financial markets.
Spiralling inflation
Food prices have risen sharply in recent months, driven by increased demand, poor weather in some countries that has ruined crops and an increase in the use of land to grow crops for transport fuels.
GLOBAL FOOD PRICE RISES
Wheat: 130%
Soya: 87%
Rice: 74%
Corn: 31%
Time: Year to March 2008
Source: Bloomberg
The price of staple crops such as wheat, rice and corn have all risen, leading to an increase in overall food prices of 83% in the last three years, the World Bank has said.
The sharp rises have led to protests and unrest in many countries, including Egypt, Ivory Coast, Ethiopia, the Philippines and Indonesia.
In Haiti, protests last week turned violent, leading to the deaths of five people and the fall of the government.
In the capital, Port-au-Prince, a UN peacekeeper from Nigeria was fatally shot on Saturday.
'Hungry mouths'
Restrictions on rice exports have been put in place in major producing countries such as India, China, Vietnam and Egypt.
Importers such as Bangladesh, the Philippines and Afghanistan have been hit hard.
"We have to put out money where our mouth is now so that we can put food into hungry mouths," Mr Zoellick said. "It's as stark as that."
He called for more aid to provide food to needy people in poor countries and help for small farmers. He said the World Bank was working to provide money for seeds for planting in the new season.
He also urged wealthy donor countries to quickly fill the World Food Programme's estimated $500m (£250m) funding shortfall.
Mr Zoellick's "New Deal for Global Food Policy" also seeks to boost agricultural policy in poor countries in the longer-term.
On Saturday, the head of the IMF, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, warned of mass starvation and other dire consequences if food prices continue to rise sharply.
"As we know, learning from the past, those kind of questions sometimes end in war," he said.
He said the problem could lead to trade imbalances that may eventually affect developed nations, "so it is not only a humanitarian question".
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/business/7344892.stm
Published: 2008/04/13 22:39:44 GMT
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
Haitians riot, loot over food prices
By JONATHAN M. KATZ, Associated Press WriterTue Apr 8, 8:54 PM ET
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.
"I think we have made progress in stabilizing the country, but that progress is extremely fragile, highly reversible, and made even more fragile by the current socio-economic environment," U.N. envoy Hedi Annabi said Tuesday after briefing the Security Council.
For months, Haitians have compared their hunger pains to "eating Clorox" because of the burning feeling in their stomachs. The most desperate have come to depend on a traditional hunger palliative of cookies made of dirt, vegetable oil and salt.
Riots broke out in the normally placid southern port of Les Cayes last week, quickly escalating as protesters tried to burn down a U.N. compound and leaving five people dead. The protests spread to other cities, and on Monday tens of thousands took to the streets of Port-au-Prince.
The U.S. Embassy in Haiti warned American citizens in the chaotic capital to avoid crowds and roadblocks and to remain vigilant. Embassy buildings were pelted with rocks on Tuesday but there have been no reports of injuries to U.S. citizens.
Preval, a soft-spoken leader backed by Washington, was at work in the palace during the protests, aides said. He has made no public statements since the riots began.
"I compare this situation to having a bucket full of gasoline and having some people around with a box of matches," said Preval adviser Patrick Elie. "As long as the two have a possibility to meet, you're going to have trouble."
The protesters also are demanding the departure of the 9,000 U.N. peacekeepers, whom they blame in part for rising food prices. The peacekeepers came to Haiti in 2004 to quell the chaos that followed the ouster of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
They helped usher in a democratic transition, but critics say both Preval and the international community have focused too much on political stability without helping to alleviate poverty. That could spell trouble not only for Preval, but for Haiti's fragile democracy as well.
"We voted Preval for a change. Nothing happened," said Joel Elie, 31, who like many Haitians is unemployed. "We're tired of it and we can't wait anymore."
While the peacekeepers spend more than US$500 million (euro320 million) a year in Haiti, the World Food Program has collected less than 15 percent of the US$96 million (euro61 million) it says Haiti needs in donations this year. The WFP issued an emergency appeal Monday for more.
Meanwhile, new customs procedures aimed at collecting revenues and stopping the flow of drugs has left tons of food rotting in ports, especially in the country's north. In a country where almost all food is imported, cargo traffic from Miami ground nearly to a halt, though shippers say intervention by Preval last month has improved the situation somewhat.
Government officials say the riots are being manipulated by outside forces, specifically drug smugglers who can operate more easily amid chaos and supporters of Guy Philippe, a fugitive rebel leader wanted in U.S. federal court in connection with a drug indictment.
Annabi, the U.N. envoy, said "people with political motivations" were exploiting the demonstrations, but didn't say who he was referring to.
Many in the crowds are demanding the return of the exiled Aristide, and thousands showed up Monday for a rally by a key Aristide ally, the Rev. Gerard Jean-Juste, in the oceanside slum of Cite Soleil.
___
Associated Press writer Evens Sanon contributed to this report.
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.
"I think we have made progress in stabilizing the country, but that progress is extremely fragile, highly reversible, and made even more fragile by the current socio-economic environment," U.N. envoy Hedi Annabi said Tuesday after briefing the Security Council.
For months, Haitians have compared their hunger pains to "eating Clorox" because of the burning feeling in their stomachs. The most desperate have come to depend on a traditional hunger palliative of cookies made of dirt, vegetable oil and salt.
Riots broke out in the normally placid southern port of Les Cayes last week, quickly escalating as protesters tried to burn down a U.N. compound and leaving five people dead. The protests spread to other cities, and on Monday tens of thousands took to the streets of Port-au-Prince.
The U.S. Embassy in Haiti warned American citizens in the chaotic capital to avoid crowds and roadblocks and to remain vigilant. Embassy buildings were pelted with rocks on Tuesday but there have been no reports of injuries to U.S. citizens.
Preval, a soft-spoken leader backed by Washington, was at work in the palace during the protests, aides said. He has made no public statements since the riots began.
"I compare this situation to having a bucket full of gasoline and having some people around with a box of matches," said Preval adviser Patrick Elie. "As long as the two have a possibility to meet, you're going to have trouble."
The protesters also are demanding the departure of the 9,000 U.N. peacekeepers, whom they blame in part for rising food prices. The peacekeepers came to Haiti in 2004 to quell the chaos that followed the ouster of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
They helped usher in a democratic transition, but critics say both Preval and the international community have focused too much on political stability without helping to alleviate poverty. That could spell trouble not only for Preval, but for Haiti's fragile democracy as well.
"We voted Preval for a change. Nothing happened," said Joel Elie, 31, who like many Haitians is unemployed. "We're tired of it and we can't wait anymore."
While the peacekeepers spend more than US$500 million (euro320 million) a year in Haiti, the World Food Program has collected less than 15 percent of the US$96 million (euro61 million) it says Haiti needs in donations this year. The WFP issued an emergency appeal Monday for more.
Meanwhile, new customs procedures aimed at collecting revenues and stopping the flow of drugs has left tons of food rotting in ports, especially in the country's north. In a country where almost all food is imported, cargo traffic from Miami ground nearly to a halt, though shippers say intervention by Preval last month has improved the situation somewhat.
Government officials say the riots are being manipulated by outside forces, specifically drug smugglers who can operate more easily amid chaos and supporters of Guy Philippe, a fugitive rebel leader wanted in U.S. federal court in connection with a drug indictment.
Annabi, the U.N. envoy, said "people with political motivations" were exploiting the demonstrations, but didn't say who he was referring to.
Many in the crowds are demanding the return of the exiled Aristide, and thousands showed up Monday for a rally by a key Aristide ally, the Rev. Gerard Jean-Juste, in the oceanside slum of Cite Soleil.
___
Associated Press writer Evens Sanon contributed to this report.
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