<p>Food insecurity worsened around the world in 2023, with about 282 million people suffering from acute hunger due to conflicts, particularly in Gaza and Sudan, according to this report by the United Nations agencies and development groups.</p>
From the rice paddies of Asia to the wheat fields of Australia, the soaring price of food is breaking the budgets of the poor and raising the spectres of hunger and unrest, experts warn. A billion people in Asia are seriously affected by the surging costs of daily staples such as rice and bread, the director general of the Asian Development Bank, Rajat Nag, has said. "This includes roughly about 600 million people who live on just under a dollar a day, which is the definition of poverty, and another 400 million who are just above that borderline,' he said.
"The global fight against poverty will be won or lost in our region,' Kuroda said in a keynote speech to delegates at the Asian Development Bank's annual meeting. "Soaring food prices are hitting the poor very hard. This price surge has a stark human dimension and has greatly affected over a billion people in Asia and the Pacific alone,' he said. Asia is home to two thirds of the world's poor and risks rising social tension as a doubling of wheat and rice prices in the last year has slammed people who spend more than half their income on food .
United States President George W. Bush joined Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in ascribing the spiralling global food prices to the rising prosperity of India's huge middle class. Prosperity in countries such as India was "good' but it triggered increased demand for "better nutrition' which in turn led to higher food prices, Mr. Bush said. At an interactive session on economy in Missouri, Mr. Bush argued that there were many factors for the present crisis, only one of which was investment in biofuels such as ethanol.
Trade Ministers of the 10-member South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) have agreed to cooperate in securing food price stability in the region. "Essentially, we together agreed not to take steps that could bring the distortion or worsen the chaos of markets. It's very important to make sure food prices, even if rise, not to fluctuate to the illogical level,' said Indonesian Trade Minister Mari Elka Pangestu at an ASEAN Economic Ministers' meeting in Bali on Saturday.
THE Asian Development Bank has rushed to offer cheap loans to poor countries in the region to help them cope with the world food crisis. Warning of a backwards slide in economic development that could potentially plunge millions of people back into poverty, bank president Haruhiko Kuroda told a meeting in Madrid: "The cheap food era may be over." Rising fuel prices, economic subsidies, poor farming methods and climate change have contributed to a sharp increase in the cost of staple crops.
In the wake of the rising food prices owing to a global shortage, the Confederation of India Industry (CII) has decided to set up a task force to chalk out steps to raise farm production, improve productivity and encourage private sector participation in food distribution. In a statement here on Sunday, the apex chamber noted that the rising food prices was a matter of concern and called for an immediate global response by way of a platform for dialogue and action to manage the crisis.
US President George W. Bush has asked the Congress to approve $ 770 million as aid against the current global food crisis, even as he urged the countries to lift restrictions on agricultural exports. The proposed aid is in addition to the existing $ 200 million assistance that has already been provided by the US. "I am calling on the Congress to provide an additional $ 770 million to support food aid and development programmes. Together, this amounts to nearly $ one billion in new funds to bolster global food security,' Bush said, speaking at the White House yesterday.
The problem of chronic hunger that afflicts around 10 million rural people in West Bengal has largely been ignored. What is the Left Front government doing to alleviate the situation? May 3-9, 2008
The demand for "universalisation' of the public distribution system during a period of rising prices is not relevant since, more than four-fifths of households in rural areas and two-thirds in urban centres are already covered by it. Yet, a very small proportion of rural/urban households actually make purchases of either rice or wheat from the PDS; an insignificant amount of consumption is met by ration shop purchases. The pattern is somewhat better for below the poverty line households with ration cards.
Within a couple of years of the global rush to promote biofuels new questions are being asked about the claimed benefits of these fuels and serious negative impacts are coming to light. It is in this regard that the focus of the biofuel policy in India has been towards utilising an "oil bearing' plant, jatropha carcus, for oil extraction, processing and eventual blending with diesel. The advantage of this plant lies in the fact that it can be grown on cultivable wasteland and requires very little fertiliser and other inputs as normally required in agriculture. (Editorial) May 3-9, 2008
