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WORLD FACING HUGE NEW CHALLENGE ON FOOD FRONT
Business-as-Usual Not a Viable Option

http://www.earthpolicy.org/Updates/2008/Update72.htm

Lester R. Brown

A fast-unfolding food shortage is engulfing the entire world, driving food prices to record highs. Over the past half-century grain prices have spiked from time to time because of weather-related events, such as the 1972 Soviet crop failure that led to a doubling of world wheat, rice, and corn prices. The situation today is entirely different, however. The current doubling of grain prices is trend-driven, the cumulative effect of some trends that are accelerating growth in demand and other trends that are slowing the growth in supply.
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Hunger bashed in the front gate of Haiti’s presidential palace. Hunger poured onto the streets, burning tires and taking on soldiers and the police. Hunger sent the country’s prime minister packing.

Haiti’s hunger, that burn in the belly that so many here feel, has become fiercer than ever in recent days as global food prices spiral out of reach, spiking as much as 45 percent since the end of 2006 and turning Haitian staples like beans, corn and rice into closely guarded treasures.

For full article, visit:
http://www.nytimes.com

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In addition to welcome media coverage, the world food crisis has commanded the attention of economists, agronomists and political scientists, each with unique policy recommendations for addressing the situation. Demographers, however, have been strangely absent from the general discussion, as if feeding the world s population has nothing to do with people. As if it is possible to explain the lack of food solely in terms of increased use of biofuels and rising meat consumption while ignoring the fact of rising demand due to population growth.

For full article, visit:
http://www.projo.com/opinion

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That means it has been growing at just over 2% annually since then. That rate is below the 2.3% annual growth of the 1990s and the 3% of the 1960s. But it is still faster than expected. Some analysts think the census undercounted, especially among poorer Filipinos. The population may now be up to 93m.

For full article, visit:
http://www.economist.com

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In the Philippines, Less of What Women Want

One of the dozens of countries around the world where hunger is back in the news is the Philippines, where soaring rice prices and long-standing reliance on imported food are raising an old question many people thought was buried for good: Does population growth eventually run into the limits of food production?

For full article, visit:
http://morethebook.org/

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Gantallan Plorensio’s farm is a paradox at the heart of Asia’s growing rice crisis. The fields that get enough water have never been more productive, contributing to a 5 percent annual increase in rice production over the past two years.

“We have a lot of rice fields, but no irrigation,” he says. “They’re just sitting there.”

As a regional rice crisis looms, threatening political instability and social unrest, the idle fields in Mr. Plorensio’s village underscore a failure of policy and foresight repeated across the region: For decades, governments have been encouraging a boom in services and skyscrapers, but not the capacity to grow more rice. Financing in agriculture has stagnated, and fewer farmers are expected to produce more rice for exploding populations.

For full article, visit:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0422/p01s03-woap.html?page=1

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A UN aid official warned Friday that the Philippines may end up having to feed people to save them going hungry as the market price of rice soars out of reach of ordinary households.

With prices of rice and wheat spiking in recent months, World Food Programme country director Valerie Guarnieri told AFP, “I think there’s a possibility that the government would have to feed more people because of rising prices.”

For full article, visit:

http://www.france24.com

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Birthrates Help Keep Filipinos in Poverty, Contraceptives, Rejected by Government, Are Unaffordable for Many in Majority-Catholic Nation

Maria Susana Espinoza wanted only two children. But it was not until after the birth of her fourth child in six years that she learned any details about birth control.

“I knew it existed, but I didn’t know how it works,” said Espinoza, who lives with her husband and children in a squatter’s hut in a vast, stinking garbage dump by Manila Bay.

For full article, visit:
http://www.washingtonpost.com

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Join CARE in Washington DC on June 18 and 19, 2008 for the CARE National Conference. Meet with your members of Congress to discuss policies that can help break the cycle of poverty. This year’s event will be very exciting!

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