World food crisis
Food prices have been grabbing the headlines in recent months. More and more we have to think carefully about where to shop and which brand to pick as the cost of filling our trolleys soars.
But while a rise in the price of food in Ireland is a real worry for us, for the world’s poorest people, it’s a matter of life and death.
Tonight 862 million people worldwide will go to bed hungry. But hunger is about more than the sting in your stomach - it is also the emotional trauma of not being able to feed your family. It is even about the threat or reality of starvation.
Even before food prices began to rise, 862 million people around the world were living in hunger. These are the ‘poorest of the poor’. But the recent global rise in food prices has ignited street riots in at least fourteen countries such as Egypt and India, highlighting the need to address the causes of hunger once and for all.
The causes of hunger
There are many of those causes. One is the demand of rich countries for biofuels as alternative fuel sources. That certainly sounds sustainable and eco-friendly. But the environmental benefits of using biofuels are disputed and we have to question whether we can justify using land to grow oils that can run our cars if that land could be used to provide food for the world’s poorest. One-fifth of all maize in the United States - 270 million metric tonnes - goes into biofuel production. How many hungry families could that feed?
An opportunity?
Also, while many poor people need urgent assistance now, the food crisis may present an opportunity to many who depend on agriculture to finally get a fair price for their produce. For developing countries to be able to make much-needed investment in agricultural infrastructure and for small producers to really benefit from their labours, fair international trade rules are critical.
Need for fair trade
Without fair markets, small producers in the developing world can never expect to benefit equally from trade. It is clear that our current model of distributing and trading in food is discriminatory. In our market system where food is purchased only by those who can afford it, we deny the people who can’t a basic human right. For this reason, the food crisis is not just an issue of trade, agriculture or markets. The global food crisis is an issue of justice.
