Tahlequah, OK, November 9 (One World): In the developed nations where I often live and work, over 800 million people have been living on the brink of starvation. With rising food prices, that number is expected to soon increase to nearly 900 million. Another billion people must live on less than US$1.00 per day, so that rising food prices mean they can now buy even less healthful foods (United Nations' data). These people attempt to cope with rising food prices by hunting wild animals for food, gathering wild edible plants, gleaning fields, planting larger gardens, hoarding and stealing of foods, bartering for food, eating less, and/or taking their own lives when conditions become too horrific due to lack of food.
More poor families now require their children to work rather than attend school. Less food, and higher priced foods, have resulted in increased levels of frustration and anger among the world's poor. Increasing levels of anger have resulted in more support for terrorist, narcoterrorist, and insurgent groups in several developing nations. Global warming, with the resulting increases in extreme drought and floods, as well as expanding deforestation and desertification, have reduced overall food production and further increased food prices. Food riots are now common in some developing nations. Extreme, prolonged drought in Darfur (in the Sudan) caused water and food/feed shortages that caused the start of that conflict (genocide) where over 400,000 people have been killed, and some 2.8 million people forced from their homes. Yes, in some areas of the world people are killing each other due to food shortages and rising food prices. The above facts were confirmed to me by Gacii, an African friend living in Kenya while working to help resolve food production issues throughout Africa.
The World Food Program (WFP) is forced to buy less food, for the poor, as a result of rising food prices. The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) is now helping poor farmers in Africa increase food production with the idea of growing enough extra to sell some (at for reasonable prices) to the WFP, so Africa's poor will receive enough food. The Gates Foundation is providing US$76 million to support this effort. However, this solution will take time and it only helps the poor in Africa. In brief, there is a shortage of efforts to increase food production so food prices will return to a reasonable level. To many of the "aid" dollars given to help increase food production, in developing nations, have gone to corrupt politicians who put the money in their own Swiss bank accounts. Gates Foundation studies carefully documented global food production problems as a prelude to a recent decision to start supporting international food production projects, in addition to the usual health projects.
Terrorist organizations, such as al-Qaeda, have been able to use food shortages and rising food prices to increase the levels of their support among poor populations. Anger among the hungry poor is already increasing because it appears that a U.S. corporation, Monsanto, is attempting to "corner" the global seed market to make seeds more expensive while increasing profits for Monsanto. These same poor populations are also angry because of the large food production subsidies the U.S. Congress continues to approve for large, factory farms producing and "dumping" foods in developed nations causing lower local food production. All of this activity makes it seem that the U.S. seeks to also "corner" food markets. There is also anger at U.S. chemical and chemical fertilizer companies because their products act to destroy soil microbial activity needed to keep crop yields high. Thus, it seems that the U.S. is acting to increase food shortages and thereby cause rising food prices. Some of the hungry, angry poor seek revenge against the U.S. by supporting terrorist groups. Hassan, an associate who has supported some of my agricultural development work (in Egypt), recently expressed the same concerns while telling me of his fear of food riots in the major cities of Egypt.
Populations in developed nations have a number of options to cope with rising food prices not available to many really poor populations found in developing nations. If you already buy and consume more food than you need, as many Americans do, it is often healthful to reduce food intake. Impoverished populations seldom have this option, or the many other options now available for dealing with rising food prices if you have a reasonable income. Americans can also use their votes to force political changes that will act to lower food prices. Many of the world's poor live in social, economic, and political isolation in those nations where they reside, and most of their leaders retain power with armed force, so these poor populations have no real political influence. My conclusion is that poor populations, in the part of the world I know well (the developing nations), have little effective means to cope with rising food prices. I base my conclusion on my own five decades of innovative community food security assistance in 42 developing nations.
In my recent interview of Y-Tin, a Montagnard tribal villager, from Vietnam, I obtained his list of reasons for much lower food production and higher food prices, in Vietnam. His list, as given to me, is as follows: 1) Use of more and more land to produce coffee, tea, and palm oil for export; 2) Massive environmental damage from deforestation, and the rush to create industries that can produce and export products, without regard to resulting pollution; 3) The governments forced removal of minority peoples, including the Montagnard, to areas with unproductive lands so their productive lands may be used for non-food plantation crops; and 4) Policies by the corrupt communist government to reduce minority population numbers by means of planned gradual starvation. Many Montagnard are coping with food shortages, and dramatically increased food prices, by finding ways to escape Vietnam in the hope of finding a better life elsewhere. Yes, Americans also have problems with rising food prices. However, food shortages and rising food prices are a much bigger problem in the developing world.