Hunger
Earlier this week the United Nations’ World Food Programme (WFP) announced that the rapidly rising price of food was having a two-fold impact on its efforts to feed people in food poverty. First more people were suffering food poverty because of the price rises and second, the WFP could afford less food on its existing budget. Or, put simply less food, at the same time as more hungry people. The Guardian reported:
With voluntary contributions from the world’s wealthy nations, the WFP feeds 73 million people in 78 countries, less than a 10th of the total number of the world’s undernourished. Its agreed budget for 2008 was $2.9bn (£1.5bn). But with annual food price increases around the world of up to 40% and dramatic hikes in fuel costs, that budget is no longer enough even to maintain current food deliveries.
Josette Sheeran, the head of the WPF, stated ‘this is the new face of hunger” and suggested that WPF will need to further ration its aid unless donations from governments increase dramatically.
The Financial Times reported that ‘even middle-class, urban people are being “priced out of the food market” because of rising food prices.’
The price rises, which have been caused by climate change, the use of crop land to grow bio fuels and an increased demand to grow animal feed on crop lands are now having effects the world over.
Food riots have broken out in Morocco, Yemen, Mexico, Guinea, Mauritania, Senegal and Uzbekistan. Pakistan has reintroduced rationing for the first time in two decades. Russia has frozen the price of milk, bread, eggs and cooking oil for six months. Thailand is also planning a freeze on food staples. After protests around Indonesia, Jakarta has increased public food subsidies. India has banned the export of rice except the high-quality basmati variety.
Of course, New Zealand is a food bowl and could avoid all this if we chose to feed ourselves. Shame we don’t.
Oh, and here’s some not so expensive rice.
February 28th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
“The price rises, which have been caused by climate change…”
As the planet cools significantly (as it has over the past year) our crops become harder to produce and food shortages eventuate.
February 28th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
unaha-closp - check out this blog post from Climate 411. One cold month does not mean the end of a decades long trend.
February 28th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
frog - you can see from graph that Nov 07 & Dec 07 were also colder than the past decade. This cooler grain growing season in the southern hemisphere has contributed to a lowering of production and rise in prices. You are therefore correct the price rises may have been partially caused by the global cooling (climate change) experienced these past few months.
February 28th, 2008 at 6:12 pm
Only by ignoring the la-nina and el-nino cycle, the drought in Australia and China, the price of fertilizer stocks and the effects of bringing on the corn-based ethanol production could someone even start to make the assertion that it is cooling that made for the shortages that made for the price increases.
An assertion that would be in error in any case because the price of grains and foods today has much more to do with the harvest last season than the harvest expected this season.
Someone who is not paying attention and has substituted ideology for analysis might do that.
BJ
February 28th, 2008 at 8:15 pm
bjchip, I think that’s the point being made. No opportunity is lost to perpetuate the global warming myth - even when a misdiagnosis of the real problem could have tragic consequences for millions of people.
February 28th, 2008 at 11:41 pm
Food reserves have been falling for the past 5 years. The trend wass obvious and reasons known. Nothing was done about it.
February 29th, 2008 at 12:44 am
So the population hasn’t increased, there was no drought, no el-nino last year, no la-nina this year, no shortage of oil as feedstock for fertilizer and pesticides, and no fool has started trying to turn corn into ethanol?
We no longer need to argue. The misdiagnosis of the real problem actually could have tragic consequences for BILLIONS of people… which isn’t something we would risk… but is clearly something you don’t even consider possible.
Just remember… we aren’t in the “one world government” camp. That isn’t the goal of either the Greens or the Scientists of the IPCC or NASA. This isn’t about taking over the reins of power. It is about preventing the destruction of the planet’s ability to support human civilization or even the human species altogether.
We face a choice. Continued adherence to the “growth is good” paradigm which threatens our children’s existence or acting to replace it which threatens our livelihoods.
We know which side we are on. We know why it arouses such rancor on both sides. So we look at it from the risk management perspective.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mF_anaVcCXg#
and don’t forget the appendices on the right…
Here’s another risk… just for the record…
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=00037A5D-A938-150E-A93883414B7F000 0&page=4
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004183652_deadzone15m .html
Which isn’t actually about AGW, there’s a whole LOT of overfishing happening as well… but it IS all about “growth”.
respectfully
BJ
February 29th, 2008 at 2:34 am
Bj,
We aren’t the first generation to be confronted by the problem of traffic growth colliding with growth in demand for food. During the agricultural revolution the preceded the industrial revolution in Britain the growth in food production triggered a growth in road transport. At the time people were legally obligated to work on maintaining the roads in their parish. More traffic meant more maintenance but the people doing the maintenance were mainly farm workers. The popular solution to this conundrum was to privatise the roads and employ specialised road workers who could do the job in a lot less time than unskilled untrained farm labourers.
The industrial revolution created a whole new set of problems due to traffic growth. The solutions were radical. Replace road transport with canals, and later on with railways.
Again we have problems with traffic growth. Again we need radical solutions. Note the plural. Urban villages, electric cars, maglev railways? They all solve part of the problem without stopping “growth”.
Although there are physical limits to growing consumption of mineral resources this isn’t a barrier to “growth is good”. Doing more with less is something mankind has laways been good at.
Land, water and fish are unique. The are free commons. We all know how things are abused when they are free or virtually free. If we can be as inventive at putting a price on these resources as we are at abusive their current free status then we might find that growth becomes self limiting. Maybe our children will have a future in which the fastest growing industry is growth control, or resource minimalism.
February 29th, 2008 at 7:16 am
Kevyn
We may be good at it but there are limits to it. The things you describe relating to traffic growth all use energy in some form, some more than others. I refer again to
http://www.paulchefurka.ca/
Thermodynamic limits. It ALWAYS costs more energy to do the work than the work contains. There’s always waste. The energy has always “just been there” for the past 4-5 generations.
The things I am pointing at, and many others I am not mentioning, tell us that our numbers on this planet are unsustainable. If we can’t do better, much better, and quickly, . we are going to be buried.
Growth will be self-limiting whether we put limits on our consumption or not, but I note that in this sentence the “growth is good” paradigm gives way to one in which “growth costs money”, Welcome to my world.
I don’t see it happening either. It may, but I don’t see it. Not while we are humans and still disagree so completely over FACTS where our ideologies make us blind.
We won’t reduce our demands on the planet? Fine. The planet doesn’t give a rats hind end about whether we survive or not.
I sometimes think that understanding that as completely as it NEEDS to be understood requires time spent at sea. The oceans kill impersonally, without caring. You either have the energy and mechanical resources to keep breathing air, or you die. Nothing personal. You have to be careful to maintain the environment that supports your life.
The world is like that, and humans as a species are being suicidally reckless.
Watch out for the maglev. It is FAST for lightweight goods but it has to cost more in terms of energy use than ordinary rail when it comes to moving freight. You have to expend the energy to lift it all off the ground. That’s no different from an airplane… and very different from train or ship.
respectfully
BJ
February 29th, 2008 at 9:42 am
speaking of rising food prices..
..is russel norman still pimping bio-fuels..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
February 29th, 2008 at 10:27 am
That’s a bit below the belt, Phil. It’s like asking “Have you stopped hitting your cat“, to reference another recent thread here?
Russel has never “pimped biofuels”. The biofuels section in the Green Energy Policy states:
From what I’ve ever read and heard, Russel and the Green MPs have clearly articulated this policy.
February 29th, 2008 at 10:58 am
Hmm the WFP is probably the worst means of alleviating hunger, given it is vastly overpaid and bureaucratic, like all UN institutions.
“The price rises, which have been caused by climate change, the use of crop land to grow bio fuels and an increased demand to grow animal feed on crop lands”
Sorry you can’t be treated seriously by making blanket assertions. They have more been caused by the rapid increase in wealth in India and China, and demand for food as a result. It is demand and supply, and higher prices make farming a more profitable activity, and encourage more into it. You can hardly talk about food when some of the countries you are talking about have economies hurt by the abominable trade restrictions and subsidies on international trade in agricultural commodities. Thailand and Pakistan for example would be notably better off if the EU CAP and Japan and the US equivalent were abolished.
However funniest has to be “Of course, New Zealand is a food bowl and could avoid all this if we chose to feed ourselves. Shame we don’t” besides the perennial “who is this we” nonsense, how is NZ NOT primarily feeding itself? If you want to suggest NZ pulls out of exporting food then fine, and you can dream about the resulting economic shrink will mean people can afford to buy medicines, high tech goods and other manufactured inputs into production. It’s economic nonsense. Besides that, where is the slightest sign that there would be “food riots” in developed countries, and what government in its right mind would undertake such destructive policies as price freezes (discouraging increased supply), subsidies (taking money from people to give it back to them minus cost of bureaucracy) and export bans (let’s earn less money at a time of record prices)?
February 29th, 2008 at 11:37 am
Closely connected with “food riots” are fuel riots, over the rising cost of petrol, and removal/lowering of government subsidies, in for example Burkina Faso, Cameroon, and Nepal. I was surprised to see the blockades and protests in Nepal actually make it on to TV news here, must have been because of the Sir Edmund Hillary connection.
Considering the example of the UK very recently, I’d say NZ may see “fuel riots” before it saw food riots. The government will begin to come under pressure to cut the tax duties on petrol.
February 29th, 2008 at 11:46 am
Yeah increased wealth = increased demand for meat = growing animal feed on ‘human feed’ land - animal farming for food is a lot less efficient than just straight out ‘human feed’ crop farming, so there is less food as a result
Higher prices for car fuels make farming a more profitable activity, but when the output just goes into the cars of Whoever, it doesn’t quite feed anybody as far as I can tell.
Remarkable that the Greens DON’T mention the subsidies/tariffs of the US/EU/Japan though, not even a ‘we support the NZ negotiators at Doha’ even??!
February 29th, 2008 at 11:47 am
Also biofuel subsidies in the U.S. will reach a cumulative total of $92 billion between 2006 and 2012, ugh! http://www.renewableenergymagazine.com/paginas/Contenidosecciones.asp? ID=1645&Tipo=&Nombre=BioEnergy
February 29th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Frog said:
> Of course, New Zealand is a food bowl and could avoid all this if we chose to feed ourselves. Shame we don’t.
I hope you’re not implying that we should stop exporting food. The children of Egypt, Iran and Cuba are dependent on imports of milk powder from New Zealand, and we would probably cause food riots in those countries if we stopped exporting to them.
February 29th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
> India has banned the export of rice except the high-quality basmati variety.
that’s a bad move. Next season you’ll get farmers planting basmati rice instead of normal rice so they can export and get the higher export prices, and the total rice production will fall because basmati is a less productive variety. So the shortage will get worse.
February 29th, 2008 at 12:29 pm
Kahikatea, I was not implying that we should stop exporting food. Rather that by shifting our emphasis towards polycultural farming, rebuilding local food manufacturing, buy local and organics, NZ’s food industry could become a lot less reliant on the world food market. We could lessen the need for our food imports without radically interfering with the quantity of our food exports - although the nature and quality of those exports may well change.
February 29th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
>>by shifting our emphasis towards polycultural farming, rebuilding local food manufacturing, buy local and organics
But there’s nothing stopping you doing this now. Nothing at all.
February 29th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
Here’s one: tinyurl.com/2y4xu2
Stop talking about it and do it. I’ll even be your first customer
February 29th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
http://nqr.farmonline.com.au/news_daily.asp?ag_id=48995
February 29th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
BP -
It’s a good idea, and thanks.
It will of course, require a Royal Commission to convince some New Zealanders of the wisdom of adopting it.
respectfully
BJ
February 29th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
Nobody can be seriously dependent on milk powder, a food that is produced inefficiently using stolen fertiliser shipped half way round the world, on land that is saturated with nitrogen leaking into waterways, using a process that is contributing to about 20% of global warming worldwide, and then shipping the product BACK around the world to North Africa again.
Cuba was recently in the news for being the only country that produces sustainably, so it is unlikely their children are dependent on anything they can’t produce themselves. As for the others, what they are dependent on is food, not milk, and certainly not milk from New Zealand. Frances Moore Lappe already exposed the scarecity myth; no country ins a basket case, and they are all capable of producing food for themselves. IF they do not do so, the fault lies more in a combination of corruption in the third world countries and interference by first world countries that any technological problems of production or distribution.
Stopping production of inefficient milk powder in New Zealand would either free up available land for more efficient production of crops, or would allow more land to revert to native forest. Either way this woudl be a better scenario for world hunger and sustainability. It of course would not work in the capitalistic trade related economy we have now, but then what this means is that this type of economy is not efficient in terms of feeding humans or looking after the environment.
February 29th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
Heh
It requires no such thing. It requires people like frog to rise from their keyboards, take the risk, and make it happen.
Free market, at work….
February 29th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
toad said..
“..That’s a bit below the belt, Phil. It’s like asking “Have you stopped hitting your cat“, to reference another recent thread here?
Russel has never “pimped biofuels”.
um..!
one of the first posts russel ever put up on frogblog..
was a bio-fuel-pimping exercise..
i remember..’cos i ‘let rip’ at him..
pointing out the errors of his ways..
..in a reasonably forceful manner..(ahem..!..)
since then..he has been silent on the subject..
so..i was just wondering..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
February 29th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
There is more likely to be water wars first.
Was it only yesterday that I read in the newspaper an item mentioning the vast number of people living in cities, worldwide. So where do highly urbanised people get their food from if the local farmers/orchardists/horticulturalists are unable to produce food because of a lack of water, or fuel for machines to plant & harvest foods, to transport said foods.
Water, food, the ability to produce the food & transport. These things are truly critical.
BJ,
I liked you reference to the fragility of human life upon the ocean.
February 29th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
phil u said: one of the first posts russel ever put up on frogblog.. was a bio-fuel-pimping exercise..
Well, as I often say to BB, who also makes sweeping statements and provides no evidence to support them, if you have evidence of something on this site or other sites, link to it rather than make vague generalisations about something that most of us have either never seen or will never otherwise recall.
And if Russel did actually get it wrong back in the early days of his posting on frogblog (and until I see the evidence, I’m not conceding he did), I’m sure he has got it right now.
February 29th, 2008 at 6:07 pm
very ‘cute’ toad..
the whole posting has been expunged from the archives..(!)
(and dosen’t that raise more questions than it answers..?..eh..?..)
um..!..how often are these ‘rewrites’/’sanitising’.. of frogblog undertaken..?
um..!..do you realise how ‘lame’/’sad’/'dishonest’ that is..?
so..i guess we have to ask the question directly of russel..
“russel..what has happened to that post you did promoting the ‘good news’; of bio-fuels..
(one of your earliest ones..)
remember..?..
that one where i riposted by listing all the reasons you were wrong..?
i’m sure you remember it..?..eh..?..”
phil(whoar.co.nz)
oh..!..and btw..have you ’seen the light’ yet on that one..?
February 29th, 2008 at 6:20 pm
It is a funny thing, this NZ tendency to say something like
On 25 September 1958 you said “The earth is flat” - Why are you contradicting yourself.
As though the intervening 50 years, education and currently stated positions are of no consequence and somehow invalidated by the previous statement.
We do learn, we humans. It is not a sin to change one’s mind. It is appallingly evident that there are some aspects of NZ “culture” that tend to prevent one from EVER speaking one’s mind for fear that you might be tasked with the severe error of having changed it.
Even if the original position was wrong.
I love it here, but sometimes this obsession becomes a bit annoying… eh?
respectfully
BJ
February 29th, 2008 at 6:27 pm
the ‘issue’ bj..
is the rewriting/sanitising of ‘previously held views..
it is lies..it is dishonest..
and for a party purporting to be about freedoms..?
that not only sucks..it blows..!
can u not see that..?..b.j..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
February 29th, 2008 at 6:32 pm
and it wasn’t ‘1958′ bj..
and norman is party co-leader..
which makes my question entirely relevant..
tell me how that is not so..!..b.j..
your attempt to ‘red herring’/cheapen/demean my question..
is just ‘kinda shabby’..eh..?
and..um..!..a severe slippage in standards by yourself..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
February 29th, 2008 at 6:37 pm
are you not disturbed by the fact the editor(s?) at frogblog remove comments that don’t show ‘the party’ in a ‘good light’..?
does that not smack of a sub-thread of totalitarianism..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
February 29th, 2008 at 7:18 pm
Phil U said: very ‘cute’ toad..the whole posting has been expunged from the archives..(!)
As if I would have known? Anyway, from what I understand of the protocols of this blog is that nothing gets “expunged” unless it is blatantly offensive. Correct me if I’m wrong, frog.
But Phil, yours is the most pathetic defence ever! If you really wanted to use the post that you had concerns about and are now maintaining existed(if it actually did exist, and I am challenging your credibility here) later for your own political ends, surely you would have saved it yourself, and be now able to now post it to frogblog and anywhere else you may choose.
Instead, you make unsubstantiated allegations, and cannot back them up with evidence.
Produce the post, and prove your claim has some validity. Otherwise, I think you are talking male bovine faeces here, and should migrate to Kiwiblog where most punters talk that way!
February 29th, 2008 at 7:35 pm
BJ wrote:
“Watch out for the maglev. It is FAST for lightweight goods but it has to cost more in terms of energy use than ordinary rail when it comes to moving freight. You have to expend the energy to lift it all off the ground. That’s no different from an airplane… and very different from train or ship.”
While true, the maglev train should use considerably less energy than an aircraft for the same weight of cargo and passengers. For one, it doesn’t carry any (significant) fuel, as the main propulsion is provided by the track, so it is lighter. For another, it only lifts a short distance, not 37000 feet, and the lift is magnetic repulsion rather than aerodynamic lift, so the drag is less. In addition, the maglev train is longer and has a smaller cross-sectional area so its wind resistance is less than a plane, although the plane flies in thinner air. Finally, the energy doesn’t come from burning fuel.
Unfortunately New Zealand doesn’t suit maglev trains. We have too many hills and I doubt that we would have enough passengers per mile.
Trevor.
February 29th, 2008 at 7:42 pm
so i just ‘made that up’..eh toad..?
i don’t feckin’ ‘make things up’..
get russel to answer wether it existed or not..
and where it is now..
don’t just assume i am ‘making it all up’..
i find that assumption on your port to be quite offensive..
and as you are making this accusation/assumption..(based on what..?..)
please show an example of me doing that before..
in the many many comments i have made on this blog..
put up..!..or shut up..!
toad..
and feckin’ apologise while you are at it..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
March 1st, 2008 at 1:56 am
In China there is a major diversion of water project, to provide water to the NE cities, this will exacerbate the problem of declining river inflows in spring from snow thaw (glaciers are receding) and thus diminish China’s food production capability.
This and transfer of US farmland in accord with energy self sufficiency polity is problematic as to any reverse in the trend.
March 1st, 2008 at 2:50 am
BJ, I can’t see the sentence where the “growth is good” paradigm gives way to one in which “growth costs money”. There is certainly one where growth is good becomes growth saves money. “Doing more with less”. In the past that has generally manifested as economies of scale and labour saving. In the future it needs to manifest as economies of efficiency. It’s happening all the time with computer chips getting more switches onto the same amount of silicon. That is the paradigm we need to shift to.
Your skepticism about whether it will happen before we hit the brick wall is probably justified. But without hope there is no future.
In the era of virtually free energy there was no incentive to do more with less energy. Ditto with water. There is certainly a political unwillingness to change from free to expensive before it’s too late.
And as for your average voter. Ok, so you’ve got a shiny new car but are you using it to do anything your parents or grandparents didn’t do? In less time? So what have you gained from all that extra energy you are using? The ability to live further away from where you work and shop. Why? Because of single use zoning. And because you’ve got more money than your parents and grandparents and can’t think of anything useful to do with it. Insulate your house? Install solar hot water? Where’s the advantage in that? That’s not going to impress friends, family and complete strangers the way they are when they see you in a shiny new car, is it? Except they probably don’t even notice, and certainly not for long enough to give you your share of Warhol’s 15 minutes of fame.
Whoops, sorry, maybe pessimism and reality are contagious?
Maglev is the only sustainable alternative to the airliner. I suspect that the energy needed to lift a 100 ton train a few millimetres is a tiny fraction of the energy needed to move it at 400kmh. Trevor’s argument that we have too many hills is the main reason why our existing rail network was horrendously expensive to build even though curve and gradient standards were hopelessly compromised to keep costs down.
March 1st, 2008 at 8:19 am
toad..!
re your accusations of me ‘making things up’ about russel norman..?
about his bio-fuel pimping..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
March 3rd, 2008 at 9:54 am
we should stop exporting 90% of our dairy and buying it back at world prices, makes no sense (except to the WTO and Fonterra management saleries).
if we moved to permiculture and urban agriculture.
March 3rd, 2008 at 9:56 am
you are full or hate of marijuanah and love for reformist politics phil