Is the World Prepared for the Next Food Crisis

Food riots that took a toll on a number of developing countries in 2008, now appear to be repeating, with thirteen people killed in Mozambique in the wake of rising bread prices in early September. One must thus ask whether the world is better prepared today to deal with high international food prices and to prevent their adverse impact on the poor.

Two years after the peak of 2007-2008, international food prices are on the rise again. With poor crops in Eastern Europe, international wheat prices have jumped more than 50 percent this summer -a harsh reminder that international food markets remain highly volatile, subject to a variety of factors, like unfavourable climate conditions, decisions over food stocks or exports by governments or private actors, fluctuations of oil prices (determining the level of food being used as fuel) or financial speculation, writes Frederic Mousseau, a Senior Fellow at the Oakland Institute and an internationally renowned food security consultant.

The defence against high food prices was easier for countries with resources, institutions, and public mechanisms in place to support food production and manage domestic availability of food. It also demonstrates that providing aid to the poor was important but far from sufficient to prevent hunger in countries unable to limit domestic inflation. High food prices have thus shaken the Washington Consensus, which has advocated cuts in public support for agriculture and promoted the withdrawal of state regulation of the food economy.

But is the world better prepared today? Certainly not, given that free trade is still upheld by the world leaders, as strongly stated at their last G20 meeting in Canada. Certainly not, because many governments and international institutions have focused their efforts on a short-term supply response, ignoring the fact that supply was less the problem than access (2008 was a record year for global food production) and that durable solutions were needed to address structural causes. And lastly, certainly not, because the massive rush of foreign investment in the land of the poorest countries is now aggravating the main cause of hunger and poverty – the inequitable access to land and natural resources which still prevails in the world. At the end of the day, beyond affordable prices of bread, justice and equity are the real demands of the food rioters.

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