[wisconsin_cur]

FT: High Prices = Food Aid may need to be rationed

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he United Nation’s agency responsible for relieving hunger is drawing up plans to ration food aid in response to the spiralling cost of agricultural commodities.

The World Food Programme is holding crisis talks to decide what aid to halt if new donations do not arrive in the short term.

Josette Sheeran, WFP executive director, told the Financial Times that the agency would look at “cutting the food rations or even the number or people reached” if donors did not provide more money.

“Our ability to reach people is going down just as the needs go up,” she said.

WFP officials hope the cuts can be avoided, but warned that the agency’s budget requirements were rising by several million dollars a week because of climbing food prices.

[Ayame]

v. interesting.

Thank you.

[frankthetank]

If they don't figure out whats killing all those bees (looks like insecticides/Nicotine), we'll be eating very few fruits. Looks like lettuce smoothies will be on the menu.

[Fishman]

Rationed food aid = starvation, did I get this equation incorrect? Perhaps rationed food aid + birth control + sterilization = less starvation?

[pup55]

India:

CIA World Factbook

Arable land: 1,145,000 square km, 1.12 billion people, a total of 745 people per square km, about four times that of the US, but much better than its two nearby starving Muslim neighbors, Pakistan and Bangladesh.



Population: 32% under 14, which is pretty high by western standards, but once again, somewhat better than their nearby starving neighbors, which are around 40-45% Their population growth rate is 1.6%, which is almost at the containment rate, only 2.8 births per female.

Estimating from the graph about half of the population was born since India's first nuclear test in 1974, so another case of turning aid money into people. The median age is 25, so that is about right.

The per capita income is about $900 so this "prominent member of the community" is obviously not one of the peasant class. infant mortality is about 35 per thousand, about five times higher than the US, so a lot of the little ones are not making it. Life expectancy, about 70, so the old timers make it quite awhile. 7.5% unemployment, and 25% below the poverty line. 60% of their population is employed in agriculture, so a lot of this is already being done by grunt work. The image we all have of the English-speaking jerks in the call centers is obviously on the upper end of scenarios.

They import about 2/3 of their 2.4 million barrels of oil per day, which is about 1/10 of the US total.

They are still getting about $1.7B in aid, so as to keep them friendly.

So I have to say, based on this few minutes of study, and also based on my biases, filtered by the western view of living standards, that these guys do not have it too bad for now.

But you have to wonder about their two maniac neighbors and historical rivals, and you also have to wonder about how they will do after the oil flow dries up.

[MrBill]

Wait a minute [[hits the pause button]] doesn't Chindia own America? What are all these poor farmers doing in these rich, emerging economic powers?

[Ferretlover]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pup55', ' ')Arable land: 1,145,000 square km, 1.12 billion people, a total of 745 people per square km, about four times that of the US, but much better than its two nearby starving Muslim neighbors, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

[MrBill]

I think all the Indian sub-continent needs is a few more ethnic or religious wars to solve all their economic and food security problems. Let's see how many times the Indians, Pakistanis, Nepalese, Bhutans, Bangladeshi, Chits, Sri Lankans and Tamils can sub-divide their countries? It won't address climate change, but it will keep them fighting wars instead of growing food. Plus it keeps the UN and its agencies like WHO, World Bank, IMF, etc. busy.

[Falconoffury]

Cuts in food aid is a step in the right direction for sustainability. Food aid does not address the problem of overshoot, and usually makes it worse. Local agriculture should support local populations.

[Dukkha]

I can't see any reason why one area can't sustainably produce an agricultural surplus and so feed a second area. After all, why single out food for such restrictions? You'd probably be better off saying "trade does not address the problem of overshoot, and usually makes it worse. Local production should support local populations." Of course, you won't hear many people on this site suggesting the closure of, for example, aluminum mines as that would affect the sustainability of people posting here, not the sustainability of someone thousands of miles away.

[Ebyss]

Dukkha, you are right of course. The key word is "sustainable" though... countries should be sustainably producing enough food to feed their own population before they start producing excess to send elsewhere. To my (admittedly limited) knowledge, Cuba is the only place that comes close to this - is there anywhere else?

[MrBill]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ebyss', 'D')ukkha, you are right of course. The key word is "sustainable" though... countries should be sustainably producing enough food to feed their own population before they start producing excess to send elsewhere. To my (admittedly limited) knowledge, Cuba is the only place that comes close to this - is there anywhere else?

[Falconoffury]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') can't see any reason why one area can't sustainably produce an agricultural surplus and so feed a second area. After all, why single out food for such restrictions?

[Dukkha]

I'm not sure that feeding non-local populations dramatically increases the probability of famine. If an area is producing a given amount of food, what difference does it make if it's people locally which are being fed by it? You may have supply chain interruptions which deprive those further away of food but, equally, you may have local mismanagement (Zimbabwe, the Ukraine, etc) which lead to localised famine. The whole issue of food aid is a convenient scapegoat for the real problem: over-consumption of resources by the global north. When the rich, fat pampered Brits, Yanks, Huns, etc. learn to tighten THEIR belts and learn to live within THEIR resource constraints, then they can start preaching to the rest of the world about overshoot but until that point they should shut up and learn a little humility.

[MrBill]

I have been running a food deficit with the rest of the world now for over forty years. Sadly, it looks like I will never close that gap - ever? For my first 18-years I had generous sponsors that made up for that food deficit through financial aid. Since then I have been fortunate to be able to trade labor and know-how for those food imports. However, I am very vulnerable should the world stop exporting food to me. I would likely starve in a very short period of time despite being willing to sell more of my labor and know-how. I live knowing that I am only a meal or two away from being hungry. And a hungry man is an angry man! ; - )

[Ayame]

I predict many people will be scrabbling in the dirt with potatoes in the future. Pidgeon pie and baked hedgehog will also be coming back onto the menu.

[Ferretlover]

Soaring food prices imperil U.S. emergency aid
Government to scale back donations, reduce number of recipient nations Sat., March. 1, 2008
WASHINGTON - The U.S. government's humanitarian relief agency will significantly scale back emergency food aid to some of the world's poorest countries this year because of soaring global food prices, and the U.S. Agency for International Development is drafting plans to reduce the number of recipient nations, the amount of food provided to them, or both, officials at the agency said.
USAID officials said that a 41 percent surge in prices for wheat, corn, rice and other cereals over the past six months has generated a $120 million budget shortfall that will force the agency to reduce emergency operations. That deficit is projected to rise to $200 million by year's end. Prices have skyrocketed as more grains go to biofuel production or are consumed by such fast-emerging markets as China and India.
Officials said they were reviewing all of the agency's emergency programs -- which target almost 40 countries and zones including Ethiopia, Iraq, Somalia, Honduras and Sudan's Darfur region -- to decide how and where the cuts will be made. …
It's been decided who is going to go first