The fight to feed the world and stop a global crisis

Jun 16 2008 by Peter Elson, Liverpool Daily Post

WHILE gloom and doom envelops the western world as it comes to grips with the credit crunch, the collapse of house prices and recession, it is worth remembering that these are the ills of rich economies.

Keen to remind us of this context is Lord Alton, formerly Liverpool Edge Hill MP David Alton, who is now Professor of Citizenship at Liverpool John Moores University. However, not content with concerning himself with the role and meaning of citizenship in the UK, Lord Alton has taken great interest in publicising the plight of poverty in the Third World and especially Africa. Here, he believes the example of good citizenship is vital among national leaders and the example they set.

Unsurprisingly, one of the worst transgressors, in his opinion, is Zimbabwe’s president Robert Mugabe, who seems to have survived losing an election.

"Last month's World Food Summit in Rome was overshadowed by the bizarre decision to allow Mugabe and 200 of his henchmen to break the EU travel embargo restricting their movements," says David Alton.

"It is difficult to see what a regime that has ground its people into abject poverty and starvation, banned relief agencies’ work; terrorised political opponents, lost control of inflation and where women’s life expectancy is now just 33 years, can possibly contribute to solving the world food crisis."

But there is the bigger picture. David Alton believes it appalling that the Summit concluded without agreement on various key global food issues. He says: "As the world's leaders, including Gordon Brown, meet this week in Japan for the G8 Summit, they should immediately tackle Rome's unresolved issues.

"In the UK, higher food prices are causing us all to tighten our belts, but, in vast swathes of the world, where even before the crisis around 3.5m children die annually of malnutrition, there are no belts to tighten."

The cruel facts are that 25,000 people die daily of hunger or hunger-related causes. Reports show that escalating food shortages have caused riots in more than 20 countries. This tragic roll-call includes Ethiopian children dying of hunger, the North Korean famine and the Haitian government’s collapse.

"These are warning signs of worse to come. Many other fragile countries will suffer from our failure to face a crisis – what the United Nations' World Food Programme (WFP) calls the worst in 45 years – a ‘silent Tsunami’ affecting every continent and 100m people," says David Alton.

Over the last year, millions more people have pitched into the hunger category as maize and rice have almost doubled in price.

"This shocking situation has been compounded by rising oil prices, which has made farming more expensive and by natural disasters such as Cyclone Nargis in Burma, the Sichuan earthquake in China, flooding, droughts and crop failures Africa," he says.

"It has been exacerbated by the rapid industrialisation, especially India and China, leading to demands for more and better food. Failure to take the right decisions on agriculture, bio-fuel production, subsidies, tariffs and trade are all crucial factors in precipitating this crisis, not over-population. Gandhi’s maxim remains true that there is sufficient in this world for people's needs, but not for their greed.

"The World Trade Organisation should abandon grossly distorted trade policies, which have, for instance, forced Japan to import rice while it produces large surpluses. Japan imported 770,000 tons of unwanted rice last year."

The World Bank has also liberalised developing world markets too quickly, he thinks, causing Europe and the US to dump food, which made poor nations reliant on cheap imports and led to local farming being abandoned.

"As well as a ‘green revolution’ for farming, we must persuade European and American governments not to use corn to make ethanol, or to displace food crops by oil seed for use as biodiesel. It’s the law of unintended consequences as the US spends $7bn annually on maize-based bio- fuel subsidies. How many people could be fed by the food used to fill the tank of a four- wheel drive Mitsubishi Shogun?"

peter.elson@dailypost.co.uk