The
Oakland Institute Reporter
www.oaklandinstitute.org
Prevent
Food Riots by Changing Policies
By Anuradha Mittal*
Tune
into the NPR show, Day To Day on April 21, 2008 to hear us on the World Food Crisis.
This
op-ed was distributed by the Progressive Media Project and McClatchy Tribune Information
Services on Thursday, April 17, 2008, and it was published by the Cleveland Plain
Dealer, Houston Chronicle, Sacramento Bee, Fresno Bee, Senegal Post and other
papers.
Food
riots are erupting all over the world. To prevent them and to help people afford
the most basic of goods, we need to understand the causes of skyrocketing food
prices and correct the policies that have fueled them.
World
food prices rose by 39 percent in the last year. Rice alone rose to a 19-year
high in March - an increase of 50 per cent in two weeks alone - while the real
price of wheat has hit a 28-year high.
As
a result, food riots erupted in Egypt, Guinea, Haiti, Indonesia, Mauritania, Mexico,
Senegal, Uzbekistan and Yemen. For the 3 billion people in the world who subsist
on $2 a day or less, the leap in food prices is a killer. They spend a majority
of their income on food, and when the price goes up, they can't afford to feed
themselves or their families.
Analysts
have pointed to some obvious causes, such as increased demand from China and India,
whose economies are booming. Rising fuel and fertilizer costs, increased use of
bio-fuels and climate change have all played a part.
But
less obvious causes have also had a profound effect on food prices.
Over
the last few decades, the United States, the World Bank and the International
Monetary Fund have used their leverage to impose devastating policies on developing
countries. By requiring countries to open up their agriculture market to giant
multinational companies, by insisting that countries dismantle their marketing
boards and by persuading them to specialize in exportable cash crops such as coffee,
cocoa, cotton and even flowers, they have driven the poorest countries into a
downward spiral.
In the last thirty years, developing countries that used to be self-sufficient
in food have turned into large food importers. Dismantling of marketing boards
that kept commodities in a rolling stock to be released in event of a bad harvest,
thus protecting both producers and consumers against sharp rises or drops in prices,
has further worsened the situation.
Here's
what we must do to prevent an epidemic of starvation from breaking out.
First,
it is essential to have safety nets and public distribution systems put in place.
Donor countries should provide more aid immediately to support government efforts
in poor countries and respond to appeals from U.N. agencies, which are desperately
seeking $500 million by May 1.
Second,
we should help affected countries develop their agricultural sectors to feed more
of their own people and decrease their dependence on food imports. We should promote
production and consumption of local crops raised by small, sustainable farms instead
of growing cash crops for western markets. And we should support a country's effort
to manage stocks and pricing so as to limit the volatility of food prices.
To
embrace these crucial policies, however, we need to stop worshipping the golden
calf of the so-called free market and embrace, instead, the principle of food
sovereignty. Every country and every people have a right to food that is affordable.
When the market deprives them of this, it is the market that has to give.
*
Anuradha Mittal is the Executive Director of the Oakland Institute, a policy think
tank whose mission is to increase public participation and promote fair debate
on critical social, economic, environmental and foreign policy issues. www.oaklandinstitute.org
