There’s a global food crisis going on. Prices are rising, there are food shortages and there have been riots all over the world!
Global food prices have nearly doubled in three years according to the World Bank, with experts blaming the soaring prices on trade restrictions, poor growing weather, rising use of biofuels that rely on staples like corn and the hike in fuel prices that make transporting food more expensive.
Although the riots have not been evident here in Britain, we are being effected by the rising prices and our food bills are indeed going up. Argentina, Brazil, Vietnam, India and Egypt have all imposed limitations on the export of certain produce in order to ensure food security for their populations, but Ban Ki-moon (UN Secretary General) says the move has reduced supplies and raised prices.
A UN special task force met for the first time on Monday with the aim of designing an action plan to combat high prices and food shortages. The group’s mission is to promote a coherent and coordinated response to the current food security crisis. Among the key goals are to develop a "comprehensive framework for action," including a series of short and long term plans for combating the food crisis which has sparked riots, protests and export restrictions worldwide.
The UN task force is also to prepare the ground for a high level meeting of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on food security, to be held in Rome June 3-5, and follow up on the implementation of the action plan. Ban has urged world leaders to attend the meeting, called the High-Level Conference on World Food Security: the Challenges of Climate Change and Bioenergy.
The UN’s new top advisor on food, Olivier de Schutter, this month joined the growing chorus accusing biofuels — until recently cast as a miracle alternative to polluting fossil fuels — of usurping arable land and distorting world food prices.
"The ambitious goals for biofuel production set by the United States and the European Union are irresponsible," Schutter charged, describing the biofuel rush as a "scandal that only serves the interests of a tiny lobby."
World Bank President Robert Zoellick has said two billion people across the world are struggling with high food prices, and 100 million people in poor countries may be pushed deeper into poverty by the crisis.
We want to increase production of biofuels to help save the planet and we want to reduce our food miles by buying locally produced food but at what cost? I really support local producers and I try to do everything I can for the environment but I don’t like to think that we are causing those in poverty in developing countries to sink even further.
So how do we choose what is most important? Saving the planet? Protecting our own industries by eating locally produced food? Or ensuring that everyone globally can afford to eat healthily? At the moment there is such an imbalance, it does not seem possible to do everything at once.
Reference
UN food task force meets for first time - AFP
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