Looming Hunger
The United States Agency for International Development, USAID, will have to significantly reduce the amount of food aid it distributes to many of the neediest countries due to soaring food prices. With increasing amounts of food being diverted into biofuel production, prices are skyrocketing. Already operating at a budget shortfall, USAID will have to cut back sharply on food purchases.
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.
"We're in the process now of going country by country and analyzing the commodity price increase on each country," said Jeff Borns, director of USAID's Food for Peace, the organization's food aid arm. "Then we're going to have to prioritize."
The reductions, international relief agencies say, will seriously complicate already strained efforts to combat global hunger, particularly in Africa, Central Asia and Latin America. Poor countries in those regions are struggling to cope with record food price surges, which have made it difficult for aid groups to sustain their operations in some countries.
The cuts will likely have a direct impact on major USAID partners, including aid groups and the United Nations World Food Program, the largest international provider, which counts on U.S food aid for 40 percent of its distribution.
Wheat prices alone rose by 25% in one day last week. There have been no significant droughts or major disruptions that have caused this. To add to the worries, the US Congress is working on a new agricultural subsidy bill that would restrict USAID from tapping into non-emergency food stocks in a disaster like the Asian tsunami.
Many people, myself included, have been warning that this would happen. The diversion of corn into ethanol production and the diversion of croplands and resources into biofuel production is having a cascade effect in the food markets. If their is a widespread series of crop production problems in the future, things will get infinitely worse. Rapidly.
Meanwhile, people will begin starving soon in many of the most vulnerable countries.
Economy, Energy, Environment, World news | Gaius Saturday, 1 March , 2008
By kidrob, Saturday, 1 March , 2008 @ 7:49 am
where are all the beautiful people now?
By terrence, Saturday, 1 March , 2008 @ 10:39 am
Eco-fascism ALWAYS gives this kind of result – a small group of uniformed fools get to feel good about themselves and masses of other people suffer, and often die; e.g., banning DDT and corn-based Ethanol are two disgusting examples.