The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the
1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people
will starve to death...
Paul Ehrlich
• The road to the future leads us smack into the wall.... Our survival is
no more than a question of 25, 50 or perhaps 100 years.
-- Jacques Cousteau
Famine 1975! ...or 2005!
• http://www.europaworld.org/Famine.htm
16/7/2004
Hunger Drives Darfur's Locals To Take Food Aid Meant For Displaced
Sudanese
18/6/2004
Annan Urges Tougher Action Against Creeping Desertification
11/6/2004
Food Airlift Gets Under Way To Troubled Darfur
4/6/2004
Drought-Hit Northern Somalia Faces Looming Disaster, UN Warns
14/5/2004
Escalating Food Crisis In Uganda
Future Food Aid To Zimbabwe Jeopardized By Cancellation Of Food
Assessment Mission
7/5/2004
Angolans Return Home To Peace – And Hunger
13/2/2004
Despite UN Efforts Spectre Of Famine Looms Over Korea
http://www.europaworld.org/week193/worldcereal24904.htm
24/9/2004
World Cereal Production Up But Locusts Pose Threat In Africa
UN said this week that the 2004 harvest will be much improved and is
unlikely to require any supplementing from long term cereal stocks.
But there remains a black cloud on the horizon in the shape of a potential locust
plague in sub-Saharan Africa that could have a devastating effect on crops there.
In a favourable update on global cereal production this week, the United Nations
Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) raised its forecast for the year by 29
million tons, sufficient to meet projected overall consumption needs. "This is
essentially good news ….we expect cereal production to be close to total levels
of utilization." said the head of FAO's Global Information and Early Warning
System, Henri Josserand.
Cereal output for 2004 is now forecast at 1,985 million tons, 29 million tons
more than predictions made in June of this year. The wheat crop in Europe
was much larger than had been expected while favourable growing conditions in
the United States have boosted maize production there.
North Africa can expect a record wheat harvest since the region has avoided the
potential threat from locusts by undertaking large-scale control operations. The
2004 wheat crop is estimated at a record 17.3 million tons, up 38 per cent on
the average of the previous five years.
The politics of food?
• Joint FAO/WFP: UN agencies warn of
massive southern Africa food crisis: 10
million people threatened by famine
http://www.fao.org/english/newsroom/news/2002/5260-en.html
“...Two successive years of poor harvests caused by natural calamities, coupled
with economic crises and disruption of farming activities in parts, have
slashed food production and availability across the region, resulting in one of
southern Africa's worst agricultural disasters in a decade....”
http://www.theperspective.org/zimbabwefarmpolicy.html
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/africa/land/impact.html
“... Since March 2000, agricultural output [in Zimbabwe]
has severely dropped and violent clashes have ensued
between government supporters and white farmers.
Nearly all of the 4,000 white farmers who own portions of
Zimbabwe's best agricultural land have had their farms
listed for seizure...”
http://www.zimbabwesituation.com/aug9.html#link2
• “...Mugabe and his government cannot fail to
understand the consequence of redistribution of
the country's most productive land to
subsistence level farmers. At best, Zimbabwe
will be able to feed itself. But the tobacco
industry has already said that it will shut down if
3,000 farms are seized. Then there will be little
hard currency to pay for fuel and electricity, and
so little incentive for industry to stay around...”
...”We reached rock bottom by December
[2002]...economically and politically. There was
no fuel for most of December and inflation went
up to about 180%! I can barely support Mom
and Dad and myself any more on my salary and
Mom and Dad have decided to go back to Sri
Lanka later this month as it's much easier there
than here. I knew we had hit rock bottom when
on X'mas day after the family lunch I dropped
my X'mas pudding and raced out to join a 3 km
long petro, queue for which I spent the nite in to
get a few litres. Such is life...”