The World Food Crisis
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Fred Magdoff
fmagdoff@uvm.edu
1.) There is a catastrophic food crisis.
2.) In addition to “routine” hunger.
3.) It is interacting with a longer term
underlying food crisis and making
it worse.
A Broad Overview
Total world population = 6 billion people
In cities = 3 billion people
In rural areas = 3 billion people
The Wretched of the Earth
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3 billion live on less than $2 per day
1 billion live on less than $1 per day
1 billion live in slums
25 million per year migrate to cities
1 billion have no access to clean water
2 billion have no electricity
2.5 billion have no sanitation systems
Hunger
•The UN estimates that 840 million
people suffer from
undernourishment, although the number
may be considerably higher.
•The number suffering from mineral
shortages, food insecurity and temporary
food shortage may approach 3 billion.
Hunger amid plenty
in the U.S.
• In 4 million U.S. families (with 9
million people) someone skipped
meals because of lack of food.
• 12 million U.S. families (with about 34
million people) are “food insecure.”
• Huge increases in the last decade in
those using food pantries, food
shelves, soup kitchens, etc.
Hunger frequently occurs amid
plenty in poor countries too
Poor in India Starve as Surplus Wheat Rots
(New York Times, 12/12/02)
Want Amid Plenty, An Indian Paradox:
Bumper Harvests and Rising Hunger
(Wall St. Journal, 6/25/04)
There is enough food produced world
wide—and usually within most
countries—to feed everyone.
Why are people hungry?
Because they are poor (working or
not) and living in an economic
system that
a) needs, creates, and maintains an
underclass, and that
b) does not admit a “right” to basic
necessities such as food.
The availability of food to people
reflects very unequal economic and
political power relationships within and
between countries.
Quintile
Percent of
total national
income
(2001)
Highest
49.2
Fourth
23.2
Third
15.0
Second
9.0
Lowest
3.6
Household distribution of net worth in the United
States (2001)
Percent of
families
Percent of
net worth
Top 1%
33.4
Top 5%
59.2
Top 10%
71.5
Top 20%
84.4
Bottom 80%
15.5
Bottom 40%
0.3
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Bangladeshi
demonstrators protest
over high food prices and
low wages
The Current Crisis
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Haiti’s President Tries to Halt Crisis
Over Food
April 10, 2008
The police in Haiti struggled
Wednesday to control looting and
rioting over high food prices…
Food Inflation, Riots Spark Worries
for World Leaders
— Wall Street Journal, April 14, 2008
Rioting in response to soaring food prices recently
has broken out in Egypt, Cameroon, Ivory Coast,
Senegal and Ethiopia. In Pakistan and Thailand,
army troops have been deployed to deter food
theft from fields and warehouses. World Bank
President Robert Zoellick warned in a recent
speech that 33 countries are at risk of social
upheaval because of rising food prices.
Those could include Indonesia, Yemen, Ghana,
Uzbekistan and the Philippines. In countries
where buying food requires half to three-quarters
of a poor person's income, "there is no margin
for survival," he said.
The price of rice, the core of the Bangladeshi
diet, has jumped by more than 30 percent since
then — a major problem in a country where
nearly half the population survives on less than
$1 a day.
An adviser to the country's Ministry of Food,
A.M.M. Shawkat Ali, warned of a 'hidden hunger'
in Bangladesh and economists estimate 30
million of the country's 150 million people could
go hungry — a crisis that could become a
serious political problem for the military-backed
government.
"Inflation of staples is really out of
control. We've never seen this
before…If we don't react now, this
summer will be full of danger.”
—WFP representative Gian Carlo Cirri
The world's poor ``are living very close to
the edge as it is…If they are pushed
further, they are typically the first who will
spark unrest.'’
— Robert Zeigler, director-general of the
International Rice Research Institute in the
Philippines.
Rising prices threaten millions with
starvation, despite bumper crops
The Independent (UK)
Sunday, 2 March 2008
There has never been anything remotely like
the food crisis that is now increasingly
gripping the world, threatening millions with
starvation. For it is happening at a time of
bumper crops.
20%
39%
122%
40%
51%
Effects in U.S. are less than in poor
countries
a) Ingredients are small part of price of
highly processed foods.
b) In U.S. people have higher incomes
and spend less a % of their income
on food.
Causes of Current Crisis
But it’s not just ethanol: also problems with
biodiesel primarily from soybeans and oil palm
• Increase in fuel prices (“biofuels” plus food
system is VERY energy intensive).
• Increase in meat consumption (Per capita
years.)
consumption has more than doubled in last 50
• Formerly self-sufficient countries now
importing food.
• Weather (Australia, Bangladesh)
• Speculation (local hoarding as well as speculation
in the “commodities super cycle.”)
Governmental Responses
Emergency imports
Eliminating import duties
Freezing exports of foods
More food subsidies
etc.
Governmental Responses
Bush Orders $200 Million in Food Aid
By Associated Press
4:31 PM EDT, April 14, 2008
(A congressional analysis shows the Iraq war
costing taxpayers almost $2 billion a week.)
The long-term crisis
The long-term crisis
Neoliberal Policies
Decreased support to small farmers
Lowered food production by small farmers
Increased migration to city slums
Increased larger farms
The Future?
• Fewer than 20 million highly productive and
mechanized farmers can grow all the world’s
food.
(Note: one person in Brazil — the governor of the
state of Mato Grosso, the “soybean king” —
controls about 250,000 acres.)
The Future?
If 20 million farms can produce all world food
needs — regardless of where the farms
are located — what will be the fate of billions
of people that will not find other employment?
How can poor nations keep the large
mass of people in rural areas
productively employed in agriculture?
One of the great moral, economic, and
political issues of the 21st century.
• A healthy food supply should be
recognized as a human right.
• Policies should be implemented to
ensure that people have access to
sufficient food.
• Protection of, and active
government support for, agriculture.
• Developing agriculture — primarily
to provide food for their own people
— needs to be a priority for poor
countries.
• Promote farming carried out by
small to medium producers working
alone or in cooperatives.
• Promotion of appropriate —
ecologically sound — practices.
• Institute land reform where
needed (Brazil, Venezuela, South
Africa, the Philippines, etc.).
• Major urban agriculture programs
to help poor in cities grow their own
food and/or derive income.
Monthly Review, May 2008
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www.uvm.edu/~fmagdoff/WorldFoodCrisis.ppt
fmagdoff@uvm.edu
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