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Bush Seeks $770 Million More in World Food Aid
Dan Eggen, Washington Post
President Bush asked Congress yesterday to approve $770 million in new global food aid for the coming fiscal year, the centerpiece of an evolving administration response to a crisis that has sparked increased violence and hunger around the world.

Overall, he said, the United States is on track to spend nearly $5 billion on foreign food assistance in 2008 and 2009. "With the new international funding I'm announcing today, we're sending a clear message to the world that America will lead the fight against hunger for years to come," Bush said at the White House.

The president said he is asking Congress to include the money in a broader Iraq war funding bill for fiscal 2009 that the administration sent to Capitol Hill yesterday.

The proposal came under immediate criticism from some congressional Democrats and outside experts, who said additional money would do little to alleviate the current crisis if it is not available until the 2009 budget year, which starts in October
(2 May 2008)
Related from New York Times: Bush Seeks More Food Aid for Poor Countries.

Food troubles are here to stay
Uri Gordon and Lucy Michaels, Haaretz
... as the global food-price crisis hit Israel this week, something told us we are not being told the whole story.

Around the world food prices are soaring. Since January 2006, the price of rice has risen by 217 percent. Wheat, corn and soybean prices have more than doubled, and in several countries, milk and meat prices have also doubled.

.... With Israel's high dependence on food imports, it is no surprise that prices are rising. The country imports over 90 percent of its cereals, 70-80 percent of its fish and beef, and half of its pulses, oilseeds and nuts. We may soon be relying far more on Israeli potatoes, fruit and vegetables, since the present crisis appears to be part of a worrying long-term trend.

The striking fact is that from 1974 to 2005, real food prices dropped by 75 percent globally. So what can explain this sudden and aggressive upturn? Though it has been played down in official reactions, the obvious explanation is staring us in the face: the dramatic rise in oil prices.

In January 1999, crude oil cost $8 a barrel. Today it costs $119. Oil is vital for every stage of industrialized agriculture: from synthetic-pesticide and fertilizer production, to fuel for farm machinery and international freight. All of these have seen steep price hikes, and not surprisingly, food prices have risen with them.

... The rise in oil prices betrays a genuine market concern about "peak oil."

... Israel will also need to confront the challenge of self-sufficiency. Connecting the dots, the food and fuel crisis this year will only be exacerbated by the serious water crisis caused by the cold dry winter. Israel's clever "techno-fix" for the water crisis, desalinization, is not the solution, since it is hugely energy intensive. Breaking the addiction to oil is clearly a necessary step in a transition to a healthier and more sustainable society.

Dr. Uri Gordon teaches at the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies, and is the author of "Anarchy Alive!" (Pluto Press). Lucy Michaels is a doctoral environmental policy researcher at Ben- Gurion University.
(2 May 2008)

Dealing with a rice crisis
You Nuo, China Daily
When the Chinese press reports about the surging price of rice worldwide it tends to give the impression that China is safe because of its ample stocks.

Really? Most of China's stocks - currently about 50 million tons, according to some sources, is admittedly huge, but most of these stocks are in farmers' barns.

That is usually the situation. How much can the government count on these stocks in an emergency depends on the work experience and effectiveness of local government officials. Have they checked farmers' rice stocks lately? No one knows.

Besides, there is the "invisible hand" at work, or market forces. It is not easy to remain outside the global market and ignore rising prices.

The price of rice increased five times its level in the late 1990s, as part of the general rise in food prices.

On March 27, the price of rice in Thailand went up $760 per ton, from $580. Some trade officials are talking about the likelihood of more than $1,000 per ton in the future.

Rice merchants have described the rise as "never so crazy".
(14 April 2008)
Contributor driller writes:
It is interesting to find this in a China Daily.

The Great Big Food Kablooey: Why Food is Complicated
Sharon Astyk, Casaubon's Book
I have come to feel that the term “mess” does not adequately describe the complexity of our present food crisis. In fact, the whole thing reminds me of that old Calvin and Hobbes cartoon in which Calvin complains that scientists give things lame names, and that the “big bang” should be called “the great big space kablooey.” As I attempt to sort the present food situation into something that can be clearly articulated in our book, I find myself thinking that what we are experiencing might well be described as the “Great Big Food Kablooey.”

What do I mean? Well, for a fairly long time, the world food system (if we can speak of such a thing as a coherent mass) went along mostly doing much of what it was supposed to. It didn’t work super well - for example as Lappe et al document in _World Hunger: 12 Myths_, most of the claims that Green Revolution food increases reduced hunger were pretty much false - hunger increased even as food production increased in most nations, except China, which had huge reductions in hunger. But whether communism or Borlaug was the cause, the number of hungry got kinda smaller,

... But the system has more or less stopped working, rather, I think to the surprise of all of the people (me included) who thought it would eventually stop working. It wasn’t that we hadn’t been saying that all these problems would build up - but to have it happen quite so rapidly is something of a shock. And it brings home the message - food is complicated.

Moreover, the driving forces of our present crisis are precisely the same structures that worked so (kinda) well. In order to change our present model, we’re going to have to back up, pick a new course, and go over some heavy ground (rendered heavy by us) as lightly as possible. Is that feasible? Sure - I wouldn’t be writing a book about it if I didn’t think it was possible. But it is also the case that what is falling apart is rather larger than the food or energy system itself.

Now despite the fact that virtually every post I’ve written on this subject has included the terms (often in big capital letters for emphasis) that THERE ARE NO ACTUAL SHORTAGES AND WE HAVE ENOUGH FOOD TO FEED THE WORLD’S POPULATION, people keep insisting that I don’t understand this point. I admit, I’m a bit at a loss as to how to make it clear that I do ;-). Unfortunately, that observation doesn’t help us nearly as much as it would seem to.

It is certainly true that almost all of our food problems have to with access, not absolute quantities of food. But then again, as Amartya Sen has shown, that’s always the case - since the end of the last century, famine has virtually always been a result of access issues.
(1 May 2008)