Photo: Finbarr O'Reilly/Reuters

For months we have been following increasingly urgent reports about food scarcity, rising prices and vulnerable populations. Last week, the World Food Program said the crisis is a silent tsunami that is "threatening to plunge more than 100 million people on every continent into hunger."

The World Food Program says it has never seen a crisis of this proportion. Analysts expect it will be difficult to reverse in the short term. The Financial Times says humanitarian aid at levels comparable to Indonesia's 2004 tsunami response will be needed to prevent the starvation of millions.

For Mercy Corps the increase in food prices is hurting the very people our program staff around the world are working to support.

Reports from those working most closely with affected communities confirm that the situation is dire — and has the potential to grow much worse.

Penny Anderson, Mercy Corps' food security program officer, told OPB radio: "I've been working with Mercy Corps for over eight years now and I have never seen anything like it."

In Niger, prices of bread, powdered milk and wheat flour have spiked, exacerbating the West African nation's precarious food situation. Currently about two-thirds of the population is at serious risk, with shortages pushing the country closer to famine.

In Syria, spiraling food prices have forced Mercy Corps to cut back on the amount of food we can buy and distribute to hundreds of Iraqi refugee families.

In Tajikistan, where Mercy Corps recently distributed blankets and generators to help residents keep warm during an unusually harsh winter, about 40 percent of households in the Rasht Valley are down to no more than one warm meal a day. Neighboring Kazakhstan has suspended wheat exports — shutting off Tajikistan's primary supply of the grain.

Like several other humanitarian aid agencies, Mercy Corps has established a Global Food Crisis fund to help its field teams respond to needs arising from the worst global food crisis in recent memory.

This short segment from Reuters discusses the impact of rising food prices on standards of living around the world. This is a terrific snapshot overview of the dynamics at play in the current world food crisis.

Photo: Jeremy Barnicle/Mercy Corps

There's at least one commodity in the world whose rising price is benefiting rural families rather than bankrupting them.

Tea farmers in China's Yunnan Province are prospering thanks to rising popularity of Pu'er tea in Shanghai, Beijing and Hong Kong. A few decades ago, the ancient tea was widely unknown, but recently has become fashionable for its celebrated health benefits. Some Chinese believe the tea can help you lose weight and even cure cancer.

The price of Pu'er tea has risen dramatically in recent years. In 2004, a kilo of Pu'er sold for about $1. By last year the price of that same one kilo had risen to $800, although it still varies widely depending on where it's grown and how it's aged. (Last year, for example, 17.5 ounces of Pu'er tea from the 1940s sold for $125,000, according to the International Herald Tribune.) Chinese investors are saying aged Pu'er tea is a better investment than stocks or gold.

Thankfully, the wealth from Pu'er is trickling down to the tea farmers and pickers. The New York Times reports that in the hilltop village of Manmai, the unexpected fortune has permitted villagers to build their homes using concrete rather than sticks and reeds. In peak tea-picking season, young workers can earn up to $1000 a month, which is more than their peers are making in Beijing's factories — a rare rural wage advantage in today's industrialized China.

Photo: Karl Grobl for NetAid

Rising global food prices pose a very real threat to political stability and individual well-being in many developing countries. Recent unrest in Haiti and Egypt indicate an increasingly widespread trend — in fact, the World Bank has identified 33 countries at risk of public disorder.

But what should be done? The Times of London argues that investing in agricultural infrastructure and allowing producers free access to world markets — by both developed as well as developing countries — is the only real solution.

U.N. and World Bank officials say "the perfect storm" of factors has led to skyrocketing food prices, leading to riots in places in Haiti.

Haitians took to the streets this week, with The Times Online reporting that protesters compared their hunger pangs to the burn of battery acid. U.N. Peacekeepers used rubber bullets in attempt to control the situation.

The riots in Haiti are not the first uprisings over food prices, which have risen 65 percent in the last six years. There have been riots in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Egypt, Indonesia, Ivory Coast, Mauritania, Mozambique, and Senegal. A survey by the Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute says staple foods have risen by 80 percent since 2005. The price of rice is at its highest in the last 19 years and wheat is at a 28-year high.

“There is a risk that this unrest will spread in countries where 50 to 60 percent of income goes to food,” FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf told The Times Online. “This is due to higher demand from countries like India and China, where GDP grows at 8-10 percent and the increase in income is going to food.”

It's hard not to notice that gas prices seem to rise by the day. Most drivers may cringe a little more every time they fill up, but they aren't rioting in the streets. This isn't the story in some developing countries, where increasing oil prices — on top of soaring food prices — have increased the potential for widespread hunger.

To cope, the UN World Food Programme has launched an emergency appeal for $500 million. The WFP is the world’s largest humanitarian agency, working in 78 of the world’s poorest countries to help stop hunger. Funded entirely by individual donors and governments, the appeal was written to 60 governments in hopes to reach their goal by May 1. If this amount isn’t reached, the WFP will be forced to cut aid to countries in already desperate situations.

Although the WFP has launched many appeals in the past, this is the first time an appeal has been launched due to a market-generated crisis. The WFP says it was not prepared for the rise in staple food prices such as wheat and corn, as well as fuel.

NPR pointed out this morning that the food-price hikes are exacerbated by a shortage of rice due to bad harvests and growing demand. Rice-exporting countries in Asia are shipping less abroad to have enough of the dietary staple at home.

Photo: Karl Grobl for NetAid

Photo: C Mulvany (flickr)

In the global rush towards biofuels, some countries are being forced to choose between affordable food and renewable energy. Many poor nations cannot afford to use staple crops like corn or soybeans as fuel. But some scientists and policymakers believe that they may have found a solution: jatropha.

Jatropha is an inedible nut that can be grown on non-arable land with little water or maintenance, and it's increasingly being identified as a possible alternative source for biofuels. Because its production would not take up valuable farmland, and would have little (if any) impact on food prices, jatropha is particularly attractive to developing countries seeking a balance between increasing energy demand and poverty alleviation.

India is currently trying to launch what would be the world’s largest jatropha biofuels project to date. Its Ministry of Rural Development has proposed a five-year, $375-million project to plant over one million acres of jatropha and research its potential as a fuel source. India is far from alone in its efforts to promote jatropha. Last year, British Petroleum signed a $160-million deal with a British biofuels firm to develop a joint venture in jatropha. A number of countries are pursuing their own jatropha projects, including South Africa, Malaysia, Brazil, Mali and others.

Photo: Reuters/Finbarr O'Reilly

A controversial article in a recent Economist refers to further evidence of the advantages of genetically modified crops (GMOs).

"The Next Green Revolution" discusses long-standing opposition to GMOs in Europe — many on the continent "have yet to touch or taste them," the article reads — but points out that rising GMO production means it will become increasingly more expensive for Europe to avoid importing them.

I have long been concerned about the Europeans' stance on GMOs — not because Europeans are denying themselves more cost-effective food products, but because of the impact that their position has had on the poor, particularly in Africa. A number of African countries have followed Europe's lead by banning imports of GMOs. I find it to be very sad when the poor and sometimes starving are denied access to less-expensive food because of short-sighted logic in Europe.

The fact that GMOs can provide cheaper food has long been generally accepted. But critics have argued against GMOs on the basis that the crops might have long-term risks. But these risks are vague and unspecified, so to deny the advantages never seemed logical to me. Now that the possible disadvantage to GMOs has been put to rest in many parts of the world, I hope the poor and hungry in Africa and elsewhere can finally access this money-saving solution to an important problem.

Food distribution line. Photo: L. Boscardi/UNHCR

The UN is preparing plans to ration its food aid to people in need if new donations don't provide more money soon, according to an article in the Financial Times this week. Rising global food prices are putting serious pressures on the World Food Program (WFP)'s budget, to the tune of several million dollars each week.

"The WFP crisis talks come as the body sees the emergence of a "new area of hunger" in developing countries where even middle-class, urban people are being "priced out of the food market" because of rising food prices.

The warning suggests that the price jump in agricultural commodities - such as wheat, corn, rice and soyabeans - is having a wider impact than thought, hitting countries that have previously largely escaped hunger."

It is not just the UN that will have to ration its food aid. Countries like Egypt and Pakistan are reinstating or strengthening rationing systems for the first time in decades. Unfortunately, the crisis will be getting worse in the short term. According to the US Department of Agriculture "high agricultural commodities prices [will] continue for at least the next two to three years."

Photo: dziner (flickr)

Like all policy choices, the decision of many developed nations to pursue greater conversion to ethanol and biodiesel has consequences. But who will pay the costs associated with the shift from oil to biofuels? According to the World Politics Review, it is the world’s poor who are going to suffer the most from the negative effects of the biofuel craze.

With current technology, almost all of the biofuel produced today has to be made from corn or soybeans. Though other sources may be able to be used in the future, the use of crops for fuel rather than food has already taken a huge toll on the world’s commodity markets. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that global food prices have increased by almost 40 percent in the last year, after a 14 percent increase in 2006. Many countries have introduced price controls on staple foods, and food shortages have caused protests in Pakistan and Indonesia.

Higher food prices aren’t all bad, according to the Council on Foreign Relations. Rather, continued increases in the price of foods, especially basic staples like corn and wheat, could provide the pressure needed to break the international deadlock on agricultural policy. In an effort to prevent food shortages, many countries have already begun to reduce agricultural import tariffs as a means of increasing production.

Countries scrambling to fill grocery shelves may be willing to bend where they haven’t previously. If major exporters start exporting less, this in turn could make farm industries in developed countries like the United States feel less threatened by imports… Peter Mandelson, the EU trade minister, notes a shift already afoot: “There’s much less of a need for protectionism than when we started [the Doha Round of global trade talks] in 2001.”

Biofuel production. Photo: Benjamin Weller (flickr)

Jacques Diouf made a compelling argument last fall. The chief of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN stated that it is absolutely the responsibility of wealthy countries to ensure that a significant part of the emerging biofuel market is produced by the developing world. Right now, the U.S., European Union and Brazil are the leading producers and consumers of biofuels. If this situation remains into the future Diouf says,

“It will mean that we had a chance to honour all our solemn pledges to banish hunger and poverty but chose to look the other way.

If we get it right, bioenergy provides us with a historic chance to fast-forward growth in many of the world’s poorest countries, to bring about an agricultural renaissance and to supply modern energy to a third of the world’s population.

To focus debate exclusively on bio¬fuels for transport is therefore to miss much of the point about bioenergy’s potential for poverty reduction. This lies more in helping 2bn people to produce their own electricity and other energy needs than in keeping 800m cars and trucks on the road.”

Mr. Diouf has called for a world summit on food security, to be held in Rome in June this year. We will be watching for what decisions come out of this meeting, which will be discussing the challenges faced by the food and agricultural sectors from climate change and bioenergy. An interview with the agriculture head on the subject of food security and rising food prices can be viewed here.

Rapidly rising prices for palm oil and other kinds of vegetable oils are having a huge impact in the developing world, where many families grow their own food but must purchase oil in which to cook it. As the International Herald Tribune reports, this increase in the cost of edible oils is only the most recent development in the emerging global problem of rising food prices.