Food Crisis Spreading Like a 'Rolling Tsunami of Social Unrest'

[marmar]

from InterPress, via CommonDreams:



Published on Tuesday, May 20, 2008 by Inter Press Service
Food Crisis Rippling Out Like a “Tsunami”
by Nergui Manalsuren

UNITED NATIONS - “A rolling tsunami of social unrest is underway as we speak — hungry people are desperate people capable of taking desperate actions. This tsunami is rapidly enveloping the global South, and it won’t take much longer before it knocks at the door of the global North,” warned Vicente Garcia-Delgado, the U.N. representative for CIVICUS, the world alliance for citizen participation.

At a forum on the world food crisis held at the United Nations Friday, civil society groups stressed that over 800 million people are now at risk of starvation, while 100 million have joined the ranks of the extremely poor in just the last few months and are now living on less than a dollar a day.

The food price index of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation rose by 9 percent in 2006 and 23 percent in 2007. As of March this year, wheat and maize prices were 130 and 30 percent higher than a year earlier. Rice prices have more than doubled since late January.

A new briefing this week by the U.N. Economic and Social Council says that the poor, especially in urban areas but also the rural landless and small farmers who are net food buyers, have been most vulnerable to food price hikes, as a very high proportion of their household income is spent on food.

However, “Even within rich countries, increasingly large portions of the population are having real problems bringing food to the table and paying for other basic necessities,” Garcia-Delgado said.

He stressed that the peace and security challenges presented by the hunger crisis and climate change must be understood as global challenges, calling for global solutions that address the concerns of all nations and peoples. ....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/05/20/9077/