In early 2008, the price of rice increased by 68 percent in most parts of the world. The phenomenon which the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has come to call “a silent tsunami,” became the biggest food crisis faced by mankind for decades. At various points, there had been riots over the high price of food all over the world. One of these is the widely publicized food riots in Haiti where people screamed that they were hungry. Citizens of the poorest countries in Latin America took to the streets. In Thailand and Pakistan, the army protected food stores to prevent looting.
The crisis represents an enormous challenge to globalization. It has affected several sectors, comprising various social classes from the most disadvantaged to the emerging middle class of developing economies.
It is said that there are three basic reasons why there has been a shortage of grain, particularly rice. One, farms have been turned into industrial estates, factories, and housing projects. Two, the supply is being horded by shrewd suppliers for purposes of future price manipulation. And three, corn and sugarcane are currently produced more for the sake of biofuel, and also livestock feed in the case of corn.
We cannot fail but notice that all three reasons are man-made.
It seems that the planet does not have enough space to address all its needs. Actually, the world can provide for all of man’s needs, but not all of what he wants. Much of the culprit has been the dictates of globalization. Since the planet has been transformed into one single marketplace, demands of buyers dictate the action of producers. The result is disastrous, to say the least. It is a complete shame that mankind is now faced with such dilemmas as food vs fuel or human food vs livestock feed.
Because the big economies have been guzzling gas as if there was no tomorrow, alternative energy now has to come from biofuel, whose production robs from food production. So, while the big energy-consumers can sustain their energy supply, the world faces extreme food shortage.
The world problems of hunger, food shortage, and grain shortage are clear proof that so-called development and progress are really skewed more towards the advantaged peoples. In the name of development, the greater many such as the impoverished and disadvantaged in the world are really not the top consideration. Development, therefore, is a hypocritical concept.
