Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

livingontheland - [Livingontheland] FOOD: the global crisis deepens ...

livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] FOOD: the global crisis deepens ...
  • Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2008 12:13:58 -0600


FOOD: the global crisis deepens ...
SPECIAL REPORT: By Kate Smith
http://www.sundayherald.com/news/heraldnews/display.var.2342361.0.food_the_global_crisis_deepens.php

THE LIST of countries on thebrinkofdisaster becauseoftheglobal food crisis is
growing by the week. Terrorism and security experts predict widespread social
and political unrest and violent conflict in the second and third world.

Last week the United Nations' World Food Programme announced it is to provide
US$1.2 billion (£600 million) in additional food aid in the 62 countries hit
hardest by the food and fuel crisis.

And Save the Children yesterday launched an emergency appeal to help children
in Ethiopia who are suffering from increasing levels of hunger. The charity
said a combination of drought and escalating food prices has left 4.6 million
people urgently in need of food. In scenes reminiscent of the famines of the
1980s, about 736,000 of these are children under the age of five, a group
which is particularly vulnerable to the effects of malnutrition.
advertisement

More so than terrorism or global warming, food security will become so
critical it will change global governance and result in civil unrest and food
wars.

"It is clear which countries are going to be at risk," Graham Hutchings of
Oxford Analytica Daily Brief, which provides country-specific daily risk
analysis to political leaders, academics, businesses and NGOs, told the
Sunday Herald.

"Those who are net importers of food and those with weak governments will
fall, in all likelihood. The overthrow of the leader in Haiti in April over
food prices is the shape of things to come.

"Those which have come across our radar are Cambodia, parts of India, the
Philippines, central Asian countries such as Uzbekistan and Tajikistan and
African countries such as Senegal, Cameroon, Burkina Faso and the Ivory
Coast. There have been food riots in Egypt, Yemen and Malaysia."

Hutchings warned there is a very real risk of an angry popular and political
backlash against the globalisation and international capitalism from the
world's growing hungry. It is understood that one of the major drivers of the
food crisis is financial speculation by the West. Capital flight from the
subprime market into secure commodities such as wheat futures has pushed the
price of food beyond the reach of the developing world.

"Food riots and political backlash against their own governments and those of
the West will increase as the food crisis continues to bite," he said.

As the world runs out of food, it is those countries with weak governments
and growing urban poor which will fall first. Inter-country tensions will
also increase as policies of economic protectionism and stockpiling cause
tensions.

"Politicians across the world will live or die by their ability to address
subsistence and food inflation, which they won't be able to solve."

Professor Paul Wilkinson, an expert on terrorism and security at St Andrews
University, believes more autocratic regimes may be able to ride the wave of
anger.

He said: "The food crisis will create more insecurity in the world. States
with poor security are the most vulnerable and if there is anger and protest
over food then more governments could fall."

Forecasting agencies, such as the world-class Copenhagen Institute for Future
Studies, have researched that, unless something is done, the food crisis will
continue to get worse and worse year on year and predict it will accelerate
beyond 2016.

While the world agonisesover the global food crisis,aleading nutritional
experthas offeredaholy grail of a win-win diet and way of life that improves
the health of the West while alleviating problems in the Third World.

Instead of the flagship commercial dieting regimes with numbered points and
calorie counts, Dr Walt Willett, professor of medicine at Harvard University,
claims "the optimal diet for 21st-century living" includes simple steps such
as eating less red meat and consuming more cereals and fish, which will
counter obesity and improve the health of the West.

Willett, the author of Eat, Drink And Weigh Less, said at Edinburgh
university's Enlightenment lecture last week that changing consumption
patterns by reducing demand for red meat here will free up more land to grow
crops in the developing countries.

He said: "If we changed the way we ate, modifying what we eat, we could
practically end the global food crisis, since eating more crops and much less
red meat animals that are fed on these crops, would free up resources to feed
the world.

"What we currently do is too inefficient for the world's resources, but by
choosing the optimal diet we could feed the world."

Scotland has one of the worst records for morbid obesity and heart disease in
the world and never before has the simple act of what we eat been so closely
linked to global consumption, war and famine.

Rather than a strict regime with no alcohol or red meat, Willett recommends a
more sensible and balanced approach to our diets which includes moderate
consumption of alcohol and a spread of food groups.

"People should avoid all commercial diets since they aren't based on
empirical evidence," he said. "Instead, they should put themselves into the
low-risk group by eating less red meat, more cereals, more fish, more
vegetables taking a vitamin D supplement and not smoking and reducing body
mass index to less than 25."

By following these tips, heart disease would be reduced by 82%, type 2
diabetes by 92% and colon cancer by 71%, according to surveys conducted by
the Harvard Medical School.

It would also stop as much arable land being used for biofuels and cattle
feed since world demand for cereal crops would rise. By sourcing food
locally, the world's resources would not be under such strain and food
production would be enough to deal with the population pressure, added
Willett.

"We could solve the West's obesity crisis and we would all live longer."






  • [Livingontheland] FOOD: the global crisis deepens ..., Tradingpost, 06/16/2008

Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page