For those that know about the World Food Shortage, what can we do to help it?

Question

For those that know about the World Food Shortage, what can we do to help it?

Answer 1

As in the links I sent on your other post, many analysts familiar with the grain market say that the aid provided to the countries where the people are starving consists mostly of surpluses from the grain exporting countries, and that this aid may actually be holding back development of agriculture in those areas.  

"The EU finances the exports of European agricultural surpluses to Africa ... where they are offered at one half or one third of their (production) price," the UN official charged.

"That completely ruins African agriculture," he added.

So number one would be to do as the recent UN report recommends, and end financial speculation in the international grain futures market.  This could be done by treaty.  The number of players would be pretty small, if the EU negotiates as an entity.

You have a small but vocal bunch of politicoes who will try to tell you that (A) the biofuels program is responsible for high commodity prices in the US and/or (B) the biofuels program is responsible for the mass starvation going on worldwide.  Neither are true, and it's kind of hard to decide which is the more egregiously false.  The farmers have pretty  solid figures to show that the higher prices of commodities in the US are all related to higher petroleum prices.  China does play a smaller role, in that they have quickly learned that the US grain market can be played like a roulette wheel in Las Vegas.  They will commit to a huge purchase, sending grain futures sky high.  The farmers plant aggressively, anticipating a good return.  At the last minute China backs out of the deal, leaving the farmers with excess grain.  The prices of grain futures crash.  The farmers have the choice of selling at a loss or keeping all their capital tied up in grain they are holding as happened last year.  This is exactly the kind of predatory market manipulation that needs to end.  Asian analysts turn right around and blame the US, saying, "The global food crisis is a monetary phenomenon, an unintended consequence of America's attempt to inflate its way out of a market failure. There are long-term reasons for food prices to rise, but the unprecedented spike in grain prices during the past year stems from the weakness of the American dollar. Washington's economic misery now threatens to become a geopolitical catastrophe."  

I saw on an agricultural forum where someone posted "Biofuel purchases of corn in the USA cause high rice prices in Asia how?  That claim is about as silly as it gets.  There are things wrong with the biofuel programs in developing countries, but causing starvation isn't one of them.  Most of the grain given or sold to the countries in need is rice or wheat.  Corn is too expensive.  Most of the crops used in the biofuels programs are corn and sugar cane, with a few newcomers in small amounts.  A really effective biofuel crop has not been found.  Most of the land used in these programs is from clearcut rain forest, which could not be used to grow wheat or rice.  In other words it does NOT involve diverting agricultural land from producing food to producing fuel.  Still you can't argue with the truth of the thought that if every acre of arable land was devoted to growing food for the starving peoples of the world there would be more food for them to eat.  The issue probably needs to be reviewed on a global basis by a UN or other scientific panel to determine what, if any gains could be made by reallocating land use.

In their straightforward way, Australia (a major grain exporting country) attributes the grain shortages to droughts caused by Global Warming.  Of all the grain exporting countries, only the USA has been spared from major droughts the last few years.

" contributing factors to rising food prices are the high price of oil (which increases costs of food production and distribution), population growth in Asia and drought in wheat-producing countries "

Australian farmers have also recommended that Australia's R&D policies need to be the best in the world, and improved rail and road infrastructure to support grain agriculture and export.

Answer 2

The food shortage is caused partly bi diversion of grains to feeding meat animals, to producing bio-fuels. We can stop doing that diversion and switch to eating grains. Unfortunately so much of the grain we could stop diverting would be corn, not a good basis for a diet.

Subsidies for corn make it easy to make a profit producing this garbage crop, useful mostly for feeding cattle or making ethanol. It takes land away from producing food that we eat directly.

We can grow a significant part of our own food on our suburban lots.

We can buy options on important food grain commodities, (not corn) to ensure that more of those commodities are produced, less corn. Once the harvest is in, sell those futures. This will make you money if there is still a shortage of that grain. If many people have done this and we have eliminated the shortage, you will lose money on sale. You have an option to rent storage space in hope of selling next year for a profit. This is something we should have been doing,,, putting more grain in storage to provide food security.

But food security comes at a cost whenever we have no shortage.

Longer term, we need to do a lot toward storing more water for irrigation, and pumping water that is escaping  to the oceans back up to dry lands. For an example, there is enough water flowing out the Congo  and Niger rivers to provide irrigation enough to feed half of Africa.

There is enough land to be irrigated in the areas just south of the Sahara.

There is a need to provide power to pump that water, and infrastructure to do the pumping.

Similarly India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and China have rivers that could be  used to provide irrigation water. There would be a need to move this water quickly, ie during monsoon season, when it might be difficult to find storage.

But the Sahara  does have the ability to store it.

Answer 3

There is no world food shortage nor has there been one in nearly two centuries.  What we're seeing is a price spike due to the demand for biofuels.  We don't even need to drill for more oil (though that would help); simply ending the subsidies and mandates will do the job because biofuels are not economically viable.

Answer 4

Drill more oil and stop burning up our food supply in our cars.