Food Scarcity 'Creating New World Order'
Unprecedented food scarcity is beginning to dictate the rules of a new political order where individual countries are scrambling to secure their own food supplies with little concern for the rest of the world, says the founder of the Earth Policy Institute. Recent manifestations of national food insecurity like export restrictions imposed by some grain-producing countries are the troublesome portents of an "entirely new chapter in the book of food security," Lester Brown told foreign correspondents in Beijing on Tuesday. "We are in the midst of the most severe food crisis in the world's history," Brown said. "This is not your mother's food shortage...but a chronically tight food situation, a serious and long-term problem.'' Politicians have been meeting in Rome to find global solutions to soaring food prices and civil unrest caused by food shortages, but in reality many countries are already acting unilaterally to secure supplies for the future. From Africa to Asia, countries are scrambling to buy or lease land overseas to grow crops and feed their people. China, which has to feed the world's largest population, has taken the lead by contracting land in Tanzania, Laos, Kazakhstan, Brazil, and others. India has set its eyes on Uruguay and Paraguay, while South Korea is looking for farming deals in Sudan and Siberia. Libya and Egypt for their part have been negotiating deals to lease land in Ukraine. The worry here, according to Brown, is that "the more influential countries would be able to secure food supplies, leaving a number of low-income, less influential countries with no food to import." "This could create a lot of desperate countries," he says. The United Nations says soaring prices of basic foods such as rice and other cereals could affect around 100 million of the world's poorest people. In Asia, rice prices have almost tripled this year alone, leading many governments to fear the consequences if the poor cannot afford to buy their staple food............. read more
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