Food Riots A Threat To World Peace
Haiti's Prime Minister Fired Over High Food Prices And Riots
Apr 11, 2008
While oil rises to US$112 a barrel the world spins on a hunger crisis and poverty boom. Oil price is expected to hold steady until 2020, meanwhile, hunger has triggered food riots around the world and millions face starvation by year end. And at least one Prime Minister has been fired over the food riots.
The ongoing food riots, according to the United Nations can destabilise world peace and security.
If the United Nations does not raise a deficit of US $1.7 billion to combat a growing food shortage, 37 countries, most in the African continent, will face starvation, and poverty will increase worldwide before the end of 2008. The global food crisis pushed the price of staples over 50 percent in recent months and sparked riots in many countries. In Africa, however, it could rise up to 74 percent.
To date, seven people have been killed in food riots in Haiti, and truck drivers have appealed for police escort following the attack and looting of two food supplies trucks in Trinidad last week. In the past months food riots have also been reported in the Philippines, Indonesia, Ethiopia, Egypt, Madagascar, Mauritania, Mozambique, Mexico, China, Burkina, Bangladesh and other parts of India. And army troops have been deployed to deter farmers and rioters from stealing food from the fields and warehouses in Pakistan and Thailand.
On Friday the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) appealed for help to raise the deficit to avert the global food crisis. The funds will be used to increase food production and ease growling stomachs in the poorer countries.
An anticipated 2.6 percent increase in food production could bring some relief, “should the expected growth in the 2008 production materialize,” weather providing. Last year, drought had destroyed crops in Australia and reduced production in many countries, especially Europe.
Director of World Food Programme (WFP) Josetta Sheeran, also appealed for US $700 million for the organization to continue supplying food aid to 73 million hungry people. She said when the WFP decided on the public appeal two months ago, food prices had risen 55 percent since last June, but by the time it launched the appeal prices had risen a further 20 percent. Instead of the initial US$500 million, it now needs US $700 million to bridge the gap between last year’s budget and this year’s prices.
On Saturday, Haiti's Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis was fired for his inability to address the rising food prices and to quell the two weeks of rioting. Peace keepers fired rubber bullets and threw tear gas at rioters when they stormed the Presidential Palace in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The riot started in Les Cayes over a 50 percent increase in the price of rice, beans, fruit and condensed milk. UN envoy Hedi Annabi said 80 percent of Haiti's population, the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, lived on less than $2 a day.
In Trinidad and Tobago, two National Flour Mills delivery truck drivers were ambushed and robbed of flour, juice, milk and canned peas, within two hours, on the same day while transporting the goods. The gunmen stole 14 cases of food stuff. This came a day after Consumer Affairs Minister Peter Taylor urged residents to boycott supermarkets with unreasonable prices.
Tortilla riots have been reported in Mexico and scores of Muslims marched in protest of high food prices in Indonesia. In Burkina more than 300 people were arrested in a violent protest forcing the Government to suspend custom duties on staple food imports for the next three months.
Clearly world population is increasing while its food production is dwindling. Humans have been consuming more wheat and grains in the past year than farmers are able to produce. And the demand for food is greater than the growth of the population. As the price of food rises, incomes are getting smaller, thereby placing undue stress on consumers already stretched pockets. Then there’s the ever present threat of global warming. Scientists have predicted that bad weather is the reason for crop failures.
