Carol P. Araullo, the chairperson of BAYAN, a large umbrella front of progressive and left-wing organizations in the Philippines, blogs on the food crisis and the culpability of President Gloria Arroyo of the Philippines:
But this time around, we can readily agree that the rice/food crisis is happening worldwide and its immediate causes and historical roots cannot be strictly confined to the specific policies and concrete situations obtaining in particular countries. Indeed, the international agribusiness cartels such as the small clique of corporations that control the world’s fertilizer and pesticide market, the largest seed companies (e.g. Monsanto), the largest grain traders (e.g. Cargill) and the world’s big food processors (e.g. Nestle), their local business partners in third world countries and the homegrown trading cartels (e.g. in rice) have made a killing in the midst of growing hunger, food riots and panic buying by governments and households.
Having said that, we reiterate that the Arroyo regime is not blameless, in fact it must own up to and be held accountable for the neoliberal policies and programs it has perpetuated and even accelerated in implementation that today aggravates the rice crisis.
Hmmmmm…not sure why this was posted twice, cause it wasn’t posted twice on the Blog and the Bullet. Sorry about that folkers.
As I understand, there are at least two unrelated food crises underway. One involves long grain rice and one involves soft wheat. Then there is the crisis in West Africa; don’t know what the particular grain involved is.
Long grain rice – The immediate cause was a crop failure in australia, which put pressure on stocks form Thailand and the US. So far what I see in markets here in the Seattle area, where Jasmine rice is a staple for a lot of people, is that restaurants who rely on Costco are hurting, and families who rely on local asian markets are in good shape. That doesn’t say anything about how the situation is unfoding in a place like the Philippines, but it does raise a question about the shape of the shortage. The ral question is why is a place like the philippines dependent on foreign rice in the first place? What a scandal.
There is no shortage at all of medium grain rice, but people who eat rice for a staple generally like one and not the other. You don’t just switch over, sometimes even at the point of death, judging by people’s behavior in past famines.
Soft wheat – There was a crop failure in Central Asia that affected Afghanistan and sucked wheat out of Pakistan and mayeb India. Misery for those at the botom of the market in Pakistan.
West Africa – Their markets are so distorted, between foreign aid, import barriers affecting their exports of commdities and simple bad government policy that it is amazing that anythig gets grown there at all. Neo-colonialism in big letters.
Corn – NAFTA has been steadily undercutting Mexican small farmers with cheap US corn, and now along comes this ethanol idiocy, so you would think that would benefit those small farmers, right? Not all all; they have given up and gone north, so now there is no one lft at home to take advantage of this supposedly improved situation. In fact they are standing line now along with all the other industrial workers for the same expensive corn.