Lame stream media ignoring food crisis: brewing for months

Latest Food Crisis Brewing for Months
By Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 10, 2011 (IPS) – The United Nations, which is trying to reach out to nearly a billion undernourished people, some living in perpetual hunger, is anticipating another food crisis later this year.

And the signs of impending trouble have been there for some time. 

The Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) warned last week that world market prices for rice, wheat, sugar, barley and meat will remain high or register significant rises in 2011 – perhaps replicating the crisis of 2007-2008. 

Rob Vos, director of development policy and analysis at the U.N.’s Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), told IPS that higher food prices are already affecting many developing countries. 

He said countries like India and a number of other East and South Asian countries are facing double-digit inflation, mainly caused by higher food prices – alongside higher energy prices. 

In Bolivia, the higher prices for food in world markets recently forced the government to reduce consumer subsidies as these were running up the fiscal deficit too high. 

The short-term implications are not only that the poor are especially heavily affected – and that more people could be pushed into poverty – but also that it will hamper the recovery in the countries facing higher inflation as consumers lose purchasing power, he noted.  more