Food protests
The Associated Press

A food protest in the Phillippines

Featured Topic | Posted 33 weeks 1 day ago

Could food prices destabilize governments around the world?

Haiti's Senate has voted to fire that country's prime minister in the wake of fatal food riots there. And the problem is widespread: Egypt's authoritarian regime faces a mounting political threat over its inability to maintain a steady supply of heavily subsidized bread to its impoverished citizens; Cote D'Ivoire, Cameroon, Mozambique, Uzbekistan, Yemen and Indonesia are among the countries that have recently seen violent food riots or demonstrations. How to resolve the crisis of rising food prices around the world?

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Ben likes: Farm this out

Deroy Murdock/National Review

Washington cannot control inflationary factors like petroleum prices or Chinese and Indian food demand. But ethanol mandates, subsidies, and import tariffs are within Uncle Sam’s grasp, and farmers are benefiting from the federal corn-ethanol bonanza.

In short, Congress shakes down taxpayers (many in foreclosure) for $286 billion to subsidize farmers already in cornucopian bliss. Their record crop prices, in turn, fatten supermarket and restaurant tabs, which squeeze taxpayers’ wallets yet again. Frightfully, these factors stir Third World hunger and chaos.

If this were Bourbon France, citizens would be at Versailles’ gates, justifiably screaming for justice.

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Joel likes: The world food crisis

New York Times

Last week, the president of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick, warned that 33 nations are at risk of social unrest because of the rising prices of food. “For countries where food comprises from half to three-quarters of consumption, there is no margin for survival,” he said.

Washington provides a subsidy of 51 cents a gallon to ethanol blenders and slaps a tariff of 54 cents a gallon on imports. In the European Union, most countries exempt biofuels from some gas taxes and slap an average tariff equal to more than 70 cents a gallon of imported ethanol. There are several reasons to put an end to these interventions. At best, corn ethanol delivers only a small reduction in greenhouse gases compared with gasoline. And it could make things far worse if it leads to more farming in forests and grasslands. Rising food prices provide an urgent argument to nix ethanol’s supports.

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Food shortages are big deals.

Submitted on April 14th, 2008 by Anonymous

Food shortages were a big reason for the fall of Rome. Not enough grain causes problems, even for the largest of empires.

Yawn, Moving Along Malthus!

Submitted on April 14th, 2008 by Chuck_Johnson

The real reason for all these problems is our current food subsidies.

Ronald Bailey has a piece on this over at reason.com.

Here's the money graff:

The result of these mandates is that about 100 million tons of grain will be transformed this year into fuel, drawing down global grain stocks to their lowest levels in decades. Keep in mind that 100 million tons of grain is enough to feed nearly 450 million people for a year.

Chuck Johnson is a student at Claremont McKenna College. Feel free to contact him.

Food Crisis

Submitted on April 14th, 2008 by Anonymous

I don't understand the surprise this generates.
15 years ago we passed the magic mark of population, There are more people LIVING on earth today than have existed in all of recorded human existance. We use more resources everyday then the entirity of humanity used before us. It is now and will continue to be almost impossible to feed the entire planet with the dimished rural capacity, diminished water supply and diminished energy supply touted by "green " forces.
Population control, enhanced agriculture, enhanced energy production is all that will support the continued breeding and population expansion.
Some societies tout the "Old ways" as the answer to survival, but such ways had an unforgivable carbon foot print and only support deminimus numbers.
We've only got about 2 billion years to fix it, control our numbers and get to space ( aka new frontier) or we all die in the Red Giant of Solar expansion.

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