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Now China, the rest of Asia, begin to sneeze
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The Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations Organisation has identified 36 countries as potential time bombs in the current global food crisis. Twenty-one of such countries including Nigeria are in Africa .
Already, the casualties have begun. Protests have been reported in Cameroun (where four people were reported killed), Egypt , Ethiopia , Ivory Coast , Madagascar and Mauritania . Mid April, 10,000 garment workers rioted in Bangladesh near the capital Dhaka , smashing cars and buses and vandalising factories. In Nigeria , last week, organised labour said a word of protest during the routine May Day celebrations.
12th of April, the Haitian prime minister was forced to step down in an attempt to defuse anger over food prices, after three people were killed in an April 4 riot followed by the killing of a U.N. police officer bringing food to his unit in Port-au-Prince .
As the crisis rages, countries across the world are already taking measures. Late last year, Vietnam , the world’s third-biggest rice exporter, restricted rice exports to slow inflation. On December 4, Argentina temporarily placed a restriction on grain exports. January 1, China , the world’s biggest grain producer, began to curb overseas sales of wheat, corn and rice by issuing export permits. Egypt , Africa ’s pride in rice production followed suit on the 19th of January.
On February 8, the American Bakers Association asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture to curb wheat exports. Early March, Philippines authorities began to crack down on hoarders and on March 17, India halted all exports of non-basmati rice. It also extended an existing export ban on crops such as peas and beans.
On March 28, Vietnam extended its September7, 2007 rice export restrictions indefinitely and on the 9th of April, commodities on the Chicago Board of Trade reached a record $6.16 a bushel.
April 16, the government of Malawi announced plans to restrict corn exports. The following day, April 17, Kazakhstan , the world’s sixth-largest wheat exporter, banned wheat exports between April 27 and Sept.1, 2008. Indonesia, the world’s third-largest rice producer, says it will hold back surplus rice, while Thailand, the world’s largest rice exporter, is under pressure to restrict exports.
The United Nations and economists have since identified a myriad factors for the current global hunger onslaught. For example, climatic changes could be aggravating world food shortages, as rising temperatures and shifting rainfall patterns amplify water scarcity, especially in Australia , which is one of the world’s breadbaskets, experts have noted. Besides, China the world’s largest producer of grains suffered a climatic setback late last year and early in the year when over 10% of arable land was occupied by snow, damaging crops.
More prominent, however, is the grand entry of China especially – and the rest of Asia – into the world economy. For instance, China ’s massive industrialisation in recent years has been singularly held responsible for the never-falling prices of oil and other sources of energy. Rising energy costs have adversely impacted on food production.
Beyond this, the United Nations thinks that newly evolving diet habits among burgeoning middle classes in India and China will help double the demand for food — particularly grain-intensive meat and dairy products — by 2030. For instance the average consumption of meat for a Chinese five years ago stood at 3kg/annum. Now it boarders around 50kg and is estimated to hit 100kg by 2015.
Meanwhile, China , the world’s largest grain producer, mid April, curbed fertiliser exports. The Asian country also announced it would increase export duties on all fertilisers to as much as 135% to safeguard local supplies, its ministry of finance said.
If China effectively stops exporting fertilisers, it could be “fatal” for the global supply of some products, such as ammonium phosphate, Xu Hongzhi, a Chinese economist at Beijing Orient Agribusiness Consultant had noted.
Economists think that sufficient consideration should have been given to the factor of a China in the world stage, during the “global conspiracy” to dismantle communism in the Asian country. Now with China hosting fresh Direct Foreign Investment, which now approaches $10 billion annually, the aggregate global demand for energy will only continue to rise. With it, the world will experience a geometric rise in the middle class population which will continue to reinforce both the demand for energy and that of food.
Beyond this the rapid industrialisation of China has equally taken a huge toll on the available land for cultivation.
With the crisis raging the World Bank Chief Robert Zoellick, thinks that as many as 100 million people could be forced deeper into poverty while the U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says that rising food costs now threaten to cancel strides made toward the goal of cutting world poverty in half by 2015.
As the United Nations plans a global summit on food crisis this month of May, It is important that a critical look be taken at Africa. With so much land and excellent weather, cheap labour and so little happening in the industrial sector, Africa must now prepare and be prepared to take on a new role as the world’s food basket.
12th of April, the Haitian prime minister was forced to step down in an attempt to defuse anger over food prices, after three people were killed in an April 4 riot followed by the killing of a U.N. police officer bringing food to his unit in Port-au-Prince .
As the crisis rages, countries across the world are already taking measures. Late last year, Vietnam , the world’s third-biggest rice exporter, restricted rice exports to slow inflation. On December 4, Argentina temporarily placed a restriction on grain exports. January 1, China , the world’s biggest grain producer, began to curb overseas sales of wheat, corn and rice by issuing export permits. Egypt , Africa ’s pride in rice production followed suit on the 19th of January.
On February 8, the American Bakers Association asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture to curb wheat exports. Early March, Philippines authorities began to crack down on hoarders and on March 17, India halted all exports of non-basmati rice. It also extended an existing export ban on crops such as peas and beans.
On March 28, Vietnam extended its September7, 2007 rice export restrictions indefinitely and on the 9th of April, commodities on the Chicago Board of Trade reached a record $6.16 a bushel.
April 16, the government of Malawi announced plans to restrict corn exports. The following day, April 17, Kazakhstan , the world’s sixth-largest wheat exporter, banned wheat exports between April 27 and Sept.1, 2008. Indonesia, the world’s third-largest rice producer, says it will hold back surplus rice, while Thailand, the world’s largest rice exporter, is under pressure to restrict exports.
The United Nations and economists have since identified a myriad factors for the current global hunger onslaught. For example, climatic changes could be aggravating world food shortages, as rising temperatures and shifting rainfall patterns amplify water scarcity, especially in Australia , which is one of the world’s breadbaskets, experts have noted. Besides, China the world’s largest producer of grains suffered a climatic setback late last year and early in the year when over 10% of arable land was occupied by snow, damaging crops.
More prominent, however, is the grand entry of China especially – and the rest of Asia – into the world economy. For instance, China ’s massive industrialisation in recent years has been singularly held responsible for the never-falling prices of oil and other sources of energy. Rising energy costs have adversely impacted on food production.
Beyond this, the United Nations thinks that newly evolving diet habits among burgeoning middle classes in India and China will help double the demand for food — particularly grain-intensive meat and dairy products — by 2030. For instance the average consumption of meat for a Chinese five years ago stood at 3kg/annum. Now it boarders around 50kg and is estimated to hit 100kg by 2015.
Meanwhile, China , the world’s largest grain producer, mid April, curbed fertiliser exports. The Asian country also announced it would increase export duties on all fertilisers to as much as 135% to safeguard local supplies, its ministry of finance said.
If China effectively stops exporting fertilisers, it could be “fatal” for the global supply of some products, such as ammonium phosphate, Xu Hongzhi, a Chinese economist at Beijing Orient Agribusiness Consultant had noted.
Economists think that sufficient consideration should have been given to the factor of a China in the world stage, during the “global conspiracy” to dismantle communism in the Asian country. Now with China hosting fresh Direct Foreign Investment, which now approaches $10 billion annually, the aggregate global demand for energy will only continue to rise. With it, the world will experience a geometric rise in the middle class population which will continue to reinforce both the demand for energy and that of food.
Beyond this the rapid industrialisation of China has equally taken a huge toll on the available land for cultivation.
With the crisis raging the World Bank Chief Robert Zoellick, thinks that as many as 100 million people could be forced deeper into poverty while the U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says that rising food costs now threaten to cancel strides made toward the goal of cutting world poverty in half by 2015.
As the United Nations plans a global summit on food crisis this month of May, It is important that a critical look be taken at Africa. With so much land and excellent weather, cheap labour and so little happening in the industrial sector, Africa must now prepare and be prepared to take on a new role as the world’s food basket.
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