Food Crisis: Hunger Plagues Haiti and the World

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Consumers in rich countries feel it in supermarkets but in the world's poorest ones people are starving. The reason - soaring food prices, and it's triggered riots around the world in places like Mexico, Indonesia, Yemen, the Philippines, Cambodia, Morocco, Senegal, Uzbekistan, Guinea, Mauritania, Egypt, Cameroon, Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Peru, Bolivia and Haiti that was once nearly food self-sufficient but now relies on imports for most of its supply and (like other food-importing countries) is at the mercy of agribusiness.


Wheat shortages in Peru are acute enough to have the military make bread with potato flour (a native crop). In Pakistan, thousands of troops guard trucks carrying wheat and flour. In Thailand, rice farmers take shifts staying awake nights guarding their fields from thieves. The crop's price has about doubled in recent months, it's the staple for half or more of the world's population, but rising prices and fearing scarcity have prompted some of the world's largest producers to export less - Thailand (the world's largest exporter), Vietnam, India, Egypt, Cambodia with others likely to follow as world output lags demand. Producers of other grains are doing the same like Argentina, Kazakhstan and China. The less they export, the higher prices go.


Other factors are high oil prices and transportation costs, growing demand, commodity speculation, pests in southeast Asia, a 10 year Australian drought, floods in Bangladesh and elsewhere, a 45 day cold snap in China, and other natural but mostly manipulated factors like crop diversion for biofuels have combined to create a growing world crisis with more on this below. It's at the same time millions of Chinese and Indians have higher incomes, are changing their eating habits, and are consuming more meat, chicken and other animal products that place huge demands on grains to produce.


Here's a UK April 8 Times online snapshot of the situation in parts of Asia:


-- Filipino farmers caught hoarding rice risk a life in jail sentence for "economic sabotage;"
-- thousands of (Jakarta) Indonesian soya bean cake makers are striking against the destruction of their livelihood;
-- once food self-sufficient countries like Japan and South Korea are reacting "bitterly (as) the world's food stocks-to-consumption ratio plunges to an all-time low;"
-- India no longer can export millions of tons of rice; instead it's forced to have a "special strategic food reserve on top of its existing wheat and rice stockpiles;"
-- Thailand is the world's largest rice producer; its price rose 50% in the past month;
-- countries like the Philippines and Sri Lanka are scrambling for secure rice supplies; they and other Asian countries are struggling to cope with soaring prices and insufficient supply;
-- overall, rice is the staple food for three billion people; one-third of them survive on less than $1 a day and are "food insecure;" it means they may starve to death without aid.


The UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) reported that worldwide food costs rose almost 40% in 2007 while grains spiked 42% and dairy prices nearly 80%. The World Bank said food prices are up 83% since 2005. As of December, it caused 37 countries to face food crises and 20 to impose price controls in response.


It also affected aid agencies like the UN's World Food Program (WFP). Because of soaring food and energy costs, it sent an urgent appeal to donors on March 20 to help fill a $500 million resource gap for its work. Since then, food prices increased another 20% and show no signs of abating. For the world's poor, like the people of Haiti, things are desperate, people can't afford food, they scratch by any way they can, but many are starving and don't make it.


The Haitain crisis is so extreme it forces people to eat (non-food) mud cookies (called "pica") to relieve hunger. It's a desperate Haitian remedy made from dried yellow dirt from the country's central plateau for those who can afford it. It's not free. In Cite Soleil's crowded slums, people use a combination of dirt, salt and vegetable shortening for a typical meal when it's all they can afford. A Port-au-Prince AP reporter sampled it. He said it had "a smooth consistency (but it) sucked all the moisture out of (my) mouth as soon as it touched (my) tongue. For hours (afterwards), an unpleasant taste of dirt lingered." Worse is how it harms human health. A mud cookie diet causes severe malnutrition, intestinal distress, and other deleterious effects from potentially deadly toxins and parasites.


Another problem is the cost. This stomach-filler isn't free. Haitians have to buy it, and "edible clay" prices are rising - by almost $1.50 in the past year. It now costs about $5 to make 100 cookies (about 5 cents each), it's cheaper than food, but many Haitians can't afford it:


-- 80% of them are impoverished in the hemisphere's poorest country and one of the world's poorest;
-- unemployment is rampant, and two-thirds or more of workers have only sporadic jobs; and
-- those with them earn 11 to 12 cents an hour; the country's official minimum wage is $1.80 a day, but IMF figures show 55% of employed Haitians receive only 44 cents daily, an impossible amount to live on.


Here's what it's like for poor Haitians. They have large families, live in cardboard and tin homes, there's no running water and little or no electricity, and life inside and around them is horrific. Bed sheets can be thick with flies, there's no sanitation, and outside garbage is everywhere. Children are always hungry, there's never enough food, often it's for one meal a day, illness and disease are common, life expectancy very low, and so-called Blue Helmet "peacekeeper" and gang violence plague communities like Port-au-Prince's Cite Soleil.


Now with a food crisis, Haitians are in the streets over prices for essentials that tripled in the past year and a president, prime minister and government doing practically nothing about it. For days, they were everywhere, throughout the country, and numbered in the thousands. They protested in Port-au-Prince, carried empty plates to signify their plight, smashed windows, set buildings and cars alight, looted shops, looked for food, tried to storm the presidential palace, shouted "we are hungry," and demanded President Rene Preval resign.