CORRECTION: Re: [Radix] Re: Preparations for food crises?

[George Kent]

  in the sense that FEMA ENCOURAGES KEEPING  a two-week food supply on  
hand.

Apologies.
gk


On Jun 19, 2008, at 9:46 AM, George Kent wrote:

> My thanks to Carl, Terry, and James for offering valuable insight  
> relating to food crises. I would like to add a few thoughts.
>
> Carl said “pre-emptive food hoarding is encouraged in disaster-prone  
> areas,” in the sense that FEMA keeps a two-week food supply on  
> hand.” I would use a different term, such as “stockpiling” for this,  
> since I understand “hoarding” to imply something that has bad  
> consequences, by definition. After all, we don’t want to say that  
> someone who buys groceries for tomorrow as well as today is hoarding.
>
> I am glad to learn that USDA has given attention to the need to  
> prepare for food crises. However, I wonder about preparedness at the  
> state level. There may be over-reliance on the idea that the federal  
> government will take care of the states in all contingencies.
>
> Terry mentioned the full warehouse in Bengal at the time of the  
> famine there. This is comparable to the 2001 scandal in India that  
> led to the Supreme Court’s requiring distribution to the needy of  
> much the 60 million tons of grain that were held in storage. Food  
> held in storage by private parties, largely so they can engage in  
> price speculation, is very different from food held or controlled by  
> government to meet urgent needs and to help limit price gouging. As  
> Terry indicated, the significance of “hoarding” depends on who is  
> doing the hoarding, and why. When governments do it to protect the  
> needy, I would call it stockpiling.
>
> Terry added, “It seems often the case that the problem is not a  
> shortage of food, but the price that poor people are expected to pay  
> for it.” Yes. For those of us with money, the current food crisis is  
> little more than an inconvenience. Food migrates toward money, not  
> need. The people who are so keen to maintain the freedom of  
> international food trade should keep this in mind.
>
> James observes that the approach taken by USDA to deal with possible  
> food crises is based on lots of pre-existing infrastructure of the  
> sort that is not available in poor countries. Thus USDA does not  
> provide a useful model for most countries. However, we should not  
> think about this only on a country-by-country basis, but also think  
> about what sort of management is needed globally, if not to solve  
> the hunger problem generally, but at least to respond to sudden- 
> onset food crises.
>
> In my earlier email I pointed out that the purchasing of futures of  
> food commodities is a form of hoarding at the global level. The  
> recent run-up in global food prices was at least partially due to  
> this type of hoarding. Hardly anyone identifies this as a serious  
> problem, much less does anything about it.
>
> With the realities of global food trade, the vigorous market in  
> commodities futures, and the absence of publicly held food stores at  
> the global level, we can anticipate more strong food crises in the  
> future—mainly for the poor, in all countries.
>
> Aloha, George
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