[Radix] Re: Preparations for food crises?

[bwisner at igc.org]

Hi, all,

Sorry to have been a passive reader, but I am in Kenya en route to Tanzania for some field work with Maasai on livelihood and landscape change.

This has been a rich discussion.

Let me add two things, one macro and one micro.  At the macro level, corrupt government officials have been known to export grain from their countries' strategic reserves and pocket benefits.  Then a drought comes and the people suffer.  This has happened in Malawi, for example.

At the micro level, some networks of community based organizations (CBOs) have advocated and tried to implement for a long time local food and seed reserves, examples being the network called, I believe, 6S in the Sahelian West African countries and also CBOs networking with the assistance of ActionAid in Malawi.

A great deal still needs to be understood and put in place in the area of food security.

All the best, BEN

-----Original Message-----
>From: George Kent <kent at hawaii.edu>
>Sent: Jun 19, 2008 4:12 PM
>To: radix at ecie.org
>Subject: CORRECTION: Re: [Radix] Re: Preparations for food crises?
>
>  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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