Food Riots are Coming to the U.S.
By Joshuah at 11 May, 2008, 6:55 am
From counterpunch.org
“I don’t want to alarm anybody, but maybe it’s time for Americans to start stockpiling food. No this is not a drill.”–Brett Arends
Global food prices have gone through the roof, terrifying the 3 billion or so people who live off less than $2 a day. This should terrify everybody else. In November, the UN Food and Agricultural Organization reported that food prices had suffered a 18 percent inflation in China, 13 percent in Indonesia and Pakistan, and 10 percent or more in Latin America, Russia and India. The devil in the detail is even more distressing: a doubling in the price of wheat, a twenty percent increase in the price of rice, an increase by half in maize prices.
Political stability is being undermined. Food shortages are proving endemic. Food riots are becoming common. Riots have been sparked in Cameroon, Egypt, Burkina Faso, Uzbekistan and Yemen. There have been riots over spiraling grain prices in Mauritania and Senegal. In Mexico City, mass protests were sparked by a price hike in tortillas. In Haiti, biscuits are being made from a mud compound. The Somali capital Mogadishu bore witness to the deaths of five people.
The Bush administration, so often in arrears on the relief front, has earmarked some 770 million dollars or so in funds dealing with the problem. There is one glaring hitch: the money would only start flowing in 2009. ‘There is definitely a lag time when it comes to assistance,’ states the senior manager of the Foreign Aid Reform Project at the Brookings Institute, Noam Unger.
Members of the American public are not so sure. A narrative of catastrophe is gradually building – stockpile or perish. The Wall Street Journal (April 25) was one of the first to issue the clarion call: ‘Start Hoarding Food Americans!’ The paper had various suggestions. Stock up on some products – dried pasta, rice, cereals, canned products. Buy them all in bulk to save. Sit the children down give them a good talking to – no, not about the birds and the bees, but about ‘how our generation and the two behind it, screwed their world into a death spiral through greed and predatory capitalism.’
In the meantime, the US and some countries in the West may have to brace themselves for a starving army guided by the morality of the stomach. The food riots are coming.
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