Following
recent devastating crop losses in Russia and Pakistan due to
climate-related drought, fires and floods, public awareness of the
global food supply’s vulnerability has driven food commodity prices up.
This has created tension and conflict that in some cases has resulted in
deadly violence, as in Mozambique where protests were sparked when
bread prices suddenly increased by 30%.
Meanwhile, Europe’s
wheat prices are now 60% higher than in 2009, and Russia just announced
the extension of a ban on wheat exports for another year due to the
nation’s severe drought, inadequate harvest, and economic inflation.
Farmers
there, for example, have experienced the driest season in 130 years,
with experts having observed cracks in the soil so dry that no moisture
can be reached without digging an entire meter into the ground.
This
year’s drought has in fact already threatened next year’s harvest as
farmers must plant now to reap a fruitful crop, but cannot do so without
rain. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has
responded to these concerns by calling a September 24 meeting to discuss
how to best address this and potential future instabilities in food
supplies.
Speaking of the current food situation, UN FAO
Assistant Director-General for Economic and Social Development, Hafez
Ghanem, warned that even though grain production overall this year is
the third highest on record despite the recent crop failures, future
supplies could be jeopardized by extreme weather events or further
export bans, causing more global price volatility. Grain prices have
also been affected by demands for meat, with livestock consuming more
than one-third of global grain supplies during the 2008/2009 season.
We
thank the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization for your
efforts to help stabilize global food markets through a better
understanding of the current situation and effective planning for the
future.
Let us all work together to shift food policies in a
wise and sustainable direction for the security of all people. During an
August 2009 videoconference in Thailand, Supreme Master Ching Hai
emphasized the most simple and effective remedy to this mounting global
food shortage problem.
Supreme Master Ching Hai:
The leaders of the nations must do something. The people of all nations
must do something. Just because we can still sit here pretty and talk,
just because in our area there is not yet water shortage or food prices
going up, doesn’t mean it will not happen to us soon.
We have to
do something to avoid the tragedy that is already happening to billions
of other people. There are one billion people hungry already because of
climate change, and short of water and food. Please take action now.
Very simple. Just be veg. Just be veg is truly enough for now. And it
will be enough for a long future to come.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5g5XHDaG7wDHVNPVRaIGKMobT8EwQhttp://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/45178/icode/http://www.thedailymaverick.co.za/article/2010-09-06-global-food-supply-under-serious-threat
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