A Perfect Storm for Mass Starvation in 2010 Is Developing

March 5, 2010 (LPAC)—Reports from around the world indicate that large populations in the developing nations could be under threat of mass starvation in 2010. FAO chief Jacques Diouf told Voice Of America on March 3 that a food crisis is looming. Conditions in the world's grain markets today are similar to those during the food price crisis of 2007-2008, Diouf said. Riots broke out in Kenya and more than 30 other countries in 2007 and 2008 because people could not afford to buy food.

Already, violence has been reported in North Korea, due to food shortages. Efforts to feed starving North Koreans are being hit by dwindling donations, the World Food Program (WFP) said on March 4, as reports of a deadly clash between troops and workers trying to loot a food train that came in from North Korea. According to Lena Savelli, a spokeswoman for the WFP, two million people — only one third of the 6.2 million originally targeted in North Korea who should have been receiving aid, were actually getting food aid, and even then, they were receiving only incomplete rations of fortified foods. "The country is soon to enter the critical 'lean season,' when food stocks from last year's harvest run low. In certain parts of North Korea, particularly in the northeast, high levels of malnutrition are anticipated."

The WFP said this week that the agency will discontinue all food aid to North Korea in July, if they don't start getting sufficient donations.

UN experts say that record high energy prices, growing demand for bio-fuels, low grain reserves, and bad weather in producing countries, helped push up prices beginning in 2007. Food prices remain high in many developing countries. Diouf says the threat of another global price hike persists. Energy prices have not fallen to pre-crisis levels, and crops are still being diverted for bio-fuels. In fact, he says, except for larger grain reserves, not much has changed since 2007. Diouf also pointed out that many nations are still not investing enough in agriculture.

One other ominous signal is the report of U.S. exports of agricultural-related machinery. These exports totaled slightly less than $8 billion in 2009, a 23-percent drop from the previous year, according to the Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM). The AEM trade group consolidates U.S. Commerce Department data for off-road equipment, with other sources, into quarterly export trend reports. U.S. farm equipment exports to Europe show a 42-percent drop for 2009, while exports to South America declined 31 percent, and Central America declined 20-percent. Asia as a whole shows a 19-percent decrease, while Africa's farm equipment export purchases registered a drop of 25 percent.

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