Foreign Policy

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17 April 2008
Food Crisis Has Long-Term Global Challenges, Rice Says

By Merle D. Kellerhals, Jr.
Staff Writer

Washington – President Bush is seeking an additional $350 million from Congress to provide immediate emergency food assistance, but the current food crisis has long-term global challenges, says Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

"In the weeks ahead, we hope to announce further steps to help ease the burden of rising food prices on the world's neediest people. Ultimately, though, the world must come together to forge a long-term solution to rising prices of food," Rice says.

Food riots have broken out across the globe as food prices, along with energy costs, have soared to record levels. In Haiti, the Senate fired Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis April 12 after more than a week of food riots stunned one of the poorest nations in the Western Hemisphere. International agencies such as the World Bank, the United Nations, the World Food Programme and the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization have urged developed nations to provide more funds and food relief.

"Those who are hit hardest are the poorest people, and, of course, this is a matter of social justice because no one should have to spend all of their daily wages just to buy their daily bread," Rice said. "Rising food prices are a source of social instability, as we are seeing in a number of places around the world."

President Bush on April 14 responded rapidly by ordering Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer to draw an estimated $200 million in emergency U.S. food assistance from a special reserve fund for global food relief, which also was intended secondarily to relieve rising political instability in some regions. The funding will be used by the U.S. Agency for International Development to help speed much-needed food supplies to distressed nations.

"We need to encourage farmers and transporters, markets and governments to meet this urgent worldwide challenge," Rice said at a briefing April 17. One of the most important measures developed nations can take at this point is to complete trade measures under consideration through the World Trade Organization that would help increase agricultural productivity and moderate prices, Rice said.

"There are many causes for rising food prices, from fast-growing global demand to devastating droughts to record high fuel costs. But one thing is clear, this is a current emergency, but it has long-term global challenges," Rice said.

The FAO attributes rising global food prices to a combination of factors, including reduced production because of climate change, historically low levels of food stocks, higher consumption of meat and dairy products in emerging economies, increased demand for biofuels production, drought and the higher cost of energy and transportation.

Rice said the president also has sought authority from Congress to provide more U.S. food assistance through locally purchased agriculture, which enables taxpayers to feed more of the world's hungry at less cost.

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