[Faith & Hunger] The Rich Get Hungrier - NY Times (global food crisis)

[Dunleamark at aol.com]

Amartya Sen, who teaches economics and philosophy at Harvard, received  the 
Nobel Prize in economics in 1998 and is the author, most recently, of  “
Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny.” 
 
 
OPINION
The Rich Get Hungrier
By Amartya Sen 
The global food problem is not being caused by a  falling trend in world 
production. It is the result of accelerating  demand. 

 
 
(http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,grossbild-1193416-555952,00.html)  
 
 
(http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,grossbild-1193416-555952,00.html) 
AFP
A fruit market in Hyderabad, India: Rapid economic growth in countries such  
as India is putting pressure on global food markets.

WILL the  food crisis that is menacing the lives of millions ease up -- or 
grow worse over  time? The answer may be both. The recent rise in food prices 
has largely been  caused by temporary problems like drought in Australia, 
Ukraine and elsewhere.  Though the need for huge rescue operations is urgent, the 
present acute crisis  will eventually end. But underlying it is a basic problem 
that will only  intensify unless we recognize it and try to remedy it.  
It is a tale of two peoples. In one version of the story, a country with a  
lot of poor people suddenly experiences fast economic expansion, but only half  
of the people share in the new prosperity. The favored ones spend a lot of 
their  new income on food, and unless supply expands very quickly, prices shoot 
up. The  rest of the poor now face higher food prices but no greater income, 
and begin to  starve. Tragedies like this happen repeatedly in the world. 

A stark example is the Bengal famine of  1943, during the last days of the 
British rule in India. The poor who lived in  cities experienced rapidly rising 
incomes, especially in Calcutta, where huge  expenditures for the war against 
Japan caused a boom that quadrupled food  prices. The rural poor faced these 
skyrocketing prices with little increase in  income.  
Misdirected government policy worsened the division. The British rulers were  
determined to prevent urban discontent during the war, so the government 
bought  food in the villages and sold it, heavily subsidized, in the cities, a 
move that  increased rural food prices even further. Low earners in the villages 
starved.  Two million to three million people died in that famine and its 
aftermath. 
Much discussion is rightly devoted to the division between haves and  
have-nots in the global economy, but the world’s poor are themselves divided  between 
those who are experiencing high growth and those who are not. The rapid  
economic expansion in countries like China, India and Vietnam tends to sharply  
increase the demand for food. This is, of course, an excellent thing in itself,  
and if these countries could manage to reduce their unequal internal sharing 
of  growth, even those left behind there would eat much better.  
But the same growth also puts pressure on global food markets -- sometimes  
through increased imports, but also through restrictions or bans on exports to  
moderate the rise in food prices at home, as has happened recently in 
countries  like India, China, Vietnam and Argentina. Those hit particularly hard have 
been  the poor, especially in Africa. 
There is also a high-tech version of the tale of two peoples. Agricultural  
crops like corn and soybeans can be used for making ethanol for motor fuel. So  
the stomachs of the hungry must also compete with fuel tanks.  
Misdirected government policy plays a part here, too. In 2005, the United  
States Congress began to require widespread use of ethanol in motor fuels. This  
law combined with a subsidy for this use has created a flourishing corn 
market  in the United States, but has also diverted agricultural resources from 
food to  fuel. This makes it even harder for the hungry stomachs to compete. 
Ethanol use does little to prevent global warming and environmental  
deterioration, and clear-headed policy reforms could be urgently carried out, if  
American politics would permit it. Ethanol use could be curtailed, rather than  
being subsidized and enforced.  
The global food problem is not being caused by a  falling trend in world 
production, or for that matter in food output per person  (this is often asserted 
without much evidence). It is the result of accelerating  demand. However, a 
demand-induced problem also calls for rapid expansion in food  production, 
which can be done through more global cooperation. 
While population growth accounts for only a modest part of the growing demand 
 for food, it can contribute to global warming, and long-term climate change 
can  threaten agriculture. Happily, population growth is already slowing and 
there is  overwhelming evidence that women’s empowerment (including expansion 
of schooling  for girls) can rapidly reduce it even further. 
What is most challenging is to find effective policies to deal with the  
consequences of extremely asymmetric expansion of the global economy. Domestic  
economic reforms are badly needed in many slow-growth countries, but there is  
also a big need for more global cooperation and assistance. The first task is 
to  understand the nature of the problem. 
Amartya Sen, who teaches economics and philosophy at Harvard, received the  
Nobel Prize in economics in 1998 and is the author, most recently, of “Identity 
 and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny.” 




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