DailyRadical

Philippines: Spiraling rice prices bring hunger to millions
By Dante Pastrana
19 June 2008 (reprinted from WSWS)
An Asian Development Bank report published in May estimated that food price increases in the Philippines could send an estimated 2.72 million people into absolute poverty. This was the best-case scenario, based on an assumption that the cost of food would [...]

Philippines: Spiraling rice prices bring hunger to millions
By Dante Pastrana
19 June 2008 (reprinted from WSWS)
An Asian Development Bank report published in May estimated that food price increases in the Philippines could send an estimated 2.72 million people into absolute poverty. This was the best-case scenario, based on an assumption that the cost of food would [...]

There are about 1 billion people in the world subsisting on
$1 a day or less. These people typically spend 80% of their income on food. For
them the present food price rises mean catastrophe. Why are so many going hungry? Why are food prices going up
all the time? These are the questions the United Nations Food and Agriculture
Organisation has been asking at its meeting this June. So far it hasn’t come up
with any solutions.

A recent report prepared by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization identified 22 nations that are threaten by the global food crisis; riots, due to food shortages are now occurring in most of these poor countries. To prevent the escalation of the present world food crisis, Stewart Alexander, Vice Presidential Nominee for Socialist Party USA, wants a freeze or a roll back on U.S. ethanol production to the levels prior to December 2007.

This article originally appeared in environment360.com.
Water Scarcity:
The Real Food Crisis
In the discussion of the global food emergency, one underlying factor is barely mentioned: The world is running out of water. A British science writer, who authored a major book on water resources, here explores the nexus between water overconsumption and current food shortages.
By [...]

Nigeria, like all countries, is being affected by the
sharp increase in food prices. Now the government, floating on the huge amounts
of petrodollars coming into the country, has ordered 500,000 tons of rice to
flood the Nigerian market in an attempt to get the price down. But will this
solve the problem?

ZACF Statement on Zimbabwe, Xenophobia and Food Prices The Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front (ZACF) recognises that the crisis in Zimbabwe, ongoing xenophobic attacks and rising food prices are of great importance to the working class, both in South Africa and internationally. Resolving these crises in favour of the poor and working poor will require mass direct action and solidarity. ...

As food prices
soar world-wide it was reported recently on the BBC that ‘Ethiopia has launched an urgent
appeal to international donors for more than $300m (£154m) of emergency aid’. According the news item, ‘a
total of 4.6 million people are now thought to need food aid’.

As the recent Rome
summit of the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) fades
from the headlines (as few as they were in the U.S.), the workers and peasants
of the world, and particularly those of the so-called Third World, are once
again left to fend for themselves.