UN Warning over world food shortages

[dgriffin]

From Al Jazeera English On Line:

UN Warning over world food shortages

The UN secretary general has warned that millions of people are at risk of starvation as global food stocks have fallen to their lowest levels for decades.
The most acute effects have been seen in Egypt, where thousands of people have resorted to violence due to shortages of basic food commodities and rising food prices.
At least 10 people have died over the past two weeks, in riots that erupted at government subsidised bakeries.
Al Jazeera's Jamal El Shayyal reported from Cairo, that people were demanding drastic measures to be taken and wanted the military to be called in, to solve the food crisis.
(A) spokesman for the World Food Programme in East Africa said, that there were multiple factors contributing to this global crisis. … Perhaps, the most important is the rise in global fuel prices, which is having a chain-reaction effect through the food production system.

See full article at:
english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/958CC5D2-638C-428E-AF84-91041B355EF0.htm

See also related food shortage stories from other parts of the world listed on the right side of the web page.

Also, Egyptian bread shortage video at:

tinyurl.com/3y9d2r

[frankcor]

Once again, I'm reminded of the late Sam Kinison's routine about food shortages. Rather than sending food to the places where food is in short supply, send trucks instead and move the people WHERE THE FOOD IS!

[rrogers40]

Is this something that Americans are going to be forced to take care off? I mean most of these "problems" are the fault of there governments- especially in Africa. Time for them to take more responsibility- there should be a food maching system or something like that. And its time to get these countries out of the third world to where there people are not eathing rats.

[Clipper]

The sad thing is that if we send food, the corrupt governments of many of those countries confiscate it, or intercept it, and it never gets to where it is needed.

If we send money, that is eaten up in administrative salaries before it ever leaves the USA, and whatever little bit is left, is probably misused by the same corrupt government officials that steal or re-direct the food stuffs.

[Ralph]

I always have thought I was a fairly compassionate person, but I just get disgusted when I read about all the help we send overseas and then see how our own citizens have to live here.

[Clipper]

The latest impassioned plea on television here in Bristol is the ad to send money to buy tampons for african women, so they can go to school. Yeah, right! Let me get my checkbook out!! God damn it all anyway. We have veterans living under bridges, and families right here in our back yards that are going to bed hungry. I don't really give damn if the girls in africa have tampons. What the hell did they do in the past? I am sure they used old cloths or some form of protection. Hell, women in the US used to use cloth from feed sacks and such, and wash them and use them over again.

So what if they miss school a few days a month. Some people don't get to go to school at all.

I am sorry to be so crass, but my charity contributions go to local charity and to food pantry donations in the form of bags of groceries. I buy cases of canned goods and such when I see them on sale, and take them to the local food pantry. Our local bakery thrift stores donate bread and such. I try to find things that will make a meal. I bought a case of spagetti sauce a few months back, and then donated 20 pounds of spagetti, that was on the shelves of the dollar store. I figure if one can buy a pound of hamburger, they can feed a whole bunch of kids a meal they will like.

I just feel that by purchasing the food myself, and donating it locally, there are families right here in Bristol sending their kids to bed with full bellies, and there are no admin costs coming out of the cans and jars that I take to the door of the food pantry myself.

If you shop the bargain stores as I do, you can make a big difference in local lives, by simply spending a ten dollar bill or whatever you can spare. A cake mix for a buck at the dollar store is a real treat to someone who is short of food money. A bag of flour or sugar is an opportunity to make any number of things to eat. One can feed a whole family on a couple of cans of stew and some homemade dumplings.

I am sure that there are serious shortages in other countries, but we have people right here that are being denied a hot meal. When have other country's governments or people ever reciprocated in kind when people here were hurting?

[Ralph]

We've been getting that same commercial up here as well.

They're starving to death and killing each other over there and someone wants me to send Tampax their way? HUH??

I'm with you, I see the commercial all the time that I can feed so-and-so in such-and-such a country for only pennies a day.

Well we can feed more over here for less. Good for you!

[rrogers40]

Its actually a cultural thing that they've been practicing from the beginning of time: When women menstruate they go to the "menstruation hut". Its a way to isolate the "unclean" women from the rest of society.

In fact its a great way to tell who impregnated who, who's pregnant, and whos now available to become pregnant.

The whole thing about them "not being able to go to school" is true- but its mostly a marketing ploy.

[dgriffin]

rrogers40 said:

Its actually a cultural thing that they've been practicing from the beginning of time: When women menstruate they go to the "menstruation hut". Its a way to isolate the "unclean" women from the rest of society.

In fact its a great way to tell who impregnated who, who's pregnant, and whos now available to become pregnant.

The whole thing about them "not being able to go to school" is true- but its mostly a marketing ploy.

I have assumed any of these marketing campaigns seen on TV are the type where, if you're lucky, about one penny on the dollar may reach the people in need. Probably less.

[dgriffin]

What I found interesting about this article and video was that this is a distribution problem. But it's not as if there was a warm-hearted group of kindly merchants on one side of the swollen creek trying to get food over to the poor unfortunate peasants on the other side. Rather, it involves who can afford to pay for food and who cannot. The product gets more expensive as demand increases: population ... and as production decreases: weather, alternative and possibly more profitable uses of food, such as corn to (alcohol) fuel, etc.
Also, have you ever wondered about the selection of news stories regarding who is starving? I mean, I'm certain some large groups of humans are starving every day, but we hear about it in what feels to me like orchestrated waves of information.
I wonder the same about many of the news cycles we witness. Can you think of any more?

Foreign aid: not to deride American efforts, but I've always thought the American government spends money to buy who it wants to buy globally, while trying to make us feel good back home about our charitable instincts. And Americans do have such instincts. Otherwise, you wouldn't see scammers wasting money on tv advertising their efforts to "feed the poor."