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The underlying problem with global food supplies is stark. After spiking dramatically in the 1970s following the introduction of scientific farming techniques during the Green Revolution, crop yields are now rising by less than 1 percent per year, which is half the annual increase in worldwide demand for grain and well below global population growth, now at 1.3 percent. The problem was largely invisible until 2000, when poor Asian harvests and surging regional demand conspired to draw down global grain stocks from 37 percent to 17 percent of annual consumption in three years—erasing a surplus that took a decade to accumulate.

Today's shortage punishes poor nations disproportionately. In countries with low per capita incomes, food is often the largest single component of household spending—up to 80 percent, compared with just 15 percent for the average American or European family. On the United Nations' list of countries most vulnerable to food shocks (according to their demand for imported food), Indonesia, the Philippines and Bangladesh rank first, second and fourth, respectively—and China and India make the top 10 due to their huge populations of rural poor. As grain prices push higher, "a lot of people are going to be forced to tighten their belts when they don't have any notches left," says environmentalist Lester Brown, founder and president of the Earth Policy Institute in Washington. "The people who will be most affected are those who are on the lower rungs of the global economic ladder."

An emergency is now unfolding in what the United Nations calls "low-income food-deficit countries." Most are in Africa, including Congo, Sudan and Kenya. According to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization's latest forecast, those nations will import 2 percent fewer cereals in 2007-08 but pay 35 percent more for its food bill "for the second consecutive year." It warned that if the WFP did not receive emergency funding by May 1, it might be forced to cut back aid to 73 million people.

The crisis has put rural development back on the global agenda. "We're coming off 15 years of neglect in research, technological development and [infrastructure] investment in agriculture," says Zeigler, who advocates a second Green Revolution aimed at boosting crop yields above demand growth for grains. In a speech in Washington last week, Zoellick called for a "New Deal for Global Food Policy" and said the bank would nearly double loans for agricultural development to Africa. Mitigating the global food shortage is expected to dominate discussions at the World Bank and International Monetary Fund's spring meeting this week in Washington.

Poor countries are now vulnerable not because food is unavailable but because they can't afford it. "If in a country like India there is a monsoon failure or some crisis in agriculture, the global food situation will become very, very precarious," says Devinder Sharma, an agriculture analyst in New Delhi. With demand from India and China on global markets, he warns that "the world will not have any food grains left for anybody else." That's a theory nobody hopes will be tested any time soon. Which is why the monsoon skies over Kerala are worth watching closely this year.

With Christopher Flavelle, Ana Elena Azpurua and John Sparks in New York

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Posted By: nawawimohamad @ 04/10/2008 5:56:56 AM

The most frightening thing is that there is not a single government in the whole world today embarking to solve the food shortage. They are all more concern on politics and their political survival! All present world leaders are more terrible then any terrorist! They should all be arrested and put onto an isolated island until they starve to death!
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Posted By: oadelmundo @ 04/09/2008 2:09:01 AM

In Third World countries, too much emphasis has been placed on industrialization and globalization of economies. Local production to maintain the supply for food and other products has taken the back seat. Importation of products became the trend in the economic programs of most of these nations. Arable land that had been previously used for agricultural production had been converted into sites for factories, and commercial business that usually distribute or manufacture foreign-branded products. These countries had relied too much on the producer countries for most of their needed products, when in fact, they could produce their own, if only their governments have the political will to do so.

Besides, what good is a heavily industrialized economy if people have less to eat? Agriculture is after all still the mother of all industries. Food production should be the primary concern for all countries in order for Man to survive.
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Posted By: oadelmundo @ 04/09/2008 2:08:37 AM

In Third World countries, too much emphasis has been placed on industrialization and globalization of economies. Local production to maintain the supply for food and other products has taken the back seat. Importation of products became the trend in the economic programs of most of these nations. Arable land that had been previously used for agricultural production had been converted into sites for factories, and commercial business that usually distribute or manufacture foreign-branded products. These countries had relied too much on the producer countries for most of their needed products, when in fact, they could produce their own, if only their governments have the political will to do so.

Besides, what good is a heavily industrialized economy if people have less to eat? Agriculture is after all still the mother of all industries. Food production should be the primary concern for all countries in order for Man to survive.