Doing Our Part to Feed the World

There was a glimmer of good news in the global food price crisis when Japan announced it will release a portion of its imported rice stockpile and the High Level UN Food and Agriculture Organization secured financial commitments for short-term food aid and increased research and development into new seeds and the distribution of fertilizer to small farmers. Nonetheless, the dismal state of affairs in the global food situation underscores the need for US leadership in addressing a world agricultural system that is facing new challenges and a painful transition.

The United States can lead the way in achieving lasting global food security with a renewed commitment to long term investment in agricultural development in the world's poorest nations. Japan, as host nation of this week's Group of Eight summit and with US concurrence, must go further than its earlier announcements on rice and release up to 1 million tons of its current stockpile. Key rice producers around the world, including India, Pakistan, and Vietnam, should follow suit and fulfill their recent promises to tap their own surpluses to feed the global market.

In the last three years, food prices worldwide have risen 83 percent, sowing the seeds of increased malnutrition, hunger, and political instability. Since 2003, the price of rice has been on a steady climb upward and has risen 141 percent in the last year alone. For much of the world, rice is a key component of the daily diet. Three billion people rely on rice for a third of their calories each day.

The recent surge in food prices has had a devastating effect. In much of the developing world, where 60 percent to 80 percent of a family's income is spent on food, every 20 percent increase in food prices pushes 100 million more people into the ranks of the poorest of the poor - those who live on less than $1 a day.

But the problem is not a shortage of rice. In fact, the FAO predicts that rice production in Asia, Africa, and Latin America will rise 2.3 percent from last year. The problem is that rising prices triggered a range of measures that made matters worse. Governments banned exports and held up their reserves, while middlemen hoarded supplies. Consumers, meanwhile, were left to pay the price despite the fact that their incomes are not keeping pace with the escalating cost of fuel and food.

The roots of the food crisis can be found in a complex cycle of factors including skyrocketing energy costs, increased demand from emerging economies, financial turmoil, commodity speculation, drought, and other weather emergencies.