Posted on 04/06/2008 8:38:56 PM PDT by blam
Soaring price of food 'leads to riots'
By James Kirkup, Political Correspondent
Last Updated: 2:45am BST 07/04/2008
Rising food prices threaten economic stability and could trigger riots, Gordon Brown has been warned.
The World Bank said this week that the price of staple foods has risen by 80 per cent in the past three years. For consumers in wealthy nations such as Britain soaring prices are squeezing household finances and keeping inflation up. But for developing nations they can lead to malnutrition and social disruption.
Food prices are being driven up by shortages of supply - often caused by bad weather - and by rising demand.
Mr Brown chaired the Progressive Governance Summit in Watford at the weekend and heard a string of warnings about the rising price of food.
António Guterres, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, told the summit the cost of food is leading to riots. He said: "The biggest problem today is rising food prices in democratic countries everywhere. This can trigger social unrest."
The summit drew together some of the world's most important Left-of-centre politicians, including former US president Bill Clinton.
Many at the meeting blamed the price hikes on US and European Union moves to use biofuels such as ethanol to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Ethanol, an alternative to petrol, is made using corn and its increasing use has pushed up maize prices.
The EU wants biofuels to make up more than five per cent of transport fuel used by 2010, and the US may triple the amount of maize it uses for ethanol over the next decade.
But Mr Clinton said: "What's really hurting the food markets is America moving into ethanol. People there are moving into corn and you have pasta riots in Italy related to what some people are doing in farming in America."
I agree with him, and I am surprised that he would say it. The problem is we all seem to know ethanol IS a problem, and yet our government is pushing it and coporations are getting in on the act (for example, Boeing and Virgin looking at ethanol use in airplanes.)
Clinton probably recieved $ 1,000,000 for that brilliant statenent. Can We finally start saying its all Al’s fault???
Thank you, Algore.
Well look, my schedule for the coming week is already pretty full, and now I got to make time for either cannibalism or pasta rioting. I wish they’d make up their minds.
I’d go with the cannibalism, since it’s technically recycling and is therefore “green”.
Just a thought. You know: "Give credit where credit is due!"
Anyone else want to start buying Soylent stock? It won’t really catch on hear but in Africa and other less civilized places it would be a hit. Heck in New Guinea that’s where natives got a good bit of their protein.
After all, having global warning reduce me to cannibalism is one thing, but get holes in my brain from all the holes in the brains of people who are scared of global warming in the first place, now that's scary.
It’s not either or. Enjoy your Long Pig with some friends at a Pasta riot.
There’s no mention of opposition against Genetically Modified crops.
YUK
Can we at least feed the people to something like maybe fish and then eat the fish? It’s probably not quite as efficient, but it’s a little more appealing.
The powers that be have elected to “Go Green”, they gave no thought to what it would do to the food prices and now they can’t back out.
FAST.
My dang corn tortillas that I like just went up 17% on the last package I bought.
"Corn prices have shot up nearly 30 percent this year amid dwindling stockpiles and surging demand for the grain used to feed livestock and make alternative fuels including ethanol."
Thanks to Al Gore’s ethanol fiasco.
Amazing.
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