Posted on 02/16/2017 4:10:22 AM PST by blam
GENEVA (Reuters) - More than 20 million people - greater than the population of Romania or Florida - risk dying from starvation within six months in four separate famines, U.N. World Food Programme chief economist Arif Husain says.
Wars in Yemen, northeastern Nigeria and South Sudan have devastated households and driven up prices, while a drought in east Africa has ruined the agricultural economy.
"In my not quite 15 years with the World Food Programme, this is the first time that we are literally talking about famine in four different parts of the world at the same time," he told Reuters in an interview.
"It’s almost overwhelming to comprehend that in the 21st century people are still experiencing famines of such magnitude. We’re talking about 20 million people, and all this within the next six months, or now. Yemen is now, Nigeria is now, South Sudan is now," he said.
"Somalia, when I look at the indicators in terms of extremely high food prices, falling livestock prices and agricultural wages, it’s going to come pretty fast."
The global humanitarian system is already struggling with a historic surge in migration, huge operations in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, and serious situations in Ukraine, Burundi, Libya and Zimbabwe.
"Then you have places like DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo), CAR (Central African Republic), Burundi, Mali, Niger, where people are chronically food insecure but ... there’s just not enough resources to go around.”
Humanitarian aid is at record high levels but demand is growing even faster, creating a huge gap. "In northeast Nigeria we’re feeding more than 1 million people and just a few months ago we didn’t even have an office there," Husain said.
(snip)
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
But global warming is a bigger problem. We need to turn more crops into ethanol. /sarc
Yemen. Northern Nigeria. South Sudan. The article neglected to mention the war-caused famines are ALL the result of muslims.
The starving have no money to pay for Iowa corn
They will starve any way
Saving for my daughter - except she is skipping the next class where the prof will be talking about solutions to over population. (Still!!??)
At the same time he was ranting about how the U.S. population is getting so old. My daughter ranted “So he’s complaining about overpopulation - but also about how the U.S. is mostly old people and who will support them. These Liberals are SOOOO stupid!”
My daughter was disgusted with the old hippie, and I ranted “Hey - tell him that at least DDT is still illegal. That is worth at least a million dead each year. Except it’s mostly children, so that doesn’t solve the aging problem. Hey - just take all those kids from their families in Africa and ship them to the USA. (Except don’t call them slaves, call them “refugees”.) That way you get rid of the overpopulation there, and bring our average age down here!! (Although I’m guessing you could just put millions of old people out of our misery too.) Sort of like a redistribution of wealth, except based on age. A win-win for everybody! Problem solved - get the U.N. right on it!”
-——The same people whining about food are the same people who want us to shorten the growing season by reducing C02.-——
It’s actually much worse than that...
These people force these countries to still use ox and cow to grow food because buying them modern farm equipment to increase their yields is killing the planet though global warming...
On the other side of the world. More wine please!
What next Reuters a story on the homeless?
The UN better stop worrying about Donald Trump and pony up some cold hard cash and feed those people.
The last time the United States tried to assist in famine relief occurred in that Sewer known as Somalia.
It cost the U.S. The lives of at least 12 American Troops and 2 black hawk helicopters.
What did we get.We got the importation of hundreds of Somali refugees that have no love for this country.
We should stay away from any U.N. anti-famine adventures.
The Sierra Club just can’t control their glee over this. They’re all giddy has hell.
We should bring them all here and give them welfare!
Trumps fault
> no money to pay for Iowa corn
It’s not just Iowa. There were riots and near riots when ethanol became big in South America and corn/tortillas went up in price. And in Asia when rice went up. And Europe had costs of bread go up (but not the riots in Europe). People all over the world have little money and even without famine the increase in price of basic foods can cause people to starve.
There have always been explanations/excuses removing blame from ethanol when the prices go up after ethanol becomes a major crop. But it’s hard to think there’s no link when it’s happened in multiple continents. It’s not just the land. Even if all ethanol crop is on new land not fit for food crop like they claim, there are other resources that international energy companies get priority over vs local farmers to use at the prime planting/harvesting times (machines & transportation, seed, fertilizer, water, workers)
It’s “very likely” (in IPCC terms) that there would be more food crop around the world at lower cost, which aid organizations could buy/move to the famine areas without ethanol. Enough to make a significant difference? I don’t know. But it’s unlikely that ethanol will make a significant difference in global warming according to many estimates for the influence of ethanol vs other fuel.
There are other issues in aiding a famine (or 4) but cost/availability of food staples is a critical factor and ethanol very likely has some affect. We REALLY need an honest debate about ethanol/food rather than excuses for why there is no cause even though there is correlation.
Is this the same mathematician that predicted the Himalayas would melt by 2020? Defund the UN.. teach men to fish.
$end more now ! /$
One of the bowls...?
I’ve just heard there is a glut of grain o the world market, yet starvation still exists.
OK. Best line ever.
It’s caused by a shortage of capitalism.
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