Food Price Crisis

Since Liberal International British Group (LIBG) submitteed a resolution on world food prices, to be debated at the Liberal International Congress in Belfast next month, the issue has shot up the global agenda. LIBG Executive member (and farmer) Phil Bennion, who drafted the text, rightly foresaw that we are not just heading for a crisis; we are already in it. This has now been stated with urgency by the World Bank and various other international institutions, which are worried that poor people in the developing world are being pushed into hunger by rocketing food prices. A labouring family’s daily wages in Bangladesh, for example, are now only sufficient to buy one small bag of rice.

The Brazilian President, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who has been in the Netherlands for the past couple of days, was tackled on the issue by the Dutch Prime Minister, Jan Peter Balkenende, who wondered (as the LIBG resolution similarly wonders) whether the explosive growth of biofuels is not partly to blame for the current crisis, as land is taken out of food production to grow crops for biofuels. President Lula responded that the solution is simply to grow more food, but I’m not at all convinced that it is as simple as that. Brazil, like China and India, is championing increased private car sales, further boosting demand for fuels. I gave up my own car 8 years ago, and personally believe that we need more people to say that in cities, especially, individual car ownership is not a responsible template for the 21st century.