World Food Crisis
Floor Speech
WORLD FOOD CRISIS -- (Senate - April 24, 2008)
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, the world is facing a global food crisis, and it is growing worse by the day. Each morning, we see a new front-page headline reminding us of the urgency of the situation. It threatens not only the health and survival of millions of poor people around the globe, many of them children, but it also threatens the stability of governments in some parts of the world where hunger and food shortages are most acute. It threatens global security and even our own national security.
The world food crisis is a human catastrophe. Families are suffering. Mothers and fathers are struggling to feed their children. A recent New York Times story described a father in Haiti's capital city, Port-au-Prince, whose children had recently eaten only two spoonfuls of rice apiece one day and nothing the next day. The father said in this interview:
They look at me and say, ``Papa, I'm hungry,'' and I have to look away. It is humiliating. It makes you angry.
Three-quarters of the people in Haiti live on less than $2 a day, and one in five children is chronically malnourished. People are desperate for nourishment of any kind.
The New York Times story went on to say that one booming business amid all the gloom is the selling of patties made of mud, oil, and sugar, typically eaten by the most destitute.
One Haitian man said:
It's salty and it has butter, and you don't know you are eating dirt. It makes your stomach quiet down.
Mr. President, I said last week that we were on the brink of a humanitarian crisis, and I am afraid we have crossed that threshold. We are now witnessing that humanitarian crisis. World Bank data shows global food prices have jumped 83 percent in the last 3 years. These are the average commodity prices paid by the nongovernmental organization CARE.
CARE is known around the world. CARE packages, after World War II, became a symbol of American caring and a symbol of international compassion. CARE is paying more and more for the food they buy. In just a brief period of time--from December 2007 to April 2008--the costs have gone up dramatically in sorghum, in wheat, rice, peas, lentils, and vegetable oil. This chart really tells the story of what has happened in just 4 months. Other data shows wheat prices have tripled in the last 3 years. Poor families in Yemen are spending more than a quarter of their income just to buy bread for their children.
The price of rice has tripled in just the last 18 months. There is even rationing of the sale of rice in the United States. You may have seen the papers this morning. Some major warehouse-type operations are limiting the amount of rice Americans can buy. In Bangladesh, a 2-kilogram bag of rice--a little over 4 pounds--which might feed a small family for a couple of days now consumes about half the daily income of a poor family. In the Philippines, hoarding rice is now punishable by life in prison. In rural El Salvador, the World Food Program estimates that rising food prices have cut the caloric intake of the average meal 40 percent from 2 years ago.
The World Food Program is the food aid branch of the United Nations and the world's largest humanitarian agency. It operates in about 80 nations, providing food to about 90 million poor people a year. Two-thirds of them are kids. Because of rising food prices, the World Food Program can afford to buy only 50 percent of the food for schoolchildren that it could purchase a year ago.
This is the worst global food crisis in more than 30 years, since the Arab oil embargo in the early 1970s caused sharp spikes in world food prices. The blue shaded areas on this map show 36 nations on four continents now facing a growing risk of hunger and the social unrest that comes with it. The flames indicate places where riots or protests are already taking place. It may not be easy for those following this to see, but if you can imagine, almost one-fifth of the world's countries are facing a food crisis, and many more are facing protests and demonstrations. In Africa, 21 countries are unable, for a variety of reasons, to meet their own food needs. In Asia, nine countries are facing food shortages; four Latin American nations; and in Europe, food shortages in Moldova and Chechnya. The list of these countries is here, and it is a long list. It shows you how this is stretching across the world, particularly in the poorer sections.
Aid organizations are seeing these effects on the ground. CARE staff with 20 years' experience in the field say they have never seen a situation this bad, and there are no immediate prospects for relief.
Last week, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon described the world food situation as having reached emergency proportions. He and World Bank President Robert Zoellick have warned that the food crisis ``could mean 7 lost years in the fight against worldwide poverty.''
We spend a lot of time on the Senate floor talking about security, especially in the context of Iraq. But security is not won or lost only on the streets of Baghdad or on the battlefields of Afghanistan. Security is at stake in the bread lines of Egypt, the rice markets in Thailand, and the withering cornfields in Zimbabwe. The global food crisis is also a looming security crisis, one that threatens the stability of many already fragile governments. Pockets of fierce protest could trigger outbreaks of sustained violence, even war.
Referring to the same chart, the flames on this map show what has been experienced over the last 16 months in terms of riots and demonstrations.
Haiti and Egypt, two nations where food prices have doubled in the last 2 years, have already seen violent unrest linked to these soaring food prices. Here are photographs of recent food riots, one in Haiti, another in Egypt.
Just a word. I went to Haiti a few years ago with former Senator Mike DeWine of Ohio--my first visit. I had been prodded into going there because I traveled to Asia and Africa, and someone finally said: Why do you travel so far looking for the worst poverty in the world when it is in your backyard, on the island of Haiti? So I went there, to the island of Hispaniola, which has Haiti and the Dominican Republic, and they were right. I had never seen worse poverty anywhere in the world, and it is in our backyard. And now these people are digging through a dump trying to find something to eat in Haiti.
Here, in Egypt, they have two lines of troops holding back a food riot that occurred there.
Haiti recently ousted its Prime Minister after days of violent protest over soaring food prices. Nine thousand U.N. peacekeepers were ordered recently not to fire on civilians as widespread looting and shooting continued.
In Egypt, the Government has had to dispatch riot police to break up food protests. The military has even been put to work baking bread in an effort to prevent even more anger over soaring food prices.
Senegal is regarded as one of Africa's most stable democracies, but even there, rising anger over food prices is directed at the Government. Recent demonstrations in Senegal turned violent as police in riot gear struck and used tear gas against protestors who were protesting for food.
Parts of India were enduring riots over the high cost of rice as far back as 6 months ago.
Recent history reminds us how closely our security is linked to the security of these farflung places. Sending help in the form of food aid to these countries whose people are starving is clearly the right thing to do, but it is also the smart thing to do. If we stand by and watch these violent uprisings cause governments to fall, this growing crisis will pose a threat to the security of the United States of America.
Surveys by Pew Research show favorable opinions of America suffered steep declines since 2000, and not just among old enemies but among recent allies: in Great Britain, from 83 percent favorable toward the United States down to 56 percent in 2006; in Germany, from 67 percent to 37 percent; in Indonesia, from 75 percent to 30 percent; in Turkey, from 52 percent to 12 percent; and in Jordan, which we consider to be an ally and friend, only 15 percent of the people have a favorable opinion of our Nation. Yet amid these troubling numbers, the study also showed moments of improved attitudes toward America, generated by U.S. aid for tsunami victims in Indonesia and elsewhere.
We need to take heed that some countries in the world that share our values and have common goals in life think little of our country. They are wrong. They don't understand our values. They don't understand who we are. We have a chance to help them understand by coming to the aid of those living in poverty and those facing starvation and depravation around the world.
The causes of today's soaring global food prices and food shortages are many, they are complicated, and they are interrelated. For the sake of world security, more work is needed to understand these causes and develop long-term solutions to feed a hungry world. But we cannot wait for comprehensive solutions to start dealing with today's crises. We need to focus on what we can do at this moment. We need to put an end to this emergency.
The Department of Agriculture announced last week that it will release $200 million in commodities from the Bill Emerson Humanitarian Trust. Bill was a friend of mine. He always had a soft spot in his heart for these programs, and I am glad this one is named after him. Mr. President, $200 million is an important step that will help, but it is not enough.
Last week, I met with Josette Sheeran. She runs the World Food Program. What a tough assignment at this moment in history. She says they are at least $755 million short of what is needed to respond to this global crisis. Beginning next month, for lack of money, the World Food Program may be forced to suspend its school feeding programs in Cambodia. This last chart shows women in a small village in India reaching out desperately for rice sold by Government officials. ``The world's misery index is rising'' as a result of the food crisis, Josette Sheeran of the World Food Program said last week.
Senators BIDEN and KERRY have joined me in asking the White House for $550 million for this global food crisis. I have joined Senator BOB CASEY and others in asking the Appropriations Committee in the Senate to provide this help in the supplemental funding bill which we will be considering very soon.
Other countries are rising to the challenge. Last week, France announced an additional $100 million; the UK pledged $60 million; and Norway, $20 million. Such contributions are important.
Another important step would be for the United States and donor nations to allow a percentage of food aid to be purchased in local food products. It may be that the food is there and if purchased can be given to the people rather than delaying the delivery by shipping things from faraway destinations. I urge my colleagues to support this request.
For those who say $550 million is just too much to spend to avoid global shortages and unrest, I remind them that is just about what we spend in 1 day in the war in Iraq--1 day. We are talking about the amount of money needed to try to avert a global food crisis.
A little over a week ago, the world's economic ministers met here in Washington to discuss the state of the world economy. They declared that food shortages and skyrocketing prices posed potentially greater threats to economic stability than the turmoil in capital markets. They called on wealthier nations to help prevent starvation and disorder.
We have a choice. We can stand back and watch this disaster unfold or we can demonstrate to the world what we stand for. We can show the world that we understand hunger and violent unrest are also forms of tyranny and terrorism and we are committed, the United States, to doing our part to help end them.
This is not charity. International food assistance in the face of the global food crisis is the right thing to do, the smart thing to do, and the American thing to do.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that following my remarks, the April 18, 2008, article from the New York Times as well as the April 22, 2008, article from the Irish Times be printed in the Record.
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