International Food Crisis and Haiti
INTERNATIONAL FOOD CRISIS AND HAITI -- (House of Representatives - May 20, 2008)
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Ms. CLARKE. Madam Speaker, moving from food for fuel to food for food, we come to the floor tonight to talk about the international food crisis. We're going to look at the causes and effects and possible solutions. We're also going to take a closer look at the situation in Haiti, a country that is only approximately 400 miles off our coast, our neighbor in the Western hemisphere, a country that is arguably one of the worst off in this global food crisis.
There are many causes of the food crisis that we face now. Some of the causes are recent developments and others have been developing for years.
This year we saw lower crop yields because of weather and global climate change. There is increased demand for processed foods from countries with growing middle classes like China and India. There's an increased demand for biofuels like ethanol, which is primarily made from corn. And in response to high commodity prices, a number of countries introduced export bans to preserve food for their own populations, while decreasing the world's supply.
This graph illustrates the record-high food prices that brought on this crisis: Wheat prices up 81 percent in 2007; soybean prices up 71 percent in 2007. Rice, which feeds almost one-half of the world's population, its price increased 144 percent since January of this year. Corn prices shot up 24 percent since January of 2008, and the rise came right after this Congress passed a landmark energy bill requiring increased use of ethanol.
The effects of this food crisis. We know that in the industrialized countries, food purchases accounts for 10 to 20 percent of consumer spending. However, in developing countries, that figure is more like 60 to 80 percent of consumer spending.
People in poor countries already spend a much greater percentage of their incomes on food, and now they are forced to spend even more on food.
This food crisis is pushing people into poverty and worsening the situation of those already living in poverty. The World Bank estimates that more than 100 million people will be pushed into poverty because of rising food prices.
Rising food prices have led to food riots around the world, across Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. In Pakistan and Thailand, troops are guarding farmers' crops. In Egypt, troops are baking bread for the thousands of people waiting in bread lines.
The situation in Haiti. Haiti has the lowest, poorest standard of living in the Western hemisphere. About 80 percent of the Haitian population currently survives on less than $2 a day and survives on one meal a day. Most of Haiti's basic food commodities are imported, leaving the country especially vulnerable to fluctuating world commodity prices.
Late last month, the perfect storm of high energy and oil costs and commodity expenses erupted in what has been described as food riots.
Haiti's poorest have resorted to selling mud cakes, a mixture of mud, oil and sugar that quiets rumbling, hungry stomachs.
Rising food prices threaten security in Haiti. Protests over the rising costs of food last month turned violent with six people killed, including a U.N. peacekeeper.
High food costs in Haiti in part also led to political unrest, with the dismissal of Prime Minister Jacques Edouard-Alexis just recently.
As we look at what is happening in Haiti today, it's a reminder to us that the economic climate of the United States, our ability and capacity to influence and impact commodities around the world have a ripple effect, and that what we do in the U.S. to secure ourselves, we must keep an eye to our neighbors in more vulnerable circumstances, such as the Nation of Haiti.
We here in the U.S. Congress recently had a codel sponsored in part by the CBC to Haiti, and while there, we had an opportunity to talk about what we need to do to be supportive of our neighbor in the Western hemisphere.
And one of the major concerns for me in this trip was just some of the issues and concerns that we as Americans have not been as educated about. For instance, were you aware that the average age in Haiti is under 50 years old; that the mortality rate is extremely high; that the age for mortality for most women is 56 years of age and for men, 52 years of age; that the average Haitian eats only one meal a day? These are issues that need to be of concern to us.
Why is that? It needs to be of concern to us because certainly, as one of our closest neighbors, one of the democratic allies of the Western hemisphere, these conditions, if sustained over a long period of time, speak to a humanitarian crisis, speak to destabilization, not only of Haiti but of the entire region, which includes a border that is 400 miles away from the U.S. border.
And so we here are looking at congressional action that will address this food crisis. One of the things that we have quickly moved to do in the Democratic Caucus is an emergency supplemental appropriation which was passed just last week which included $1.86 billion in funding for food aid in PL 480 programs, administered by the U.S.D.A. and USAID; $200 million in development assistance; $400 million for disaster assistance; and $20 million for the World Food Programme.
The farm bill passed just last week also included provisions allowing the
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USAID to preposition more food overseas to respond to disaster faster; in addition, more money for non-emergency food aid, like development projects; increased discretionary funding for emergency food aid programs like Food for Peace and U.S. Agency for International Development to the tune of about $2.5 billion have also been expended; extension and expansion of Haitian Hemispheric Opportunity through Partnership Encouragement Act, or the HOPE Act, which provides for duty-free preferences for imports from Haiti.
And then the Jubilee Act passed last month which would assist Haiti in its international debt load and recommends the immediate cancellation of Haiti's outstanding debts.
Solutions for the food crisis. With respect to Haiti, we need to extend temporary protected status to Haitians in our country, allowing them to work legally here, enabling them to send remittances home. This is the most inexpensive form of aid we can grant to Haiti. When remittances are sent home, it forms about a quarter of Haiti's GDP at this point, and so we would be doing not only ourselves a service but a service to the people of Haiti and Haitian Americans here in our hemisphere.
On the global level, we need to meet the immediate need including funding shortfalls of $755 million at the World Food Programme and $240 million at USAID, which this Congress has already begun to do.
We need to strengthen our social safety nets like nutrition programs and school feeding sites to prevent future food security issues from reaching the crisis level.
I've spoken to you already about the youth of Haiti and the fact that the population there is so very young. We need to be clear that malnutrition is running rampant, and if we really want to help Haiti to change course, we must start with their young, and we must be able to improve the opportunities for children to have access to nutritious meals.
We need to increase agriculture development aid to assist developing countries in establishing their own agriculture infrastructure, so countries won't be so dependent on foreign supplies in the future. And that's a pretty complex scenario, because when we look at the way that our farm system has been set up in the United States, it has really created a paradigm where, due to the subsidies that we make to our farmers, it is actually less expensive for Nations abroad to purchase our rice than to grow and compete against the subsidized market. So we will have to find a balance there to enable farmers in Haiti to expand and to be prepared to export to other Nations and be able to compete at real prices with the production of rice in our country and other countries around the world.
And finally, we need to significantly increase investments in agricultural research so our scientists can develop better crops that can withstand disease, drought and produce higher yields, and then deliver those crops to farmers around the world.
I am just so honored to be joined this evening by a number of my colleagues who also attended the codel, some of whom are members of the CBC, some of whom are members of the Hunger Caucus here in Washington in the U.S. House of Representatives, and it is my pleasure at this time to yield to the gentlewoman from California, the Honorable Barbara Lee.
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