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Hunger in the News
[The following news stories are provided as a free service and for information purposes only. They do not necessarily reflect the views of Bread for the World/Bread for the World Institute. BFW/BFWI is not responsible for the accuracy of this information.]
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Ethiopia: African Food-Aid Model Now in Trouble
The government's food giveaway may undercut a successful cash aid program.
source: Christian Science Monitor
06 Apr 2008
By Nicholas Benequista
Farmers in Ethiopia are better off now than they were four years ago, in part due to better-than-average rains and rising grain prices globally. But there's another reason: Africa's largest beneficiary of foreign aid has shifted from food aid to cash assistance. Ethiopia is seen by aid organizations as a model of how to best help hungry nations. But in an effort to prevent food riots in cities, the government here is again relying on foreign food aid and now prohibits foreign aid groups from buying grains from local farmers. In effect, it may be undermining its own success story.
At a gathering of farmers about 40 miles outside Addis Ababa, one young man bemoans how rising food prices have yet to alleviate his hardship. Rent, fertilizer, transport, tools: Costs rise as fast as grain prices and whittle down his profits, he says. The head of the cooperatives union, Demere Demissie, replies with a comment that would have been unimaginable just a year ago.
"Think of all the poor people in the towns," he says with a fatherly tone. "At least you can feed your family, even if only with some toasted barley. In the cities, there are people that only eat once every two days." The perception is spreading in Ethiopia that the global spike in food prices may help once destitute farmers, while scores of city dwellers may be pushed into poverty. Prime Minister Meles Zenawi recently made the exact case to parliament. But analysts here say the assumption ignores that one-third of the farmers are net consumers of food, selling their entire crop right after harvest. Current measures, critics say, threaten to reverse recent progress in the countryside, and with a drought looming, could even set the stage for a humanitarian crisis.
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Africa: IMF Works With Vulnerable States On Food Price Policies
source: All Africa
05 Apr 2008
The IMF is working with vulnerable member countries to assess the fiscal, balance-of-payments, and income effects of higher food prices and of higher commodity prices more generally. Several countries have asked for extra financial support to cover higher food import costs, and an IMF mission will shortly travel to Haiti to review the country's need for increased financial assistance.
External Relations Department Director Masood Ahmed recently told a news conference that the IMF is also "working with the member countries that are likely to be affected to assess the impact of the higher food prices, and of higher commodity prices more generally, on their balance of payments and fiscal situation."The impact of food price increases on the most vulnerable populations, notably the urban poor, has significant social implications-as attested by recent food riots and strikes in several African countries.
Many sub-Saharan African countries have resorted to emergency measures in response to a food price situation that is still evolving. IMF research shows that higher prices for food pose new challenges for African policymakers, in particular, and could have especially adverse effects on the poor because food represents a larger share of what poorer consumers buy. In response, the IMF is acting on several fronts; these include additional financing. About 10 countries, mostly in Africa , have raised with the IMF the possibility of augmenting their existing arrangements under the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF) to provide for additional financing to cover the import costs associated with higher food prices.
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Borrowers Hungry for Help to Survive
source: Financial Times
05 Apr 2008
By Daniel Pimlott
Grameen, the pioneering microlending institution, has seen a sharp rise in problems for millions of poor borrowers across the developing world in repaying loans as food prices soar, according to Muhammad Yunus, its founder and Nobel Peace Prize winner. Food prices have jumped in the past year, sparking riots in more than 30 countries and rising protectionism as governments seek to ensure food supplies.
The rising food prices are hitting many of the 38 countries in Asia, Africa and the Americas where Grameen operates. Grameen lends directly to almost 8m people to help them start small businesses and supports other microfinance bodies that lend to more than 3m. "I would say [food prices are] a serious crisis. It's not something temporary, something seasonal," Mr Yunus told the Financial Times. "Whatever money they have, now they're using a lot more of their income for buying food, so the strain on making payments becomes very, very difficult."
The poor, who are the focus of Grameen's microlending model, tend to be hit particularly hard by rising food prices because food takes up a larger proportion of their income. India, the Philippines and Bangladesh – where the organisation was set up and is most extensive – had particularly suffered, he said. Borrowers from Grameen are lent amounts as small as $50 and pay back in weekly instalments. The bank claims a 98 per cent repayment rate and allows borrowers to reschedule a loan when they have trouble keeping up with payments. "Now it takes a lot of hardship to pull that money out of the pocket and pay [for a loan], but they're paying it for the time being," he said. "But it may extend in the future. Some of the instalments may be missed."
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The Perfect Storm
Growing Food for Fuel is Only One of the Reasons Why a Global Food Shortage Looms
source: The London Free Press
04 Apr 2008
By Vivian Song
The global food shortage that has sparked bloody riots around the world serves as another grim reminder of how international crises are intimately tied to the state of the planet. Last year, this column devoted a page to Darfur that explained how the humanitarian crisis that has killed 200,000 people and displaced another 2.2 million has its roots not in a web of politics, but in an "ecological crisis" described by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
Similarly, extreme weather patterns linked to climate change, the rising price of oil and the frenzied production of ethanol are all being blamed for the "silent tsunami" that has the potential of becoming a humanitarian crisis of unprecedented scale. For years, environmentalists and economists have been sounding the alarm about food security. Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute has long warned of the folly of raising food crops for fuel. About one-third of the American corn crop is now being used to produce biofuel -- at a time when 18,000 children around the world die of hunger a day.
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States' Welfare Caseloads Starting to Rise
source: USA Today
05 Apr 2008
State welfare rolls, which declined for more than a decade after a 1996 overhaul of the nation's cash-assistance program, are beginning to rise, due in part to the struggling economy. Federal data for the last half of 2007 show welfare rolls rose about 0.6%, and 27 states reported increases. That follows a decline of 68% since the federal law imposed work requirements, time limits and penalties for recipients who don't follow the rules. "When the economy starts to tank, that's when our business starts growing," says Jeff Brenn, chief of eligibility for Nevada's welfare agency.
The reversal of a downward trend that began in 1994 reflects a hard reality facing the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program: The 3.9 million people who remain on welfare are mostly adults with physical, mental or emotional barriers to employment, as well as children being raised by someone other than their parents — often grandparents, who are not expected to get jobs. "Some states have reached a portion of their caseload that are truly the harder to serve," says Russell Sykes of New York, who chairs the national association of state welfare administrators.
The welfare overhaul in 1996 was viewed by proponents as an incentive to get many of the more than 12 million recipients into jobs and off the dole. States got $16.5 billion per year regardless of caseloads — a bonanza in good times but a risky deal in a recession. Caseloads plummeted in the late 1990s, and while the 2001 recession caused some increases, they continued to drop through 2007. All but five states have cut caseloads by more than 50%. Wyoming leads with a 95% reduction; fewer than 500 recipients remain. Opponents of the law worried whether the program, which pays an average benefit of about $350 a month, would help families weather economic downturns. Evidence so far is mixed: While some welfare rolls have risen, the program serves just 42% of those eligible, a smaller percentage than food stamps or Social Security disability programs.
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Farm Bill Delay Hits Home
Food bank Blames Part of Budget Problems on Congress
source: The Gazette
05 Apr 2008
By Debbie Kelley
Already over budget and facing unprecedented demand, a local food bank is dismayed that Congress has once again put off action on a $300 billion farm bill that funds agricultural subsidies and nutrition programs. The delay of the legislation, coupled with rising food and energy costs, constitutes a "double whammy" for nonprofits that feed the hungry, said Nicholas Saccaro, chief executive officer of Care and Share Food Bank, the largest emergency food distribution center in southern Colorado.
"It's meant we've had to purchase and transport more food into the area to bridge the gap, and it's been incredibly expensive for us to do that," Saccaro said. The situation has pushed Care and Share $110,000 over budget in food purchases this year, he said. The law expired in September. Friday, lawmakers requested a sixth extension, which gives Congress two more weeks to complete revisions. The farm bill supports programs such as food stamps, and commodities that the U.S. Department of Agriculture buys from farmers - such as peanut butter, cheese, cereal, milk, fruits and vegetables - and disburses to food centers that help the needy. Supplies of those kitchen staples have dwindled at Care and Share, Saccaro said. Colorado food banks received $2.4 million worth of the food commodities in 2003 and $600,000 worth last year, he said. At the same time, demand for food has increased. Many new clients are the working lower-middle class and typically have not sought food assistance in the past, Saccaro said.
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Food Politics
The Old Ways No Longer Cut It.
source: Washington Post
04 Apr 2008
The whole world is feeling the impact of soaring food and commodity prices. A recent series in The Post reported that poor families in West Africa are selling precious livestock to buy staples, while some consumers in our own area have taken to hoarding cut-rate groceries. The surge in costs, unlike anything global food markets have seen since the 1970s, has many causes. It reflects one good trend -- rising demand for food as India and China prosper -- and a dangerous one -- rising oil prices. There has been drought in wheat-exporting Australia. Many countries have banned or discouraged food exports. Yet several contributing factors are made in the U.S.A. The Federal Reserve Board's interest rate cuts are weakening the dollar. They may also be driving speculators to bid up the price of commodities. And ethanol subsidies, coupled with Congress's new mandate to produce 36 billion gallons of ethanol annually by 2022, are diverting land from other crops to corn production -- and corn from food to energy.
Correcting policies that exacerbate the food crisis will be one of the next president's most urgent tasks. Yet, so far, agriculture has played only a minimal role in the campaign debate; to the extent it's been discussed at all, it's mostly been in Iowa and other farm states. You'd hardly know that, for the past several months, Congress has been drafting a farm bill that would heap further subsidies on an already bloated sector. You'd hardly know that higher food prices are probably here to stay and that the United States needs a long-term strategy to deal with them.
During the Senate's farm bill debate in December, Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and Republican John McCain all voted for an amendment to eliminate federal direct payments to farmers who make more than $200,000 per year. This was to their great credit, though the measure ultimately failed. Mr. McCain, a veteran opponent of ethanol subsidies, can fairly claim to have seen today's market distortions coming. He opposes current barriers to imports of ethanol. Last week he declared -- in Iowa, no less -- that, if he were president, he would veto the farm bill. Though the latest draft would trim ethanol subsidies a bit, he argued that it does not slash farm supports nearly enough.
Mr. McCain was not only right on substance; he may have picked a political winner, too, as voters focus more on the contradiction between subsidies for farmers and rising grocery bills. Mr. Obama and Ms. Clinton, by contrast, are locked into the strong pro-ethanol-subsidy positions both took before the Iowa caucuses. (Both have expressed support for an eventual transition to non-corn-based ethanol.) The Democratic contenders even promised to support a permanent disaster relief fund such as the one being pushed by Sens. Kent Conrad of North Dakota and Max Baucus of Montana, both also Democrats. This is a $4 billion subsidy to farmers who plant dry, environmentally fragile lands in the Northern Great Plains.
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