Forget About $5 Gas, What Happens At $10 Bread? Could Food Riots Come To America?

Forget About $5 Gas, What Happens At $10 Bread? Could Food Riots Come To America?

What's wrong with this picture: Go to Google News and do a quick search for the term food riots. You get (as of now) about 4,755 results. The stories that appear, while some concern dire predictions about near future events, a majority of the stories are talking about situations developing right now.

A side effect of the steadily increasing price of oil has led to the desire for readily available biofuel, i.e. growing your own fuel (a-la Brazil). This turns over land previously used to grow good old food to land used to grow food to be turned into fuel. What is debatable is exactly how much growing capacity the world has to meet demand of food or fuel. The inequalities in the world being as they are, there were starving people before this latest crisis began, but now their numbers being increased - driven by a sharp increase in the price of basic foods. Debatable is whether the price increase is real (in which case we are screwed), just another speculator-driven bubble (which may explain oil), or a symptom of the U.S. Dollar's death dive (which probably explains oil). What is not debatable is the effect that these increases are having on society in some third world nations, a crisis that is only threatening to spread. Some recent examples of trouble:

Hati saw riots during the latter half of March and early April:
Quote from: http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20080413/focus/focus1.html
Since the start of April, Haiti has been experiencing protests over rising food prices. However, these protests became violent this past week. The protests have been triggered by rising food prices, both as a result of international factors such as oil price and grain price increases and the impact of bad weather on agriculture, creating shortages in production and consequently, an increase in agricultural and food prices.

The price of rice in Haiti has doubled from US$35 to US$70 for a 120-pound pack. Gasolene has risen three times in the last two months. Countries as diverse as Haiti, Cuba and Jamaica import most of their food. Food prices have risen around the world on average by 40 per cent since mid-2007 and the price of staples has risen by 80 per cent since 2005.

Rioting has also struck in Indonesia:
Quote from: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080412.FOODSIDE12/TPStory/TPInternational/Asia/
In Indonesia, the prices of some essentials have surged more than 50 per cent since January. Prices for tofu, soybeans and gasoline are now beyond the reach of the poorest families, rattling a government wary of social unrest. It responded by slashing import tariffs and subsidizing food in local markets, but that's not enough to ease the sting for many families in the developing world who must spend 50 to 60 per cent of their income on food, reports the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.

Rioting has led to general strikes which have led to more violence in Egypt:
Quote from: http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/04/08/africa/ME-GEN-Egypt-Protest-Death.php
Ahmed Ali Hammad, 15, died from gun shot wounds Tuesday morning in the Mahalla hospital, said a security official on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press.

The gritty industrial city has been the scene of two days of violent clashes between police and residents angered over rising food prices. On Sunday, security prevented workers from going on strike.

In Ivory Coast, a three-day spike in food led to rioting in the capital:
Quote from: http://allafrica.com/stories/200803311850.html
At least a dozen protestors were wounded during several hours of clashes with police on 31 March as they demanded government action to curb food prices.

...

"A kilo of beef has increased from 700 CFA (US$1.68) to 900 CFA (US$2.16) in just three days," one of the protestors, Amйlie Koffi, told IRIN. "One litre of oil has increased from 600 CFA (US$1.44) to 850 CFA (US$2.04) in the same time."

"We only eat once during the day now," said another protestor, Alimata Camara. "If food prices increase more, what will we give our children to eat and how will they go to school?"

Cameroon...
Quote from: http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/02/27/africa/27cameroon.php
In the commercial capital of Douala, a police helicopter dropped tear gas on hundreds of protesters who marched to demand bigger cuts in fuel and food prices. As the marchers scattered in panic on Wouri Bridge, some fell into the river.

Witnesses saw police arrest dozens of protesters, taking them away in trucks. Some were beaten with rifle butts, the witnesses said. Anti-government protests were also reported in Bamenda in the northwest.

Cameroon is the world's fourth largest cocoa producer; no details were immediately available on disruption to shipments.

Other third world countries are relatively stable for the moment, but the pinch is getting worse. This from Venezuela:
Quote from: http://www.miamiherald.com/top_stories/story/494440.html
Jenny Dнaz pays a mark up for scarce eggs, sugar and cooking oil because she sometimes has to buy them from the back of a truck. Dayra Barreto gave up eating pricey asparagus, palm hearts, mushrooms and artichoke hearts. And Andrea Gonzбlez substitutes baloney for ham.

This snapshot of shoppers at a middle class grocery store in Caracas illustrates how rising food prices are hurting not just the poor in Latin America and the Caribbean, a region where some people spend more than half their income on food.

The Philippines...
Quote from: http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/04/14/asia/AS-GEN-Philippines-Rice.php
Philippine officials dismissed fears of possible rioting over rising food prices and tight rice supplies, saying Monday that the unrest that toppled Haiti's government could not happen here.

Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro said the security situation in the country was stable and that skyrocketing rice prices were a global concern.

"I don't see any food riots in the Philippines," Teodoro said. "I think what this will do, on the contrary, is to give us more incentives and impetus to work together to solve the problem rather than fractionalizing the country."

Riots in Haiti at the weekend toppled its government after a wave of deadly looting because of rising food prices. Angry protests also erupted in Egypt over the cost of food.

The list goes on and on.

For anyone who has taken a trip to the grocery store recently, it's also obvious that the spike in food prices is not limited to the third world, and is having some very serious and real impacts in the West - thankfully limited to curtailed spending and an economic slowdown thusfar.

I have hit on the fact of rapidly rising prices before, but I'll highlight a couple more important facts to this discussion.

Quote
* Canola: up 133% in 2 years
* Cocoa: up 206% in 7 years
* Coffee: up 170% in 6 years
* Corn: up 150% in 2 years
* Oats: up 160% in 3.5 years
* Rice: up 239% in 6 years
* Soybeans: up 134% in 1.5 years
* Wheat: up 200% in 2 years

Here in America and the West, we can "take" those increases, at least for the moment. The belts are getting tighter and our lavish way of living is getting just a bit harder, but we can still "take" it. We can cut back on driving or that new computer or a video game or that satellite tv package, but we can still "take" the increases. (Take is in quotes because that is of course not 100% true and there are hungry people in this country, I'm just using it as a broad brush - when you compare the Haitian government collapsing because of food riots to the current situation in America, the Americans can at least be said that they are getting by.)

When you start out making a dollar or two per day and the cost of a bag of rice rises to three dollars, you suddenly have a serious problem. People go from poor to poorer, from poorer to impoverished, impoverished to starving, and soon - starving to dead.

Unfortunately for governments the world over, the average person isn't going to sit around and starve. Enough of their daily livelihood taken away and they are likely to protest, to riot, to demand change, to ask the questions and demand answers for why that loaf of bread was within their financial reach last Christmas but now would make an excellent Christmas gift. When governments can not provide the proper answers, they get toppled. At the moment the toppling movement appears to be of the peaceful kind - the desire to sweep out one party's rule or regime in favor of a supposedly better one. Despite the dreams revolutionaries may have, unless their trusted leaders have the gift of time machines and a means to transport a lot of food through them, they will not be able to end this crisis on their own, and may soon find their selves toppled as well.

A fed up public may turn its back on the elected system, seeking not change by the ballot box but the more quick, decisive, and satisfying-to-a-few-sick-people methods of revolt, guns, and civil war. How many months or years of hungry bellies and starving children would it take before a nation of people take up arms against their government?

Think of the average stability of an African nation. Now apply that sort of trouble to southeast Asian nations, Pacific Rim countries, middle eastern countries, and of course the big 800lb gorillas in the room - nuclear armed India and Pakistan. How far of a stretch is it really to go from a food riot in India to a toppled government to a new regime blaming it on the Pakistanis?

While the rest of the world stands on that precipice, the West sits back and watches. With military too strong to allow a successful armed rebellion, their governments can rest assured that despite what may be going on, they will presumably be able to stand and make it though this.

"Make it through" to what, exactly? Where is the light at the end of this tunnel? These countries have people too, and more people are going more hungry in these countries, leading to more anger against the government.

As far as America is concerned, right now the system is holding. Considering all the land that this nation has to grow things, I personally find it hard to believe our food prices are spiking as they are, but we'll leave that to conspiracy theories and traders looking to make a killing in the futures markets.

The signs of trouble are there, however. The number of people below the poverty line in America is growing. 28 million Americans - more than 10% of the available workforce - are now on food stamps, and their numbers are increasing as well. Food stamps being quoted in dollars and not in meals, the spike in prices means stamps aren't going as far as they used to go, either.

It is now becoming apparent that the idea to use biofuels like Brazil has is turning out to be a major mistake for countries like the United States. It turns out that more than driving, Americans also need food.

The penultimate question in all of this, still, is how do we get out of this mess? Rising fuel costs, land gradually becoming less usable because of global warming, converting food growing lands over to fuel growing lands, factory farms squeezing out the little guy which prevents supermarkets from being undercut by local growers who could do a better job at less transportation costs (which would use less fuel), growing populations, growing disparity between the top and the bottom of the economic ladder, the list goes on.

The 1990's were the decade of everything being great, relatively. This decade has been the decade of waking up to reality. The next decade will be a decade of decision. Whether the 2020's are marked by renewed prosperity or a world embroiled in worldwide resource wars and economic depression, well there's only a few more election cycles to put people into positions of power to figure out how that's all going to turn out.

Forget about five dollar gasoline, we should start asking ourselves if we are going to see ten dollar bread in our near future.