The Middle East – can oil solve everything?

The Middle East invokes thoughts of a dark and mysterious corner of the globe where war, terror and chaos reign supreme and oil is the centre of their existence. Have you ever stopped to think about the effect the current financial and food crisis is having on third world countries other than Africa. I certainly didn’t, not until I read The Memri Economic Blog by Dr Nimrod Raphaeli.

 

Did you know that in the Middle East water availability is 1200 cubic metres per person per year, as opposed to the average person’s 8900 cubic metres per person per year AND this is expected to halve by the year 2050? Population growth, famine and desertification have all taken its toll on the area and water tables are being used with no option of being replenished. A water shortage is almost the same as an oxygen shortage, except the latter would take about a 13^th of the time to wipe out the planet and it would make the current food crisis redundant. But I digress.

 

Essentially the current Middle Eastern situation is as follows: they have little to no arable land, are running out of water and without any ‘safety nets’ for the current crises, the most vulnerable people are dying of hunger. Their only option is to use the one thing they have – oil profits – to buy what they need from those who have. The member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and Oman) are involved in talks to buy farmland from countries like Sudan, Pakistan and Thailand. If this materialises, however, there could be some severe political consequences.

We all know exactly what land disputes have done to the world in the past and Jacques Diouf, the Director General of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warns against this course of action. He says that land purchases made in such an absolute manner could initiate unrest in these countries where they are battling enough to feed their own citizens. Diouf added, “I have no problem with Arabs doing the investment. Where I start getting worried is [a situation in which investors] rush and buy land all over the place. Land is a political hot potato.”

  

With the financial and food crisis bringing the world to its knees, I wait in anticipation of what move the Middle East decides to make – territorial conflict really would be the cherry on top.

GM Foods: Friend or Foe?

12 years ago it seemed that the debate had been laid to rest – genetically modified (GM) food is ‘Frankenstein food’. Dangerous for both health and the environment, never-mind perpetuating capitalism, GM was an option to be ignored. Is it, however, time to reconsider the decision? GM crops provide greater yield for the same area and uses less pesticides and fertilizers, hugely decreasing food costs and subsequently demand.

 

Over a decade down the line, the most crippling food crisis in more than a generation is sweeping the globe leaving millions starving and undernourished with people spending the money intended for education and healthcare on basic food stuffs – essentially being denied other basic human rights to simply survive. Does this not make it an ideal time to engage with food production alternatives that will ultimately alleviate the effects of this crisis?

 

A number of countries have embraced GM and as of yet no environmental and health problems have been reported. The majority of American consumers feed themselves with GM products and, apart from eating far too much (hence the obesity crisis in the country), there have been no health problems to speak of. While it would be an understatement for me to say that eating food that is not entirely food doesn’t ‘go down well’,  it is imperative to look at the facts: either we continue to let thousands and thousands of innocent people die of starvation or we make use of science. With good there will always be bad, but in this case it’s not an excuse.  

How wide does the gap need to be?

 

Habitat for Humanity is an international organisation whose aim is to house the homeless. I am a member of the Rhodes University Chapter of the organisation in Grahamstown and we are in the process of building our main project for the year, an extension for the Jabez Centre in Joza Township, a centre that assists HIV/AIDS sufferers in the area. As is expected in South Africa, there’s a massive social and economic divide between the township and the suburban, middle-class areas. Having spent time in Joza the sheer desperation in this impoverished area is deflating my white middle-class bubble at a rapid rate. With the global food crisis as the central theme for this blog, I began to wonder about the disparity between the effects of the crisis on the people living in these two areas. I asked a number of students in Grahamstown what they knew about the current food crisis and was shocked that the general response was “I know there is one, but it’s not really a problem here.”

 

This begs the question: When are middle- and upper-class consumers going to realise the extent of this problem and that if we don’t proactively work towards a solution, the crisis will get exponentially worse?

 

On the 11 of September 2001, the United States of America was the victim of a terrorist attack which became part of a greater terrorist crisis. The response to this crisis was to declare war. There was no time wasted in actively combating the crisis, to the extent that there is still a war raging because of it – 8 years later. For four years, however, the global food crisis has been getting progressively worse, forcing millions into poverty and starvation daily. To my mind, world powers have been quiet and complacent in response, leaving the most vulnerable to fend for themselves. Everyday 16 500 children die of malnutrition. This is more than 5 times the number of deaths in September 11. To make it worse, this is only children under the age of 5. 

 

If this does not shock people into action, I seriously dont’ know what will.

 

Does First World country mean first class coward?

While researching the reasons for and long term and short term effects of the current world food crisis, I came upon some statistics and information headed “Rich countries wrongly play down impact of Biofuels“.  ”Rich countries”, translated, is the United States of America, where the current president contests the fact that biofuels have contributed to more than 3% of the global food price increase. In a confidential World Bank report, however, it states that plant-derived fuels have forced food prices to rise by 75%. President Bush’s understanding of our global emergency is that the USA’s contributing role in this crisis has been minimal, while attributing the rising food prices to the growing demand in China and India.

Again, however, the World Bank report blatantly disputes Bush’s reasons for the hike in prices, stating that the increase in global grain consumption wasn’t a primary factor, that it’s not responsible for the excessive rise in prices. Currently more than one third of US corn crops goes to biofuels with the EU using more than half of its vegetable oil for the same purpose.

The most shocking fact here is not that the production of biofuels is such a major contributor to the food crisis, but the fact that first world countries are not stepping up to the plate to accept responsibility and, frankly, it reminds me of the way people in high school deal with problems. It is not all that comforting to think that the most powerful people in politics are cowards who refuse to look the starving masses in the eye. Perhaps though, we should be more sympathetic, because I know I would have a problem with telling the world that the primary cause of the most severe food crisis in over a generation could be found in the blood on my hands.

Some food for thought…

We, as citizens of the world, are in the midst of a global food crisis. In the past four years the cost of basic foods has increased by almost 100%, forcing over 100-million people into poverty. What BBC News refers to as a “a silent tsunami sweeping the world” has been attributed to four (debatable) primary factors:

• 1. Bio fuels: agricultural land has been cut to make way for what many thought to be a scientific saviour. With more and more land being used to grow food for cars, more and more people are falling into the grips of famine.
• 2. Global Warming: the dramatic climate changes that our planet is experiencing have, naturally, had dramatic effects. With area of fertile soil and available fresh water resources disappearing at an incredible rate and countries like Australia experiencing its worst drought in 117 years, levels of food production are slipping very quickly.
• 3. High fuel prices: this hikes up the transport of food, the cost of fertilizers and industrial agriculture which equals a massive in the price of food.
• 4. Demand for meat: for some reason the masses in China and India have taken to the taste of meat, a most uneconomical product since it takes 50 kg of grain to produce 1 kg of meat.

While we may dismiss the extreme effects of this crisis as something that only happens in poverty-stricken African countries, we cannot afford to keep our heads buried in the bread basket any longer. It is no longer just a problem for governments to solve; complacency is not an option, we need to be pro-active if we want to witness the change. Keep reading if you want to know how.