Fire in the Belly

The world is holding a summit in Rome, on the serious food crisis we are facing. There was also a summit held in early May in Nicaragua, and in late May in Mexico. Not much news trickled back to us, so I started looking. It's no wonder, there was news not making this worst administration ever happy. The truckling press ignored it.

In Nicaragua, a resolution was passed that would revive agricultural reform, an activity that included confiscating land used for commerce, not local foodstuffs. Even our friend, President Oscar Arias of Costa Rica, addressed the U.S. role which has been minimal.

Ralph Gonsalves, the prime minister of the Caribbean island of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, also blamed the US for his country's fisheries-based food crisis. Mr. Gonsalves said that US-produced global warming has increased the ocean's temperature and driven the fish to deeper waters, where they are harder to net by island fishermen. Plus, he said, hurricanes and tropical storms, which wreak havoc on lobster and shrimp populations on sea beds, are also a result of global warming caused by US pollution.

Even Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, who ultimately refused to sign the ALBA-sympathizing resolution, couldn't help but voice his own criticism of the US when it was his turn at the microphone.

The former Nobel Peace laureate said he "couldn't understand" how the United States would offer only $1 billion in food aid to the world, when they spend that much in half a week on the war in Iraq.

"This is the wrong action because their values are wrong," Mr. Arias said of the US offer to help.

In total, 12 countries signed on to the final summit resolution, which, among other things, pledges Venezuela to provide $100 million in agricultural assistance from the so-called Bank of ALBA. Signatories included Nicaragua, Bolivia, Ecuador, Honduras, Venezuela, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Haiti, Guatemala, Mexico, Belize, and the Dominican Republic. (Emphasis added.)

Damage to the U.S. position in the world has been irremediably committed by the occupied White House, not least because of its devotion of our money to warmongering.

The present summit in Rome is examining the role not just of global warming, but also of the greed-driven trading in food commodities.

“It is an outrage that poor people are paying for decades of policy mistakes such as the lack of investment in agriculture and the dismantling of support for smallholder farmers,” said Magdalena Kropiwnicka, food policy analyst with ActionAid.

“This year, the food import bill for developing countries is expected to rise by 40 per cent and in some cases such as Haiti, Eritrea and Burundi, the impact is catastrophic because of their high reliance on food and fuel imports as well as high levels of existing under-nourishment.

“Many families in poor countries are already spending well over three quarters of their income on food. They are unable to cope as prices continue to rise. In the Gambia right now the monthly income of a poor family will not even pay for one bag of rice.

“ActionAid is seeing children being withdrawn from school, HIV positive people going without essential medical care and women limiting themselves to near-starvation rations.

“And as women tend to eat least and eat last, and have few if any assets to fall back on, they will suffer most from malnutrition and destitution as prices continue to rise.”

As part of its HungerFREE campaign, Kropiwnicka said: “This is the moment to embark on a new path, putting sustainable, smallholder farming at the forefront of a plan to achieve food security, and taking steps to guarantee access to land, seeds and water for the most vulnerable and impoverished rural groups, especially women.”

Policies contributing to soaring food prices include targets and subsidies for biofuels in the US and Europe, as well as regulatory loopholes encouraging dramatically increased speculation on agricultural commodity futures, added Kropiwnicka.

While I have talked previously about our own dilemma, and planting a garden in my own yard, there is growing desperation in much of the world. The hurricane season is upon us in more ways than one.


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MotherJones on McCain's environmental record is worth a peek -

The gop nominee isn't generally known for an atrocious record on the environment—until recently. While McCain has pioneered greenhouse gas legislation, last year he received a stunning zero rating on the environment from the League of Conservation Voters. The goose egg came because McCain missed every single environmentally relevant vote—including one to break a filibuster over the inclusion of an rps in the 2007 energy bill. And this year, McCain was the only senator who failed to vote on a version of the economic-stimulus bill that included tax incentives for clean energy. The clean-energy bill failed to overcome a filibuster by just one vote. That could have been McCain's.