A Worsening Food Crisis

Apr 20, 2008

From Washingtonpost.com

THE WORLD'S most dangerous conflicts stem from religion and ideology -- tragic proof that man does not live by bread alone. But when bread is hard to get, that, too, causes unrest. And lately, it has been very expensive indeed: The World Bank estimates that global food prices have risen 83 percent in the last three years. Hence, food riots in Haiti, Egypt and Ethiopia and the use of troops in Pakistan and Thailand to protect crops and storage centers. Many countries are banning or limiting food exports. World Bank President Robert B. Zoellick says that 33 countries are at risk of food-related upheaval. Famine may revisit North Korea, parts of Africa or, disastrously for U.S. foreign policy, Afghanistan.

世界上最具危险性的冲突来自宗教与意识形态的不同 -- 那些悲剧都向我们表明人们并不能仅靠面包生存。但是，当面包难以得到的时候，同样也会导致动荡的局面。最近，面包价格已经变得十分昂贵了： 世界银行估计在过去 3 年间，全球实物价格已经增长了 83% 。 粮食的飞速上涨已经导致海地，埃及和埃塞俄比亚的粮食暴乱以及巴基斯坦和泰国使用军队保护农作物和存储中心。很多国家禁止或者限制食物的出口。世界银行主席罗伯特 . 佐利克表示有 33 个国家面临粮食上涨的风险。饥荒可能在朝鲜，非洲的局部地区，以及由于美国对外政策所导致灾难性后果的阿富汗地区发生。

To many, the villain is biofuels. U.S. and European ethanol programs, intended as an antidote to climate change and an alternative to OPEC oil, stand accused of snatching food from the world's hungry. According to India's finance minister, ethanol is "a crime against humanity." And it is part of the problem. The more corn becomes ethanol, the less will be available as food for people and livestock. In the U.S. farm belt, heavy ethanol subsidies, such as a tax break of 51 cents a gallon, encourage the shift. These subsidies were already questionable, in economic terms, before the commodity crunch. That they might contribute to hardship for the world's poor is another argument for reducing them.

导致粮食价格上涨很大部分原因是生物燃料 , 特别是为了降低气温升高和找到 OPEC 石油的替代品而发展的美国和欧洲的乙醇项目的生产而导致的世界食物短缺。印度经济部长表示： 乙醇项目完全是对人道主义的犯罪。这是问题的一部分。越来越多的玉米转化成乙醇，提供给人类和牲畜的食物将会越来越少。在美国，农场被赋予巨额的乙醇津贴，比如 一加仑乙醇将有 51 美分的减税，以支持生产。这些补贴已经收到质疑，用金融术语来说，在商品短缺以前。这将加重世界的贫穷而不是减轻它。

But ethanol's impact should not be overstated. The International Food Policy Research Institute, which is critical of ethanol, pins about 25 to 33 percent of the recent price rise on biofuels; the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization guesses about 10 to 15 percent. Most of the crisis is rooted in three other factors: drought in grain-exporting Australia; the surging price of crude oil, which raises food prices through the costs of shipping and petrochemical fertilizer; and booming demand for food in China, India and other newly prosperous areas of the developing world. These areas consume not only more staples such as rice and wheat but also more meat from animals fed on grain. This trend is here to stay -- and, unlike Australian drought or oil inflation, no one should want it to go away. Lifting hundreds of millions of Asians out of poverty is a historic achievement.

责任编辑:zhaotingting