Food, Politics, and Violence by SANDRA

Throughout 2007, riots have exploded across the globe, from peasants in Mexico protesting high corn prices, to rioters burning cars, boutiques, and looting WFP food warehouses here at home in Mauritania as recently as November. If you ask anyone in Nouakchott, in the south or the interior of the country they can confirm the steady rise of basic food items such as wheat products and rice. Burkina Faso is still reeling following the spread of food riots through three major town centres as an angry population-turned-mob protested the continuing rise in food and petrol prices. Political analysts speculate that the origins of the current and ongoing civil unrest in Pakistan is due in partly to the flare-up of food prices in recent months and their subsequent impact on popular (and unpopular) politics prior to the recent elections and ensuing violence. In every case above and many others, violence has played a major role.

Historically speaking, rapid rises in food prices have led to attempted (and successful) coups, social revolutions, mass killings along ethnic lines, mob violence, and civil war. The availability of food to the general populace represents the underpinning of local and global economies and a requisite for stability– if the average man or woman cannot eat, then the political and social reality will inevitably begin to deteriorate.

At present, rising oil and energy prices, climate change, food-for-fuel economic policies and the rapidly growing economies of China and India are directly driving food prices upwards. Oil prices, as a diminishing resource, have risen to beyond $109 per barrel, affecting the entire value supply chain of food-related goods and services, such as transportation – a key factor for us, as Mauritania imports over 70% of it’s food needs. The rising price of these food imports is already affecting us much more acutely because of the added transportation cost. Ironically, the panic over rising oil prices has led to many misled energy policies in countries like the United States, where foods such as corn are literally being burned (as fuel) to accommodate ever-increasing energy needs. In an economy that provides 30% of the world’s wheat supply, this creates competition for farmland that is increasingly being used to grow corn that will be converted and then burned as ethanol fuel, diminishing wheat exports.

The growing economies of India and China have created a new, growing middle class, and with it, a growing demand for food: in China, meat consumption (consisting mainly of cereal-fed livestock) has risen from 20kg per capita in 1980 to 50kg per capita today. Similarly, the demand for meat has risen in North America and Western Europe, another significant contributor to rising food prices because of the way in which modern livestock is grain-fed – up to 2,000 litres of water is required to produce 1kg of wheat, and up to 13,000 litres of water is required to produce 1kg of beef, creating an outrageously large strain on global resources such as arable cropland and the freshwater supplies used to irrigate the crops that we rely on each day. The expansion of the world’s population is compounding this pressure on the earth’s resources, creating intense international competition for basic goods such as cereal products. At roughly 6.6 billion people today, the world’s population is expected to continue to rise and reach 9.2 billion by 2050. This has led governments in the developing and developed world alike – especially in countries like this one, where the land simply cannot meet food demands – scrambling to find a secure means to feed their people in the near future. We must be reminded also that this is a future that we will live to see.

Drawing a bit from the previous week’s article, the question of climate change affects food prices as well, and at a more extreme rate in countries such as Mauritania who, limited in their agricultural production, suffer from rising rates of desertification as migrating dunes consume farmland over the years, temperatures rise, and drought periods become longer and more severe. Floods, such as those that we witnessed in Tintane in August, will continue to increase in severity as the land becomes less and less able to absorb rainfall, leading to further crop destruction and an increased reliance on imported foods whose prices are quickly rising beyond the means of the popular pocketbook.

It is easy enough to throw out statistics and take an alarmist standpoint. However, the real focus should be on raising popular awareness and encouraging real people to use this crisis to call for a more inclusive and accountable politics that will address the problem as well as the people who are primarily affected: the urban and rural poor, small entrepreneurs, and a lower middle class that is facing increasing household income insecurity and therefore included in the section of the population that should be pushing for political action and change. This is not to say that we should leave these matters in the hands of politicians; they are much too profound and urgent to do so. Community dialogue and local strategies to deal with diminishing food supplies and rising prices should be pursued (like community food reserves and contingency planning).

For every step we take towards collective action, we are taking two steps back from the social violence that results when action is neglected and choices diminish. We must remind one another that action and cooperation - not violence - is the path we should take.