Monday, May 05, 2008

Causes of the Food Crisis

There are a number of reasons for the ongoing food crisis, that has set off riots in such disparate places like Haiti, Cairo, Cameroon, Senegal, and Bangladesh. A few of the key reason are:

-Bad weather

-Decline in agricultural investment by governments

-Opening of markets in a variety of countries b/c of various trade agreements that have hurt small farmers and favored international agribusiness

-Rising “protein” demands of large populations in India and China

-fertilizer shortages

-the higher price of oil

-the transfer of countless acres of farmland from the growing of food to the production of bio-fuels