Food Shortages

[Christina]

April 21, 2008By Justin Norrie, TokyoThe AgeJapan Food Shortage A Dire WarningMARIKO Watanabe admits she could have chosen a better time to take up baking. This week, when the Tokyo housewife visited her local Ito-Yokado supermarket to buy butter to make a cake, she found the shelves bare."I went to another supermarket, and then another, and there was no butter at those either. Everywhere I went there were notices saying Japan has run out of butter. I couldn't believe it — this is the first time in my life I've wanted to try baking cakes and I can't get any butter," said the frustrated cook.Japan's acute butter shortage, which has confounded bakeries, restaurants and now families across the country, is the latest unforeseen result of the global agricultural commodities crisis.A sharp increase in the cost of imported cattle feed and a decline in milk imports, both of which are typically provided in large part by Australia, have prevented dairy farmers from keeping pace with demand.While soaring food prices have triggered rioting among the starving millions of the third world, in wealthy Japan they have forced a pampered population to contemplate the shocking possibility of a long-term — perhaps permanent — reduction in the quality and quantity of its food.A 130% rise in the global cost of wheat in the past year, caused partly by surging demand from China and India and a huge injection of speculative funds into wheat futures, has forced the Government to hit flour millers with three rounds of stiff mark-ups. The latest — a 30% increase this month — has given rise to speculation that Japan, which relies on imports for 90% of its annual wheat consumption, is no longer on the brink of a food crisis, but has fallen off the cliff.According to one government poll, 80% of Japanese are frightened about what the future holds for their food supply.Last week, as the prices of wheat and barley continued their relentless climb, the Japanese Government discovered it had exhausted its ¥230 billion ($A2.37 billion) budget for the grains with two months remaining. It was forced to call on an emergency ¥55 billion reserve to ensure it could continue feeding the nation."This was the first time the Government has had to take such drastic action since the war," said Akio Shibata, an expert on food imports, who warned the Agriculture Ministry two years ago that Japan would have to cut back drastically on its sophisticated diet if it did not become more self-sufficient.In the wake of the decision this week by Kazakhstan, the world's fifth biggest wheat exporter, to join Russia, Ukraine and Argentina in stopping exports to satisfy domestic demand, the situation in Japan is expected to worsen.Bakeries, forced to increase prices by up to 30% in the past year, are warning that the trend will continue. Manufacturers of miso, a culinary staple, are preparing to pass on the bump in costs caused by the rising price of soybeans and cooking oil. And the nation's largest brewer, Kirin, is lifting beer prices for the first time in almost two decades to account for the soaring cost of barley."In the past, Japan was a rich country with a powerful yen that could easily buy cheap imports such as wheat, corn and soybeans," said Mr Shibata, who directs the Marubeni Research Institute in Tokyo. "But with enormous competition from the booming Chinese and Indian economies, that's changed forever. You also need to take into account recent developments, including the damage to crops caused by drought and other disasters in exporting countries like Australia," where the value of wheat exports has tumbled from $3.49 billion to $2.77 billion in the past three years.The situation has been compounded by a surge in demand for bio-fuels such as ethanol, made from maize, encouraging farmers around the world to divert their efforts away from wheat and barley and into maize, further driving up prices.Arguably Japan's biggest concern, however, is its weakening ability to sustain its population with domestic produce. In 2006 the country's self-sufficiency rate fell to 39%, according to the Agriculture Ministry. It was only the second time since the ministry began keeping records in 1960 that the population derived less than 40% of its daily calorie intake from domestically grown food.Shinichi Shogenji, dean of the University of Tokyo's graduate school of agricultural and life sciences, said Japan's meat consumption had increased by 900% since 1955, in part because expanding incomes had enabled families to supplement the sparse national diet of rice, fish and miso soup with more Western-style food.This trend, combined with rapid ageing and declining rural populations, had placed the country's self-sufficiency at a perilously low level, Professor Shogenji said.In view of recent predictions by Goldman Sachs analysts that commodities could experience "explosive rallies" in the next two years, many are wondering if Japan could become an example to other rich nations that have relied too much on foreign supplies to put food on their tables.http://business.theage.com.au/japans-hunge...80420-27ey.html

 

[RaddSpencer]

It seems that we would not have a food shortage. If the dollar is going down, food from the US should be cheaper. Why is the food from the US not bridging the gap?

 

[Christina]

Because we are down on food also the UN issued a warning today that World food supplies are in dangerthen theres this guy who says the end is neighhttp://www.stuff.co.nz/dominionpost/4486929a6551.html

 

[Christina]

The story headline in the NY Sun this morning is: "Food Rationing Confronts Breadbasket of the World" and it recounts how stores in many parts of the country are limiting "purchases of flour, rice, and cooking oil as demand outstrips supply." http://www2.nysun.com/article/74994(You may have trouble with the link - because as you might expect, mentioning Rationing in America has apparently gotten their servers slammed at the NY Sun...)

 

[Christina]

Let Them Eat Cake: Famine and Revolution Go Hand in HandApril 22, 2008Richard PalmerArizona Daily StarIn Paris they wanted blood. In the mid-afternoon, July 14, 1789, the mob marched on the Bastille. By the end of the day the revolutionaries had their first major victory. France was on the road toward a bloody revolution. A few years later, Napoleon Bonaparte strode across the continent of Europe.Photo: Egyptians protest rising food prices earlier this year in Cairo. The government is being blamed for bread shortages in the country. (Khaled Desoukia/ AFP/ Getty)The mob in Petrograd was also in a violent mood. What started out as a bread riot brought about the death of an entire royal family. The mighty Russian empire crumbled into dust and the Soviet Union rose from its ruins.Two of the most momentous revolutions in history took place because of food prices.Food was not the only cause, or even the root cause, of the revolutions—but it was the trigger. Hunger on its own does not cause a people to overthrow their rulers. But it does tend to convince people who are already dissatisfied with their lives that something must be done, and it must be done now.The two years before the French Revolution saw two bad harvests. In the year before the revolution, bread prices rose by 88 percent. High taxes meant the poor could not afford to eat. In Russia, food shortages due to World War i led to strikes, protests and mobs marching through the streets shouting “We want bread” in 1917.Russian anarchist Peter Kropotkin, who was an adviser to the Russian government after the bread riots, believed “that famine is essential to any revolution, and that it is to be welcomed because it drives the hungry to cooperate with the revolutionaries,” according to the New York Times.The fact that famine can lead to revolution is well known to militant socialists. The World Socialist Web Site gleefully proclaims that a food crisis “is threatening to unleash a revolution of the hungry that could topple governments across large parts of the world.”Now the Trumpet is not predicting a global sweep toward communism as famine forces comrades around the world to unite. No—but a global food crisis could cause, and in fact already is causing, political instability around the world.Today, food prices have risen around 40 percent in less than a year worldwide. Haiti has made headlines with food riots there leading to the ousting of Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis.Haiti is not alone. Bangladesh, Cambodia, Ivory Coast, Bolivia, Peru, Mexico, Indonesia, the Philippines, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Thailand, Yemen and Ethiopia, to name a few, have all had food protests and demonstrations.One of the most significant countries to experience instability is Egypt. Earlier this month, thousands of protestors “torched buildings, looted shops and hurled bricks at police,” according to the Associated Press. Nearly 100 were arrested and a 15-year-old boy was killed. The protesters tore down a billboard of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, whose popularity may well have sunk to an all-time low.While the government is hated and being blamed for the bread shortages, the radical Muslim Brotherhood is on the streets handing out food. Could a regime change be on the horizon?In his booklet The King of the South, first published in 1996, Gerald Flurry forecasts a “far-reaching change in Egyptian politics,” and that Egypt will be allied with the king of the south, or Iran. Bible prophecy indicates Egypt will turn to radical Islam. The rise of the Muslim Brotherhood may bring this about.Could food riots help bring the Muslim Brotherhood to power? They’ve certainly led to revolutions in the past. Even if they don’t, high food prices won’t help Mubarak’s government maintain order.Egypt may not be alone. Food shortages could tip people in other nations to the point of rebellion. The examples of Russia and France show that when people start to riot over food, it is often extreme governments that get into power. http://www.thetrumpet.com/index.php?q=5064.3336.0.0994

 

[Wakka]

All of this crisis and demand is setting up the stage for the A/C. He will come and solve all of the world's problems, and people will worship him.

 

[RaddSpencer]

(kriss;46608)
One of the most significant countries to experience instability is Egypt. Earlier this month, thousands of protestors “torched buildings, looted shops and hurled bricks at police,” according to the Associated Press. Nearly 100 were arrested and a 15-year-old boy was killed. The protesters tore down a billboard of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, whose popularity may well have sunk to an all-time low.
Sounds like a run-of-the-mill, average day in my town

. The crime can be bad sometimes XD.

 

[Letsgofishing]

African countries are in famine, Japans out of butter, prices of food have risen 40%, and the U.N issues the warning. and i have not seen anything of this on the national news. Its tragically hilarious that 82% of America have no clue this is going on but 99% of america know Britney was driving intoxicated last week. American news cracks me up.

 

[followerofchrist]

(Letsgofishing;46622)
African countries are in famine, Japans out of butter, prices of food have risen 40%, and the U.N issues the warning. and i have not seen anything of this on the national news. Its tragically hilarious that 82% of America have no clue this is going on but 99% of america know Britney was driving intoxicated last week. American news cracks me up.
Our news is a joke! I wouldn't even call it news,its celebrity gossip.

 

[jtipton504]

How scary is this?We have not gotten any frenzies going here but with gas prices they way they are, the economy in the shape its in and terror abroad...I'm praying!

 

[Letsgofishing]

Future of America http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/05/05...riot/index.html you have to wonder

 

[bullfighter]

(Letsgofishing;48150)
Future of America http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/05/05...riot/index.html you have to wonder
i heard of the plan 10 years ago,where the US wants the world food cartel in the central states and want to irragate it from both sides with canadian water[the grand canel project.i seen a three d map of this.they will fill the acrifers also..this was presented from the head fund raiser of the mulroney gouvernment.following up on those meeting, thats when we learned of the newyork [wall street bombing 911]that meeting was one year 4 months before 911.also there was more serious garenties.but you would not believe them if i told you[but they have been preparing for a 100 percent battle with germ and chemical warfare that has been planned before 911...[ you should not just believe me let god bring you signs and truths from around you].the minister of defence also said they can not be responsible for all the people and a official in canada said running to the hills would be worse for you.also the US can now quarintine any canadian city and that they have aready camps for civialian terroists ...this is true and planned

 

[gator347]

Legal/Regulatory NewsCongress holds first hearing on soaring food pricesBy Alicia Karapetian on 5/2/2008 for Meatingplace.comUSDA Chief Economist Joseph Glauber told lawmakers on Thursday that increased biofuels production has caused much of the dramatic increase in farm prices for corn and soybeans. Glauber was testifying at a Joint Economic Committee hearing co-chaired by Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) to examine the effect of escalating food prices on American consumers. Other witnesses included George Braley, senior VP of America's Second Harvest, bakery owner Richard Reinwald and Tom Buis, president of the National Farmers Union. Bruis blamed rising food costs on rising oil prices.In his opening statement, Schumer also largely blamed oil prices for the jump in the price of food, but also said, "Beyond increasing energy prices, bio-fuel mandates, global demand and weather issues … may also have some role in raising prices for consumers."The American Meat Institute, along with 18 other signatories, sent an open letter to Schumer and Maloney, calling on Congress to revisit renewable fuels mandates the groups say are leading to a global food crisis.'Crime against humanity'While high food prices are hitting Americans hard, the lack of available food in poorer nations is causing global leaders to worry.President Bush on Thursday called on Congress to approve $770 million in global food aid to help alleviate the threat of widespread hunger due to escalating food prices. Just two weeks ago he ordered the release of $200 million in emergency food aid.The United Nations has set up a task force to address the global food crisis. Though the official who heads the committee, U.N. Undersecretary General for Humanitarian Affairs John Homes, has said the global community should refrain from a "knee-jerk response," to biofuel use, the U.N.'s resident biofuel expert, Jean Ziegler, has called the diversion of food to fuel a "crime against humanity."Targeting biofuelsMeanwhile, some domestic lawmakers have called for changes to the ethanol mandate.Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) is circulating a letter among her fellow senators questioning the Renewable Fuel Standard."Nearly all our domestic corn and grain supply is needed to meet this mandate, robbing the world of one of its most important sources of food," Hutchison said in a statement on her Web site.Texas Governor Rick Perry has also penned a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency administrator requesting a 50 percent cut to the renewable fuel mandate in an effort to ease price pressure for his state's agricultural interests. Texas is the largest cattle producing state and home to the nation's largest poultry processor, Pilgrim's Pride Corp.In the mean time there is a $0.50 per gallon tariff on Brazilian Alcohol for Gasahol

 

[bullfighter]

(gator347;48550)
Legal/Regulatory NewsCongress holds first hearing on soaring food pricesBy Alicia Karapetian on 5/2/2008 for Meatingplace.comUSDA Chief Economist Joseph Glauber told lawmakers on Thursday that increased biofuels production has caused much of the dramatic increase in farm prices for corn and soybeans. Glauber was testifying at a Joint Economic Committee hearing co-chaired by Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) to examine the effect of escalating food prices on American consumers. Other witnesses included George Braley, senior VP of America's Second Harvest, bakery owner Richard Reinwald and Tom Buis, president of the National Farmers Union. Bruis blamed rising food costs on rising oil prices.In his opening statement, Schumer also largely blamed oil prices for the jump in the price of food, but also said, "Beyond increasing energy prices, bio-fuel mandates, global demand and weather issues … may also have some role in raising prices for consumers."The American Meat Institute, along with 18 other signatories, sent an open letter to Schumer and Maloney, calling on Congress to revisit renewable fuels mandates the groups say are leading to a global food crisis.'Crime against humanity'While high food prices are hitting Americans hard, the lack of available food in poorer nations is causing global leaders to worry.President Bush on Thursday called on Congress to approve $770 million in global food aid to help alleviate the threat of widespread hunger due to escalating food prices. Just two weeks ago he ordered the release of $200 million in emergency food aid.The United Nations has set up a task force to address the global food crisis. Though the official who heads the committee, U.N. Undersecretary General for Humanitarian Affairs John Homes, has said the global community should refrain from a "knee-jerk response," to biofuel use, the U.N.'s resident biofuel expert, Jean Ziegler, has called the diversion of food to fuel a "crime against humanity."Targeting biofuelsMeanwhile, some domestic lawmakers have called for changes to the ethanol mandate.Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) is circulating a letter among her fellow senators questioning the Renewable Fuel Standard."Nearly all our domestic corn and grain supply is needed to meet this mandate, robbing the world of one of its most important sources of food," Hutchison said in a statement on her Web site.Texas Governor Rick Perry has also penned a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency administrator requesting a 50 percent cut to the renewable fuel mandate in an effort to ease price pressure for his state's agricultural interests. Texas is the largest cattle producing state and home to the nation's largest poultry processor, Pilgrim's Pride Corp.In the mean time there is a $0.50 per gallon tariff on Brazilian Alcohol for Gasahol
to pay more then 70 percent in taxs,we would burn so much less gas .the whole thing is about slavery to the powers ,and dieing hooked on pills after so they have you in every corner of your life.teaching us to prey on each other..wow a world ran by satan ..[but we are in sinful nature also ,so what is the answer;none; just god when he returns]

 

[Christina]

Global FamineHumanity is undergoing in the post-Cold War era an economic and social crisis of unprecedented scale leading to the rapid impoverishment of large sectors of the World population. National economies are collapsing, unemployment is rampant. Local level famines have erupted in Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and parts of Latin America. This "globalization of poverty" --which has largely reversed the achievements of post-war decolonization-- was initiated in the Third World coinciding with the debt crisis of the early 1980s and the imposition of the IMF's deadly economic reforms.The New World Order feeds on human poverty and the destruction of the natural environment. It generates social apartheid, encourages racism and ethnic strife, undermines the rights of women and often precipitates countries into destructive confrontations between nationalities. Since the 1990s, it has extended its grip to all major regions of the World including North America, Western Europe, the countries of the former Soviet block and the "Newly Industrialized Countries" (NICs) of South East Asia and the Far East.This Worldwide crisis is more devastating than the Great Depression of the 1930s. It has far-reaching geo-political implications; economic dislocation has also been accompanied by the outbreak of regional wars, the fracturing of national societies and in some cases the destruction of entire countries. By far this is the most serious economic crisis in modern history. (Michel Chossudovsky, The Globalization of Poverty, First Edition, 1997) IntroductionFamine is the result of a process of "free market" restructuring of the global economy which has its roots in the debt crisis of the early 1980s. It is not a recent phenomenon as suggested by several Western media reports. The latter narrowly focus on short-term supply and demand for agricultural staples, while obfuscating the broader structural causes of global famine.Poverty and chronic undernourishment is a pre-existing condition. The recent hikes in food prices have contributed to exacerbating and aggravating the food crisis. The price hikes are hitting an impoverished population, which has barely the means to survive. Food riots have erupted almost simultaneously in all major regions of the World: "Food prices in Haiti had risen on average by 40 percent in less than a year, with the cost of staples such as rice doubling.... In Bangladesh, [in late April 2008] some 20,000 textile workers took to the streets to denounce soaring food prices and demand higher wages. The price of rice in the country has doubled over the past year, threatening the workers, who earn a monthly salary of just $25, with hunger. In Egypt, protests by workers over food prices rocked the textile center of Mahalla al-Kobra, north of Cairo, for two days last week, with two people shot dead by security forces. Hundreds were arrested, and the government sent plainclothes police into the factories to force workers to work. Food prices in Egypt have risen by 40 percent in the past year... Earlier this month, in the Ivory Coast, thousands marched on the home of President Laurent Gbagbo, chanting “we are hungry” and “life is too expensive, you are going to kill us. Similar demonstrations, strikes and clashes have taken place in Bolivia, Peru, Mexico, Indonesia, the Philippines, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Thailand, Yemen, Ethiopia, and throughout most of sub-Saharan Africa." (Bill Van Auken, Amid mounting food crisis, governments fear revolution of the hungry, Global Research, April 2008)"Eliminating the Poor"With large sectors of the World population already well below the poverty line, the short-term hike in the prices of food staples is devastating. Millions of people around the World are unable to purchase food for their survival These hikes are contributing in a very real sense to "eliminating the poor" through "starvation deaths". In the words of Henry Kissinger: "Control oil and you control nations; control food and you control the people." In this regard, Kissinger had intimated in the context of the 1974 National Security Study Memorandum 200: Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas Interests". that the recurrence of famines could constitute a de facto instrument of population control. According to the FAO, the price of grain staples has increased by 88% since March 2007. The price of wheat has increased by 181% over a three year period. The price of rice has increased by 50% over the last three months (See Ian Angus, Food Crisis: "The greatest demonstration of the historical failure of the capitalist model", Global Research, April 2008): "The most popular grade of Thailand rice sold for $198 a ton, five years ago and $323 a ton a year ago. In April 2008, the price hit $1,000. Increases are even greater on local markets — in Haiti, the market price of a 50 kilo bag of rice doubled in one week at the end of March 2008. These increases are catastrophic for the 2.6 billion people around the world who live on less than US$2 a day and spend 60% to 80% of their incomes on food. Hundreds of millions cannot afford to eat" (Ibid) Two Interrelated DimensionsThere are two interrelated dimensions to the ongoing global food crisis, which has spearheaded millions of people around the World into starvation and chronic deprivation, a situation in which entire population groups no longer have the means to purchase food. First, there is a long term historical process of macroeconomic policy reform and global economic restructuring which has contributed to depressing the standard living Worldwide in both the developing and developed countries. Second, these preexisting historical conditions of mass poverty have been exacerbated and aggravated by the recent surge in grain prices, which have led in some cases to the doubling of the retail price of food staples. These price hikes are in large part the result of speculative trade in food staples. Speculative Surge in Grain PricesThe media has casually misled public opinion on the causes of these price hikes, focusing almost exclusively on issues of costs of production, climate and other factors which result in reduced supply and which might contribute to boosting the price of food staples. While these factors may come into play, they are of limited relevance in explaining the impressive and dramatic surge in commodity prices. Spiraling food prices are in large part the result of market manipulation. They are largely attributable to speculative trade on the commodity markets. Grain prices are boosted artificially by large scale speculative operations on the New York and Chicago mercantile exchanges. It is worth noting that in 2007, the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT), merged with the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), forming the largest Worldwide entity dealing in commodity trade including a wide range of speculative instruments (options, options on futures, index funds, etc). Speculative trade in wheat, rice or corn, can occur without the occurrence of real commodity transactions. The institutions speculating in the grain market are not necessarily involved in the actual selling or delivery of grain. The transactions may use commodity index funds which are bets on the general upward or downward movement of commodity prices. A "put option" is a bet that the price will go down, a "call option" is a bet that the price will go up. Through concerted manipulation, institutional traders and financial institutions make the price go up and then place their bets on an upward movement in the price of a particular commodity. Speculation generates market volatility. In turn, the resulting instability encourages further speculative activity. Profits are made when the price goes up. Conversely, if the speculator is short-selling the market, money will be made when the price collapses. This recent speculative surge in food prices has been conducive to a Worldwide process of famine formation on an unprecedented scale. The Absence of Regulatory Measures Triggers FamineThese speculative operations do not purposely trigger famine. What triggers famine is the absence of regulatory procedures pertaining to speculative trade (options, options on futures, commodity index funds). In the present context, a freeze of speculative trade in food staples, taken as a political decision, would immediately contribute to lower food prices. Nothing prevents these transactions from being neutralized and defused through a set of carefully devised regulatory measures. Visibly, this is not what is being proposed by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The Role of the IMF and the World BankThe World Bank and the IMF have come forth with an emergency plan, to boost agriculture in response to the "food crisis". The causes of this crisis, however, are not addressed. The World Bank's president Robert B. Zoellick describes this initiative as a "new deal", an action plan "for a long-term boost to agricultural production.", which consists inter alia in a doubling of agricultural loans to African farmers. "We have to put our money where our mouth is now so that we can put food into hungry mouths" (Robert Zoellick, World Bank head, quoted by BBC, 2 May 2008)IMF/World Bank "economic medicine" is not the "solution" but in large part the "cause" of famine in developing countries. More IMF-World Bank lending "to boost agriculture" will serve to increase levels of indebtedness and exacerbate rather alleviate poverty. World Bank "policy based loans" are granted on condition the countries abide by the neoliberal policy agenda which, since the early 1980s, has been conducive to the collapse of local level food agriculture. "Macro-economic stabilization" and structural adjustment programs imposed by the IMF and the World Bank on developing countries (as a condition for the renegotiation of their external debt) have led to the impoverishment of hundreds of millions of people. The harsh economic and social realities underlying IMF intervention are soaring food prices, local-level famines, massive lay-offs of urban workers and civil servants and the destruction of social programs. Internal purchasing power has collapsed, health clinics and schools have been closed down, hundreds of millions of children have been denied the right to primary education. IMF Shock TreatmentHistorically, spiraling food prices at the retail level have been triggered by currency devaluations, which have invariably resulted in a hyperinflationary situation. In Peru in August 1990, for instance, on the orders of the IMF, fuel prices increased overnight by 30 times. The price of bread increased twelve times overnight: "Throughout the Third World, the situation is one of social desperation and hopelessness of a population impoverished by the interplay of market forces. Anti-SAP riots and popular uprisings are brutally repressed: Caracas, 1989. President Carlos Andres Perez after having rhetorically denounced the IMF of practicing "an economic totalitarianism which kills not with bullets but with famine", declares a state of emergency and sends regular units of the infantry and the marines into the slum areas (barrios de ranchos) on the hills overlooking the capital. The Caracas anti-IMF riots had been sparked off as a result of a 200 per cent increase in the price of bread. Men, women and children were fired upon indiscriminately: "The Caracas morgue was reported to have up to 200 bodies of people killed in the first three days ... and warned that it was running out of coffins". Unofficially more than a thousand people were killed. Tunis, January 1984: the bread riots instigated largely by unemployed youth protesting the rise of food prices; Nigeria, 1989: the anti-SAP student riots leading to the closing of six of the country’s universities by the Armed Forces Ruling Council; Morocco, 1990: a general strike and a popular uprising against the government’s IMF-sponsored reforms." (Michel Chossudovsky, op cit.)The Deregulation of Grain MarketsSince the 1980s, grain markets have been deregulated under the supervision of the World Bank and US/EU grain surpluses are used systematically to destroy the peasantry and destabilize national food agriculture. In this regard, World Bank lending requires the lifting of trade barriers on imported agricultural staples, leading to the dumping of US/EU grain surpluses onto local market. These and other measures have spearheaded local agricultural producers into bankruptcy. A "free market" in grain --imposed by the IMF and the World Bank-- destroys the peasant economy and undermines "food security". Malawi and Zimbabwe were once prosperous grain surplus countries, Rwanda was virtually self-sufficient in food until 1990 when the IMF ordered the dumping of EU and US grain surpluses on the domestic market precipitating small farmers into bankruptcy. In 1991-92, famine had hit Kenya, East Africa's most successful bread-basket economy. The Nairobi government had been previously placed on a black list for not having obeyed IMF prescriptions. The deregulation of the grain market had been demanded as one of the conditions for the rescheduling of Nairobi's external debt with the Paris Club of official creditors. (Michel Chossudovsky, The Globalization of Poverty and the New World Order, Second Edition, Montreal 2003) Throughout Africa, as well as in Southeast Asia and Latin America, the pattern of "sectoral adjustment" in agriculture under the custody of the Bretton Woods institutions has been unequivocally towards the destruction of food security. Dependency vis-à-vis the world market has been reinforced leading to a boost in commercial grain imports as well as an increase in the influx of "food aid". Agricultural producers were encouraged to abandon food farming and switch into "high value" export crops. often to the detriment of food self-sufficiency. The high value products as well as the cash crops for export were supported by World Bank loans. Famines in the age of globalization are the result of policy. Famine is not the consequence of a scarcity of food but in fact quite the opposite: global food surpluses are used to destabilize agricultural production in developing countries. Tightly regulated and controlled by international agro-business, this oversupply is ultimately conducive to the stagnation of both production and consumption of essential food staples and the impoverishment of farmers throughout the world. Moreover, in the era of globalization, the IMF-World Bank structural adjustment program bears a direct relationship to the process of famine formation because it systematically undermines all categories of economic activity, whether urban or rural, which do not directly serve the interests of the global market system.The earnings of farmers in rich and poor countries alike are squeezed by a handful of global agro-industrial enterprises which simultaneously control the markets for grain, farm inputs, seeds and processed foods. One giant firm Cargill Inc. with more than 140 affiliates and subsidiaries around the World controls a large share of the international trade in grain. Since the 1950s, Cargill became the main contractor of US "food aid" funded under Public Law 480 (1954).World agriculture has for the first time in history the capacity to satisfy the food requirements of the entire planet, yet the very nature of the global market system prevents this from occurring. The capacity to produce food is immense yet the levels of food consumption remain exceedingly low because a large share of the World's population lives in conditions of abject poverty and deprivation. Moreover, the process of "modernization" of agriculture has led to the dispossession of the peasantry, increased landlessness and environmental degradation. In other words, the very forces which encourage global food production to expand are also conducive antithetically to a contraction in the standard of living and a decline in the demand for food. Genetically Modified SeedsCoinciding with the establishment the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995, another important historical change has occurred in the structure of global agriculture. Under the articles of agreement of the World Trade Organization (WTO)), the food giants will have unrestricted freedom to enter the seeds markets of developing countries. The acquisition of exclusive "intellectual property rights" over plant varieties by international agro-industrial interests, also favors the destruction of bio-diversity.Acting on behalf of a handful of biotech conglomerates, GMO seeds have been imposed on farmers, often in the context of "food aid programs". In Ethiopia, for instance, kits of GMO seeds were handed out to impoverished farmers with a view to rehabilitating agricultural production in the wake of a major drought . The GMO seeds were planted, yielding a harvest. But then the farmer came to realize that the GMO seeds could not be replanted without paying royalties to Monsanto, Arch Daniel Midland et al. Then, the farmers discovered that the seeds would harvest only if they used the farm inputs including the fertilizer, insecticide and herbicide, produced and distributed by the biotech agribusiness companies. Entire peasant economies were locked into the grip of the agribusiness conglomerates. Breaking The Agricultural CycleWith the widespread adoption of GMO seeds, a major transition has occurred in the structure and history of settled agriculture since its inception 10,000 years ago. The reproduction of seeds at the village level in local nurseries has been disrupted by the use of genetically modified seeds. The agricultural cycle, which enables farmers to store their organic seeds and plant them to reap the next harvest has been broken. This destructive pattern – invariably resulting in famine – is replicated in country after country leading to the Worldwide demise of the peasant economy.