Rotimi Fasan
15 April 2008
column
Lagos — Would it be alarmist to ask if the world is entering a period of hunger, reminiscent of Biblical era, which was up until now only known in the poorer regions of the world?
Not if you've been following news of food shortage in many parts of the world. If available information is not to be taken with a grain of salt, the phase of hunger into which the world has apparently entered has come a long way-at least as long as in the last seven years.
The consequences are only becoming manifest in the last couple of months. Compounding the matter is the fear that the world is also on the verge of a major recession, the likes of which has not been known in decades.
The crisis in the American housing sector, whose knock-on effect is being felt in major economies around the world, has no doubt heightened fears of the global economic crisis.
It's part of the drawback of a globalised economy that the penalty for non-performing housing loans extended in dubious circumstances to investors, many of whom would not live within their means, should be extended to others in other parts of the world who were neither beneficiaries of the loans nor knew anything of it.
Which is not the same thing as saying that the Nigerian economy has been affected by the bust-up in the American economy.
At least not in any sense that the rest of us civilians, not privy to the expert thinking of the eggheads in the Central Bank, know or can make meaning of.
The Nigerian economy appears to operate outside the common code prevalent in other parts of the world. Save for occasional rumbles in the Niger-Delta involving militants disrupting oil production, the Nigerian economy hardly shows on the world economic radar.
Not inappropriately, it doesn't reflect happenings outside its shores either.
Perhaps this should not be surprising for, despite all the noise about keying into the world economy through so-called mega-banks, ours is still a small economy and what goes for banking in these parts is a low form of economic adultery that sees banks all competing for government patronage in one form or another.
Banks survive not by doing business with ordinary people but by patronising the same government that is supposed to create an environment conducive for their activities.
To know what effect the global economy has on the Nigerian economy, therefore, an observer must look at what the Federal Government is doing.
This is why many Nigerians may not know that things in the food sector are not as calm as they may seem and that if matters continue as they are now, it won't be long before many discover they can no longer eat.
True, many Nigerians are already living from hand to mouth, surviving on less than $1 a day, the benchmark for poverty. But somehow they manage, tiding over each day on the benevolence of family members and friends.
But soon neither the rice nor bread, among other food, they have for long taken for granted would be affordable any more. The reason is that there has been, since 2000, a steady rise in the price of food.
This is the message from such bodies as the World Bank, the Food and Agricultural Organisation and the World Food Programme among others.
The result of this is that many of the world's leading exporters of food have reduced their activities in this area due to domestic demands. Worst affected are such food crops as rice, wheat and soy beans among others.
As I write this there have been riotings over increasing costs of food in places as far apart as Haiti and Mauritania to parts of Asia where rice is a staple food. Ivory Coast, Senegal, Egypt, Burkina Faso and even South Africa have lately rumbled over food prices.
And only weeks ago, the Nigeria government had to deplete the country's strategic grain reserve by 56,000 tons to take care of immediate needs in parts of the country, particularly the north, where shortage of grain had been most acute.
In a sense, the world might have fallen victim of its own prosperity. Improved wages in many parts of the world have seen many people increasing the quantity of food they buy and this has, in turn, led to inflation in the food sector.
The possession of money cannot guarantee food any more. Fact is that there are now more mouths to be fed as world population has also increased, no doubt, a consequence of improved standards of living.
But poor yields owing to adverse weather conditions have also affected food production in many countries. This is clearly the case in Nigeria.
The fact of the shortage, outside farming circles, might not have become obvious, due, perhaps, to government's own quiet, fire fighting strategies.
It may be necessary to ask how long more the government can hold out before things blow up in our collective face? More appropriately, what is government doing, beyond reaching into the strategic reserve, to address the situation?
There's every reason for these questions to be asked now, because in a country like ours, where the poor majority justifiably feel abandoned by the government, the only thing keeping them from the streets are the crumbs of food that go to their tables at the end of each day.
Where these are no longer available, the consequences could be dire.
A responsible government would look ahead and find a way to address this. Considering this country's economy had survived on agriculture before the discovery of crude oil, it may not at all be a bad idea for government to take urgent and immediate steps to give necessary support to make this sector answer to the immediate and future needs of Nigerians.
Read comments. Write your own.
Copyright © 2008 Vanguard. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
The global food crisis is escalating at an alarming rate. When millions of people are already hungry, we must all look for solutions urgently.
I live in Australia, and about 20 years ago 2 Australian men came up with the idea of having small, no-dig, ecologically friendly and self-sufficient organic gardens, which could be made virtually anywhere. They called this idea "Permaculture".
When the USA blockaded food to Cuba, and after the crash of the Soviet Union which resulted in the loss of oil, these two men travelled to Cuba. When the Australian permaculturists came to Cuba they set up the first permaculture demonstration project with a $26,000 grant from the Cuban government.
This is how bad things became: "Try to image an airplane suddenly losing its engines. It was really a crash," Jorge Mario, a Cuban economist, told the documentary crew. A crash that put Cuba into a state of shock. There were frequent blackouts in its oil-fed electric power grid, up to 16 hours per day. The average daily caloric intake in Cuba dropped by a third.
According to a report on Cuba from Oxfam, an international development and relief agency, "In the cities, buses stopped running, generators stopped producing electricity, factories became silent as graveyards. Obtaining enough food for the day became the primary activity for many, if not most, Cubans." (Quoted from the linked article).
Here is a link to this information: The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil http://globalpublicmedia.com/articles/657
The results in Cuba have been spectacular. Everything in this article outlines what we will need to do in order to survive in the future, not just about food, but about the peak oil crisis the practicalities of daily living.
Cuba should serve as a model for the rest of us in the troubling times ahead. We should start now, before millions more people die.
I have only just found out that there was a Permaculture Course completed in Liberia, by Warren Brush, and here is a link to the Blog: http://web.mac.com/warrenbrush/iWeb/Site/African%20Journeys/African%20Journ eys.html
May we learn in time...