Although food prices have decreased slightly in March from the all-time high they hit in February, there have been food riots in Uganda. According to an article in this morning’s New York Times:
Published April 22, 2011
Category: Politics
Published April 14, 2011
World Food Prize Laureates on Food Prices and Political Unrest
Last week, the Des Moines Register ran an article in which they asked a few World Food Prize laureates to discuss food prices.
As regards political unrest, 2003 World Food Prize laureate Catherine Bertini said:
“This is only the beginning.In 2008, over 30 countries had food riots — but those were in thecities, with people not as poor as most farmers, protesting the higherprices they have to pay. In many cases, the governments acted bycontrolling prices, which quieted some crowds, but made the poor farmers poorer. Yet there are almost a billion people, the vast majorityin rural areas, who cannot survive if they are much poorer. Some don’t survive already.”
The article is interesting throughout, as it pretty much encompasses all that one should know about why food prices fluctuate (e.g., climate change and policies encouraging biofuels production), and what the effects of those fluctuations are on the welfare of the poor. I am thinking of using that article as light reading when discussing food policy in my development seminar next fall.