Sciences au Sud n°44 - April-May-June 2008
June 2008
Hunger returns
The current food crisis is the expression of a maladjustment between supply and demand seen in trends operating at global and regional scales. It is illustrated by a
60% increase in the FAO food price index over just one year and a strong upsurge in the price of cereals and dairy products. Current prices show in part the impact of speculation, probably fuelled by cash investments reoriented from a difficult property sector. However, they also reflect some deeply serious trends: population pressure and accelerating urbanization; growth of the emergent countries and strong surge in demand from middle classes, cost increases linked to the oil crisis, competition from biofuels, climatic hazards (Australian cereal production has for example collapsed after six consecutive years of drought) and, over the longer term, the still uncertain impact of global warming on agricultural production, which the journal Science reviews in its February issue.
