Who missed the food crisis?

THONY BELIZAIRE/AFP/Getty Images It’s good to see that the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the Group of Seven are finally calling for action on the global food crisis that is stirring up political and social turmoil in some 33 countries, per the World Bank’s count. Haiti’s riotous food crisis has already claimed its ...

By , a former managing editor of Foreign Policy.
595485_080414_haiti2.jpg
595485_080414_haiti2.jpg

THONY BELIZAIRE/AFP/Getty Images

THONY BELIZAIRE/AFP/Getty Images

It’s good to see that the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the Group of Seven are finally calling for action on the global food crisis that is stirring up political and social turmoil in some 33 countries, per the World Bank’s count. Haiti’s riotous food crisis has already claimed its prime minister.

With the price of cereal crops like wheat and rice soaring and countries increasingly taking their exports off the market, the situation has become explosive in recent weeks. (On the positive side, food import tariffs are being slashed in the developing world and developed countries are automatically reducing their ag subsidies as prices rise.)

But food prices have been soaring since late 2006. Where have these leaders been for the past year and a half? And what about the U.S. press, which aside from the Financial Times has offered scant high-profile coverage of a crisis that is affecting hundreds of millions of people around the world?

The good news is that if governments act quickly to provide cash transfer payments to the poor, as the Bank recommends (pdf), a great deal of suffering can still be averted. Eventually, I suspect, the high prices will come down as farmers plant more crops and oil prices return to Earth. A couple years from now, we’ll probably be talking about how to deal with a global food glut. But how about a little foresight, people?

Blake Hounshell is a former managing editor of Foreign Policy.

More from Foreign Policy

Children are hooked up to IV drips on the stairs at a children's hospital in Beijing.
Children are hooked up to IV drips on the stairs at a children's hospital in Beijing.

Chinese Hospitals Are Housing Another Deadly Outbreak

Authorities are covering up the spread of antibiotic-resistant pneumonia.

Henry Kissinger during an interview in Washington in August 1980.
Henry Kissinger during an interview in Washington in August 1980.

Henry Kissinger, Colossus on the World Stage

The late statesman was a master of realpolitik—whom some regarded as a war criminal.

A Ukrainian soldier in helmet and fatigues holds a cell phone and looks up at the night sky as an explosion lights up the horizon behind him.
A Ukrainian soldier in helmet and fatigues holds a cell phone and looks up at the night sky as an explosion lights up the horizon behind him.

The West’s False Choice in Ukraine

The crossroads is not between war and compromise, but between victory and defeat.

Illustrated portraits of Reps. MIke Gallagher, right, and Raja Krishnamoorthi
Illustrated portraits of Reps. MIke Gallagher, right, and Raja Krishnamoorthi

The Masterminds

Washington wants to get tough on China, and the leaders of the House China Committee are in the driver’s seat.