World Food Crisis

World Food Crisis Why are there demonstrations in third world countries such as Thailand and Egypt? The Economist called the food crisis ‘The Silent Tsunami.” First let’s look at what some of the media and world food agencies are saying: CRS - Gas prices have gone up and so they affected transport cost of grains. - Recent interest in bio-food has caused the prices of commodity to go up. - The value of the American dollar has decreased, an affected underdeveloped countries in terms of purchasing power. CBC The current food crisis was caused by - Higher oil prices - Freak weather - Low food reserves - Growing consumer demand in East Asia (e.g. China and India), and Latin America The result is that of the 6 billion inhabitants of Earth, 5 billion have had solid economic growth and higher standard of living in the past decade, while the bottom 1 billion have become more poor (Africa?). The effect was multiplied because of globalization. Globalization has positive effects such as increased free trade, to the point that economic ministers of the G8 started talking about how trade is booming and it is about time to eradicate hunger in the underdeveloped countries. With the help of the World Bank and other world financing organizations, governments of underdeveloped countries were pressured to reduce and eliminate subsidies for food. But low supplies of food provided the reverse effect: 1. Poor families in underdeveloped countries spend 80% of their income on food 2. 800-900 million people in the world sleep hungry every day Add to this the deforestation of many forests and climate change, and you get the result: Countries that used to export food are now importing food. Economists and other commentators are saying now that the world trading system is failing. But the real cause of this crisis may lie in the fact that big grain traders are increasing their profit at the expense of poor countries. Food agencies are trying to help but how far can they go? May be the problem is more than a passing economic crisis. It is a deficiency in the structure of the world economic system of free market. The Church in the voice of Pope John Paul II did propose a “Third Way” after the collapse of socialism and the triumph of liberal capitalism. The Pope based his new Third Way on a different value - the value of Man. How important is the human being? In liberal capitalism the human individual is given freedom, but what kind of freedom? He is enslaved to materialism and consumerism. He is enslaved to how much he owns. The multinationals do not care about the individual’s welfare but about their financial profits. With socialism, especially in its extreme form, communism, the human individual is subject to the totalitarianism of the state. The government exploits not only the possessions of citizens, but also those at the top gather to themselves what now belongs to the state – This is called corruption of the government. The “Third Way” of John Paul II is based on protecting the human dignity of the person. Here is an excerpt: “I devote my very rare free moments to a work that is close to my heart and devoted to the metaphysical sense and mystery of the person. It seems to me that the debate today is being played out on that level. The evil of our times consists in the first place in a kind of degradation, indeed in a pulverization, of the fundamental uniqueness of each human person. This evil is even more of the metaphysical order than of the moral order. To this disintegration planned at times by atheistic ideologies we must oppose, rather than sterile polemics, a kind of "recapitulation" of the inviolable mystery of the person.” (Cardinal Karol Wojtyla to Henri de Lubac) This echoes the life and teaching of his master in the Gospel. Christ lived a poor man, the son of a carpenter. He taught his disciples to give of what they have (Matt 5:8) and not to worry about material possessions (Matt 6:25-34). Christ used powerful parables to show how the rich who clings to his material possessions will be judged (Luke 12). He also judged the rich whose only sin is his negligence of the poor neighbour (Luke 16: The Rich and Lazarus). And he taught that we must depend on God our father alone (Luke11: 13). In the Acts of the Apostles, we see also a powerful example of the Christian community after the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles: “And all who believed were together and had all things in common; and they sold their possessions and goods and distributed them to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they partook of food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.” (Acts 2: 44-47) Do we dare to think in these terms today? Do we dare to live this kind of life today? Do we give from what we have to those who do not have? And how do we as individual Christians share in alleviating this food crisis? Is the dignity of the person, whom John Paul II defends, important to us? Do we care about the needy in the underdeveloped countries regardless of their race or religion? This is the question!