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Earlier this year, with the food crisis in the daily headlines, the world's leaders made promises -- first in Rome at an FAO gathering in June and then at the G-8 summit in Japan the following month -- to make a concerted effort to provide relief for the world's poor. Among the pledges was that of Prime Minister Fukuda that Japan was prepared "to release in the near future over 300,000 tons." With the government holding 1.3 million tons of imported rice, my colleagues and I wrote that "it is time for Japan to quit stalling and show some real leadership by releasing its unwanted rice stocks." Sadly, this is still true. Month after month has passed without Tokyo acting on its promise. Discussions with the Philippines over 200,000 tons have gone nowhere because Tokyo has...

Once again the G8 has come up tragically short on climate change and a host of urgent problems affecting poor people in developing countries. The good news is that they are at least discussing the right topics. The first Hokkaido G8 document, on the World Economy spills lots of ink on relations between rich and developing economies, including for example, reaffirmation of support for the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative. The next three policy papers -- Environment and Climate Change, Development and Africa, and Global Food Security -- all address topics that are at the heart of rich world-developing world ties (and, not coincidently, major areas of focus for CGD research and policy work). The bad news is that the G8, representing as it does the interests of the...

A few weeks ago, our CGD Note, Unwanted Rice in Japan Can Solve the Rice Crisis -- If Washington and Tokyo Act, created quite a stir. Policy makers and the public could not believe that Japan was feeding rice to animals at a time when millions of poor people were going hungry because food prices were unaffordable. Sadly, Tokyo's Ministry of Agriculture still does not get it. Today's press quotes the head of the ministry's livestock department as saying that Japan plans to increase its subsidized sales of rice to its livestock sector by 50% to more than 600,0000 tons. At a time when millions of people are facing starvation, Japan is choosing to turn its rice stocks into cattle feed. There is still time to act, especially in the run up to the Japan-hosted G8 Summit next month....

This posting is joint with Peter Timmer and Vijaya Ramachandran Over the past few weeks, rice consumers in Africa and other developing countries have watched anxiously as world prices have fallen steadily, at least in part due to our insistence that Japan and other countries have stocks that can be released on world markets . It is now clear that the speculative bubble has burst -- the "dynamic" in the market is bearish despite set-backs on individual policy fronts. The pressures on rice prices continue to be downward despite everything governments are doing to keep prices up. But progress is far from adequate. For the millions of people, in Africa and elsewhere, who are facing hunger and starvation due to high food prices, time is running out. Early warning systems...

This post is joint with Tom Slayton, a rice trade expert and former editor of The Rice Trader It has been a busy week in the rice markets following CGD's release on Monday of our note about how to puncture a speculative price bubble that threatens millions of people with malnutrition and worse (see Unwanted Rice in Japan Can Solve the Rice Crisis--If Washington and Tokyo Act ). On Wednesday our proposal was discussed at hearings on the world food crisis in both the House and Senate. Arvind Subramanian, a joint senior fellow at CGD and the Peterson Institute, kicked off his testimony before the House Financial Services Committee by reminding the congressmen that "there are only seven meals between civilization and anarchy." He then recommended the sale of the Japanese...

Congress should help the President bury this farm bill, pass supplemental funding for hunger and nutrition programs here and abroad, and then start over next year on reform legislation that recognizes the vast changes in global agricultural markets....

This is a joint posting with Peter Timmer Rice prices have continued to tumble this week amid reports that Cambodia is moving to ease export restrictions and other exporters may follow suit. This came after Japan's announcement that it would proceed with sales to the Philippines of 250,000 tons of rice (200,000 tons of imports and 50,000 tons of Japanese rice), and a U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) statement that: "the United States was supportive of Japan's initiative." (Readers who are following this story will recall that the U.S. has the ability to block the re-export of U.S. rice that Japan was compelled to buy but never offered on the domestic market). Since we released our CGD Note, Unwanted Rice in Japan Can Solve the Rice Crisis -- If Washington and Tokyo Act,...

A new GAO Report on international food security (International Food Security: Insufficient Efforts by Host Governments and Donors Threaten Progress to Halve Hunger in Sub-Saharan Africa by 2015) gets it almost completely right when it points to the feeble, self-defeating, and confused U.S. policies on world hunger. The report diplomatically states: The efforts of host governments and donors, including the United States, to achieve the goal of halving hunger in sub-Saharan Africa by 2015 have thus far been insufficient. The GAO is far too kind. U.S. and other donor hunger policies have been disastrous, as demonstrated by the current food price crisis. The sub-title of the GAO's Report says progress to cut hunger is threatened by these donor mistakes. In fact, as the GAO...

It was supposed to be an emergency conference on food shortages, climate change and energy…. but when the microphone was turned on for the powerful politicians who had flown in from all over the world, they spoke mostly about economic issues in their own countries and political priorities. The conference was preparing to issue its concluding statement on Thursday, and delegates said the wording of the section on biofuels was a point of contention. The United States said only 2 to 3 percent of the global increase in food prices was attributable to competition from biofuels. But other countries put the figure far higher. New York Times, June 5, 2008 The assertion by American officials that biofuels have contributed only 2-3 percent to the rise in food prices is...

A new GAO Report on international food security (International Food Security: Insufficient Efforts by Host Governments and Donors Threaten Progress to Halve Hunger in Sub-Saharan Africa by 2015) gets it almost completely right when it points to the feeble, self-defeating, and confused U.S. policies on world hunger. The report diplomatically states:The efforts of host governments and donors, including the United States, to achieve the goal of halving hunger in sub-Saharan Africa by 2015 have thus far been insufficient. The GAO is far too kind. U.S. and other donor hunger policies have been disastrous, as demonstrated by the current food price crisis. The sub-title of the GAO's Report says progress to cut hunger is threatened by these donor mistakes. In fact, as the GAO itself points out,...

This is a joint posting with Peter Timmer Rice prices have continued to tumble this week amid reports that Cambodia is moving to ease export restrictions and other exporters may follow suit. This came after Japan's announcement that it would proceed with sales to the Philippines of 250,000 tons of rice (200,000 tons of imports and 50,000 tons of Japanese rice), and a U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) statement that: "the United States was supportive of Japan's initiative." (Readers who are following this story will recall that the U.S. has the ability to block the re-export of U.S. rice that Japan was compelled to buy but never offered on the domestic market).Since we released our CGD Note, Unwanted Rice in Japan Can Solve the Rice Crisis -- If Washington and Tokyo Act, wholesale prices...

Congress should help the President bury this farm bill, pass supplemental funding for hunger and nutrition programs here and abroad, and then start over next year on reform legislation that recognizes the vast changes in global agricultural markets.Congress should help the President bury this farm bill, pass supplemental funding for hunger and nutrition programs here and abroad, and then start over next year on reform legislation that recognizes the vast changes in global agricultural markets....

This post is joint with Tom Slayton, a rice trade expert and former editor of The Rice Trader It has been a busy week in the rice markets following CGD's release on Monday of our note about how to puncture a speculative price bubble that threatens millions of people with malnutrition and worse (see Unwanted Rice in Japan Can Solve the Rice Crisis--If Washington and Tokyo Act ). On Wednesday our proposal was discussed at hearings on the world food crisis in both the House and Senate. Arvind Subramanian, a joint senior fellow at CGD and the Peterson Institute, kicked off his testimony before the House Financial Services Committee by reminding the congressmen that "there are only seven meals between civilization and anarchy." He then recommended the sale of the Japanese rice stocks...

"Asked how she could justify paying so much money to wealthy farmers when food prices are rising and Democrats are calling for change in Washington, [House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi listed the bill's nutrition and conservation spending. "I justify it by saying this is the best farm bill I've ever voted on." - San Francisco Chronicle, May 15, 2008, p. 1. In fact, the article on the front page of Speaker Pelosi's hometown newspaper highlights the many reasons that the farm bill passed by the House of Representatives is not a "very big step in the right direction," as Pelosi also claimed. Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN) agreed that the farm bill "contains many worthwhile polices, including valuable investments in conservation and nutrition programs," but he came down on the other side and was one...

This posting is joint with Vijaya Ramachandran Today, President Bush called on Congress to provide another $770 million in food aid, in addition to the $200 million already allocated through the Department of Agriculture,in order "to keep our existing food aid programs robust." There is no doubt that these additional funds are much needed to purchase and distribute food to those who are suffering greatly from the current spike in food prices. But the U.S. can and should do more. Specifically, the U.S. must allow Japan to sell, at full cost on Japanese books, the 1.5 million metric tons of rice that it has in storage. About 600,000 tons is Thai and Vietnamese long-grain rice (high quality) and the rest is US medium grain (good rice). All of the rice is in Japanese...

And now for a really bad idea: according to the Financial Times Michel Barnier, France's farm minister, told a food crisis summit in Berne that Africa and Latin America should adopt their own versions of Europe's Common Agricultural Policy -- massive trade-distorting subsidies -- as a response to rising demand for food.In fact, as those who have been tracking the crisis know, and as Anthony Faiola is explaining in a five-part series on the global food crisis in the Washington Post, restrictions on agricultural trade are part of the current problem. Instead of export resrictions and subsidies, Nancy Birdsall and Arvind Subramanian argued in an op-ed published in the Asian and European editions of the Wall Street Journal last week, the solution is to......promote trade and efficiency while...

You probably saw that this week's Economist devoted his leader to soaring food prices. They made two mistakes: 1. In the editorial they say that it is better to distribute cash rather than food to protect local growers. At a time in which one of the problems is hoarding, cash may push prices even further. There cannot be a blanket recommendation of this kind. 2. In the lead article they have a box on safety nets and mention Mexico's PROCAMPO program as an example of conditional cash transfers that could be applied elsewhere. First, PROCAMPO is NOT a conditional cash transfer program. The transfer program is called PROGRESA/OPORTUNIDADES (see Millions Saved, Case 9). Second, and more importantly, PROCAMPO is a program that subsidizes those who have land (it is similar to US farm...

This year's decline in food aid [due to high food prices] follows a period when the sharply escalating costs of shipping American-grown food aid to Africa and Asia already reduced the tonnage supplied. The United States Government Accountability Office reported this year that the number of people being fed by American food aid had declined to 70 million in 2006 from 105 million in 2002, mainly because of rising transportation and logistical costs. —The New York Times, September 29, 2007U.S spending on food aid doesn’t go as far as it used to. The ethanol and Chinese economic booms have caused commodity prices to soar; meanwhile; U.S. policy remains stubbornly rooted in the 1950s. Food aid began, in part, as a means of disposing of the surpluses the government accumulated when it...

This year's decline in food aid [due to high food prices] follows a period when the sharply escalating costs of shipping American-grown food aid to Africa and Asia already reduced the tonnage supplied. The United States Government Accountability Office reported this year that the number of people being fed by American food aid had declined to 70 million in 2006 from 105 million in 2002, mainly because of rising transportation and logistical costs. —The New York Times, September 29, 2007U.S spending on food aid doesn’t go as far as it used to. The ethanol and Chinese economic booms have caused commodity prices to soar; meanwhile; U.S. policy remains stubbornly rooted in the 1950s. Food aid began, in part, as a means of disposing of the surpluses the government...

I join my colleague Rachel Nugent in offering Three Cheers for CARE Decision to Forego U.S. Food Aid! U.S. food aid has a long and complicated history. Most people think of food aid as "doing good"—feeding the starving—and it is often used for this purpose. However, large amounts of food aid are sold to finance development projects, often administered by the U.S. or by NGOs. And, in the process, food aid can actually do harm. Understanding the complexities of the issue is hugely important in general and, specifically, now. Congress is mid-way through debating a new five-year Farm Bill: the House passed a Farm Bill in July that did not address calls for reform in food aid to “do best” and the Senate will take up the bill this fall. For those interested in...

Asian and Pacific Migration Journal, vol. 15, no. 4 (2006) [contents]- Special issue focusing on "Sex Trafficking in Asia and Australia."Disasters, vol. 31, no. 1 (March 2007) [FREE full-text]- Special issue reproducing papers from June 2006 forum "on the use of food aid and the potential roles and activities of WFP in Sudan."Georgetown Immigration Law Journal, vol. 21, no. 1 (Fall 2006) [contents]- Mix of articles including one on detaining asylum-seekers in Australia and another on U.S. asylum and foreign policy considerations.Human Rights Tribune, vol. 12, no. 2 (Feb. 2007) [text]- Special issue on good governance.Migration Letters, vol. 4, no. 1 (2007) [text]- Mix of articles including several on women migrants.Refugee Survey Quarterly, vol. 26, no. 1 (2007) [contents]- EXCOM 2006...

Last week CGD hosted a talk by 1970 Nobel laureate Norman Borlaug on The Prospects for Bringing a Green Revolution to Africa. The event was sparked by the publication of a fine new biography, The Man Who Fed the World: Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Norman Borlaug and His Battle to End World Hunger (Amazon ) by Leon Hesser, former head of agriculture for USAID. I first met Dr. Borlaug when I was a sophomore in high school. Immediately after the Nobel Peace Prize was announced, my father, then the director of public affairs at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, a California state agricultural college, sent Dr. Borlaug a telegram inviting him to speak at the college. Dr. Borlaug accepted. He later told my father that the telegram was the first invitation to arrive. Had he known how...

The World Food Program (WFP) has just released its annual Food Aid Monitor with data for 2005 on where food aid comes from and where it goes. At the top, there are no surprises: The U.S. is by far the largest donor, providing 4.0 million of the 8.2 million tons of total food aid. Sub-Saharan Africa is the largest recipient, taking all of that and more, for total food aid delivered of 4.6 million tons. Some people might be surprised that fast-growing Asia also received 2.4 million tons of food aid, but in fact there are more hungry people in Asia than in Africa. Rapid growth offers promise for Asia, but South Asia in particular starts from a very low base with massive poverty. The big surprise, appropriately flagged in the WFP press release, is that China has emerged as the...

According to Bloomberg The Bush administration is reviving a plan to buy some of the food it uses for overseas aid from foreign rather than domestic farmers, and is courting the support of charities that helped sink the idea last year.We have discussed food aid before on this blog, and reported the prediction that food aid reform would be included in the 2007 budget. It is astonishing that the charities should have put their own institutional interests in maintaining the status quo ahead of the interests of recipients of food aid.  The Bloomberg report, they are coming under pressure to rethink:Some of the charity groups ... say they are ready to listen now, partly because outside pressures, such as the WTO talks and funding cuts, are already pushing changes to the...