By Keith Sellick
A story in the Financial Times about social workers in the Philippines handing out cheap rice shows how the global explosion of food and energy prices are impacting on the poor; and those who work with them.
Over the past year the price of food has skyrocketed. Here's a slide show that examines what is happening to world food prices. The Financial Times has a whole section on what the UN calls the "global inflation tsunami".
There are several causes: climate change, biofuels, and the recent cyclone Nargis in Burma/Myanmar.
One cause is also speculation. Even that well known source of radicalism, the United Nations, is saying that there is enough food in the world to feed everyone but speculation is forcing up food prices. A UN spokesperson said "the 'daily massacre of hunger' is being worsened by private equity companies seeking to profit from price swings on the international commodities markets."
Apparently the banks/finance firms/hedge funds etc that only last year were investing in sub-prime mortgages, CDOs, credit swaps and a host of other derivatives in order to make profits have a new target. They have exited the complex world of financial packages and are now competing in the futures markets: ie buying up next year's harvests.
The result is sky-rocketing prices for the poor; profits for the rich. So we get food riots and political instability such as the government falling in Haiti.
The UK might not be on a par with these countries but everyone knows that their food and energy bills are rising faster than the government's measures indicate. We may not yet have people on the streets demanding cheap food but we have widespread discontent at local government pay, fears over mortages and a national outcry over the abolition of the 10p tax rate all leading to a very unpopular government. Even the United States, the richest country in the world, has been hit by food problems, see the environment blog for 24 April at New Scientist .
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has stated: "The problem is not the production of food but the economic, political and social model of the world. The capitalist model is in crisis".
Social workers, like their Philippines counterparts, can expect to be very busy in the next period – assuming they are not rioting themselves.