I have written about the food crisis many times. Indeed, Sox First was running warnings about it three years ago before it had even become an issue. At the time, I had emails accusing me of being alarmist.
Now everyone is talking about the food crisis with warnings from British scientists that the world is now facing a major famine and that radical measures will be necessary. These include stepping up production of genetically modified plants and cloning livestock.
Another obvious way is to start reining in commodity speculators who are driving up the price of food. The United Nations' food agency has called for rules over speculative moves in commodity futures markets and French president Nicolas Sarkozy, who is also president of the G8 and G20 groups of developed and emerging economies, has called for rules to limit market speculation. ""Shortage fuels speculation and speculation fuels shortage," Mr Sarkozy said. "How can you explain that we regulate money markets and not commodities? If we don't do anything we run the risk of food riots in the poorest countries and a very unfavourable effect on global economic growth."
And time is running out. We now have warnings that the world is one bad harvest away from chaos.
Still, there is something obscene about one billion people going hungry daily, one billion more lacking the vitamins and minerals necessary for a healthy life, while another billion in the West are battling obesity.
Like climate change, we need global solutions to feed the hungry.
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