In past decades, food crises were local phenomena, generally precipitated by a bad harvest, and the solution was to expand emergency relief efforts. The current food crisis, by contrast, is not a local phenomenon; it’s global. 

Within the past week severe food riots have broken out in opposites sides of the world.  Five people have now died in Haitian rioting and a young boy was killed earlier this week in Egypt in rioting that has led to the arrest of more than 150 people. Rioting this week may also have broken out in Ethiopia.  Last week it was the Ivory Coast.

In total, a dozen or so countries have experienced food riots since the beginning of the year, and the United Nations is warning that more rioting should be expected.  The World Bank estimated last week that 33 nations may be prone to food riots.

One consequence of living in a global economy is paying global prices, and right now at least the global price of just about every basic food staple—from rice to milk to vegetable oil—is soaring. The rioting that we are witnessing is not a response to a local food shortage; it’s a reaction against rising food commodity prices by those who can no longer afford to pay those prices.

The point was driven home this week by Sir John Holmes, Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief, who spoke this week to an international conference in Dubai.  Here’s what he had to say:

Compounding the challenges of climate change, in what some have labeled the 'perfect storm,' are the recent dramatic trends in soaring food and fuel prices, which are poised to have a major impact on hunger and poverty across the world and are having an immediate impact on the cost of humanitarian operations. Since mid-2007, food prices have risen an estimated 40% as a confluence of factors have increased demand. These factors include rapid global population growth, ever greater numbers of people eating resource-intensive foods such as meat and milk, bio-fuel production, shortage of reserves, and increasing oil prices.

Current food price trends are likely to increase sharply both the incidence and depth of food insecurity; and as many households will spend more on food to the detriment of other household needs, price rises will also result in lower school attendance rates, poorer health care and asset depletion. The security implications should also not be underestimated as food riots are already being reported across the globe.

We have to ask the question: are we properly prepared for this? Not only are we adequately prepared for the next big storm or flood or drought that devastates countless lives and livelihoods, but also how close are we to a generalized crisis of hunger and malnutrition? How exposed is the global emergency system to overload and failure? More to the point, are the tens of millions of people living in impoverished, drought and disaster-prone areas ready? Because in the cruel calculus of natural disasters, it is always the poorest who are most vulnerable and least able to withstand the impact of a crisis.

For those countries most at risk of starvation, the World Food Programme and other international agencies can provide relief—if they receive the necessary funds from the U.S. and other donor countries—but there are, quite possibly, tens of millions of urban poor spread around the world who may face what officials in Bangladesh are calling a “hidden hunger,” or a “silent famine.”