The world food crisis: Introduction.

The rising of the biofuel industry and the increase of demand for diversified food in China is creating a global increase of food prices all over the world. The first victims of this increase are poor people, for which food is the main expense. An other problem is that ferilizer are mainly made out of oil, so the increase on oil price will continue to boost the increase of food price.

There's also a problem with the developed countries eating to much meat which has a bad energy output. ( you need more land and water to feed a cow than to grow crops.)

But this increase on food price can also have a positive effect because it will bring more monney to the farmers in the rural areas, which are considered as the poorest area in most countries. In Europe, food will recover it's real value that it had in our grandparents time.

The increase on food prices is already lowering the purchasing power in many countries in Africa. (cf: courier international n°888 "trés cher nourriture"). So, because of us consuming too much and having the monney to pay for it, the price of food on the world market is increasing and poor people can't afford it any more.

Consequences on development

A decline in world food production, while population is still increasing, would create a famine, especially in poor countries. To prevent this from happen, each country should prepare to be able to produce enough food for his people. French agronome René Dumont was already alarmist on this question in the 1980's, he had a long term view compared to the rest of the world politics and economists. Globalisation, providing nearly everything everywhere, doesn't prepare poor countries to this issue. It  just drags them into dependance to foreign supply and prevent local peasant production.