BRUSSELS — The World Trade Organization (WTO) is in the last throes of its Doha Development Round negotiations, the European Union is currently undertaking a "health check" on its Common Agricultural Policy and the whole world is opening biofuel plants as a technological fix to curb CO2 emissions and cope with escalating oil prices. All three predicated on the experience of half a century of food mountains, wine lakes and the West dumping its surplus food on the rest to the detriment of subsistence farmers around the globe. Escalating food prices are increasingly leading to rioting on the streets and the world needs a fresh approach if last week's cry for help from Africa is to be heeded.
This new crisis threatens to kill more in a day than have died from terrorism in the six years since 9/11. Even if politicians and governments haven't noticed yet, the world's poor see their children increasingly go hungry.
The impact will be particularly acute in Africa, where commodity prices have more than doubled in the last 12 months and continue to soar due to speculation, shortage and changing patterns of production. The root causes are a growing demand from East Asia and the supply consequences of the failure to invest in agriculture; climate change written in the language of floods, droughts and record-breaking temperatures; and the raising of crops for fuel instead of food.