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“Silent tsunami” of hunger warned

LONDON: Ration cards. Genetically modified crops. The end of pile-it-high, sell-it-cheap supermarkets.

These possible solutions to the first global food crisis since World War II — which the World Food Program says already threatens 20 million of the poorest children — are complex, controversial and may fall far short as demand soars.

The skyrocketing cost of food staples, stoked by soaring fuel prices and demand from India and China, has already sparked sometimes violent protests across the Caribbean, Africa and Asia.

Josette Sheeran, the WFP’s executive director, in London for a summit on the crisis, said on Tuesday a “silent tsunami” of hunger is sweeping the world’s most desperate nations.

The price of rice has more than doubled in the last five weeks, she said. The World Bank estimates food prices have risen by 83 per cent in three years.

“What we are seeing now is affecting more people on every continent,” Ms. Sheeran told a London news conference.

Malaysia’s embattled Prime Minister is already under pressure over the price hikes and has launched a major rice growing project. Indonesia’s government needed to revise its annual budget to respond.

Unrest over the food crisis has led to deaths in Cameroon and Haiti, cost Haitian Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis his job, and caused hungry textile workers to clash with police in Bangladesh.

At streetside restaurants in Lome, Togo, even the traditional balls of corn meal or corn dough served with vegetable soup are shrinking. Once as big as a boxer’s fist, the dumplings are now the size of a tennis ball — but cost twice as much.

School feeding projects in Kenya and Cambodia have been scaled back and food aid halved in Tajikistan, said ms. Sheeran.

Yet while angry street protesters call for immediate action — long term solutions are likely to be slow, costly and complicated, experts warn. — AP

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