High gas prices lead to global hunger pangs
The rising cost of oil is forcing people worldwide to tighten belts on empty stomachs, as Christian aid organizations tighten theirs over pinched budgets.
In August the Canadian Foodgrains Bank (CFGB) shipped 6,400 metric tonnes of Canadian wheat to famine-stricken Ethiopia. The organization could only meet half of Ethiopia's appeal for grain after paltry spring rains put nine million East Africans in need of emergency food.
"We're not able to respond to the appeal with as much as usual," says CFGB executive director, Jim Cornelius. Higher shipping costs took a 10 to 15 per cent bite out of the amount of grain they could have sent a year ago, he says.
Last year shipping a tonne of grain to Ethiopia cost $210; now it costs $380. That's an 80 per cent increase, says Jaqueline Koster, relief program coordinator for Christian Reformed World Relief Committee. CRWRC contributed just over 700 tonnes of grain to the CFGB project.
But ocean freight is only half of the story. Crop production uses oil, both in petroleum-based fertilizers and for fueling farm machinery. The price of oil is one of the many factors pushing up the cost of food worldwide.
"Unless energy prices were to come down, there's no way food prices will fall down to where they were before," says Cornelius, who is watching the market, listening to farmers and waiting to see what will happen next. "These prices are very volatile."
Two boons have helped CFGB deal with climbing food and fuel prices. In April the Canadian government lifted its regulation that required Canadian aid organizations to send 50 per cent of food aid from Canada. This frees CFGB to rely more on local sources, cutting transportation costs.
The federal government also gave CFGB an additional $5 million this year on top of its yearly $20 million contribution. The extra cash was given to help deal with rising food costs.
Fuel prices are also causing turbulence for Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF). The price of aviation fuel is soaring at three times the price of gasoline, says Dave Fyock, MAF vice president of resources. The organization's worldwide fleet of 134 airplanes transports missionaries, aid workers and supplies to inaccessible corners of the globe. Right now it costs about $234 US an hour—in fuel alone—to fly one Cessna 206, the organization's most popular aircraft.
Fyock says MAF expects to overrun its annual budget by about $650,000 US this fiscal year, even though they've pinched operating costs in every conceivable area.
"Everything except salaries," says Fyock. "We've cut every single expense in the organization. We're cutting corners to a point where some expenses we're just postponing to a future date."
Canadians felt the pinch this July with prices at the pumps 28.6 per cent higher than last summer, but haven't shown signs of driving less, Statistics Canada reports. In 2007 Canadians drove more kilometres and spent more money on gas than ever before.
Ultimately it's the world's poor who are suffering the most, says Cornelius.
Over the past 40 years transport costs have gone down, pushing the globalization of food production, says Cornelius. Now, Perhaps, the rising cost of fuel may teach us to eat food produced closer to home.
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