States' welfare caseloads starting to rise

from USA Today

By Richard Wolf, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — State welfare rolls, which declined for more than a decade after a 1996 overhaul of the nation's cash-assistance program, are beginning to rise, due in part to the struggling economy.

Federal data for the last half of 2007 show welfare rolls rose about 0.6%, and 27 states reported increases. That follows a decline of 68% since the federal law imposed work requirements, time limits and penalties for recipients who don't follow the rules.

"When the economy starts to tank, that's when our business starts growing," says Jeff Brenn, chief of eligibility for Nevada's welfare agency.

The reversal of a downward trend that began in 1994 reflects a hard reality facing the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program: The 3.9 million people who remain on welfare are mostly adults with physical, mental or emotional barriers to employment, as well as children being raised by someone other than their parents — often grandparents, who are not expected to get jobs.

"Some states have reached a portion of their caseload that are truly the harder to serve," says Russell Sykes of New York, who chairs the national association of state welfare administrators.

The welfare overhaul in 1996 was viewed by proponents as an incentive to get many of the more than 12 million recipients into jobs and off the dole. States got $16.5 billion per year regardless of caseloads — a bonanza in good times but a risky deal in a recession.

Caseloads plummeted in the late 1990s, and while the 2001 recession caused some increases, they continued to drop through 2007. All but five states have cut caseloads by more than 50%. Wyoming leads with a 95% reduction; fewer than 500 recipients remain.

Opponents of the law worried whether the program, which pays an average benefit of about $350 a month, would help families weather economic downturns. Evidence so far is mixed: While some welfare rolls have risen, the program serves just 42% of those eligible, a smaller percentage than food stamps or Social Security disability programs.

Many potential recipients have stayed away because of the extensive work rules.

"It needs to expand when there are more poor people. Clearly in some states, that is happening," says Sharon Parrott of the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. "What we haven't yet seen are whether more people are going to be let on the program."

Some states are seeing their first welfare increases since the mid-1990s:

•In Florida and Nevada, the tourism industry was first to feel the pinch. "This is the first time that we've really seen several consecutive months of increase," says Don Winstead, deputy secretary of Florida's Department of Children and Families. "People are having more difficulty finding jobs as the economy softens."

•Even wealthy states are experiencing increases as welfare recipients find it harder to land jobs and new applicants are deemed eligible. "The safety net is still here," says Kevin McGuire, executive director of Maryland's Family Investment Administration. "We're probably going to see more business during the next year."

Other states, including Ohio and Wisconsin, have yet to see substantial increases. Says Jeanne Carroll, deputy director of Ohio's Office of Family Stability: "We're kind of bracing ourselves in case that happens."

Brown, UN seek big business to tackle world poverty

from AFP via Google

LONDON (AFP) — Global businesses need to do more to help alleviate poverty in the developing world, Gordon Brown said Tuesday as he prepared to host a major conference on the issue.

"This year must be a year of action if we are to tackle the development emergency we face," he said in a statement released before meeting the heads of more than 80 multi-nationals as well as the leaders of Ghana and Rwanda here.

The event, called Business Call to Action, is designed to highlight work already being undertaken by more than a dozen blue chip firms, including Citi, Coca-Cola, Diageo, Microsoft, Sumitomo Chemical, Thomson Reuters and Vodafone.

Brown hopes their examples will spur others into action to help meet the UN's eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to reduce global poverty by their 2015 deadline.

The UN has expressed concern that many of the targets are off-track at the half-way point of the programme. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has convened a meeting on MDGs in September to give fresh impetus to the process.

"Today's event is about enlisting the support and expertise of global business to develop new and innovative ways to spread growth, prosperity and opportunity in poor countries around the world," Brown added.

"This morning more than a dozen global companies are announcing new initiatives which use their unique business skills to solve problems on the ground and to transform people's lives."

As finance minister Brown and former prime minister Tony Blair pushed debt relief and aid for the world's poorest nations up the global agenda, particularly at the G8 meeting in Gleneagles, Scotland, in 2005.

On his first visit to the UN as prime minister last July, Brown called on governments, businesses, non-governmental organisations and faith groups to come together in a global "coalition for justice" to meet MDG targets.

He has since sought to increase overseas aid in areas like achieving universal education, improving maternal health, combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases -- all MDGs.

He also believes world bodies that were set up in the wake of World War II, including the UN, World Bank and International Monetary Fund, need to be reorganised to meet the challenges of the 21st century.

Will Burma's leaders let aid in?

from the BBC

By Philippa Fogarty
BBC News, Bangkok

In the days after the 2004 Asian tsunami, military rulers in Burma said that they did not need any international help.

Highly suspicious of foreign aid agencies, the regime said that it could provide for the thousands left homeless without any external aid.

But it appears as though the sheer magnitude of the devastation caused by Cyclone Nargis could perhaps force a shift.

With the death toll from the disaster an estimated 15,000, and with hundreds of thousands without shelter, Burma's government looks more willing to accept overseas help.

Shantha Bloemen, a Bangkok-based spokeswoman for Unicef, described the situation in Burma as an "enormous emergency".

"The scale of this disaster is - as we have been discovering in the last 48 hours - just immense," she said.

"It will require a big emergency response with the right equipment and staff - which is a challenge in any situation, but particularly in a situation like this."

"The good thing is that the government has indicated that it welcomes international assistance - that's a good sign.

"The focus now is on getting out there and assessing the scale and nature of the damage."

'Wiped out'

Andrew Kirkwood, Save the Children's country director for Burma, said that responding to the devastation would be a major logistical feat, requiring boats, helicopters and trucks.

"There are seven townships in the southwest of the delta region in which we think 90 to 95% of homes have been wiped out," he said.

"The problem is that no-one can get there. There are no roads in the region that are functional so access is primarily by boat, but many boats have been destroyed."

"The main needs that we can estimate right now are for shelter, food, essential drugs, mosquito nets and water purification tablets."

Burmese troops were a visible presence in the main city, Rangoon, where they were trying to get the power back on, he said.

"But local authorities in the areas most affected are probably completely affected like everyone else."

Aid agencies in Burma currently face a difficult operating environment.

Most of their work in the country is done by local staff, because visas for foreign nationals are restricted.

In-country travel is also restricted, and agencies must apply in advance for official permission. In some cases, ministry representatives sit in on agency meetings.

But Mr Kirkwood said that there were signs of flexibility.

"It is unclear to us the extent to which normal operating protocols will have to be followed at this time," he said.

"Every indication is that everyone realises that this is an unprecedented event in Myanmar's [Burma's] history and the government is much more open to international assistance than it has ever been."

'Can't wait'

Aid agency World Vision said it had reached an agreement with the Burmese government on visa applications.

"Last night the government said we could send in extra humanitarian help," said an Australia-based spokeswoman for the organisation.

"Normally it takes one month to organise a visa - but obviously with the crisis we can't wait one month - so they have agreed that on a case by case basis they will try to get us visas in two to three days."

She described the move as very positive. But at the moment the agency's priority is working out what needs to be done.

"We know roughly what to expect but every situation is different," she said. "We know we will need food, shelter, we'll have to provide clean water. We certainly won't be calling on people to go in until we have identified exactly what we need."

The motives of the Burmese government in allowing aid are unlikely to be completely altruistic. Turning down international offers of help could have serious repercussions.

The main trigger for last September's anti-government protests was poverty - something that the cyclone will have made worse. Any failure by the authorities to act could potentially lead to further demonstrations.

Moreover, refusing desperately-needed foreign aid would be seen as indefensible in the eyes of the international community - which is, for the most part, already deeply critical of the military regime.

The extent to which the aid agencies will be allowed to operate freely in cyclone-hit regions remains to be seen - especially in certain ethnic-minority areas.

At a news conference in Rangoon, the message was mixed.

"We are greatly thankful to friendly countries that are giving assistance to us,"said Information Minister Kyaw Hsan.

But Social Welfare Minister Maung Maung Swe said foreign aid teams would still need to negotiate with ministry officials for access, the French news agency AFP reported.

Myanmar May Import Rice After Cyclone; Price Rebounds

from Bloomberg

By Rattaphol Onsanit and Catherine Yang

Myanmar may be forced to import rice after crops were wiped out by a cyclone that may have killed as many as 20,000 people, potentially adding further pressure to global food supplies as prices gain. Rice futures rebounded.

``We know that the damage is huge,'' Chookiat Ophaswongse, president of the Thai Rice Exporters Association, said today in an interview on Bloomberg Television. ``It's possible for them that they have to import,'' he said.

Rice futures rose to a record last month as some exporters, including Vietnam, curbed shipments. Cyclone Nargis, which slammed into Myanmar at the weekend, may be Southeast Asia's deadliest natural disaster since the 2004 tsunami, according to a preliminary death toll released by Myanmar's military government.

``After the cyclone, we don't know if Myanmar can export,'' Anthony S. Lam, regional general manager of rice-trading company Golden Resources Development International Ltd., said by phone from Hong Kong. ``It gives a good excuse to push the price up.''

Rice, the staple food for half the world, has surged more than 90 percent over the past year, touching a record $25.07 per 100 pounds on the Chicago Board of Trade on April 24. The most- active contract erased losses of as much as 0.8 percent today to rise as much as 1.1 percent to $21.225, gaining for a third day.

Myanmar would probably have exported about 400,000 metric tons of rice this year to try and profit from the soaring prices, compared with normal shipments of less than 100,000 tons, Chookiat said. The storm will ``jeopardize'' exports, he said.

`Hitting the Poor'

The jump in rice and energy costs has stoked concern that social unrest, poverty and hunger may spread worldwide as the poor can't afford to eat. ``Soaring food prices are hitting the poor very hard,'' Asian Development Bank President Haruhiko Kuroda told delegates yesterday at the bank's annual meeting in Madrid.

Sri Lanka and Bangladesh had agreed to import rice from Myanmar, according to Paul Risley, the Bangkok-based spokesman for the World Food Programme.

``This is the sort of storm that likely will have destroyed family and community supplies of rice and other stocks, so there will probably be a need at least over the next six months for food assistance,'' Risley said in an interview. ``The bigger issue is whether this will affect the harvest prospects for this year.''

Sri Lanka, which had agreed to buy 50,000 tons of Myanmar rice, still expected the cargo to arrive this month, Trade and Consumer Services Minister Bandula Gunawardena said in a telephone interview today. The assurance was provided yesterday by the Sri Lankan ambassador in Myanmar, Gunawardena said.

Myanmar planned to export 500,000 tons of rice this year, according to a ``tentative'' April forecast from the Food and Agriculture Organization.

`Self-Sufficient'

``Normally, they are self-sufficient'' in rice, Chookiat said from Bangkok, the Thai capital. Thailand, the world's largest rice exporter, shares a border with Myanmar, formerly known as Burma. ``We will have to wait for a while'' to know the extent of the devastation, the Thai rice group's president said.

Myanmar was forecast to export 400,000 tons of rice in 2007- 08, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said on April 9. That was double the agency's March estimate. The country was expected to produce 11.3 million tons in the current year, up from 10.6 million tons the year before, the USDA said.

Death Toll

The death toll from the disaster ranges ``anywhere from 10,000 to 20,000,'' according to Pamela Sitko, a Bangkok-based worker with the Christian relief group World Vision, citing state radio reports. The official New Light of Myanmar newspaper put the toll at 15,000, Agence France-Presse reported.

About 3,000 people are missing in the Irrawaddy delta region alone, an important rice-growing area, government ministers told diplomats yesterday, according to United Nations news agency IRIN. Power was knocked out in the former capital, Yangon, and drinking water was contaminated in the city of 5 million people.

``The lessons learned from the tsunami of 2004 certainly have given us a wake-up call, and has triggered a sense of urgency,'' Surin Pitsuwan, secretary-general of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, told reporters today in Singapore. ``We cannot be complacent any longer about this kind of disaster.''

Cyclone Nargis packed winds of 120 miles (190 kilometers) per hour when it struck the coast May 3, sending the sea surging as much 12 feet (3.5 meters). The government declared a state of emergency in five low-lying provinces, mostly in the Irrawaddy delta, where villages were flattened by winds and rain, the UN said. Myanmar has a population of 47.8 million.

County poverty: Education helps provide a way out

from The Ithaca Journal

There is no yellow brick road on the path out of poverty.

Anyone who read The Journal's yearlong series about poverty in Tompkins County could appreciate how hard it is for folks to climb out of the financial basement and up the ladder to make ends meet above the federal government's poverty threshold, $21,200 (“Finding a path out of poverty,” May 3).

For all the success stories, such as Jessica Brown, 26, who is no longer dependent on social services as she was nine years ago, there are many others who are struggling.
As with many issues confronting our nation, the truth in helping people find a way to get financial stability in their lives lies somewhere in the middle of diametrically opposite opinions. But while partisans argue their cases in the court of public opinion, there are two key issues to focus on.

The first issue is wages. In earlier installments of the series, advocates for the poor pointed toward a living wage as a means to help people reach economic stability. That's not possible for all businesses, but is a worthy goal for which to strive.

The second issue is education. People who hold professional degrees experience significantly lower unemployment rates than people who receive only a high school diploma or less education, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. As a worker's level of education rises, so do their earnings, statistics show.

Herein lies the problem. How do we get more people more schooling beyond high school? We can argue all we want about what causes what, but the fact remains society must continue to do something about poverty, no matter what its cause. Education is a tried-and-true indicator of earning higher wages and avoiding unemployment lines. Individuals must also be motivated to make the climb.

One example of a way to help is the Public Assistance Comprehensive Education program offered at Tompkins Cortland Community College, which is the only college in New York that still offers the program. PACE helps families receiving social services funding attend Tompkins Cortland Community College at no cost. At one time, 14 colleges participated, but the program evolved into a different program after 1993 in some areas and died off in others.

Poverty has high costs to individuals, governments and society. If government wanted to truly help those at the bottom, it would fund more programs such as PACE and make it easier for people to afford post-high school educational pursuits. This includes funding for education aimed at helping people who live above the poverty threshold, too.

If government is looking for a way to do this it should look no further than recent state and federal budgets. The New York state Legislature could tap into the $300 million it recently doled out through member items. The federal government should look at the billions “earmarked” in the 2008 appropriations bills. A small reduction in either, diverted toward programs to help lower the cost of education, would pay big dividends. Meanwhile, colleges could help by further tapping into the billions locked away in endowments. With so much money floating around, it is obvious that more can be done.

The payback for helping pay for an education can be measured in dollars and cents by a reduction in social services' costs. But it can also be measured in a much more important fashion.

Norway makes 500-million-dollar pledge at Sudan donor conference

from Monsters and Critics

Donor countries and international agencies Tuesday met with representatives of the government of Sudan and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) to discuss new aid commitments to shore up a three-year old peace deal on Sudan.

Norway, hosting the meeting that ends Wednesday, helped broker the 2005 peace deal that ended a two decade long civil war and Oslo also hosted a donor meeting in April 2005.

'A lot has been done but more has to done,' Norway's Environmnent and International Development Minister Erik Solheim said, noting the need to integrate the former SPLA rebel forces with the Sudan army.

Citing his experience as mediator in other conflicts, Solheim underlined the need for 'political will' to achieve progress.

Solheim said Sudan was heading for a more 'volatile' period with elections due next year, adding that 'the international community was ready to assist in organizing free and fair elections.'

Like several other speakers at the meeting - chaired by Sudan, the government of southern Sudan and the organizers, the World Bank and the United Nations - Solheim also touched on the conflict in Darfur warning it had implications for the overall peace process.

'Long-term development aid' aimed for north Sudan and south Sudan had been 'diverted' for humanitarian aid to Darfur, Solheim said.

Solheim jump-started the pledging session due Wednesday saying Oslo would pledge 500 million dollars for the coming four-year period.

Sudan's Second Vice President Ali Osman Taha urged delegates to make 'robust' pledges, saying Sudan needed to know what funds were available for development projects.

UN Deputy Secretary General Asha-Rose Migiro said in her remarks that 'reintegration funding must be in place before demobilization takes place.'

PM in warning on poverty reduction

from the Press Association via Google

Gordon Brown has delivered a stark warning that global targets for tackling poverty are set to be missed.

The Prime Minister said it would now take an "extraordinary effort" to rescue the much-vaunted millennium development goals. Some of the initiatives were running 85 years behind schedule, threatening to leave millions of children hungry and without education.

Mr Brown was speaking at a summit of top businessmen and politicians in London's Canary Wharf financial district. Guests at the event included President Kufuor of Ghana and executives from companies including Microsoft, Cisco and Diageo.

Mr Brown said everyone agreed that the millennium development goals were key to preventing the worst injustices in the world, but progress had been too slow.

"So great is the distance we still have to travel to achieve them that they can only be met by each of us playing our part. For we know that, without an extraordinary effort, we will fail."

He added: "Our millennium development goal is to reduce infant mortality by two thirds, but so far do we still have to go that, unless we act now, it will not be met by 2015, not even by 2030 - not, in fact, until 2050.

"Our millennium development goal is primary education for every child, but, unless we act now, it will not be met by 2015, not even by 2050, but by 2100 at best."

The premier warned failure to act now would mean the planet suffering more environmental damage by 2015 rather than less.

Mr Brown insisted that the private sector had a vital role to play in tackling poverty, as when business thrived in a country, wealth was spread throughout the population. He praised initiatives, such as mobile phone banking, which were giving millions of people access to basic accounts for the first time, and electronic weather information for farmers so they could better plan when to harvest and sew crops.

Food-crisis anger turns on UN bodies

from The Asia Times Online

By Thalif Deen

NEW YORK - As the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) readies for a summit of world leaders next month, United Nations secretary general Ban Ki-moon on Monday defended the Rome-based UN agency, which has come under fire for its failure to help meet the growing challenges of hunger worldwide.

The harshest attack came last week from Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade, who described the FAO as a "bottomless pit of money, largely spent on its own functioning, with very little effective operations on the ground".

Asked to respond, Ban told reporters on Monday: "In view of the gravity and seriousness of the situation, I can understand and sympathize with the frustrations of many African leaders, including President Wade of Senegal.

"But I would like to underscore that since its founding in 1945, the FAO has been leading the international community's efforts to help promote the production and productivity [of food] and provide necessary humanitarian assistance to many people affected by food shortages."

Wade said the FAO, headed by Jacques Diouf of Senegal, should be merged with another Rome-based UN agency, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), to establish a single mega agriculture body. Some of the functions of the two UN agencies overlap. If such a body is created, he said, it should be located in Africa, not in a Western capital.

Wade was also critical of the extravagance of UN agencies and humanitarian non-governmental organizations. He said they "will use [aid money] on all sort of tricks - administration, trips and costs of luxury hotels for so-called experts, instead of on concrete actions on the ground."

Several factors are responsible for the food crisis, including the shortcomings of international organizations such as the FAO and other UN agencies, all of which failed to anticipate the gravity of the current disaster. The World Bank, a sister institution of the United Nations, also has to share some of the blame for the current crisis because of declining funds for agricultural research over the years.

Asked about the under-sourcing for research, World Bank president Robert Zoellick admitted his institution's failure but also singled out the shortcomings of governments.

"Yes, you know the international community goes through various phases of things," he told reporters in Bern last week. "The World Bank, and frankly the governments themselves, invested less in agriculture. We have a country-system based approach, where the countries are our clients and they decide where they focus it. So, as we ramped up things for HIV/AIDS and malaria and other projects, there was clearly an underinvestment in agriculture.

"I don't think it's really helpful to point fingers at this responsibility, that responsibility. The key question is, having recognized the need, and it's one that I focused on shortly after taking over the Bank, how do we try to deal with it at these various stages."

The FAO hosted the first major World Conference on Food in Rome in 1974, which proclaimed that "every man, woman and child has the inalienable right to be free from hunger and malnutrition in order to develop their physical and mental faculties."

The goals of the conference included the eradication of hunger, the need for food security and the reduction of malnutrition "within a decade". But the goals were never reached.

In November 1996, the FAO hosted another five-day World Food Summit, which adopted a Rome Declaration on World Food Security and a Plan of Action to eradicate or minimize global hunger.

The current crisis, not surprisingly, has triggered a third Food Summit, also in Rome from June 3-5, where another elaborate plan is due to be unveiled by heads of state and governments.

Still, nearly 34 years after the first FAO conference, and dozens of UN resolutions and voluminous reports later, the developing world is facing another global food shortage, along with skyrocketing prices.

The price of rice alone, a staple in many Asian countries, rose to US$980 per tonne last week compared with $460 in March.

Speaking at the launch of the annual FAO report in October 2006, Diouf said "promises are no substitute for food". Calling on world leaders to honor their pledges, he said the 1996 World Food Summit promised to reduce the number of undernourished people by half by 2015.

Still, there were more hungry people in the developing countries, around 820 million today, than there were in 1996. Far from decreasing, the number of hungry people in the world is currently increasing at the rate of four million a year, Diouf said. The World Bank has estimated that already some 100 million people may have been pushed into poverty as a result of high prices.

At a meeting of 26 heads of UN agencies in Bern last week, the secretary-general identified multiple causes for the current food crisis, including escalating energy prices; lack of investment in agriculture over the past years; increasing demand for food; trade-distorting subsidies; and recurrent bad weather.

"This crisis has multiple effects, with its most serious impact on the most vulnerable in the poorest countries," Ban warned.

Rising food prices starve charities

from the Minneapolis Star Tribune

By MATT McKINNEY, Star Tribune

A pair of Minnesota charities, one called Kids Against Hunger and another Feed My Starving Children, sent 70 million meals overseas last year, but in recent weeks have found themselves at the eye of an unfolding global storm over food. Prices are up, costs have skyrocketed, and without more funding they'll cut back just as the need for food aid mushrooms.

Some international agencies now say that food inflation threatens to undo years of work to stop children from starving to death, which occurs at a numbing rate of 18,000 times a day, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

"The World Food Program is describing this as a silent tsunami," said Daniela Colaiacovo, a spokeswoman for the United Nations frontline agency fighting hunger. "It's the worst challenge the group has faced in its 45-year history."

It's the same crisis that's driven up the cost of eggs, bread and milk at American supermarkets, but it wears a more sinister face among the world's poor, threatening to shove 100 million people into poverty, according to the United Nations.

"In the U.S. we are feeling the stress as well, but overseas when you have a billion people living on $1 a day or less, that stress hits the most vulnerable the hardest," said Robert Zachritz, director of advocacy and government relations at World Vision, a Christian relief organization headquartered in Washington state.

Riots and protests have erupted in Haiti, Egypt, Peru, Indonesia, Cameroon and elsewhere. Many of the hardest hit areas are in Africa.

Food prices will rise 4 percent to 5 percent this year in the United States, and may hit some grocery shelves harder than others. The increases have been blamed on the high price of oil, biofuels, climate change and rising global demand.

"Some of these trends are with us for the long haul," Zachritz said.

"We usually get probably three or four calls every week from someone in some country saying we've heard of you, can you send us some food," said Kathy Stinchfield, spokeswoman for Kids Against Hunger, a charity based in New Hope that shipped 27 million meals overseas last year. "We've been getting two to three calls every day in the last couple of weeks."

She had hoped to send more meals this year, but economics is playing havoc with that plan. Rice prices started creeping up last fall, rocketing up 30 percent between March and April, she said. So her group is spending $526,000 more to ship the same amount of food as last year, about 27 million meals. Rice has nearly doubled in the past year; wheat is up 69 percent, soy 78 percent.

It's the same story at Feed My Starving Children, said Mark Crea, executive director of the group.

The cost of a meal packet rose from 15 cents three months ago to 17 cents today. It's a small bump, but when extended across the millions of meals shipped out each year it means a $1.1 million hole in the budget. That equals 7 million fewer meals, cutting the group's production from a projected 55 million down to 48 million.

"That's not an option for us," said Crea, walking through the group's Brooklyn Park warehouse. Nearby, school children who had volunteered for a two-hour shift were packing up meals of rice, soy powder, dried vegetables and artificial chicken flavoring.

The meals, designed by food scientists from Cargill and General Mills, come fortified with the vitamins and minerals most needed by a severely malnourished child.

The group began a direct mail advertising campaign last month. Crea plans to appeal to corporate donors as well.

He said rice prices are his largest headache. "Annual contracts are out the window," said Crea. "Rice could be $900 a bag for us by summer." He paid $340 for a 2,000-pound bag in January.

Fears of a shortage -- Costco and Sam's Club announced limits on rice purchases last week -- set off a panic. And while the federal government says there is no rice shortage in the United States, domestic supplies are at their lowest point in five years.

The tight supply means occasional empty shelves if demand suddenly increases, as it has in recent weeks because of a clampdown on exports from some of the world's largest rice producers, including Egypt, India and Vietnam.

Crea's rice comes from Colorado County Rice Mills Inc., a Texas rice miller. Owner Don Adams said he's got nothing left to sell. "Usually at this time of the year there's plenty of rice in the drawers, in the storage, still to be bought. But at this point there's none in Texas available," he said.

The problems befalling the Minnesota charities mirror those at the international organizations supplying food aid, about half of which comes from the United States.

The World Food Program said in February that they faced a $500 million shortfall. It's since grown to $755 million. The U.S. government's food aid program, U.S. Agency for International Development, expects a $200 million budget deficit by the end of the year.

The Bush administration on Thursday asked Congress to approve some $770 million in additional international food aid, adding to some $200 million made available earlier last month.

Yet funding isn't the only problem. Food shipments have been exacerbated by a shortage of shipping containers, the 20-foot and 40-foot-long metal boxes used to move food and other products around the world. A weak U.S. dollar has more companies exporting. Containers go with them.

Love a Child, a Tampa, Fla.-based charity that distributes the food packaged by Feed My Starving Children to children in Haiti, is waiting for three shipments of food from the local group, each containing 270,864 meals, but because of a shortage of shipping containers has had to wait, said Sandra Smith, the group's director. Such delays have typically ranged from one to three months so far.

On a recent day at Feed My Starving Children, a team of schoolchildren ticked along like factory workers, small arms scooping dried powder into plastic bags.

It was Sarah's turn. "Chicken!" someone shouted.

Sarah Moraczewski, 8, dropped a scoop of yellowish powder -- artificial chicken flavoring -- into a bag. Other children added soy powder, dried vegetables and rice.

World Bank climbs down on markets

from The Nation

By JOHN MBARIA

The World Bank has admitted that its push for a market-oriented approach to agricultural development in East Africa and elsewhere in the developing world has failed, and is now calling for renewed state intervention.

This admission marks a radical abandonment of the Bank’s 25-year campaign of foisting the deeply controversial and unpopular structural adjustment programmes (SAPs) on African countries that are blamed for entrenchment of massive poverty in most of these nations.

According to the World Development Report 2008: Agriculture for Development, the World Bank has acknowledged that governments are the custodians of the public good and have an important role to play in promoting agricultural growth, particularly in the smallholder sectors.

It further admits that its push for market-oriented growth has failed. “Market failures are pervasive, especially in the agricultural-based countries, and there is a need for public policy to secure desirable social outcomes.”

It further acknowledges that the state “has a role in market development, which includes providing core goods and improving the investment climate for the private sector.”

It hails Uganda for pioneering the contracting out of agricultural advisory services and for giving producer organisations a say in awarding the contracts.

The Bank’s new-found social activism is a far cry from its past development philosophy and practice. Indeed, the Bank seems to belatedly embrace humanitarian concern for the plight of millions upon millions of smallholder farmers by focusing on the plight of women farmers. “An African woman, bent under the sun, weeding sorghum in an arid field with a hoe, a child strapped on her back…(is) a vivid image of rural poverty.”

That report further talks of “bringing governments closer to the people”; calls for “more” and “better” international commitments to end hunger and poverty and asks the world to establish “fair rules” for international trade. It avers: “If the world is committed to reducing poverty and achieving sustainable growth, the powers of agriculture must be unleashed.”

However, the report is a contradiction of sorts. For instance, it will not escape even the casual reader that the about-turn made by the Bank is contradicted by the praise it heaps on its earlier market-oriented approach, saying, “Quality improvements and fair trade can open new opportunities for more remunerative markets for some smallholders.”

The question of whether the Bank is itself committed to what it asks other donors to do, has become the subject of heated debate since the report was released.

In African agriculture and the World Bank: Development or impoverishment, the Sweden-based Nordic Africa Institute delivers a scathing attack on the Bank, saying, “Consistently, World Bank agricultural policies have displayed contradictory tendencies and a glaring discrepancy between stated objectives and actual outcomes.”

The institute says that on the one hand, the Bank expresses concern for smallholder farmers, and indeed pressurised African governments to implement the structural adjustment policies in the name of making markets and the allocation of resources efficient so that smallholder farmers could benefit from competitive prices for their produce.

But, the Swedish Institute says, the World Bank continues to espouse “market fundamentalism” or the “unshakeable belief” in the power of the market as the “prime mover” of production and trade without regard to such other considerations as “political imbalances and social biases of markets as historical institutions.”

Paradoxically, in the World Development Report 2008, the Bank betrays, in more ways than one, its desire to have East African and other sub-Saharan African countries continue adhering to the dictates of the market. It asserts that liberalised markets will remain the fundamental force for raising productivity and alleviating poverty.

It goes on to concur with proponents of a Green Revolution in Africa that this is the path through which the continent will achieve farm productivity worth writing home about.

The push for Africa’s own version of the Green Revolution is been spearheaded by the Kofi Annan-led Alliance for the Green Revolution in Africa, a body that is funded jointly by the Melinda & Bill Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation.

Now the World Bank looks set to join in by championing the “revolution” and expressing support for the proliferation of genetically modified foods in Africa and elsewhere.

In this regard, the report notes that biotechnology is concentrated in the private sector; is driven by commercial interests, and has limited impacts on smallholder farming in developing countries.

It, however, says, “The potential benefits of these technologies will be missed unless the international development community sharply increases its support to interested countries.”

The import of the Bank’s admission that SAPs might not, after all is said and done, have been such a good idea, will not be lost on policy makers in East Africa and elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa. This is where — in an advocacy bordering on intimidation — the World Bank has continued to play a leading role in pushing these countries to embrace its policies to the detriment of their own agricultural sectors.

It will not be lost on East African policy makers that they only agreed to implement the SAPs after the World Bank made it mandatory for them to do so before receiving development aid over the past 25 years.

To the weak East African economies, this was a “do-or-die” situation; the kind of situation where they either implemented the SAPs or lost development aid and budget support.

With a reluctance that proved amply justified in hindsight, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania went about implementing these policies and suffered a horrendous two decades of sustained low agricultural growth rates and deepening rural poverty.

On its part, the Nordic Africa Institute delivers a scathing attack on the Bank for directly contributing to the mass impoverishment of hundreds of smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere in the developing world. “Smallholder farming has been eroding over the past three decades, perpetuating rural poverty and marginalising remote rural areas.”

The institute further says that over the past quarter of a century, African smallholder farmers have been losing their share of the global markets for such traditional export crops like coffee, cocoa, tea, as well as cotton, tobacco and cashew nuts. This share has declined steadily to the point where it is now “negligible.”

In real terms, this has meant that producers of these crops in East Africa and elsewhere on the continent could no longer produce with advise from extension staff who (particularly in Kenya) were laid off en masse.

The implementation of SAPs also meant that farmers’ incomes dwindled and they could no longer afford to take their children to school while family diets became poorer by the day.

These difficulties were compounded by such other developments as widespread fragmentation of land, continued growth in rural population, the emergence of new diseases (HIV/Aids) and new strains of old diseases (e.g. tuberculosis), weakening of alternative social support structures, and lack of credit to raise farm productivity.

The net effect, as is typified in most rural areas of East Africa, has been deepening of poverty, rural misery and all their negative ramifications.

To escape this rural misery, millions of East Africans have been fleeing to urban areas. But many are not well prepared for the unforgiving urban life.

Indeed, the World Development Report says that with little education, millions of migrants have limited chances for getting integrated into formal job market.

Consequently, a significant proportion of the migrants have “exported” poverty to urban areas since they can only afford to live in such slums as Kibera in Nairobi.

The report states that migration to urban areas might not be the answer after all, and the rural poor stand a better chance on the farm. It says; “More than 80 per cent of the decline in rural poverty is attributable to better conditions in rural areas rather than out-migration of the poor.”

But if migration is not such a good option, what chances do East African farmers have of bettering their lot on the farm? The Bank now recognises the need for sound public policy to help the farmers.

It acknowledges that such policy must be sensitive to farmer differentiation; that there are yawning differences that characterise farmers.

It says that besides heterogeneity in terms of scale of production (large as opposed to small-scale farmers), farmers are differentiated by gender, ethnicity and social status, which “imply differing abilities to use the same assets and resources in responding to opportunities.”

The options offered in the report include enabling smallholder farmers to be more productive, improving the prices of foodstuffs, raising the quantity and quality of public investments and the promotion of innovations through science and technology.

And in a departure from the past, the Bank asks rich countries to remove their long-running protection for their own farmers.

By removing such protection, industrial countries would “induce annual welfare gains” in developing countries by an estimated five times the current annual flow of aid to agriculture. The report further calls for the establishment of fair rules for international trade.

During a recent visit to Kenya, Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni, disparaged “mobile advisers” and attributed many of Africa’s problems to such advice.

The Nordic Africa Institute for its part casts doubt on the ability of the World Bank to deliver advice to developing countries. It quotes the World Bank’s own recent evaluation, which challenged the institution’s reputation as the world’s “knowledge bank” and criticised its habit of taking “new and untested results as hard evidence that informed its policies.”

No one, it seems, will ever hold the World Bank accountable for the monumental SAPs fiasco. As the Nordic Institute says, this is because sub-Saharan and other developing countries are too dependent on the Bank’s financial aid to complain even when they know that implementing its policies is likely to lead to massive repercussions for their people.

Asian Development Bank rethinks its strategy for reducing poverty

from the International Herald Tribune

By Patrick Blum

MADRID: Against a background of record rice prices that threaten to destabilize the fast-growing economies of Asia, the Asian Development Bank is rethinking its long-term strategy for reducing poverty at a two-day meeting in Madrid this week.

Rajat Nag, managing director of the bank, says dealing with the food crisis is an urgent priority.

"In the immediate, we have to concentrate on the food side. We have to find ways to deal with this. The poor must have access to income, have the necessary purchasing power" to buy food, he said during an interview ahead of the meeting.

Unlike in parts of Africa, the food crisis in Asia is not so much about availability of supplies — there are adequate food stocks — but more about prices, he said.

As part of the immediate response, targeted income support for the poor might be needed, Nag said. "We have to be flexible. In a crisis it's important to make sure the poor are able to buy food."

In the longer term, it will also be necessary to look at under-investment in agriculture and related areas like infrastructure, rural markets and access roads. All this will require governments to spend more, which could strain public finances, he said.

The bank is ready to help. "This could affect the fiscal situation, and we will have to see what we can do to provide assistance. We have to take a long-term view, work with governments to see how we can help them on the fiscal side, to give them budget support," Nag said.

The food crisis is only one of the problems confronting the region. Despite brisk economic growth, averaging about 6 percent annually across the Asia-Pacific region in recent years, more than 600 million people still live in absolute poverty, surviving on less than $1 a day.

According to the bank's statistics, almost half of the world's poor live in South Asia alone. In China, 452 million people earn less than $2 a day, a figure that reaches 868 million in India. Child malnutrition is high and almost half of the children in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India and Nepal are undernourished. Some 1.9 billion people in the region do not have access to basic sanitation.

Widespread poverty remains the most pressing problem in the region. Many people have had little or no access to the benefits of economic growth, or access to social services. At least 500 million, or almost one-third of the regional labor force of 1.7 billion workers, are unemployed or underemployed.

"Large numbers of people are being left behind or left out," according to a strategy report prepared by the development bank. Growing wealth, paradoxically, has exacerbated inequalities and economic disparities within and among countries.

There are fears that a global downturn could undo progress made in recent years and that many of those who have gained from rising standards of living could be at risk. Unrest and political instability could follow.

"People who have done well in recent years could suddenly find themselves slipping below the poverty line," Nag warned.

No one knows what the full impact of the U.S. and global downturn will be, but growth expectations in the United States and Europe have already been revised downward for this year.

So far Asia has appeared immune to the crisis, but even the optimists acknowledge that the region cannot escape completely untouched by global developments.

Pilar L'Hotelerie, the associate director general for international affairs at Banco de España, the Spanish central bank, said that while Asian economies would be influenced by developments in the United States and the global economy, they were in a better position now than they were during the financial crisis a decade ago.

But Asia's success could also be a source of weakness. Its share of global exports has soared to 27 percent, up from 16 percent in the 1980s, increasing the region's potential vulnerability. The Asian Development Bank estimates that by 2020 the region could account for one-third of world trade.

"Given the heavy export orientation of most economies, there will probably be spillovers through the trade channel, in other words, a reduction in the demand for exports," L'Hotelerie said. "However, given the large increase in intraregional trade in the area, increased south-south trade linkages and the robustness of domestic demand in Asian countries over the past few years, Asia may be in a relatively good position this time around."

Alicia Garcia-Herrero, chief economist for emerging markets at Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria in Hong Kong, said that while exports were vulnerable, there were signs that Asian exporters might already be shifting some of their focus from the U.S. market to other emerging markets and Europe.

"Exports are the most obvious channel in which Asia could be affected, but what we see in the export market here is relatively good and what we see in the rest of the economy is even better," Garcia-Herrero said. "There are big infrastructure plans in India, in the Philippines and other countries. They are all stepping up these investments and that will help uphold their economies."

"I don't think they will escape completely, even China will be affected, but Asian growth has been so strong in 2007 they have a lot of leeway," she added. "So what happens from now is from a huge base. It's fortunate to have a slowdown in the economy when you're at the peak of your economic cycle."

The financial turmoil has had little impact to date on emerging Asian markets, though small open economies could be more at risk.

"Asia in general with few outstanding exceptions has remained largely on the sidelines in terms of exposure to U.S. subprime risks or to complex products," L'Hotelerie, the Spanish central bank economist, said. "External positions are sound, financial vulnerabilities have been reduced, and Asia is also more closed financially than other emerging market regions. Therefore, also on this front, vulnerabilities look relatively contained."

While growth in the region may slow, it will remain at enviably high rates this year and pick up again in 2009, according to the Asian Development Outlook report published by the development bank in March.

Asia, excluding Japan, had its highest growth rate in almost two decades in 2007, with an average 8.7 percent rise in gross domestic product. For this year, the report projected growth of 7.6 percent, only slightly below the average of the past 5 years.

Still, Nag said the bank was "increasingly concerned about energy and food prices."

Garcia-Herrero said, "Asia is not used to inflation; people don't know how to hedge against it."

While core inflation for the Asian region has held relatively stable at between 2 percent and 3 percent, headline inflation, which includes food and energy prices, has more than doubled since the beginning of last year, rising to 6.6 percent in March, according to Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria.

Rising inflation expectations could be a more immediate threat to economic stability than the prospect of a moderate slowdown in growth, the development bank's outlook report warned.

"The risk of an inflation spiral in Asia is palpable and warrants close attention," it said. "Published inflation rates disguise the true extent of underlying inflation pressures due to the presence of subsidies, administrative price controls, and cuts in excise taxes."

The need to provide support for access to food, fuel and power will put pressure on government budgets already strained by a huge demand for investment in crucial areas of the economy — with most countries in the region already running budget deficits.

Taming inflation expectations and reining in fiscal deficits are challenges facing a range of countries, the outlook report said. The private sector can play a part, but financing needs are enormous. According to an internal study by the development bank, the region will need an estimated $4.7 trillion for infrastructure development alone over the next 10 years.

Nag said the bank lent a record $10 billion last year, and he said he expected it to lend a similar amount in 2008, but there is a limit to what it can do.

Basmati shortage reaches House of Commons

from The Deccan Herald

Growing unease in the Indian restaurant industry over the shortage and rising prices of basmati rice has reached the House of Commons with an early day motion condemning the European Union for imposing tariffs on the grain.


Philip Davies, Conservative MP from Shipley, north England, tabled the motion following several complaints by Indian restaurant owners in his constituency as well as in Bradford.

The early day motion titled 'Basmati Rice' reads: "That this House is concerned about the rising cost of rice which is causing problems for many South Asian restaurants and takeaways; condemns the EU for imposing tariffs of up to 65 euros per ton on basmati rice from Thailand, Egypt, Uruguay and the US; believes in the principle of free trade; and therefore calls on the Government to regain trade policy from the EU and abolish these tariffs for the benefit of these restaurants, takeaways and the customers they serve".

"These trade tariffs are totally unjustified. They are pushing up the prices for consumers, causing problems for our local restaurants and takeaways across Bradford and also hinder some of the poorest countries in the world from trading their way out of poverty," Davies said.

He said that the trade tariffs were another prime example of how the EU had allegedly become a "protection racket for inefficient producers".

The UK imports around 200,000 tonnes of rice every year and is the largest importer of rice in the EU.

The shortage of basmati rice and rising prices have prompted shopkeepers in several towns across Britain to ration sales to prevent hoarding and panic buying. The shopkeepers say they are struggling to procure supplies to meet demand.

There are also cases of people hoarding rice bags to sell them at a premium later as prices rise.

Alex Waugh, director of the Rice Association, said prices were up 60 per cent since the last year and the price of basmati rice, one of the most popular varieties in the UK, had almost doubled.

Big producers like India and China had restricted their exports and there were now "rapidly declining stocks" in the world, he said. This has raised prices that British consumers pay for rice at shops and in restaurants.

According to the Rice Association, the strengthening Indian rupee has increased sterling import costs by more than 10 per cent between August 2006 and January 2008.

P&B Foods, a Bradford-based food importer and wholesaler which sells about 5,000 tonnes of rice every year, is now rationing customers to ten 45 kilo bags.

Chandra Patel, the company's buying director, warned the situation could get worse.

Asia fears unrest from food price shock

from The Peninsula On Line

Soaring food prices may throw millions of Asians back into poverty, undo a decade of gains and stoke civil unrest, regional leaders said yesterday as they urged a boost to agricultural production to meet rising demand.

Asia — home to two thirds of the world’s poor — risks rising social tension as a doubling of wheat and rice prices in the last year has slammed people who spend more than half their income on food, Japanese Finance Minister Fukushiro Nukaga said during the Asian Development Bank’s annual meeting. If food prices rise 20 percent, 100 million poor people across Asia could be forced back into extreme poverty, warned Indian Finance Secretary D. Subba Rao.

“In many countries that will mean the undoing of gains in poverty reduction achieved in the past decade of growth,” Rao told the ADB’s meeting in Madrid. The ADB estimates that about 20 percent of people in Asia are presently living on less than $1 a day — the international definition of extreme poverty — compared to more than 60 percent who did so in the mid-1960s.

A 43 percent rise in global food prices in the year to March sparked violent protests in Cameroon and Burkina Faso as well as rallies in Indonesia following reports of starvation deaths. Many governments have introduced food subsidies or export restrictions to counter rising costs, but they have only exacerbated price rises on global markets, Nukaga said.

“Those hardest hit are the poorest segments of the population, especially the urban poor,” Nukaga told delegates. “It will have a negative impact on their living standards and their nutrition, a situation that may lead to social unrest and distrust,” he added.

The ADB estimates the very poorest people in the Asia Pacific region spend 60 percent of their income on food and a further 15 percent on fuel — the key basic commodities of life which have seen their prices rise relentlessly in the last year. Japan is one of 67 ADB member economies gathered in Spain to discuss measures to counter severe weather and rising demand that have ended decades of cheap food in developing nations.

The Asia-Pacific has three times the population of Europe — around 1.5 billion people — living on less than $2 a day. Rice is a staple food in most Asian nations and any shortage threatens instability, making governments extremely sensitive to its price. But the steadily rising cost of providing fuel and food subsidies harms budget finances, puts at risk the macroeconomic stability international investors demand in return for buying government bonds and, in some cases, curbs the access nations have to global financial markets.

Indonesia, for example, has pledged to reduce its budget deficit by cutting fuel subsidies ahead of planned global bond sales this year worth around $12bn. “We have to reduce the budget deficit for investor confidence,” Anggito Abimanyu, a senior Indonesian fiscal policy official told ADB delegates yesterday, saying that fuel and electricity subsidies of $20.5bn this year hampered efforts to raise money on international capital markets.

Philippines Cancels Rice Tender; Futures Rebound

from Bloomberg

The Philippines, the world's biggest rice importer, canceled a tender to buy 675,000 metric tons as just one company submitted an offer, highlighting the tightness of supply in the global market and spurring a rebound in the price.

Vietnam Southern Food Corp. was the only company to offer the grain, National Food Authority Deputy Administrator Vic Jarina said. The authority will wait until the ``market softens'' before holding another tender, possibly in the second half, he said today.

The Philippines failed to fill a tender last month, helping rice prices rise to a record in Chicago on April 24. Philippine Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap said on May 2 that today's planned purchase was intended to boost stockpiles and the country was prepared to reject offers if it deemed prices were too high.

``Global supply until the end of the year will remain tight,'' Chookiat Ophaswongse, president of the Thai Rice Exporters Association, said today in an interview by phone. The Philippines ``will probably need to issue another tender.''

Thailand, the world's largest rice exporter, and Vietnam both signaled that they may not take part in today's tender. The Thai government couldn't guarantee contracts, the commerce ministry said on April 28. Vietnam also may not participate, the Vietnam Food Association said on April 29.

Rice, the staple food for half the world, gained 91 percent on the Chicago Board of Trade in the past year on higher demand and export curbs by some nations, including Vietnam. The most- active contract, which advanced to a record $25.07 per 100 pounds on April 24, reversed losses today to rise 0.3 percent to $21.

`Any Price'

The surge in the price of rice and record energy costs have stoked concern that global poverty may increase and social unrest may spread. Ministers from Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which includes the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam, agreed May 3 to work together to cope with rising rice prices.

Yap's statement that the Philippines may reject bids if prices were too high may have discouraged potential suppliers, said Luz Lorenzo, an economist at ATR-Kim Eng Securities Inc. in Manila, the Philippine capital.

``When the government was willing to buy at any price, it attracted a lot of bidders,'' Lorenzo said by phone. ``There's less willingness now to pay top price.''

Twelve companies including suppliers from Thailand and Vietnam offered on April 17 to sell the Philippines 325,750 tons of rice at prices ranging from $872.50 a ton to $1,220, including freight costs. The nation had sought 500,000 tons, prompting the government to raise the amount it was seeking today.

`Critical Volume'

``We've already procured the critical volume of 1.713 million tons'' needed to fill the gap in supply, Jarina told reporters in Manila this morning as the tender details were announced. That volume included imports bought with loans from the U.S., he said.

The Philippines will likely hit a production target of 17.3 million tons of rough rice this year, Yap also said on May 2. That's equivalent to 11.2 million tons of milled rice. The nation's demand for the grain is about 12 million tons a year.

The National Food Authority, which has been authorized to import up to 2.1 million tons of rice this year, is in talks to secure an extra 300,000 tons, including 100,000 tons from the East Asian Emergency Rice Reserve, Jarina said by phone this afternoon.

If the government fails to secure the additional supplies and prices fall, ``we may do the tender in the third quarter, or the fourth quarter,'' Jarina said by phone. The price may drop between August and September as Thailand and the U.S. harvest second crops, Jarina said in the interview.

ADB to meet amid food crisis, growing poverty

from AFP via Google

MANILA (AFP) — The Asian Development Bank holds its annual meeting this weekend reeling from a global food crisis that has led to stinging criticism of its international governors for failing to see it coming.

The soaring price of basic foods such as rice -- the benchmark Thai variety now fetches some 1,000 dollars a tonne, up threefold on a year ago -- has led to a supply crunch that is worrying governments wary of popular unrest.

There are other tough issues facing the bank, notably a simmering internal row among its members over its continuing relevance in a region that has been transformed since the lender was founded 42 years ago.

The United States, which with Japan is the ADB's largest shareholder, took the unprecedented recent step of voting against its long-term strategic plan, which is also on the agenda for the meeting in Spain's capital Madrid.

But a source within the bank, who asked not to be named, said: "While the bank faces a number of critical issues about its role and relevance, all this may be overshadowed by the food crisis."

ADB president Haruhiko Kuroda warned recently that soaring food prices had pushed back Asia's fight against poverty, and that some countries may one day need foreign aid to feed their hungry.

The rises are blamed on higher energy and fertiliser costs, greater global demand, droughts, the loss of rice farmland to biofuel plantations and price speculation.

"The food crisis did not happen overnight," said Shalmali Guttal, a senior associate at Focus on the Global South, a Bangkok-based political and economic advocacy group.

"Asian farmers have been drawing attention to the growing agrarian crisis for years, but no one with the power to change policy listened," she told AFP in a telephone interview.

"Many of us civil society researchers and activists saw this crisis coming, why didn't the ADB and the World Bank?"

While the ADB boasts some "spectacular progress" over the last 40 years in poverty reduction, most notably in China, the region is still home to some 600 million people living on less than a dollar a day -- two thirds of the global population.

"Agriculture has clearly been neglected by governments and international institutions alike for at least two decades and the world is now suffering the results of such neglect," Bruce Tolentino, director for economic reform and development with the Asia Foundation, told AFP.

He said the ADB and others "should have seen this crisis coming."

"But unfortunately it is a weakness common to many institutions, including the ADB, that the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing and vice versa."

Based in Manila, the ADB is owned by its 67 member countries -- 48 from the Asia-Pacific region, and 19 from elsewhere around the world.

In 2007, it approved 10.1 billion dollars of loans, 673 million dollars in grant projects, and technical assistance amounting to 243 million.

Since it was established, the ADB has grown from helping Asian governments develop infrastructure projects to promoting the role of the private sector in development.

But some critics say its loan conditions unfairly pressure governments to deregulate and privatize agriculture -- leading to problems such as the rice supply crunch.

Arze Glipo, the convenor of the Asia Pacific Network on Food Sovereignty, which represents farmers' groups, said ADB projects "tended to weaken farmers' livelihood."

She cited a 175-million-dollar loan to the Philippines to finance a grain sector development programme, under which the ADB urged the privatization of the National Food Authority.

The ADB also wanted restrictions on rice imports replaced with a system of tariffs, and cancelled the loan when Manila failed to act, she charged.

That kind of tactic -- "regardless of its costs and consequences" -- is at the very heart of the problem, said Guttal of Focus on the Global South, as it forced governments to change policies to fit in with the ADB's conditions for credits.

On the road to fight looming hunger

from The Nation

Story by OLIVER MATHENGE

Even as poverty tightens its grip on Africa, a group of eight young people have cycled through half the continent, starting from the north, raising awareness — and money — to help the poor.

For them, the Millennium Development Goals are achievable by 2015 and they will stop at nothing to play their role.

The five men and one woman left Kenya in April for Tanzania where they were joined by two more cyclists after covering 790 kilometres.


In Kenya the group cycled through Moyale, Marsabit, Isiolo, Nanyuki and then Nairobi. From Tanzania the cyclists moved to Malawi and are currently in Zambia. Their cycles will then take them to Botswana and eventually to South Africa.

“We have covered a good portion of our journey, which began on January 5 in Cairo. We will cover a total of 12,500km,” one of the cyclists, Mr Gareth Brauteseth, told the Nation in Kenya.

Social network

South Africans Gareth, Didi Francis (the only woman) and Grant McDermott have teamed up with their Irish friends Niall Treacy, Oliver Fegan and Denis Dwyer for the six-month journey that will take them through nine countries along Africa’s east coast.

The other two, Richard Conyngham and Matt Eb, who joined them in Arusha, are also South Africans. Interestingly, the eight cyclists, all in their 20s and whose background is finance, linked up through the ever-growing social network portal, Facebook.

The fact that their feat is extraordinary and they are all taking such a challenge for the first time, is in the least of their concerns. According to Gareth, Millennium Cycle for Change aims at creating awareness about the work of the Millennium Promise Fund, an organisation that works with impoverished communities to help fight poverty in Africa.

The fund, established by renowned economist and founder of the Earth Institute Jeffrey Sachs, works with the communities, governments, NGOs and corporations. Mr Sachs was an economic adviser to former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

“That is one of the unique aspects of this fund, it is not about handing out money to people. It is about empowering the community through investing in them in partnership with their governments,” Gareth adds.

The overall goal of the Cycle is to raise $300,000 (approximately Sh18.6 million). The funds will go towards the 80 Millennium villages established by the Millennium Promise Fund in 10 countries in Africa.

Twelve of the villages are in Siaya District in Kenya’s Nyanza Province. They include Sauri near Gem constituency, which the team failed to visit due to the post-election violence.

In Tanzania, the team visited the Mbola Millennium village according to an email update from Gareth. The Mbola cluster is composed of six villages with a population of approximately 30,000.

Denis says that they support the Millennium Promise because the Sauri Village had shown remarkable progress and potential. He says that the beneficiaries have managed to improve their output, and reduced malaria prevalence.

“The number of pupils who benefit from the school feeding programme under the fund has increased tremendously in Sauri,” adds Denis noting that 17,514 pupils have been provided with lunch in 28 primary schools in the area.

According to the cyclists, the Millennium villages address all the poverty-related problems, including absence of essential infrastructure to assist communities on their way to self-sustainable development.

“Our aim is to see the millennium development goals achieved where we will have all people being self-reliant,” Gareth says.

According to the cyclist, maize production in Sauri, established in 2004, has more than tripled through the help of inputs such as fertilisers and improved seeds. He also notes that malaria prevalence in the area has gone down from 55 per cent to 13 per cent.

The Millenium Cycle route runs from Egypt along the Nile until Lake Aswan. At that point, the cyclists took a ferry into northern Sudan and continued through the country and into Ethiopia. From there, it was on to Kenya, and then central Tanzania and into Lilongwe on the western side of Lake Malawi.

They will then continue down Livingstone’s way into Victoria Falls, exiting Zambia into Botswana and then into South Africa, where the ‘Garden Route’ will lead them to Cape Town.

“We are hoping to get into Cape Town on July 15,” says Gareth.

Nubian desert

Denis adds that the most challenging parts so far have been in Sudan and Ethiopia.

“It was very hard to cycle though the Nubian desert in Sudan, which took us six days to cover. The other was the Ethiopian Highlands, which has a very tough terrain,” Denis says.

Prices hit foreign worker twice

from The Calgary Herald

Man sending cash to family in Philippines

Kelly Cryderman
Calgary Herald

As Geronimo Manalad signs the forms to transfer $800 to his family in the Philippines, he wishes it could be more.

In the six months since the 43-year-old bus driver left for work in Canada, rice prices in his home country have doubled. Manalad has two children, and his elderly mother tells him on the phone she is worried about the family's food costs.

"Filipinos eat rice almost five times a day," Manalad said before he joined the line of people at the iRemit outlet in Pacific Place mall waiting to send money to their families around the world. "They don't have work," he said. "They depend on me."


But Manalad, a temporary foreign worker who takes home about $2,000 in monthly pay, can't afford to send more to his family because his living expenses in Calgary are so high.

Such is the nature of the global surge in food and fuel prices.

The same soaring costs causing riots, uncertainty and despair in poverty-stricken countries around the world is also causing ripples for the poor and working classes in Canada.

The Calgary Inter-Faith Food Bank says will add $50,000 to its food purchasing budget next year -- for perishables such as bread, milk, eggs and ground beef -- in preparation for higher prices. The food bank's capability not only affects the 33,000 emergency food hampers it distributes each year but also the 73 social agencies it provides food.

"If food isn't coming to us, that means we're unable to share it," said food bank CEO James McAra. "There's this ripple through the agencies."

McAra said it's not so much what is happening now, but what could occur in six months.

"The impact hasn't hit the community yet," McAra said. "If something spikes right now, what happens . . . I'm not going to cut the quality of the food."

Fuel is another scary topic, he said. A $50,000 pledge from Petro-Canada was expected to cover all gas costs for the year. Now McAra isn't so sure.

At Meals on Wheels, fund development manager Kathryn Robson said volunteer drivers -- who receive a once-a-year fuel honorarium in

November -- have yet to express concerns about rising fuel costs.

"They're the type of people who just suck it up. That's their nature," she said.

Robson acknowledges fuel costs are a bigger worry than food at this point for the non-profit organization.

If it gets worse, she said it may be that volunteers stop signing up for additional shifts and trucking companies start to apply fuel surcharges to deliveries.

Carolyn Pearce, who volunteers to make deliveries at the organization, said high gas costs are "not dissuading me from doing my route, but it does cost a lot more money."

Pearce worries that retired volunteers on fixed incomes -- many of whom who make weekly deliveries -- may be more affected. "For them, I'm sure it would be an issue," she said.

And working families are also struggling. Food and gas prices are a concern for single-income families like the Zoboskis, who rely on a boarder for part of their income. The family doesn't want to raise the rent, but gas prices are starting to affect the household budget.

"Everything is going up," Bonnie Zoboski said. "It's actually kind of freaky."

Zoboski home-schools her daughters Anna, 8, and Ashley, 4. Her husband Andy works providing personal care for quadriplegics and often picks up extra hours to help with costs.

"We have to work a lot to make a go of it," she said. "You can survive but it's hard to get ahead."

University of Calgary economist Frank Atkins said people at the lower end of the income scale have more difficulty when prices spike.

"When prices go up, you have to re-allocate your budget."

Maintaining the road to poverty?

IPP Media

By Staff writer Peter Msungu

Last year Mgovano Nyumbi of Mahenge harvested four bags of finger millet, promising good money. He could not get a market.

The produce decomposed, shattering Nyumbi`s dreams of becoming rich through his sweat and toil on the land! He is seriously contemplating whether he should continue with cultivation of the cash crop.

``Motor vehicles cannot reach my farm tucked 35 kilometres away from passable roads. The road to my place is impassable,`` Says Nyumbi.

His cry is echoed by Yuda Mangwada, a peasant farmer: ``I have my five-acre farm at a village, 16 kilometres away from Dabaga in Iringa District, from which point we usually transport our fruits from the farm.

``The only available transport is the usual bicycle and on paths, because the rough and bumpy road is now hardly passable.

We have tonnes and tonnes of harvested fruits which cannot be carried by simple bicycles.

``If our road could be rehabilitated tomorrow, Iringa Municipality will be self sufficient in all types of fruits.``

Mwangwada is rehabilitating the road with the help of his family and a handful of neighbours.

Juma Khalfani Mussa is a timber dealer from Tabora. He has great trouble in taking his products from as far as 20 kilometers to the nearest railway station where he transports them to Tabora for processing.

Vehicles cannot easily reach his area of activity because of poor roads.``At times the cut wood has stayed in the forest for more than two months without being transported to the marketing centres due to transport problems.

By the time transport is available, the wood has gone bad,`` complains Juma, adding: ``Government must know that if our communication network is not deliberately improved, there can be no meaningful development in our country.``

Many people hailing from the rural areas are in agreement that little attention is paid to feeder roads making them inaccessible for most part of the year, and consequently fuelling economic poverty to the masses despite their active engagement in production.

Says Desmond Komba, retired Veterinary officer: ``Many of our agricultural products come from the rural areas where roads are in such pathetic condition that vehicles are unable to take the products to buying centres.``

``Peasant farmers in many remote rural areas have had problems bringing their produce to urban centres due to poor road infrastructure,`` says Nyumbi who says people from his village have asked Mahenge authorities to rehabilitate the roads to allow access to urban markets.

Aloyce Chambaga, a retired Agriculture Instructor, who has settled in Makete District, Iringa Region told the Guardian on Sunday that many roads in the area are so poor that you one cannot afford to send a vehicle in to ferry out produce.

``You have to mobilize people so that they carry your harvests piece- meal to the nearest centre from where they can be taken to the nearest market centre,``Chambaga explains.

Federal poverty measures due for overhaul

from The Sun Herald

By MEGHA SATYANARAYANA
megha@sunherald.com

-- How poverty is measured in the United States is too outdated to be accurate, said a national children's research group, suggesting that the number of disadvantaged Americans is underestimated.

The original measurement was established in the 1960s, based on a calculation that families spent one-third of their incomes on food. This value was multiplied by three, and became the federal poverty level, said the group. But over the years, other costs have crept up, including transportation, health care, housing and child care. The group said food now represents one-seventh of total income.

According to census calculations, in 1968, a family of four was considered at the poverty level at approximately $3,553. In 2008, the level was $21,200 for a family of four.

Nancy Cauthen, deputy director of Columbia University's National Center for Children in Poverty said research shows that families need twice that to meet basic needs. The Center wants the calculation to be changed, both to reflect the overall and the local cost of living increases. A person in New York City is measured by the same federal formula as a person in rural Mississippi.

"Most analysts will tell you that today's poverty thresholds are inhumanely low," she said.

Because families spend differently, she said, those who are living in poverty are many times worse off than those living in poverty 40 years ago.

In Mississippi, the median household income, the middle point in which one-half of incomes are below and one-half are above was $34,278 in 2004, about 25 percent less than the national median. Based on those measurements, about one in five Mississippians live in poverty.

The National Center for Children in Poverty, a self-funded major program initiative of the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, was founded in 1989.

3 weeks in India: 'I will never be the same'

from the Ventura County Star

By Clair Tenney

For three-and-a-half weeks over winter break, I embarked on a journey that changed me and my entire outlook on life. Along with 13 other California Lutheran University students, I went for a trip to India led by professors Dr. Paul Hanson and Dr. Druann Pagliassoti. The previous semester of studying the country and seeing slides could never have prepared me for what was to come.

My first week in India was a long one. I frequently cried over the sights I was shocked by — sights that I wanted to run away from at the time, sights now that I miss.

Roads are complete chaos. I have never been somewhere with so much noise. New York City does not even compare. People use horns to communicate everything. Not one single car, motorcycle, bike, bus or rickshaw stays on the correct side of the road. Vehicles whiz head on and, just when it looks like they will collide, one moves just ever so slightly.

Animals roam the streets just as if they were cars or people. The people feed hundreds of stray dogs. Cows, considered holy in the country, walk along the street beside you. Sometimes, they stand in the middle of the road and cars just honk and drive around them. Peacocks are in the trees and the sidewalk, camels carry carts of goods or people, and monkeys swing from the buildings and come within inches of you.

Every time we stepped off the bus, sellers of tourist-type items would surround us. They will follow a group for blocks, pushing their items in front of your face, touching you and moving from person to person.

Starving, barely clothed babies

The poverty in this country was unbelievable to my American eyes. Seventy percent of India's population lives in poverty.

Beggars are everywhere. But, unlike most in America, who stand stoically waiting for you to drop coins in their cup, in India, they come up and pull on your clothes, tug on your arms and stand in front of your face for up to 10 minutes. We were taught never to make eye contact with them or speak to them. Mothers bring their starving, barely clothed, crying babies right up to you. It took all my willpower not to cry in front of them and give them all my money.

India is the most dirty and smelly place I have ever visited. Bathrooms are regularly soaked in water or urine. You can't drink water unless it is bottled. The only fruits and vegetables you can eat are those that can be peeled.

Despite all of the craziness, India holds so much beauty and spirituality.

I have experienced the Golden Temple in Amritsar, a sight that literally took my breath away. I will forever remember how I felt and the sounds of the beautiful Sikh people worshiping God. I went to Mother Teresa's orphanage and played with children for hours, falling in love with one little boy so much that I cried when I left him and made the decision to one day adopt a child from this wonderful country. I visited the Taj Mahal, a sight that symbolizes India.

Camels, elephants, temples

I took a boat ride down the holy Ganges River, where hundreds of men and women bathe, and I watched as a group of men prepared their relative's dead body to be cremated and thrown in the water. I went on a camel ride through the desert and small villages where the children followed us around like we were celebrities. I smoked Indian tobacco with the village men and learned Indian dances. I rode an elephant to the top of a castle and received an elephant blessing in a temple. I climbed 417 steps to the top of a temple in Trichy, where I looked out upon the city and I felt I could see the world curve.

I strongly encourage everyone to visit this magnificent country. After living in India for only a few weeks, it is hard for me to be back in the United States where people have everything, but see none of it, only striving for more. It makes me think that material possessions only make us unhappy, after seeing children overjoyed by their simple toys — a rock with a string tied around it — and adults worshiping God because they have a pair of clothes to wear.

I will never forget seeing people with leprosy beg on the sides of the road. I will never be the same after seeing at least 100 people with decapitated limbs drag their bodies along the dirty ground. I will never forget the sounds of the call of prayer to Muslims ringing out across the cities. I will never be the same after seeing people get down on their hands and knees thanking and worshiping God for the little things they have.

Even with the little that Indians have, it is hard to feel sorry for them because, in reality, they have everything. I even feel jealous of them. They have simplicity and they have true happiness. Mother Teresa said of the Indian people: "The poor give us much more than we give them. They're such strong people, living day to day with no food. And they never curse, never complain. We don't have to give them pity or sympathy. We have so much to learn from them."