For Want of Food

The American media is just now starting to pick up on the dimensions of a global food shortage that threatens to topple governments and take lives. Consider that while we here in the US are coping with rising prices for many food staples, there are places in the world where food is getting impossible to come by. In Egypt, the military has been tasked to bake bread. In Thailand, one of the world's biggest rice exporters, there are now limits on how much can be bought by consumers. Riot police patrol the streets of Senegal's largest cities, seeking to stem the violence that often accompanies rapid food price hikes.

And then there's Haiti. When food goes up 50% a year in the Western Hemisphere's poorest country, you have a recipe for disaster. People have been killed as the poor protest the cost of food, and the inability of government to do much about it. Pictures of people rummaging through dumps in Port Au Prince are just now starting to get printed in US papers.

Which brings up the following question. We are supposed to be the richest, most powerful nation on earth. We've been told for many years we can produce enough food to feed the world. In fact, some farmers here are paid not to produce certain crops. So why hasn't there been a mumbling word about the global food crisis from our leaders? Why, after 45 minutes of debate questions about flag lapel pins and the Weather Underground was there no question put to the candidates about how they'd deal with this?

If we think the only by-product of this shortage for us is the rising cost of food, we are sadly mistaken. We may be powerful, but we aren't immune to the problems of the world. It may be too much to ask our current stumblebum president to act. But there are three people seeking to take his place.

Where are they?