Jeff Black | Berlin

The food-price crisis of 2008 has ended decades of cheap, subsidised food. Since January, the global price of wheat has shot up by 77%. Rice by double that. Riots and political instability have ensued, and policy makers are at odds about what to do in response. But while the causes of the food crisis are complex, and obscure, there is one clear loser – the urban poor. As Jeff Black reports now from Manila, Philippines, the food crisis is becoming a severe setback in the fight against poverty..

(Broadcast Saturday 21st June 2008, on RTE Radio One’s World Report)

At the food summit in Rome earlier this month, the usual suspects were being blamed for the current startling rises in the price of the things we eat: American subsidies for biofuel or the meat-guzzling new middle classes of India and China. 40 world leaders argued, haggled, and presumably, ate, for 3 days. They ultimately agreed on very little.

 In the meantime, the government of the Philippines, like many other developing countries that import large quantities of food to feed their numerous poor, were trying not to buckle under the pressure. The Philippines is a country of 90 million with a third under the poverty line. Rice, which is present on practically every meal table rich or poor,  is the major issue. It has risen in price by more than 140 percent since the beginning of the year.

Long lines now attend subsidised government rice distribution centres. A penalty of life-imprisonment has been threatened for anyone caught hoarding rice to mke extra profits. The government has even mulled imposing a state of emergency to deal with the crisis.

The Philippines is in the unfortunate position of having to buy rice on the international market, despite being one of the world’s top producers, in order to make up the shortfall between supply and demand. The international rice market is thin, however, and prone to large spikes, such as now.  With limited resources, the government plans to import as much as 2m tonnes this year, and sell it to the poor at less than half price.

But as I saw in the capital Manila, even these hand-outs and subsidies don’t go far enough. I visited Quintra market, a noisy sensory overload of a place in a run-down neighbourhood in the city to gauge the effect of the world food crisis on those at the bottom of the ladder. The picture isn’t encouraging.

Josie, an early-morning shopper with two kids at home, told me that her husband had now taken a second job, and was looking for other sidelines so that they could continue to send their kids to school. Others have not been so fortunate, and local papers have been full of reports of children dropping out in order work for food.

I visited the offices of Caritas, where stressed volunteers were counting piles of small-denomination banknotes given by church-goers at morning mass. The predominantly-Catholic Philippines still relies heavily on the Church for food aid throughout the country. One Caritas worker told me that in her area poverty had increased “rampantly” since last year. 

At a makeshift settlement under a road bridge hard by Quintra market’s meat and vegetable stalls, I spoke with Lisa, a lady in her thirties who washes clothes and does odd jobs to get by. “We used to eat twice a day,” she tells me. “But since the prices of everything have gone up, mostly now it is once”. I asked if the market’s meat or vegetables were often on the menu, and got a wry laugh in response.

In Europe, where we spend 10-15% of our incomes on food, the current “crisis” is more than manageable. In places like Quintra, where as much as 90 percent of incomes goes on food, the situation is quite different. It’s not starvation, yet, but it is a little further into hopeless poverty, foregoing education, healthcare, and practically everything else, just to stay alive. Robert Zoellick, head of the World Bank, says the current crisis is pushing the battle against poverty back by seven years. For many here, living in the margins by Quintra market, seven years is a lifetime away.