Damn, I'm Hungry

So, as I’m sure many of you have noticed firsthand, there is a massive food crisis going on throughout the world right now. I’m sure you all noticed, you went to Trader Joe’s or Chipotle and they were out of a bunch of stuff, like bread and other essential items you need to survive, right? Oh wait, you haven’t noticed, you’ve only read about it? Oh yeah, sorry, I forgot we live in a rich country so it’s not our problem. Never-mind.

Alright, we may as well talk about it, that’s kind of like helping right? So I guess all these poor countries all over the world have no food or something. I can’t imagine it’s that big a deal, I mean it’s just food, but I guess it is. Alright, so the crisis cost the Prime Minister of Haiti his job. And it’s caused a few riots, but just in countries like Indonesia, Egypt, the Philippines, Cameroon, and the Ivory Coast (where the price of beef has almost doubled—in three days). Ok and maybe there’s been a little civil unrest in a couple of other places; but it’s just in countries like Burkina Faso, Senegal, Mauritania, Morocco, Yemen, Uzbekistan, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Mexico, and most of South America. Most of those places are probably in Africa though, and they don’t really have food there anyway, right?

Either way, all I know is that all this “agflation” (my new favorite political buzzword) can’t be the United States’ or Europe’s fault. It’s gotta be India’s and China’s fault, if they didn’t have so many damn people eating so damn much there would be plenty of food left for Africa and those other places. Oh yeah, and fuel prices have gone up too thanks to India and China’s trillion people driving all their fancy new cars, which makes fertilizer way more expensive and makes it cost like $300 for my boss to fill up his Hummer. This, coupled with poor harvests in 3rd world countries (which has nothing to do with global warming, which China and India also caused; that is, if global warming existed, and it doesn’t) has created this food crisis.

Alright, so maybe the United States is investing way more of its subsidies for corn into biofuel (in 2005, 6% of U.S. corn production was used for biofuel, now it’s 23%). Ok, and maybe rich countries like the United States have caused developing nations to become reliant on food imports so that the U.S. can subsidize its farmers (we sure taught them a lesson in self-reliance when we switched the subsidies for corn from their food to our precious biofuel!). And maybe corn ethanol is one of the least efficient and least practical fuels ever. And sure, the amount of corn ethanol biofuel it takes to fill up the average American car requires roughly the same amount of corn the average African eats in an entire year. Whatever, though, maybe if all these countries learned about the wonders of democracy and capitalism they wouldn’t be so hungry all the damn time. All I know is I can walk down to the corner and buy a Big Mac for $2, and if the United States can do it, I don’t understand why everyone else can’t. And we’re in a recession too (which has nothing to do with the lack of investment in food commodities that may or may not have something to do with the food crisis)! Again, I place full blame for this on India and China.

Seriously though readers, a lot of people in the world are starving and it’s only going to get a much, much worse. Don’t take your plentiful food for granted and don’t ignore the problems faced by people in developing nations. Please. At the very least, go to www.freerice.com and donate rice to developing nations while playing a fun game that vastly improves your vocabulary; it's an easy way to do something good!