Notes sur : "Une faim furieuse" de Vivienne Walt

This article deals with the rise of prices of basic foodstuffs, such as rice, wheat and maize, which provokes an increasing number of « hunger riots », throughout the developing countries, to demand price decrease.

Indeed, as the journalist underlines, food is becoming a new serious threat for world peace. Last year, we have observed food riots in Mexico, Pakistan, Burkina Faso, India, Senegal, Mauritania and Cameroon, during which people protested against high food prices, and the lack of response by the State. According to Joachim Van Braun, director of he International Food Policy Research Institute, these riots are « a serious security issue ». All the more because, in all likelihood, it will take at least a decade to lower the current prices.

Various factors explain these prices. First, the growing number of consumers (from countries like China ad India, but also like Brazil or Russia), who wants to enjoy their purchasing consuming more and better food, including cereals and their derivatives. Moreover, the current price of oil (around 100 dollars per barrel) prompts the rise of the price of fertilizers, which, in turn, brings about the rising price of foodstuffs. Another factor is the global warning which, last year, caused prolonged droughts in Australia and Southern Africa, floods in West Africa or Frost in China. These climatic pressures, by reducing the cultural production, explain the high price of basic farm produce. Furthermore, the cultivation of cereals to produce biofuels is the ultimate factor of explanation. « The area for biofuels is increasing each year ». The cereals used to make biofuels don't integrate the food market, and the area hey occupy cannot be used to produce foodstuffs.