Images of malnourished children will no longer be the face of starvation. We will instead see food labelled with extraordinarily exorbitant prices, shortages that force even the wealthy into long queues for food and total anarchy as countries in different parts of the world spiral out of control as the hungry demand that they be sated.

The effects of worldwide food shortages, and the concurrent financial crises are being felt the world over. India’s drastic inflation has resulted in demonstrations by its main opposition party disrupting the activities of the lower house of the parliament and further heightening  political tension there.

And India is not an exception, around the world, prices of food are continuing to rise at rates not experienced in recent history. The price of Thai rice, which is used as a benchmark for the global price of rice, has gone up by 75 per cent. The price of wheat has also gone up by 130 percent over the past year doubling the price of bread in many countries. Soya prices are up 87%. Overall, the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation says food prices have gone up 45% in the last half year. It also reports that there are only eight to 12 weeks worth of cereal stocks left in the worldand that grain supplies are at their lowest levels since the 1980s.

In response to this reality, the Philippine government for example, the world's top importer of rice has decided to accelerate its imports in an effort at shoring up its domestic strategic stockpiles. Indonesia on the other hand, has set up a new restrictive regime for the export of rice, in an effort at stabilizing local prices. The Argentine government on its part has slapped higher taxes on grain exports and been so adamant in its stand that it bore resolutely a farmers' strike against the move.  In Egypt, Pakistan, Ethiopia, India and Vietnam the same story repeats itself, and worst of all among those restricting trade are the world's largest producers and exporters of grains.

The political crisis in Kenya has masked the 20 to 30 percent hike in the prices of many vital commodities- what we think is a temporary corollcary of the violence is in many cases a long-term adjustment to the global reality.  With violence taking people off their land in the planting season, and disrupting the efforts even of those retaining their farms in the immensely productive Kenyan Rift Valley, we now live under a cloud  of impending food catastrophe.  In urban areas the post-election crisis and the downturn in economic activity have led to great leaps in inflation even as unemployment increases and wages -where available- stick stubbornly low.

But even before this year, the cost of basic food products in the cities was increasingly out of reach for most residents. One of the main causes of this was the increasing cost of production at the farm and processing level. Several factors have worked to bring this about. Rising fertiliser and oil costs have increased the cost of getting the food to the market which extra cost is subsequently passed on to consumers. These additional costs have not been factored into the prices as much as they could have, but as the farmers’ bottomlines continue to dwindle, they are being forced into responding to the market.

Then there is the effect of global climate change. Major grain producers and exports such as Australia are currently undergoing a severe drought. China is feeling the pressure of feeding its expanding population, while with little attention paid to it, the once fertile North China Plain is drying up.  Malaysia is recovering from the effects of flloding and neighbouring Indonesia the effects of drought. Although the total output of most grains has improved with better technology and farm inputs, overall global demand clearly is close to outstripping supply, a fact that pushes prices ever higher and in an increasingly globalised market, leaves the weak and poor unshielded. 

Another factor, not much spoken of but in Kenya especially evident in the tea and coffee sectors is the entrance, influence and increasing prominence of speculators - investors taking bets on price movements- in the agricultural markets. With returns looking increasingly lucrative, and other sectors of the economy taking a hit from the post-election violence, credit crisis and economic downturn, we are likely to observe capital flowing increasingly into punts that will drive food prices even higher and away from the reach of the most poverty stricken. 

Why should we care? Apart from the human, moral imperative to care for the poor people not able to afford basic sustenance, we should be aware of the rising political and social unrest that can be caused directly as inflation spins out of control and the lives of the poorest are made unbearable. What looks like someone else's problem could soon knock on the doors of even the wealthiest countries and homes. Already we have seen countries such as Haiti where the prime minister was ousted after a week of riots induced by food rationing. Similar protests have been reported in Niger, Cameroon, Mauritania and Burkina Faso.

What can Kenya do to redeem itself in the face of such a global meltdown? The basic infrastructure is already in place to meet the increased demands for grain such as maize and wheat that form important constituents of the Kenyan stable diet. Over and above that however, the government machinery needs to urgently work to coordinate resources and efforts towards ensuring crucial reserves are at levels such as would ensure food security for the immediate future before we can replenish them off of our own harvests. In addition, it is of utmost importance that farmers are given incentives to put as much land as possible under the plough and that exports of crucial food products are restricted to the bare minimum. These efforts will cost far less and in the long term be less harmful than subsidies. At the same time, the Trade Ministry must seek to reduce as far as is possible import tarrifs on cereals and to seek to diminish the burden on farmers from the cost of farm inputs.

The common fix that was adopted by the Moi government back in the Mid 1980s when Kenya grappled with a drought that dried up reserves and led to drastic hikes in food prices was to set consumer end price controls. This had the counter-effect of discouraging production and trade and leading to even worse shortages. This in turn led to such phenomenon as widespread queuing for the food and the importation of massive quantities of food aid. But that food aid may not be available this time. Not only is the crisis global, but many of the fields that would previously have supplied world relief food through agencies such as USAID are now cultivated exclusively for the supply of biofuels.

Brian cares about Kenya. This article is published exclusively for KenyaImagine. Reproduction is unauthorised except with the express permission of the editors who can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it