The current hunger crisis is forcing millions of the world’s most vulnerable people to the edge. The most recent headlines come from Ethiopia but it was Haiti earlier this year that provided a quick snapshot of the dynamics of starvation. Runaway prices for basic staples like rice have driven its people to desperate measures. Some have even tried to stave off hunger by eating mud patties mixed with oil and sugar. Others have turned to protest. When commodity prices peaked earlier this year, food riots broke out across the country. They drew the world’s attention and even forced the Prime Minister to resign, but this has made little difference to government policy. Several months later, the riots are starting again.
Like so many other countries, Haiti was force-fed a diet of structural adjustment programmes that opened it up to cheap, subsidized imports from richer countries. In the early 1980s Haiti was self-sufficient in rice, its main staple crop. But conditions on foreign loans, particularly a 1994 package from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), forced it to open its markets to cheap, subsidized rice from the US and local production was practically wiped out. Since 2007, rice prices have risen by 50 per cent, and the average Haitian can no longer afford their basic foodstuff.
