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如果说美国的次贷危机可能拖慢全球经济发展的步伐，那另一种危机已经切切实实地在全世界范围内引发了大规模的灾难性动荡。这里所说的就是全球粮食短缺和食品价格飚升引致的粮食危机。危机让发达国家也有些难以招架，但它的破坏力还是真正体现在贫困国家。
为什么会出现粮食危机？危机给人类带来的灾难性打击有哪些？我们该如何携手应对？本文把答案一一道来。
In our television age, the mention of a food crisis brings to mind the 1)bloated bellies of starving children. We think of droughts, crop failure, conflicts and the 2)tub-thumping of Bono and Bob Geldof. But now we have a very different sort of food crisis, one that last week for the first time brought food 3)rationing to America when the supermarket giant Wal-Mart restricted customers to four bags of rice per visit.
Make no mistake, the current food crisis has the capacity to transform global politics. There is nothing more fundamental than food.
In Britain, rising grain prices have already undermined the profitability of poultry and livestock farms. Good-quality food will become the preserve of the well-off, while those on lower incomes will have to 4)make do with what they can afford. The
5)chasm between rich and poor will widen further. In the developing world, where hundreds of millions are already struggling to 6)get by, the food crisis threatens to undo all the advances of the past two decades. 7)Untold millions could be forced if not into starvation, then into hunger, malnutrition and misery. Conflict and global instability will
increase. If you thought the world was unstable now, we could soon be looking back on this as a golden age of 8)tranquility.
So serious is the situation that British Prime Minister Gordon Brown declared that the food crisis threatened “to 9)roll back progress made in recent years to lift millions of people out of poverty.” Millions more were promised in Third World aid. But Western intervention on current lines is likely to be 10)futile when the causes of the crisis are complex, global, and likely to be permanent.
Indeed, using the simplistic logic of the Western aid industry, there should be no problem at all.
Despite poor harvests in drought-stricken Australia, last year’s global grain crop broke all records. At 2.3 billion tons, it beat the previous year’s total by almost 5 per cent.
So why the crisis? It is the simple fact that consumption has 11)outstripped even this record harvest. By the simple laws of supply and demand, prices have gone through the roof. The demand has been fuelled by an ever more populous and prosperous developing world.
And this is bringing a 12)seismic change 13)analogous to the oil shocks of the Seventies or the 19th Century population shift from the countryside to towns. Food prices will always 14)fluctuate with global markets, but the era of food so cheap that we in the West never even had to think about it has gone 15)for good.
In simple terms, the world population doubled between 1961 and 1986 and is still growing at the rate of 75 million people a year. A further factor is the rising 16)affluence of the emergent middle classes in China and India and the associated increase in the demand for meat, though this is, as yet, a relatively minor effect.
So what have we in the West done about it?
We have made matters worse by 17)instigating a completely artificial rush to convert food into biofuel to drive our cars, a policy initially driven by a US desire to reduce its energy dependence on 18)volatile Middle East states. Now the EU has joined in, using a so-called green agenda to promote biofuels to try to 19)mitigate carbon emissions and control global warming. Already, 100 million tons of food a year is being diverted to make biofuel.
And in the week when Mr. Brown convened his crisis meeting, a new EU target came into force—2.5 per cent of petrol and diesel should be replaced by biofuel. This is set to rise to 10
percent by 2020, adding massively to the pressure on food production.
Another well-meaning EU initiative wrapped in “green” clothing is the ban on cheap, effective 20)pesticide. More than half of the global harvest is lost to pests and plant disease, yet EU legislation has 21)outlawed the majority of the pesticides on the market. New laws could wipe out 95 percent of the remaining 250 or so and make the development of new products prohibitively expensive. This not an academic problem.
The Eighties ban on DDT which even the World Health Organization now admits was misplaced has cost Africa up to £50 billion in lost production and resulted in the deaths of 30
million people.
But then Western politicians have always been driven more by a need to announce grand new initiatives than by logic. Third World aid is almost always counter-productive in the long run. It serves only to fuel corruption, 22)prop up 23)despotic regimes and undermine fragile
local economies. Meanwhile, import
24)tariffs and trade barriers prevent poor farmers getting full market prices. And they also penalize consumers, who have to pay over the odds for staple foodstuffs.
If we are to tackle this food crisis effectively, we in the West have to rethink how we help the 840 million people said to be in 25)chronic hunger. As well as liberalizing trade, we need to encourage increased agricultural productivity. Only farmers can solve the global food crisis, and to help them achieve this we need to make them more efficient.
It has already happened here. Western agriculture has been transformed since the Second World War thanks to mechanization, fertilizers, pesticides and high-yield seed. Now Third World farmers need to be given access to modern growing techniques. World food markets can be stabilized. But the situation is urgent.
Poverty-stricken nations need the 26)rule of law, not the pity of rich neighbours in the West. We need to be tough. Unless we act now it is only a matter of time before we see empty supermarkets and real shortages of food, even in the developed world.
在当今的电视时代，只要一提起“粮食危机”就会让我们想到挨饿的孩子们那肿胀的肚皮。我们还会想到旱灾、粮食歉收、冲突以及强烈呼吁西方提升对非洲援助的歌手波诺和鲍勃·吉尔道夫。然而现在，我们面临的是另一种截然不同的粮食危机。上星期在美国，超市巨子沃尔玛破天荒地第一次对消费者限量供应大米，消费者每人每次购买的大米不能超过四袋。
不是开玩笑，目前的粮食危机足以扭转全球政治走向。对于人类而言，没有其他任何东西比粮食更加不可或缺。
在英国，持续飙升的粮价严重削减了饲养家禽家畜的农场的利润。优质粮食成了富人的专属，而收入低的穷人则只能勉强度日。贫富差距将进一步加大。在发展中国家本来已有数亿人挣扎着艰难度日，粮食危机恐怕会把过去二十年取得的点滴进步一笔勾销。无数人即使不会饿死，也会陷入饥饿，营养不良和极度贫困的困境中。冲突和全球动荡会加剧。如果你认为眼下的世界动荡不安，那么以后再回过头看，很快你就会发现这简直就是太平盛世。
情况是如此严重，英国首相戈登·布朗宣称粮食危机使人类“最近几年为数百万人口摆脱贫困所做的所有努力面临前功尽弃的危险”。发达国家再次许诺向第三世界增拨数百万款项进行援助。然而，本次粮食危机起因复杂，范围波及全球，且短期内没有消退的迹象，发达国家目前的援助极有可能是徒劳的。
的确，如果单纯从西方世界援助机制这种逻辑进行分析，本应不会出现任何问题。虽然去年旱灾使澳大利亚农作物歉收，但全球谷物产量达到230亿吨，比前年增长了差不多5%，创下了历史新高。
那么，粮食危机因何而来？简而言之，就是因为这创记录的粮食供应量，依然赶不上人类对粮食的消费需求量。根据简单的供求关系法则，粮价自然会一飞冲天。而发展中国家的人口增长以及经济发展进一步刺激了粮食需求。
此次粮食危机给世界带来的冲击和变化，不亚于上世纪七十年代的石油危机，以及十九世纪农村人口向城市的大迁移。粮食价格总是随着全球市场变动的，然而，过去那个粮食如此廉价以致西方国家根本不会去担心粮食危机的日子已经一去不复返了。
简单地说，在1961至1986年期间，世界人口增长了一倍，现在依然保持着每年7500万人的增幅。另外一个影响粮价上升的深层因素是中国与印度中层阶级的崛起及壮大，他们对肉类的需求也在增加，尽管这是目前影响相对较小的因素。
到目前为止，我们西方国家都做了些什么？
我们的所作所为让人类离绝境的边缘又靠近了一步——我们人为刻意地鼓动大家把粮食转化为生物燃料，以便为汽车提供动力。最初发起这个号召的是美国，他们迫切希望减少对动荡不稳的中东国家的能源依赖。现在欧盟也加入到队伍中来了，利用所谓的“绿色议程”来推广使用生物燃料，目的是减少碳的排放量，放缓全球变暖的步伐。现在每年已经有1亿吨粮食被用作转化为生物燃料。
就在英国首相布朗先生发起召开粮食危机会议的那个星期，一项新的欧盟举措正式生效——2.5%的汽油和柴油应被生物燃料所取代。到2020年，这个比例将增加到10%，进一步给粮食生产带来巨大压力。
欧盟另一项初衷良好，并贴上“绿色”标签的举措就是禁止廉价高效的杀虫剂的使用。全球超过一半的农作物因病虫害而歉收，然而市场上大部分的杀虫剂都已经在欧盟的禁用之列。欧盟的新规定将进一步把剩下大约250种杀虫剂的95%列入禁令名单，如此一来，今后新的杀虫剂将是惊人的昂贵。这引发的后果不是学术上的问题。
就连世界卫生组织现在也承认，上世纪八十年代禁止使用杀虫药DDT是一个错误，致使非洲粮食歉收损失高达500亿英镑，3000万人因饥饿而死亡。
然而一直以来，西方政治家总是热衷宣布新的举措，却缺乏理智的逻辑。从长远来看，对第三世界实行的援助基本上是反生产性的，它只会滋生腐败，为专制政权撑腰，破坏当地脆弱的经济。同时，进口关税及贸易壁垒为贫困农民取得公平的市场价设置了障碍。消费者也成了昂贵的日常食品的受害者。
如果我们想要有效地解决粮食危机，西方国家要重新思考应该如何帮助那8.4亿长期处于饥饿状态的人们。我们在推行贸易自由化的同时，还要鼓励提高农业生产力。只有农民才能解决全球粮食危机，为了帮助他们做到这一点，我们要使他们更加高效。
西方国家已经经历过这个阶段。二战以来，机械化、肥料、杀虫剂以及高产种子的使用，使西方农业发生了脱胎换骨的变化。现在我们要以先进的种植技术武装第三世界国家的农民。世界粮食市场是可以稳定下来的，但这已是刻不容缓要解决的问题了。
极度贫困的国家要建立完善的法规，而不是一味依靠西方富裕邻国的同情。在这一点上，我们一定要立场坚定。如果我们现在不立即行动起来，以下情景的出现只是时间问题——有一天我们将会看到超市里空空如也，即使是在发达国家，真正的粮荒也出现了。
为什么会出现粮食危机？危机给人类带来的灾难性打击有哪些？我们该如何携手应对？本文把答案一一道来。
In our television age, the mention of a food crisis brings to mind the 1)bloated bellies of starving children. We think of droughts, crop failure, conflicts and the 2)tub-thumping of Bono and Bob Geldof. But now we have a very different sort of food crisis, one that last week for the first time brought food 3)rationing to America when the supermarket giant Wal-Mart restricted customers to four bags of rice per visit.
Make no mistake, the current food crisis has the capacity to transform global politics. There is nothing more fundamental than food.
In Britain, rising grain prices have already undermined the profitability of poultry and livestock farms. Good-quality food will become the preserve of the well-off, while those on lower incomes will have to 4)make do with what they can afford. The
5)chasm between rich and poor will widen further. In the developing world, where hundreds of millions are already struggling to 6)get by, the food crisis threatens to undo all the advances of the past two decades. 7)Untold millions could be forced if not into starvation, then into hunger, malnutrition and misery. Conflict and global instability will
increase. If you thought the world was unstable now, we could soon be looking back on this as a golden age of 8)tranquility.
So serious is the situation that British Prime Minister Gordon Brown declared that the food crisis threatened “to 9)roll back progress made in recent years to lift millions of people out of poverty.” Millions more were promised in Third World aid. But Western intervention on current lines is likely to be 10)futile when the causes of the crisis are complex, global, and likely to be permanent.
Indeed, using the simplistic logic of the Western aid industry, there should be no problem at all.
Despite poor harvests in drought-stricken Australia, last year’s global grain crop broke all records. At 2.3 billion tons, it beat the previous year’s total by almost 5 per cent.
So why the crisis? It is the simple fact that consumption has 11)outstripped even this record harvest. By the simple laws of supply and demand, prices have gone through the roof. The demand has been fuelled by an ever more populous and prosperous developing world.
And this is bringing a 12)seismic change 13)analogous to the oil shocks of the Seventies or the 19th Century population shift from the countryside to towns. Food prices will always 14)fluctuate with global markets, but the era of food so cheap that we in the West never even had to think about it has gone 15)for good.
In simple terms, the world population doubled between 1961 and 1986 and is still growing at the rate of 75 million people a year. A further factor is the rising 16)affluence of the emergent middle classes in China and India and the associated increase in the demand for meat, though this is, as yet, a relatively minor effect.
So what have we in the West done about it?
We have made matters worse by 17)instigating a completely artificial rush to convert food into biofuel to drive our cars, a policy initially driven by a US desire to reduce its energy dependence on 18)volatile Middle East states. Now the EU has joined in, using a so-called green agenda to promote biofuels to try to 19)mitigate carbon emissions and control global warming. Already, 100 million tons of food a year is being diverted to make biofuel.
And in the week when Mr. Brown convened his crisis meeting, a new EU target came into force—2.5 per cent of petrol and diesel should be replaced by biofuel. This is set to rise to 10
percent by 2020, adding massively to the pressure on food production.
Another well-meaning EU initiative wrapped in “green” clothing is the ban on cheap, effective 20)pesticide. More than half of the global harvest is lost to pests and plant disease, yet EU legislation has 21)outlawed the majority of the pesticides on the market. New laws could wipe out 95 percent of the remaining 250 or so and make the development of new products prohibitively expensive. This not an academic problem.
The Eighties ban on DDT which even the World Health Organization now admits was misplaced has cost Africa up to £50 billion in lost production and resulted in the deaths of 30
million people.
But then Western politicians have always been driven more by a need to announce grand new initiatives than by logic. Third World aid is almost always counter-productive in the long run. It serves only to fuel corruption, 22)prop up 23)despotic regimes and undermine fragile
local economies. Meanwhile, import
24)tariffs and trade barriers prevent poor farmers getting full market prices. And they also penalize consumers, who have to pay over the odds for staple foodstuffs.
If we are to tackle this food crisis effectively, we in the West have to rethink how we help the 840 million people said to be in 25)chronic hunger. As well as liberalizing trade, we need to encourage increased agricultural productivity. Only farmers can solve the global food crisis, and to help them achieve this we need to make them more efficient.
It has already happened here. Western agriculture has been transformed since the Second World War thanks to mechanization, fertilizers, pesticides and high-yield seed. Now Third World farmers need to be given access to modern growing techniques. World food markets can be stabilized. But the situation is urgent.
Poverty-stricken nations need the 26)rule of law, not the pity of rich neighbours in the West. We need to be tough. Unless we act now it is only a matter of time before we see empty supermarkets and real shortages of food, even in the developed world.
在当今的电视时代，只要一提起“粮食危机”就会让我们想到挨饿的孩子们那肿胀的肚皮。我们还会想到旱灾、粮食歉收、冲突以及强烈呼吁西方提升对非洲援助的歌手波诺和鲍勃·吉尔道夫。然而现在，我们面临的是另一种截然不同的粮食危机。上星期在美国，超市巨子沃尔玛破天荒地第一次对消费者限量供应大米，消费者每人每次购买的大米不能超过四袋。
不是开玩笑，目前的粮食危机足以扭转全球政治走向。对于人类而言，没有其他任何东西比粮食更加不可或缺。
在英国，持续飙升的粮价严重削减了饲养家禽家畜的农场的利润。优质粮食成了富人的专属，而收入低的穷人则只能勉强度日。贫富差距将进一步加大。在发展中国家本来已有数亿人挣扎着艰难度日，粮食危机恐怕会把过去二十年取得的点滴进步一笔勾销。无数人即使不会饿死，也会陷入饥饿，营养不良和极度贫困的困境中。冲突和全球动荡会加剧。如果你认为眼下的世界动荡不安，那么以后再回过头看，很快你就会发现这简直就是太平盛世。
情况是如此严重，英国首相戈登·布朗宣称粮食危机使人类“最近几年为数百万人口摆脱贫困所做的所有努力面临前功尽弃的危险”。发达国家再次许诺向第三世界增拨数百万款项进行援助。然而，本次粮食危机起因复杂，范围波及全球，且短期内没有消退的迹象，发达国家目前的援助极有可能是徒劳的。
的确，如果单纯从西方世界援助机制这种逻辑进行分析，本应不会出现任何问题。虽然去年旱灾使澳大利亚农作物歉收，但全球谷物产量达到230亿吨，比前年增长了差不多5%，创下了历史新高。
那么，粮食危机因何而来？简而言之，就是因为这创记录的粮食供应量，依然赶不上人类对粮食的消费需求量。根据简单的供求关系法则，粮价自然会一飞冲天。而发展中国家的人口增长以及经济发展进一步刺激了粮食需求。
此次粮食危机给世界带来的冲击和变化，不亚于上世纪七十年代的石油危机，以及十九世纪农村人口向城市的大迁移。粮食价格总是随着全球市场变动的，然而，过去那个粮食如此廉价以致西方国家根本不会去担心粮食危机的日子已经一去不复返了。
简单地说，在1961至1986年期间，世界人口增长了一倍，现在依然保持着每年7500万人的增幅。另外一个影响粮价上升的深层因素是中国与印度中层阶级的崛起及壮大，他们对肉类的需求也在增加，尽管这是目前影响相对较小的因素。
到目前为止，我们西方国家都做了些什么？
我们的所作所为让人类离绝境的边缘又靠近了一步——我们人为刻意地鼓动大家把粮食转化为生物燃料，以便为汽车提供动力。最初发起这个号召的是美国，他们迫切希望减少对动荡不稳的中东国家的能源依赖。现在欧盟也加入到队伍中来了，利用所谓的“绿色议程”来推广使用生物燃料，目的是减少碳的排放量，放缓全球变暖的步伐。现在每年已经有1亿吨粮食被用作转化为生物燃料。
就在英国首相布朗先生发起召开粮食危机会议的那个星期，一项新的欧盟举措正式生效——2.5%的汽油和柴油应被生物燃料所取代。到2020年，这个比例将增加到10%，进一步给粮食生产带来巨大压力。
欧盟另一项初衷良好，并贴上“绿色”标签的举措就是禁止廉价高效的杀虫剂的使用。全球超过一半的农作物因病虫害而歉收，然而市场上大部分的杀虫剂都已经在欧盟的禁用之列。欧盟的新规定将进一步把剩下大约250种杀虫剂的95%列入禁令名单，如此一来，今后新的杀虫剂将是惊人的昂贵。这引发的后果不是学术上的问题。
就连世界卫生组织现在也承认，上世纪八十年代禁止使用杀虫药DDT是一个错误，致使非洲粮食歉收损失高达500亿英镑，3000万人因饥饿而死亡。
然而一直以来，西方政治家总是热衷宣布新的举措，却缺乏理智的逻辑。从长远来看，对第三世界实行的援助基本上是反生产性的，它只会滋生腐败，为专制政权撑腰，破坏当地脆弱的经济。同时，进口关税及贸易壁垒为贫困农民取得公平的市场价设置了障碍。消费者也成了昂贵的日常食品的受害者。
如果我们想要有效地解决粮食危机，西方国家要重新思考应该如何帮助那8.4亿长期处于饥饿状态的人们。我们在推行贸易自由化的同时，还要鼓励提高农业生产力。只有农民才能解决全球粮食危机，为了帮助他们做到这一点，我们要使他们更加高效。
西方国家已经经历过这个阶段。二战以来，机械化、肥料、杀虫剂以及高产种子的使用，使西方农业发生了脱胎换骨的变化。现在我们要以先进的种植技术武装第三世界国家的农民。世界粮食市场是可以稳定下来的，但这已是刻不容缓要解决的问题了。
极度贫困的国家要建立完善的法规，而不是一味依靠西方富裕邻国的同情。在这一点上，我们一定要立场坚定。如果我们现在不立即行动起来，以下情景的出现只是时间问题——有一天我们将会看到超市里空空如也，即使是在发达国家，真正的粮荒也出现了。