Update - April, 2008
An appeal to the Australian Federal Government:
Mr Bob McMullan MP.,
Parliamentary Secretary for International Assistance,
Parliament House,
Canberra.
15/4/2008
Dear Mr McMullan,
I write as the founder/president of what's probably Australia's smallest AIDS-care agency, The Australian AIDS Fund Incorporated, in regard to the lead story on The Age newspaper today, headlined "World's new crisis: soaring food prices", and which I Ihave included in this email for your further reference.
I would like to draw your attention to the following Letter to the Editor which I have sent to The Age, in response to its report:
Australia is uniquely placed to respond to the world's global malnutrition epidemic (World's new crisis: soaring food prices", The Age, 15/4) simply by repeating what it did in the 1960's with its then critical contribution of the so-called Australian Milk Biscuit.
It's time to turn the clock back, to breathe new life into that initiative. It's history is recalled on our website at www.aids.net.au
For our part, as Australia's smallest AIDS-care agency, we've been endeavouring to revitalise this project because this high protein biscuit could also prove to be a lifesaver for millions of the world's HIV infected mothers, so that their babies can literally "eat more milk", as the original slogan proclaimed. Our recent trials of the biscuit in this regard in Ethiopia proved most encouraging.
We call upon the federal government and Australia's major foreign aid agencies to link up with us to bring back, produce and distribute the Australian Milk Biscuit as the swiftest, surest response to a vital global need.
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Mr McMullan, I have also copied this to Melbourne University's Professor Roger Short, and Mr Richard Nasra, both key figures in the present Australian Milk Biscuit project and ask for your considered practical assistance for this initiative.
Can you imagine what a godsend this would have been as the time of the devastating tsunami?
With regards,
Brian Haill,
President,
The Australian AIDS Fund Incorporated,
PO Box 1347,
Frankston,Victoria, 3199
Tel: (03) 97709210
Email: bhaill@bigpond.net.au
Website: www.aids.net.au
AGE ARTICLE FOLLOWS: (below)
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World's new crisis: soaring food prices
Lesley Wroughton, Washington, and Jewel Topsfield, Canberra
April 15, 2008
 THE World Bank has issued an urgent call to rich nations to help stem rising food prices, warning that social unrest in poor countries is spreading and that 100 million people are at risk of being plunged deeper into poverty.
"We have to put our money where our mouth is now, so that we can put food into hungry mouths. It is as stark as that," said World Bank president Robert Zoellick, as he called for more contributions to the $500 million World Food Program.
The plea, issued after a meeting of aid officials in Washington, follows a dramatic surge in world prices for staple foods — rice, for example, has shot up by 75% in just two months — and resulting food-related riots in Haiti, Indonesia, the Philippines and Cameroon in the past week.
World leaders were quick to respond to Mr Zoellick's plea, with Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd among those pledging to put world food security on their political agendas.
Mr Rudd said his world tour, from which he returned at the weekend, had changed his vision for Australia's global agenda. "One of the things that I discussed with various world leaders was (that) we have an unfolding food crisis around the world," Mr Rudd told ABC.
"We had 10 major sets of food riots across the world. So if you want something which should be close to our global agenda, therefore our national agenda, (it is) how do we contribute to better food security around the world."
But a pledge by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to raise the issue at the next G8 summit of world leaders failed to impress Mr Zoellick. "Frankly speaking, that G8 meeting is in June and we cannot wait," he said, after the meeting involving the IMF and the World Bank's Development Committee. "We estimate that a doubling of food prices over the last three years could potentially push 100 million people in low-income countries deeper into poverty."
Anger over food prices led to last week's riots in Haiti, in which at least five people were killed and the country's prime minister was ousted.
Developing countries claim that rich countries, in their rush to tackle global warming, are helping to drive up food prices by encouraging the use of crops to produce biofuels rather than to feed people. Most of the rise in global corn production from 2004 to 2007 went to biofuels in the United States.
According to the 2008 World Development Report, more than 240 kilograms of corn — enough to feed one person for a year — is required to produce 100 litres of ethanol, enough to fill the tank of a sports utility vehicle.
Other contributing factors to rising food prices are the high price of oil (which increases costs of food production and distribution), population growth in Asia and drought in wheat-producing countries including Australia and Kazakhstan.
The price of wheat has jumped 120% in a year, resulting in the price of bread doubling in many poor countries.
The World Bank has warned that food prices will remain elevated this year and next year and will probably stay above 2004 levels until 2015. "We estimate that the effect of this food crisis on poverty reduction worldwide is in the order of seven lost years," Mr Zoellick said.
He said that almost half of $500 million that the World Food Program recently requested in additional pledges for food aid had been committed, but the May 1 deadline for raising the money would not be met.
The parliamentary secretary for international development assistance, Bob McMullan, said yesterday Australia was one of the largest donors through the World Food Program, giving $61.7 million last year.
"We have responded positively when the World Food Program asked us to do a little more in Afghanistan and Zimbabwe and we will look sympathetically at this most recent approach," Mr McMullan told ABC.
National Farmers Federation chief executive Ben Fargher said that despite the impact of the drought over the past five years, Australia was well positioned to respond to the world food crisis. "If countries overseas are looking for food security, one of the best things they could do is reduce barriers to the export of our produce to them," he said.
He said Australia also needed to have the world's best research and development policies to get more crop per drop, and improved rail and road infrastructure to ensure produce can reach overseas markets as efficiently as possible.
World food security will be discussed at a session on Australia's future security and prosperity at this weekend's 2020 Summit. Panel member Alan Dupont, director of the Centre for International Security Studies at the University of Sydney, said a key role for Australia could be to raise global awareness about the links between climate change and the food crisis.
He said Australia could also help developing nations affected by food shortages with technological solutions — such as the greater productivity of hybrid grains — and it could lead the way in the creation of strategic stockpiles of food.
With REUTERS
|
Richard
Nasra has met with Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs
& Trade, Mr Bruce Billson MP, at his office in Frankston,
Victoria, to discuss the possibility of re-establishing
the former government reserve aid stockpile of Australian
Milk Biscuit's - set up by former Foreign Affairs Minister,
Andrew Peacock.
