prospects are considered somewhat better in India, but there, too, rainfall has
been scarce in recent months, "with 30 of the 36 meteorological subdivisions
reporting significantly below-normal rainfall". Put this together, and it
appears that cereal production in the world's two most populous nations could
be substantially lower in 2009 than in previous years. The resulting rise in
grain imports will push up market prices around the world.
Conditions are even worse in the southern part of South America, where a severe
drought has gripped Argentina and southern Brazil. In Argentina, wheat
production in the 2008-09 growing season, now ending, was the lowest in 20
years and virtually half
the record achieved in 2007. This means that wheat exports by Argentina - one
of the world's leading producers - will be about 60% less than the average for
the past five years, sharply reducing supplies available on world markets and
pushing world prices even higher.
Corn production is also expected to decline throughout the southern part of
South America. "Scarce and erratic precipitation, hot temperatures and
relatively high prices of inputs [many derived from petrochemicals] have
delayed planting operations and in some cases preventing planting altogether,"
the FAO report noted. Losses due to drought are reported to range between 40%
and 60% in many producing areas of Argentina, and an agricultural emergency has
been declared in the departments of Chaco, Entre Rios and Santa Fe. Similar
conditions are reported in southern Brazil, leading to forecasts of crop
declines there as well.
In other key producing areas, water supplies may be adequate but farmers are
unable to plant sufficient crops for lack of seeds, fertilizers, and other
essential inputs. This is especially true in the so-called "low-income,
food-deficit countries" (LIFDCs) - nations that are both poor and persistently
hungry. One example is Zimbabwe, "where despite satisfactory weather
conditions, supplies of quality seed, fertilizer, agricultural chemicals and
tillage power and/or unaffordable prices for most agricultural inputs ... have
put severe constraints on maize [corn] production."
Other countries facing severe food insecurity, due to some combination of
poverty, drought, storm damage, and internal disorder include Afghanistan, the
Central African Republic, Chad, the Darfur region of Sudan, Democratic Republic
of Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, the Gaza Strip, Haiti, Iraq, Myanmar, North Korea,
Somalia and Tajikistan.
In these and 17 other LIFDCs, a significant proportion of the population faces
persistent hunger, malnutrition, or starvation. This list is sure to grow,
moreover, as the effects described in the World Bank report begin to make
themselves felt in the months ahead. With more people falling into poverty
around the world and food prices rising due to declining crop yields, the
numbers of those experiencing food insecurity is bound to grow.
Regime-threatening unrest
As these effects ripple through the developing world and millions upon millions
of people face increasingly harsh conditions, social and political unrest of
all forms will increase. Such unrest, involving angry protests over plants
closings, mass layoffs, and government austerity measures, has already erupted
in Europe, Russia, and China, and now threatens to spread to other areas of the
world.
Until now, such disorder has been limited to urban riots and rock-throwing
incidents, but it is easy to imagine far more violent forms of turmoil -
including the outbreak of armed rebellion or civil strife. This danger was
raised in a third report worthy of attention, an annual threat assessment
delivered by the Director of National Intelligence, Admiral Dennis C Blair, to
the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on February 12.
Although much of Blair's report focuses on familiar issues such as Iran's
nuclear aspirations and the war in Afghanistan, it devotes considerable
attention to the prospect of social and political turmoil arising from the
current economic meltdown.
"The primary near-term security concern of the United States is the global
economic crisis and its geopolitical implications," the report noted. In
tracking this concern, "time is probably our greatest threat ... Statistical
modeling shows that economic crises increase the risk of regime-threatening
instability if they persist over a one- to two-year period." Of course, the
crisis has already lasted more than one year in the United States and appears
destined to persist much longer in both the developed and developing areas -
and so the danger of "regime-threatening instability" has to be taken very
seriously indeed.
In his public testimony, Blair didn't provide a country-by-country assessment
of where he expected to see instability. But he did point to several areas that
are at particular risk, including Africa, Latin America and Central Asia.
Speaking of the latter, for example, he noted that Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, "with their highly-personalized
politics, weak institutions, and growing inequalities are ill-equipped to deal
with the challenges posed by Islamic violent extremism, poor economic
development, and problems associated with energy, water, and food
distribution."
All of these countries, moreover, are particularly vulnerable to the global
economic crisis, particularly as remittances fall. "Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan
have heavily depended on migrant worker remittances from both Russia and
Kazakhstan for a significant portion of their gross domestic product - up to
45% in the case of Tajikistan - and will be severely affected by the financial
crisis."
Economic deprivation is also spurring an increase in crime and piracy in
certain areas, Blair testified. This is especially so in parts of West Africa,
where poverty and diminished state capacity facilitated the trans-shipment of
narcotics from Latin America to Europe.
"Traffickers have successfully co-opted government and law-enforcement
officials in these countries, further undermining weak and economically
impoverished governments who lack adequate law enforcement and judicial
capacity," the report notes. Blair pointed in particular to Guinea-Bissau,
which he described as "Africa's first narco-state. On March 3, the country's
president, Joao Bernardo Vieira, was killed in what some observers believe was
a dispute between rival drug interests.
In more recent testimony, Blair has tied political unrest in the developing
world even more closely to global economic conditions. Speaking of the current
turmoil in Pakistan, for example, he told a House committee on February 25:
"The government is losing authority in the north and the west, and even in the
more-developed parts of the country, mounting economic hardships and
frustration over poor governance have given rise to greater radicalization."
While it's perhaps too early to specify where outbreaks of "regime-threatening
instability" might occur as a result of the economic crisis, the analysis
derived from recent World Bank and FAO reports suggests that many developing
nations are at significant risk.
The wealthier nations have experienced only the first shockwave from the global
economic crisis. The effects of the second shockwave - on the world's
less-developed nations - have yet to be felt. From all indications, the
consequences of the second wave are likely to be even more earth-shattering
than the first.
Michael T Klare is a professor of peace and world security studies at
Hampshire College, the author of Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The
New Geopolitics of Energy (Metropolitan Books, 2008), and a Foreign Policy In
Focus columnist.
(Posted with permission from Foreign Policy in Focus.
Copyright 2009 Foreign Policy in Focus.)
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