@Parallax View: you gave the man fewer than 4 hours to reply before writing him off. Is Dan just to sit here waiting for comments, or can he get on with other things in the interim?

@Mr. Divine: food futures can make prices go up, just like oil futures can make prices go up. We see increasing production, we see fluctuating demand, we see increasing prices.

The world lacks political will and a coordinated effort in the logistics. The capacity is there, the effort is not. There are people who go hungry in the EU and the US, yet restaurants in Paris, London, New York and LA throw out food by the truck full. Governments exist to do the things that individuals can't or won't do on their own. The current governments simply create excuses for shortcomings, and the problems they choose to ignore grow.

I feel very great sympathy for the Somalis who are suffering extremes of hunger and the expectation of death. But one's support and sympathy becomes limited by the knowledge that Somalia has simply not done enough to limit the number of hungry mouths and empty tummies. With a crude birth rate as high as 43 per 1,000 and a fertility rate of 6.4 (and rising at a rate that could reach 8.9 in 2025), the Somalis themselves have been a major cause of the present tragedy. Should responsible governments give millions to irresponsible countries?

The editor of The Guardian gets paid more than £600,000 per year.

Why?

@ Mr Divine
Maybe you would like to share this new found information and we shall take the soil question from there.
The West has already invested in irrigation infrastructure through charitable means which I wrote earlier yet the problem still exists and the technology has not arrived. Where have the monies gone?
To solve the famine situation you first require food and not guns and tanks Mr Divine.
Parts of America have semi-arid desertification land but cash crops grow in their billions in the like for like climate.
Are you ready to discuss properly Mr Divine or are you going to do the usual of asking questions that lack substance? I also notice that you haven't responded to the figures and crop harvests mentioned earlier.

@ Mr Divine
Calm down son your at it again. Let the baboon eat his nuts. There appears to be a psychological inprint with his name.

Yonmei, I'm sorry, but you're wrong. Prices go up when demand starts to exceed supply. If-for example-the tea harvest in India is wiped out by inclement weather, then there will be less tea next year-so prices will go up. If some people then start to buy tea or tea options today, demand increases now, and the price goes up now.
Are you implying that there's some conspiracy to either decrease food stocks in Somalia, or to give the impression that foodstocks will drop in future?

Price rises decrease consumption and ration availability. To repeat what I said earlier-capitalism is NOT causing starvation in Somalia. Nor is bad weather, really. Lawlessnessness is-in particular, the absence of property law and the state apparatus to enforce it.

AndyG

Here is but one source of Ethiopia's quite unsustainable populattionhttps://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/et.html

http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/AFRICAEXT/SOMALIAEXTN...

There is nothing, absolutely nothing, humaine about watching a population explosion lead inevitably to famine and saying nothing because you're either too stupid or politically correct to criticise it.

Starvation and population growth in marginal areas are interlinked. Only a complete moron, deprived of any intelligence would fail to recognise this.

There is a huge difference between half of very litte and half of nothing which some unfortunate people in the 3rd World are stuck with, mostly because of famine and drought, but mostly because of civil wars and internal conflicts and ideology and the greed of their rulers. That's why the Aid Budget must remain at 0.7.
True, here people are foraging in bins while perfectly good food is being dumped. At least here we have soup kitchens and nobody has ever died of starvation, unless through neglect by their family or neighbours.

@ Little willy
You mention starvation as opposed to famine, and marginal areas.
No, no, work the first one out and I'll come back to this. By the way, the most acute forms of starvation in the UK is amongst those with money. Hmmmmmm Sorry for interupting your line of thought.........little willy.

It's a bit like asking:

Why is there such a high level of child poverty in the UK?

Why is there such an astonishing lack of social mobility?

Why is both the US and Europe crumbling under mountains of debt?

Why were so many people left to die after Hurricane Katrina?

Why did the US drop not one but two atomic bombs on Japanese cities and not off the coast of Tokyo which would have served precisely the same lesson?

Why did the British preside over famines in Ireland and India where millions died with millions more scattered to the four corners of the globe?

Why did the conquistadors wipe out 70 million native Indians in South America?

Why were over a 100 million transported as part of the slave trade?

Why did the Soviets and Chinese kill millions both directly and indirectly?

Why the global arms race?

Why petrol shortages in oil exporting Nigeria?

Why do billions live on a dollar a day or less?

Why do Western war criminals never face the international criminal court?

Why did Britain do recored arms deals with Gaddafi before the unrest broke out?

Why did Mubarak receive $1.5 billion per annum to support his security state?

Why, oh, why???????????????

The answer: because this is a deeply perverse and upside down world which no man will ever make right.

The really depressing thing is almost nothing will be done. The wealthy don't want to share their wealth and don't care one way or the other about the starving masses.

Military intervention usually has unintended, disastrous consequences.

It really is pretty hopeless situation.

@ lou, are we talking about Famine or war ?, the article is about famine in 2011,

Mr. Damage: What does the article title got to do with what we were discussing? We were talking about what people were like. Let me remind you of what you said about the people in Somalia.

'the crime rate is horiffic, people killing everyday'
'The reality is these people are third world baboons'

We were talking about people and crime. I pointed out to you that other countries also had these problem. I wrote that the Lebanese people I knew didn't export their crime. You said that it was different and that Lebanon was a civil war. I have pointed out that Somalia is also experiencing civil war so the actions of both people can be considered the same.

Your reply doesn't address the information I have provided... all you have asked is what the article about! Duh! We were talking about people and crime and the circumstances that they find themselves in. Why are you trying to change the subject of our debate?

Both Lebanon and Somalia have had civil wars in recent times. Both countries experienced killings, rapes and high rates of assault on civilians. What's the difference? Please tell me.

Somalia's Famine is mainly caused by the "government" of Somalia as a means of forcing the people into compliance. Weak government must use brutal means to gain compliance.

In order to garrentee the people of Somalia a right to grow their crops in peace (and they had a more or less viable form of agriculture in the past) you would need to reform the government of Somalia. You would need decades of fighting and nation building to support such a mission.

No one would pay for such a mission and the entire European Left would call such a mission IMPERIALISM! Both the endless costs of "nation building" and the brutal need of the less mature sections of the Left for moral perfection means no one who can do anything real will act.

Aren't modern ethics such brutal fun!

@ Mr Divine
"Cronin was talking about Zimbabwe. You call them 'these land's as if to imply Zimbabwe is in the same place as Somalia."
A. Yes I now he was but I am not responsible for Cronin thinking that Zimbabwe is in Somalia. He must also have thught that Robert Mugabe was leader of both.
A "These lands". Where did I make such a reference?
"Actually the problem can only be solved by guns and tanks. The reason why irrigation projects wont work in Somalia is that the pipes and pumps will be ripped up and sold."
A I seem to recall some time ago that we had this very same conversation. Firstly, the guns and tanks are the initial problem. Secondly have argued and agreed in this debate that inept government policy making i part of the problem in Somalia but this constantly interacts with interfering governments from further afield.
" The reason why irrigation projects wont work in Somalia is that the pipes and pumps will be ripped up and sold."
A. If this is the case then why have the irrigation projects that I have already written about not experienced such thefts. Could it possibly be that Somalian's see these projects as beneficial to local communities?
"The only way to stop men going round in gangs with guns stealing equipment is to shoot them."
A. I disagree. If these "gangs" are stealing equipment then there must be a market for it to be sold on. Shut that market down and arrest those that benefit from such scrap metal. This is curretly a problem in the UK but no-one get's shot. In reality the technology and "equipment" has not arrived to many local communities, the question is why not?
"Get a grip on what people do."
A. I refer to my answers above.
Now then you have wormed your way out of answering most of the nonsence that you write. Would you like to debate properly and give your references to such accusations?
I await your next shot sire.

@Tom

Tom, you Judaphobic nutter, it's amazing how you managed to distort a serious thread about an important matter into another of your anti-Semitic yawnaroo rants.

@ Dan Hodges

'04 August 2011 at 10:32

Parallax View,

Apologies.

I assumed you were talking to yourself.'

How glib. You didn't assume any such thing. And why?

1) You postulated a question at the beginning of your piece that you knew would stimulate a response.

2) The end of my comment asked a question of you directly?

But hey, go on being glib if it means dodging the content of the argument made.

From now on when YOU ask 'why' in the incomprehensible way that you do, perhaps we should send our answers to David Cameron. Perhaps a better chance of getting a detailed response.

sorry, should read "already down and feeling".

People are starving to death in 2011. Why? Dan, it's fuck-all to do with the white man and everything to do with the East Africans inability to move forwards.

@ John
"With a crude birth rate as high as 43 per 1,000 and a fertility rate of 6.4 (and rising at a rate that could reach 8.9 in 2025),"
You cite the figures of the world bank. Now cite me the figures of death rates including child mortality rates. While your at it tell the readers of this blog the most common cause of death in this region. Strange how this is never taken into account don't you think?

@andgy: I don't think there are any charities that have constructed irrigation projects in Somalia as you claim. What are the names of the charities and where have they constructed them in somalia? You are just making this up I think.

@ swatantra nandanwar
" There has to be a co-ordinated UN action, itervention by force against these failed States like Somalia, where Govt has simply broken down and no longer exists."

Some people will simply never learn.

@Lox: You're wasting your time explaining demand and supply to Yonmei. It's far too complicated for her. In her mind the food prices have gone up because the bankers have made them to make more profit via futures! it's nothing to do with increased demand, increased ethanol use, more government lending/printing of money and failed crop production.

@ Rob
"Dan, part of the reason that people are starving in East Africa is because the population has more than doubled in the last 25 years."
It would be helpful if you got your facts right Rob. Getting them wrong is simply using the aguements of others who have a more financial interest in people starving to death. I understand that it is called economics. Since the 1960's world food production has doubled in relation to world population growth yet we still have hunger in countries that possess the most fertile soil in the world.

"Certain cultural practices and beliefs are not in favour of educating women, nor of birth control."
Wrong again. Child mortality remains high in these countries from such deseases as mumps or measles. The drugs companies hold these people to ransom. The medicines are available yet the people can not access them. In many cases it is the same with food. A common feature in most famines is that food is widely available on the markets while local communities starve to death.
And we call ourselves civilised.

@Tango3: Explain to me how futures make prices go up. Don't just tell me like Yonmei. I've explained why I think futures increase the supply of food and thus reduce prices. Now you explain how futures do the opposite. Don't just tell me ... explain. I bet you can't because you don't understand them.