By Salama A Salama This must be a first. A cabinet minister has just told parliament that food prices are high and going to remain so. No more cheap food, Finance Minister Youssef Boutros Ghali said. In the same breath, the minister said that subsidies were putting a strain on the budget, as if the public cares. It's all the government's fault if you ask me. For years, the government raised subsidies to offset the rise in food prices in international markets. Could it have done otherwise? Yes, it could. For example, it could have encouraged farmers to produce more. It could have ended monopolies in the market, instead of helping those monopolies survive through subsidies. The minister didn't tell us anything new. Mustafa Kamal Tolba, the prominent Egyptian scientist, said more than once that Egypt would face a famine in the coming years unless proper action were taken. One reason for that is that the US and Europe were no longer exporting their excess supply of wheat and corn. They use it, instead, to produce ethanol, a cleaner type of fuel. Tolba wanted Egypt to start achieving self-sufficiency in agricultural products and boost our desalination facilities in anticipation of water shortages. Unfortunately, no one listened. A report in this week's issue of The Economist confirms Tolba's worst fears. According to the report, the world is entering a phase in which food will be neither cheap nor easily produced, especially in poor countries. Changes that have occurred in international markets over the past few years all indicate that the time of cheap food is over; this is a message that our parliamentarians should take to heart instead of just shaking their heads, saying that no one in Egypt goes to bed hungry. According to The Economist, wheat prices leapt from $200 to $400 a tonne, while corn now fetches $175 a tonne in international markets. Food is becoming more expensive than at anytime in recent memory because of two reasons. One is the remarkable improvement in living conditions in countries that were once poor, such as India and China. As demand on meat products in these countries rises, demand on grain for cattle feed is rising as well. The other reason is that more grain is used to produce ethanol for use as car fuel. Last year, the US used 15 million tonnes of corn to produce ethanol. This year, it is using 85 million tonnes for that purpose. The US, once a major exporter of corn, is likely to consume more at home as time goes by. The surge in oil prices is making ethanol production a lucrative business. As a result, many US farmers have switched to corn production from wheat and soybeans. The impact of the use of corn for ethanol production is going to be felt around the world. According to the World Bank, the amount of grain needed to fill one car tank with ethanol would feed one person for a whole year. Things will get worse as the full impact of climate change is felt. As global warming proceeds to dry grain fields across Brazil, Russia, Kazakhstan, and Sudan, food supplies will shrink. Already, many countries are contemplating price controls for foodstuffs, in order to protect their nations. Now it is our turn. We need to start listening to what scientists are saying if we're to avert a future of famine and perhaps popular uprisings. We need self- sufficiency. And we need to get our priorities right.
