Topic: Global Food Crisis
Country: Philippines
Delegate Name: Anne Marie Dornoff
School: Forest Hills Northern High School
Topic page: background guide and all position papers All Philippines position papers GLIMUN 2008 committees
The fact of the matter is, there are classes: low, middle, and high. Each class makes a certain amount of money, and in this day and age that amount of money generally pays for less than it did even just 10 to 15 years ago. As incomes decrease, the price of food increases, as the demand increases for each product. The middle class is reverting to price cuts in their budgets, thus buying the food normally purchased by the lower class, increasing the demand, increasing the price. This whole vicious cycle leads to the eventual decline of a low class at all, because they suffer from starvation.
The Philippines firmly believes that this crisis is indeed one that needs attention. It is evident there is enough food to go around, for all the Earth’s populous, but it is the distribution of wealth that hinders the ability for all to receive that food. The Philippines itself contributes to the 65% of all the world’s poor which reside in the Asia-Pacific Region, thus validating its reason for being so interested. As a country also recently facing economic growth, and political reformation it may seem that the food may not be an issue, but just because such economic surpluses occur, doesn’t eliminate the impoverished in need of food. Thus, a plan of action to begin to eliminate the amount of people in poverty in any one region would be a place to start.
There are many current projects similar to that of the KALAHI-CIDSS Project, which is to enable those in poverty to aid in community service projects that will relieve those poverty stricken people. This project particularly is implemented in the Philippines and its goal for the next 6 years is to cover approximately 4,000 villages with their aid. The basic idea is to get ALL people involved in community service, governance, and donating funds to construct an infrastructure to build upon. Unfortunately, the most recent resolution was passed in 1974, as a movement to improve conditions “for the long run.” Well, as we’ve hit the “long run” in today’s society it is time to take action.
Some other solutions that may be taken into consideration include the following. It is a possibility that there are limits put on how much meat is produced, and even go to the extreme of creating a vegetarian population – vegetarian being loosely used – so the grain that has been diverted to feeding the animals can return to being used to feed people. There is also the objective of each country growing its own food, being more self-sufficient, rather than relying on cash-crops to do all the work instead, because with this each country relies so much on exports. As proven at this current point in time, reliance on imports and exports isn’t always the strongest approach. Another innovative choice would be to create a world trade system, in which the countries are matched by what they are able to produce and trade accordingly for the things they need in exchange giving their partner of trade the things they need.
The Philippines strongly believes there must be a change employed to improve the well being of the world and to find a solution to this food crisis so it doesn’t consume and envelop the entire world in starvation.
