April 11, 2008 (LPAC)--Leaders in developing nations, where skyrocketing food prices mean famine, are denouncing the cruel increases as "crimes against humanity" and a crisis due to "speculative attacks." In Brasilia yesterday, Jose Graziano, the UNFAO regional representative for Latin America and the Caribbean said the food "crisis is a speculative attack and it will last. This is not a conspiracy theory." In Bangladesh, where rising food costs already mean mass hunger, Dr Sajjad Zohir of the Dhaka Economic Research Group, told the BBC: "I would call the price changes, which followed the high price of oil, as a crime against humanity."

At a press conference in Brasilia, where the FAO will hold a conference next week on regional food shortages and biofuels, Graziano said that the "lack of confidence in the [U.S.] dollar has led investment funds to look for higher returns in commodities ... first metals and then foods." He said that investors have speculated in commodities including wheat, corn and rice because stocks are low. "Speculative attacks become possible when you have low reserves," Graziano said. Brazilian farm experts are reporting that stocks of some food crops have fallen to their lowest levels in three decades, Reuters reported.

In Bangladesh, more and more people are lining up daily to buy rice at government-subsidized prices, the BBC reported today. The rice is distributed from a shed manned by the Bangladesh Rifles unit, which normally guards the borders. Now, the soldiers are taking on another national security task, which is to distribute food. Those lining up to buy the rice, sold at 75% of market price, are not only poor laborers, but also government workers, security guards and teachers, who can no longer afford rice at costs which have doubled in the last year to about $0.60 a kilo. People are cutting out at least one meal a day, have stopped eating any meat, fish, or even eggs, and have stopped saving any money just to buy rice. Many Bangladeshis are now spending half their income on food. The country is expecting a bumper rice crop at the end of April, but rice reserves have to last at least until then, for Bangladesh's 150 million people. The government reports reserves of 100,000 tons. But inflationary food prices mean that the crisis will go on beyond the April harvest.