I am in Cairo to figure out what is going on regarding the food crisis here. I will be perfectly honest in saying I knew little about Egyptian politics previous to two months ago. I was sitting in my apartment in Paris filching internet and cruising the American media and I began reading news articles on the bread riots here and thought 'Egypt. Huh. That could be interesting.' I googled some things, begged contacts from friends, and bought a plane ticket.So, the situation which drew me here is this. The Egyptian government is relatively authoritarian and a bit brutal, and while it is elected there is only one party which is allowed to put up a candidate for president. Law keeps people from organizing into most sorts of political groups, and there's pretty intense poverty here, and the situation has been like this for years, yet there's little momentum for revolution or revolt. Why? Because the people have bread.
While desperately poor many Egyptians who can still afford to eat because the government has subsidized a range of foodstuffs since the 1970s. The list has grown and shrunk over time - at its peak including almost twenty basics - today it only includes bread and flour, oil, and sugar. Other necessities such as gasoline and natural gas are also subsidized, which helps to keep the prices for just about everything considerably cheaper than they would be otherwise, but it's been harder and harder for the poorest of the poor to feed themselves.
One of the matters which is of considerable interest to me is the fact that bread isn't universally subsidized - there exist both subsidized bakeries as well as private bakeries. While the private bakeries operate just like any other bakery might, subsidized ones make only regulation bread - 3.5 ounce (100g) loaves in two shades brown and browner. Government bakeries make this bread, but also the government provides flour to some private bakeries to make standardized loaves which are sold at the subsidized price. Since April, when protests and riots began to occur - disturbing the tranquility of this relatively moderate nation - the army began making and distributing bread.The effort to both increase production and increase outlets of distribution seems to have made a difference. Since efforts to expand distribution began two months ago, corrugated tin shacks have appeared around the city on street corners. They receive bread from the government production centers and sell it. Visiting bakeries throughout the city I have found lines, but nothing like the three hour waits like I had read about. People are still hungry, and if prices continue to rise on wheat, private bakeries will raise their prices, sending many of the people who currently eat unsubsidized bread into the subsidy lines, increasing demand and compounding the problem, repeat. The results? We shall see.
5 comments:
Nathan, does your June 5th flight to Rome mark the end of your Watson-sponsored investigations *and* your personal bread quest, or just the former?
I have been thinking about this. It is like the Romans, giving people bread and circuses to keep them pacified. I am fascinated by the image of the army making bread... I mean, I don't see that as a core soldiering skill so I wonder if they're any good at it!
These are interesting times. They were talking about the food price crisis on the radio the other day and I know that ordinary people are really feeling it - people really notice the price of tortillas going up, and it hurts people. I wonder if people are noticing at home in the same way, but I think for now we are more insulated. The Mexican government just announced food payments for the poorest people. I am curious to know how this will actually work, but it's got to be a good thing... except that none of these subsidies are actually addressing the problem of not enough food, so where will it end?
Interesting to think though that the very poor people in middle income countries like Egypt and Mexico might be saved by subsidies whereas the very poor people in very poor countries presumably will not, while we wait and hope for long-term solutions.
Daire, my love for bread is never ending - my funding is not. I'll be still looking at food as I travel on for the next three weeks, but more just wandering and seeing friends.
Eloise, I hadn't thought of the army making bread in terms of the 'bread and circuses' model - and I was just in Rome too! It's a good way of thinking about the Egyptian situation.
Overall, this isn't a problem of availability - it's more a crises of accessibility - except in the poorest of the poor nations. Food exists that people can't afford. In Mexico as well as Egypt there's still food on the shelves for people to consume, but for a variety of reasons they can't buy it. Like you said, it is the poorest of the poor which will have to receive food aid for the moment as we continue to fail to produce a sustainable model of development for those suffering most.
I dunno, availability and accessibility are not entirely distinct I think... on a global scale it seems to me like prices are high because supply is falling and demand is rising... isn't that the way things work? As I understand it the main factors in this are more grain being used for animal feed and biofuels, poor weather events, and a rising (and wealthier) global population, while small scale farmers are struggling to make a living and farmers of all scales are threatened by climate change, soil deterioration and so on. Doesn't all of this mean that there is less food available? Which means that even though there would maybe be enough if it was fairly distributed, it becomes unavailable to a bigger chunk of people... I don't know, I guess what I'm getting at is that accessibility is driven by availability... or maybe I'm just playing semantics and stating the obvious! Anyway, I suppose we have to hope that all this will act as an impetus to make policymakers see the importance of agriculture - for more than five minutes...
Oh, and have a great time on your *unofficial* wanderings!
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