ALL the evidence suggests that the food crisis now gripping the world will only aggravate over time, and may even trigger conflicts. Indeed, it has already rocked several countries, including Bangladesh, where simmering discontent over scarcity and spiraling prices of cereals has been becoming volatile, with die public ire targeted at the authorities unsuccessfully grappling with the issue.

While the government has been toppled over the chronic food shortage in Haiti, food riots are reported from Egypt and the Philippines. Elsewhere in the world the experience isn't dissimilar.

Only a few days back, the United Nations said that the

silent tsunami unleashed by costlier food" threatened 100 million people. In London, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Britain would seek changes to EU bio fuels plans if it was shown that planting crops for fuel was driving up food prices. The World Food Programme (WFP) chief Jossete Sheeran highlighted the critical situation caused by decline in food stocks and surge in prices that has hard hit the world's hungry -- the poor and the destitute.

Notwithstanding this widespread concern over the looming disaster, so multifaceted are its Causes that it becomes difficult to sec how the global food shortage can even begin to be tackled. As a matter of fact, the whole planet is

Involved in addressing this basic human problem. Yet, a beginning in the direction of saving the humanity-front hunger has been long overdue.

At long last, a warning bell seems to have been rung. On April 13, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) along with the World Bank called for urgent action to attend not just the present crisis but also the need for medium term development in the region most vulnerable to falling food supply and spiraling prices.

At the very basic level, the problem is that food production has failed to keep pace with population growth and its Increasing food requirements. Also, the early effects of climate change have

started to take their toll. The UN estimates that fertile land equivalent to the size of Ukraine (609628 square kilometer) is lost every year across the world to climate change related phenomena such as deforestation, drought and erratic weather. The FAO reveals in a report that crop yields in major food exporting countries like Australia and Ukraine -- the bread-baskets of the world --have already taken a hit from "unusual weather events."

In the developing countries, the element of desertification linked with global warming has been eating away vast chunks of arable land, while fertile coastal regions are under threat of rising sea-level occasionally resulting in tidal bores and cyclonic

storms. The production of essential food items Is being adversely affected by the shortage of water In vast swathes of Asia, West Africa and Central America.

The push for grain-based ethanol is, in the meantime, diverting corn from human consumption, as is the growth of livestock farming. The economic boom in parts of Asia has significantly increased the demand for meat. As a result, the grain that could feed people is instead being fed to cattle.

Compounding the problem, the rising fuel prices have substantially increased the cost of shipping and transporting of food, besides making farm inputs like fertilisers more expensive. Even in countries where the staples are available, they are beyond the reach of the poorest. Among the developing countries, "China and India carve out a bigger place at the table, and a new dinner guest -- bio-fuel --threatens to become the biggest glutton of all," according to a western analyst. The two emerging powers have the largest populations to feed and, hence, an enormous amount of food to

grow to meet their needs.

According to Jossete Sheeran, the current food crisis is the biggest challenge in her organisation's 45 year history. "The era of cheap food is over," said Rajat Nag. managing director general of Asian Development-Bank. He urged the Asian governments not to distort markets with export curbs but use fiscal measures to help the poor.

To combat the impending crisis, former UN secretary general Kofi Annan's stress, however, is more on climate change which, according to him, is fast aggravating and could bringabout a major hunger disaster.

However, neither the global shortfall in production nor the fuel prices are entirely to blame in our country. Smugglers, politically connected hoarders, and syndicated mafias also create artificial shortages even in bumper years to profit from the misery of the people Happily, there is now a grossing consensus among the experts that food security should, without delay, be placed at par with national security issues, and anything related to be food treated on a war-footing. (retd) Hafiz «former DG at BISS.