Just a few days ago, backdropped by the worsening food riots in Haiti, United Nations Secretary General Ban Kimoon issued a dire warning stating that the "rapidly escalating crisis of food availability around the world has reached emergency proportions."

In a nutshell, the world economy is hemorrhaging caused by the spike in prices of energy and food. Even in the so-called land of milk and honey, the fact that there is now a rising consumer price index for food and energy hurting the US consuming public is a veritable barometer showing how acute and widespread the problem is.

Faced with a recession, the US is now hit by the worst food inflation in 17 years. After years of low inflation today’s prices seem eye-popping for American consumers. Figures show that prices of bread, milk and other dairy products have jumped steeply compared to prices a year ago.

If American consumers are hurting, it is a certainty that a great multitude in poor and developing economies are gasping for breath to stay afloat and to keep body and soul together while others in a desperate bid to survive unceremoniously get killed in rampaging food riots like in Haiti.

In the Philippines we are witnessing daily long queues for the much cheaper NFA-subsidized rice. For those who can afford, highly priced commercial rice can still be bought conveniently in many places. Concededly, what we have is not a rice crisis but a price crisis. Again, concededly, we don’t have a rice shortage but this is largely because we import rice.

This dependence on importation for our staple food, however, must immediately be rectified with a comprehensive food security program, for we cannot continue to be at the mercy of rice-exporting countries. Moreover, given the harsh realities and vagaries of global warming, we must prioritize our food productivity for our ballooning population and learn to adapt to changing times.

For instance, the propagation of hybrid rice technology which is more resistant to effects of global warming and widely reputed to produce more cavans of palay per hectare than traditional rice varieties is thus highly advisable.

To stress the importance of achieving sufficiency in rice production, here is an excerpt from an essay written by G.H.L. Rothschild: "By 2030, the world must produce 70% more rice that it produced in 1995 to meet demand created by increasing populations and rising incomes. This production increase must be achieved on less land, with less labor, less water, and less pesticide, and it must be sustainable."

On top of this bleak scenario, a senior official of the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization, Jose Graziano, recently said that global investment funds and the weakening dollar are to blame for the escalating world food prices.

Acknowledging that foods from bread to milk, rice, beans and other staples have become quite expensive, Graziano commented that the "lack of confidence in the US dollar has led investment funds to look for higher returns in commodities… first metals and then foods." He further warned: "The crisis is a speculative attack and it will last."

At the frontline of investment funds are hedgers and speculators spooked by the volatility of the global economic conditions, and aside from futures trading in commodity crops with higher returns, they are also attracted to oil – thereby making them insulated to future price fluctuations at the expense of consumers.

What a material world descending into a tailspin.