Rise in Rice Price

From Bangladesh to the Philippines, from India to Indonesia, the the price rise of food grains, like rice is a bad news. They seek to balance price rise with the measures of feeding hungry populations and averting social chaos.

Every Asian government is well aware of the close relationship that exists between political stability of the government and the stability of the prices of essential commodities like food grains. So every government in the South Asian region has been doing all it can to maintain price stability, particularly for basic food grains.

At the end of February, Thailand's benchmark rice was trading at more than 500 dollars a tonne, a rise of more than 100 dollars from a month earlier and up from just 325 dollars a year ago. Exporters in Vietnam meanwhile were setting prices at 460 dollars a tonne last month, up more than 50 percent from a year ago.

The whole crisis is not a region specific issue but a global issue. All cereal prices are going up, as per data released by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation. In the first two months of 2008, Vietnam's rice exports brought in 150 million dollars, an increase of 78 percent from a year ago. Much of the output is destined for the Philippines, which has asked for a guarantee of stable supplies. Unable to meet its own needs, the Philippines will import up to two million tonnes of rice this year, according to the government. Last year its harvest was 6.44 million tonnes. ,

To ensure stability, a government agency in Indonesia buys and releases stocks and sets import duties. Heavily subsidised rice is also sold to millions of the poorest families, yet even those prices are rising. No one wants to be left without adequate stocks, and that contributes to driving up the price. They're willing to pay a higher price for future deliveries because they don't want to be caught short.

In Bangladesh, which has a population of 144 million, the price of rice has doubled in a year, vastly outpacing income levels. People are cutting all their other spending to focus only on food. They have to survive on a pittance, and the rises are causing a general feeling of gloom and depression. This year Bangladesh will need to import some three million tonnes due to damage caused by floods in mid-2007 and November's devastating cyclone. Some of that is coming from neighbouring India, but otherwise New Delhi has halted exports of non-basmati rice to keep its own domestic prices in check. India allowed the export of 3.2 million tonnes of non-basmatic rice in the first half of the current financial year, but since October no new contracts have been signed. The move has upset the All India Rice Exporters' Association.

China, Japan and South Korea are largely self-sufficient and protect their rice sectors via steep import tariffs or heavy subsidies. In Japan, the price of high-quality rice is even waning with falling demand as younger Japanese turn to bread and Western-style dishes. It is now for the South Asian countries to gear up themselves to face the crisis and maintain food security.

E - Waste, a transnational menace.

China imposed a ban on the import of e-waste in 2002, this has been a major trigger for India to emerge as one of the largest dumping grounds of electronic waste for the developed world. Once the electronic equipment, mostly computers, turns obsolete in the West, they are exported as e-waste into the South Asian market, mostly to countries like India and Pakistan. A large number of workers, work in this recycling industry, extracting useful metals from electronic waste or e-waste, are putting both their health and the environment to great risk. Activists estimate that 300,000 to 400,000 tons of electronics collected for recycling in the US each year which ends up overseas mostly in South Asian Junk Market.

Most Americans think they are helping the earth when they recycle their old computers, televisions and cell phones. But little do they know that they are a contributing partner to an unholy global trade in electronic trash. The business of waste treatment goes well beyond these local agents spiraling into a network of smugglers, petty traders, and unorganized workers .

Workers here extract copper, iron, gold and brass from these scraps, break the printed circuit boards into small pieces and send them back to make money. These junkyard workers are paid daily wage of about 100 to 150 Indian rupees, depending on their workload. These workers are just a small fraction of a huge population that is a part of this illegal but flourishing trade. It is the worker who bears the brunt by compromising his health to earn his bread.

The Basel Convention was formulated to promote cleaner technology and ban import of toxic waste, including obsolete computers. India ratified this convention in 1990. Despite this, developing countries have been importing computer scrap from the US, Singapore, Malaysia, the Middle East and Belgium. Absence of proper legislation and proper technology to scan imports has seen increased import of hazardous e-waste masquerading as mixed waste or plastic scrap. There are also cases where obsolete junk comes in as charity or donations to schools and educational institutions. Exporting countries justify it, stating they are providing some form of employment to developing countries.

The governments track international trade across the world using a harmonised system of codes called the international trade classification codes. These are eight digit numbers that are given to all commodities. Cow dung has a number, horse manure has a number, zinc, ash has a number, but unfortunately e-waste does not have a number. So when computer scrap comes into a country, it is either clubbed under a larger grouping like the plastic scrap or mixed plastic waste or thing that have an Indian Trade Classification based on Harmonized System [ITC (HS)] code. As a result, the assessing officer at the concerned port with the customs is unable to distinguish the electronic scrap consignment. He would have to open every container to find out. Basel Convention recognizes the e-waste as a hazardous waste owing to the contaminants in it. There is no clear way by which the importing-exporting country governments can exercise a check on the movement of electronic scrap. Nobody has moved in the Basel Convention asking for a specialized code. So, as a result, though there is a lot of talk about this, there is no way actually to check this menace. The scrap dealers claim that sometimes they themselves are also not aware of what their cargo shipment might contain since the codes may differ from plastics to metal or even animal wastes.

The problem could get worse. More than 2 million tons of old electronics discarded annually by Americans goes to US landfills, according to US Environmental Protection Agency data. But a s growing number of US states are banning such waste from landfills, the recycling stream has begun to circulate more of obsolete junk to third world countries in the name of charities and mixed plastic waste.

Unless countries like India adopts China’s strategy of stringent trade regulations on e-waste, either by organizing the recycling sector or by advocating environmentally sound technologies, these nation could be facing a serious environmental crisis.

What is Green Imperialism!

As defined by Nor Mohamed Yakcop, Malaysia's deputy finance minister, at the World Economic Forum on east Asia; green imperialism is the hypocrisy of rich countries wherein they exploit the natural resources including human beings in developing Asian and African economies, later blame them for worsening climate change and other environmental crisis.

Eco-imperialism violates the developing countries people’s most basic human rights by denying them economic opportunities, the chance for a better livelihood. The environmental movement has repeatedly used the alleged threat of global eco-catastrophe like, global warming, to override the wishes of people who most desperately need energy and progress.

The imperialism may need not necessarily spring from the first world, against the third world. Or even from the economical developments to environmentally deprived. But also among two groups of stake holders in natural resources. A dam project was halted abruptly in India, after eco-activists pressured international lending agencies to withdraw financial support. The construction of dam was claimed to be stopped because it would change the path of the river, kill little creatures along its banks and uproot tribal people in the area. But the cancellation of the expected project has denied electricity for 5,000 villages; low-cost renewable power for industries and sewage treatment plants; irrigation water for crops; and clean drinking water for 35 million people. This controversial issue further deepened the debate on sharing of natural resources and policy concerns involved in dispute solving mechanisms.

The environmental organisations and activists in developing nations claim that west has been the high margin polluter, while the notions in the west is that Asia's energy consumption is relatively disproportionate to its contribution to the world economy. In 2006, China overtook the United States in carbon emissions by about 7.5%, according to the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency's report.

Now with the recession fears in the United States and partially evident shift in global power equations, the developments in environmental imperialism and diplomatic stands of emerging economies will be an engaging debate.

This blog will monitor the media content and policy initiatives in Environmental diplomacy from grass root politics to international debates.