Why the hunger in Haiti?

In the news this week is the worsening hunger crisis in Haiti -- attributed to rising food prices. But why are food prices rising? ... To read most reports on the matter, the prices of food seem to be a mystery. While there are current trends that are causing these specific fluctuations, longer-term policies are the real problem.

The truth is that food prices could be much, much lower than they are in Haiti and around the world, except for Farm Bills and agriculture policies (especially in the US and EU) that protect Big Farming companies, and pay others not to farm at all. The bills also put a limit on food imports from other regions.

These policies not only keep food prices higher than they need to be in the US and EU, but they force global food prices up higher than they would be, and therefore are responsible for a significant portion of the malnutrition in nations like Haiti. With a global farm policy more friendly to trade, prices would fall all around and make food more available to the global poor as well as the US and European working class. Why do these policies remain then? ... Because they have strong lobbies who push (and payoff) legislators to keep them in place. ... Until these legal barriers are removed, the world -- and especially the poorest of our brothers and sisters -- will needlessly suffer higher food prices.

For many in Haiti and other poor nations, those prices aren't just inconvenient, they are fatal hunger pangs caused by the criminal negligence of first-world legislators.