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	Food Price inflation threatens to undermine development gains in China by UN News & agencies   Apr 2011   Prices in China rose 5.4 percent last month compared with the preceding March, the largest increase since 2008, but a worrisome rise in month-to-month prices suggests to analysts that the annual inflation rate could approach the double-digit range.   The increase in food prices — 11.7 percent in the first quarter of this year — is a crucial factor in a nation where food is the major expense for many household budgets.   The government, mindful that soaring inflation played a crucial role in the 1989 protests that climaxed in the bloody suppression of demonstrations in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, has taken pains to show concern. The Premier Wen Jiabao has said that he checks prices of staples daily, and has frequently said that inflation and corruption are the greatest dangers to national stability.   China was hit with a spate of worker protests last year, fueled by complaints about low wages and high prices, which led to some wage increases in some industries. But inflation appears to be eroding those gains.   In 2008, China was hit with a wave of strikes with wage earners unhappy with the erosion in their take-home pay by inflation. Some experts contend that China’s own monetary policies fuel inflation, and that the global rise in food and oil prices has only worsened the situation here.   Dec 2010   Land degradation among China’s food supply challenges, says UN expert.   China has made remarkable economic progress over the past three decades, lifting millions out of poverty, and food security benefited significantly from this overall progress. However, the shrinking of arable land and the massive land degradation threatens the ability of the country to maintain current levels of agricultural production, while the widening gap between rural and urban is an important challenge to the right to food of the Chinese population", said the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Mr. Olivier De Schutter.   "Within a few decades, China has been able to feed itself and to feed one fifth of the entire world population. That is really impressive. Yet, considering a country"s global agricultural output and the progressive realization of the right to food are two different things", said De Schutter.   "The right to food depends on people having incomes that allow them to purchase food. It also requires that food systems are sustainable so that satisfying current needs are not at the expense of the country"s ability to meet future needs. It is obvious that these two conditions are facing important challenges today".   Since 1997, China has lost 8.2 million hectares (20.2 million acres) of arable land due to urbanization or industrialization, forest replanting programmes, and damage caused by natural disasters. "Today, 37 per cent of China"s total territory suffers from land degradation, and the country"s per capita available land is now 40 per cent of the world average. This shrinking of arable land represents a major threat to the ability of China to maintain its current self-sufficiency in grain, and it fuels competition over land and land evictions", the Special Rapporteur noted.   "The recent food price hikes in China are a harbinger of what may be lying ahead, and the food reserves maintained by China may therefore prove of strategic importance in the future. This situation should encourage China to move towards more sustainable types of farming, as experimented successfully in the Yunnan province, if current levels of production are to be sustained. Climate change will cause agricultural productivity to drop by 5 to 10 per cent by 2030 in the absence of mitigation actions, and a transition to low carbon agriculture is key in this context".   De Schutter also expressed concern at the widening urban-rural income gap, which reaches almost 6 to 1 if distribution of spending on public services is taken into account. "Education, healthcare, old-age pensions, and the basic income guarantee are provided at the local level, but local governments have insufficient revenues to fulfil all the tasks assigned to them", he noted. The result is that they impose user fees for essential services or limit the levels of individual entitlements. The income gap partly explains why 144 million people have migrated from rural areas to work in urban areas these last decades. The central Government should take responsibility for this situation".   "The situation of these rural migrant workers is a source of concern. They are often employed in the informal sector, and the current household registration system (hukou) deprives them from access to certain basic services in the cities", said De Schutter, who expressed the hope that the system would be gradually phased out.   Other topics covered by the Special Rapporteur during his mission included the question of land grabbing, the situation of nomadic herders in Western Provinces and Autonomous Regions, the nutrition dimension of the right to food, and the transparent management of food safety issues by the authorities. Based on his mission to China, the Special Rapporteur will present a report to the Human Rights Council in 2011.   Dec. 2010   Chinese finding it hard to cope with rising prices and slow income growth, by Qiao Long for Radio Free Asia, Mandarin service.   Ordinary Chinese are less satisfied with their lives and with their government now than in previous years, and experts are warning that mounting labor disputes and rising prices could bring further social unrest.   A recent policy paper released by the China Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) shows that people are less and less able to cope with rising prices, with researchers warning that a failure to rein in inflation could spark instability.   China also faces mounting labor unrest, highlighted by a string of worker suicides at Taiwan-invested electronics factory Foxconn in recent months, all of which government officials are ill-equipped to handle, experts said at the launch of the "blue paper" policy report in Beijing.   Chen Guangjin, deputy director of the sociology department at CASS, said that peoples level of satisfaction with their lives and with the government, has fallen over the course of the year.   "If this is sustained over a certain length of time—for example, two or three or more years—then it is likely to bring with it social instability and diminishing levels of confidence in society," Chen said.   Beijing Science and Technology University professor Hu Xingdou said labor disputes need more democratic handling, especially in cases involving the official trade union.   "It is probably because the union representatives are part of the company, so they have a huge vested interest," Hu said. "Union officials should ... be made completely independent. But of course this isn"t easy to achieve," he said.   A People"s Bank of China poll in the last quarter of 2010 found that people in China"s cities and towns are at their most dissatisfied level in 11 years.   Almost 70 percent of respondents said they are struggling to cope with rising prices. Two-thirds expect the situation to get worse in the next quarter, the survey reported.   Residential property prices in particular are causing problems for the majority of respondents, it said.   Hu said ordinary Chinese have been hit by skyrocketing food prices, which have seen a rise of up to 50 percent for some commodities in recent months.   "People"s income growth is actually rather slow, unlike the figures reported by the National Bureau of Statistics," he said.   "On top of that, prices just keep on rising, way above the levels that are reflected in the consumer price index," Hu added.   China already sees thousands of "mass incidents" across the country every year, according to official statistics, many of which are protests or sit-ins linked to forced eviction, allegations of corruption, and disputes over rural land.
	International Labor Rights Forum by Tim Newman   Millions of workers around the world toil under inhumane working conditions. In a globalized economy, corporations from developed countries produce consumer goods ranging from coffee to cellphones in poor developing countries, where they can take advantage of cheap labor and lack of environmental or community protections.   Workers, including child workers, must toil extremely long hours for wages that are barely subsistence wages, and often under unsanitary and unsafe conditions. In many countries there is little or no labor law enforcement, and many workers are prevented from joining organizations to advance their interests.   Alarmingly, an estimated 211 million children between the ages of 5 and 14 are compelled to work around the world. These children produce rubber, cotton, coffee and work in mines to produce goods that are traded to the United States and other developed countries. Unable to go to school, these children face little hope of escaping poverty in their future.   Advocacy for these workers is essential to ensuring their protection, strengthening their voice, and ending abuses that violate their rights and dignity.   ILRF is an advocacy organization dedicated to achieving just and humane treatment for workers worldwide. ILRF serves a unique role among human rights organizations as advocates for and with working poor around the world.   We believe that all workers have the right to a safe working environment where they are treated with dignity and respect, and where they can organize freely to defend and promote their rights and interests.   We are committed to ending the problems of child labor, forced labor, and other abusive practices. We promote enforcement of labor rights internationally through public education and mobilization, research, litigation, legislation, and collaboration with labor, government and business groups. Visit the related web page
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