As the G8 Economic Summit in Tokyo wound down last week, the National Family Farm Coalition convened a teleconference. With corn prices approaching $8 a bushel, the topic quickly fixed on the ongoing global food crisis and the summit's failure to adequately address the need for domestic and international grain reserves.

The situation is a logical outcome of having dismantled reserves under the 1996 Farm Bill, contended George Naylor, an Iowa corn and soybean grower. "America has now transitioned from Freedom to Farm in 1996 to Freedom to Starve in 2008 since we eliminated farmer-owned reserves and almost all of our government stocks.

"Now in a globalized economy with no reserves to ensure stability, we don't know how high prices will go. Grain reserves are essential to ensuring a fair price for farmers and consumers so that our food security isn't dependent on speculative global markets."

Troy Roush, vice-president of American Corn Growers Association and an Indiana farmer, cautioned policymakers against blaming food price increases all on ethanol: "If in fact ethanol is to blame for high food prices, why are wheat and rice prices high?

"We should have implemented a farmer-owned grain reserve in times of plenty when our corn prices collapsed after 1996. That now could have moderated the cost of corn for the food and livestock industry.

"Those industries benefited greatly for years by purchasing our below-cost corn. We have a strategic petroleum reserve. I fail to see why we can't have strategic grain reserves."

Daryll Ray, ag economist and director of the Agriculture Policy Analysis Center at University of Tennessee spoke about the critical role of U.S. grain reserves. He noted that this year's disastrous Midwest flooding was the first real weather catastrophe to occur without adequate U.S. stocks.

The lack of those publicly held reserves "has had an untold cost on our economy – not just livestock. We ought to be preparing for the next go-around," added Ray. "The cost of a farmer-owned grain reserve is peanuts compared to how much we have been spending in the past few years on subsidies needed to bail out farmers when corn prices were depressed."

But the global food shortage is not all the doing of the United States, pointed out Patrick Woodall, senior policy analysis from Food and Water Watch. World Bank directives led many African countries to abandon their reserves, contributing to the current food crisis.

"A decade of low-priced grain trade and World Bank dictates deterred many developing countries from maintaining buffer stocks and reserve programs," he charged. "Kenya and Malawi eliminated their reserves altogether. Other countries like Senegal, Zambia and Tanzania slashed regional granaries and transportation programs that provided buffers against famines.

"Now, Africa is dependent on imported grain that has nearly doubled in price in the past year. The G8 just offers more of the same bad medicine by promoting the WTO Doha Round. None of their prescriptions will help farmers or consumers."