Philippines faced food shortages that were partially due to less domestic food cultivation. In such a case, global warming and climate change has been blamed for poor performance in food production.
The effect on commodity markets has been more intense recently due to the crisis is the U.S. financial market. Speculations on the financial market, including futures trading, have exacerbated the energy and food crisis by inflating prices in spite of a global economic slowdown. Food and energy prices were expected to rise for years ahead due to increasing demand and shrinking outputs. Food such as rice, soybean, wheat, and corn futures are traded on various American stock exchanges, including the Chicago Board of Trade and New York Mercantile Exchange, rubber on the Singapore Stock Exchange and palm oil on the Malaysian Stock Exchange.
In January 2008, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicted world economic growth slowing to 4.1 percent for the year, down from 4.9 percent in 2007. The U.S. economic growth was predicted to slow to 1.5 percent in 2008.2 In the same report, IMF predicted that Asia would also experience a reduction in its economic growth rates. China, however, predicted rapid growth but a slightly slower pace with a forecast rate reduced from 11.4 percent (2007) to 10 percent for 2008. Accordingly, the deepening credit crunch of the U.S and the weaken Wall Street trading has negatively affected the trading and the economies of developing countries. The domino effects of the U.S economy, coupled with the high oil and commodity prices, have directly rattled the global food emergency situation, bringing hunger and political instability in