Bread Riots in Cairo and and the Oakland Port Shutdowns: What’s the Connection?

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Bread Riots in Cairo and and the

Oakland Port Shutdowns:

What’s the Connection?



In 2008, despite the world’s largest wheat harvest, bread riots broke out in thirty-three countries. In Egypt, the world’s number one importer, global wheat prices rose 130%. The main cause was the financialization of grain markets (similar to the housing boom/bust), driven by speculators like Goldman Sachs.

In 2011, strikes and protests over bread shortages sparked struggles

that toppled the Mubarak regime.



That same year, Global grain trading consortium EGT (Export Grain Terminal) built a new $200 million grain loading facility in Longview, Washington, to do what Walmart does, but in reverse – deliver grains down supply chains as fast – and cheap – as possible to growing markets in Asia, where diets are increasingly McDonaldized. When EGT broke its agreement to operate with ILWU union labor, the Occupy Movement acted in solidarity. The Port of Oakland shutdown on November 2nd was followed on December 12th by the attempted

shutdown of all West Coast ports.



Gifford Hartman will lead a participatory presentation to look at the commodification of our food – and our lives – and at possible future Occupy actions against this global trend. Hartman is a historian of social movements who guides the annual LaborFest walking tour to the sites of the 1946 Oakland General Strike. He has written extensively about how the current economic crisis is affecting California – and the rising of struggles against it.





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