Food Security in Focus
Check out this post from our partner organization Bread for the World. This post—talking about the need for more (and better) funding for agricultural development—is part of our Food Security in Focus series.
I’m a vegetarian. So I wasn’t sure how to respond when my host Yemiama offered me chickens as a gift for visiting him in southeastern Burkina Faso. I reluctantly took the chickens with many “thank yous.” Later, as I climbed into our truck, my colleagues joked that the birds would never make it through U.S. Customs.
Recently, I visited Burkina Faso as a guest of the Ministry of Agriculture on a project supported by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). While there, I talked with farmers about how they are coping in the midst of a global food and financial crisis. Predictably, they are struggling.
But the government in Burkina Faso is trying. With the support of IFAD, they are working to improve agricultural productivity and rural livelihoods. In Kompiengbiga, they have built irrigation schemes, increased organic fertilizer use and taught farmers business skills. Burkinabè farmers have benefited from these efforts. Even in my short visit, I was impressed that they are willing to take risks and adopt new technologies if they are given the chance.
Unfortunately, far too few farmers are getting the support they need. Currently, only four cents of every dollar of Official Development Assistance supports agricultural development. That’s down from 17 cents of every dollar in the 1980s.
How did we get to a point where we failed to anticipate needs in an area as critical as agriculture? Part of the answer is donor policies are poorly aligned with needs in developing countries. This must change.
Creating more responsive foreign assistance that alleviates hunger and poverty is sorely needed. Right now Bread for the World members are urging their Senators to support S.1524, “The Foreign Assistance Revitalization and Accountability Act.” This bill will strengthen the capacity, transparency, and accountability of U.S. foreign assistance—and is a critical step toward helping farmers like Yemiama. Click here to learn more about S. 1524.
-Eric Muñoz, International Hunger and Nutrition Policy Analyst, Bread for the World Institute
Yesterday Senator Casey (D-Penn.), who has been supportive of ONE’s priorities, made a speech on the Senate floor to encourage his fellow Senators to take action to address global food insecurity and pass the Global Food Security Act. Sen. Casey introduced the Global Food Security Act with Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.). They both serve on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The bill provides $10 billion over five years (2010 to 2014) for a coordinated effort to address global food insecurity, including long-term agricultural initiatives in the developing world.
With more than 1 billion hungry people around the world, and increasing pressures on smallholder farmers like droughts, flooding, and volatile food prices, we have a humanitarian motivation to take action, as Sen. Casey mentioned in his speech. Sen. Casey also described how food insecurity is a national security issue:
… global hunger is indeed a national security issue. Instability arising from conflict over access to food is a documented and real problem. Last year’s food crisis unfortunately brought this into acute focus. We saw it in Somalia, where struggles to gain access to food have enveloped population centers in violence. We have seen it in Egypt during last year’s bread riots. And we have seen it in Haiti where hospital beds filled last year with those injured during food riots. Increased instability in any of these countries has a direct impact on U.S. national interests. There are a host of examples from across the world that illustrate the scope of this problem.
Sen. Casey also praised the administration’s effort to address global food insecurity:
I would like to applaud this Administration’s current efforts to help the hungry. In September, the White House announced the Global Hunger and Food Security Initiative, a comprehensive approach to food security based on country and community led planning and collaboration. Secretary Clinton is leading a visionary ‘whole of government’ effort to help the world’s hungry. As the Administration works out the details of implementation, I hope and trust that we will maintain a sharp focus on the ability of small scale farmers to grow food at an increased and sustainable rate.
Be sure to check out the press release and speech, which includes a more detailed description of the objectives of the Global Food Security Act.
Check out the latest partner post for our Food Security in Focus series, this time from Oxfam America. The post below describes an innovative way that Ethiopian farmers are dealing with the effects of climate change. Also be sure to check out an amazing video/slideshow by clicking on either of the images below.
-Kara Arsenault
Medhin Reda’s is an all-girl house—Medhin and three of her daughters. I knew the moment she brushed aside her daughter’s warning to dress up for her western visitors that I would like her enormously. She had just rushed in from weeding the corn patch, and she came to greet us outside her stone-walled hut high on a hill in Adi Ha—and as soon as she could, she would be back in that corn patch finishing the job.
All work. All day.
That’s the life of single mothers like Medhin here in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia, where climate change is taking its toll. The rainfall is becoming increasingly erratic and making a living from the rocky soil is backbreaking and never certain. Drought can easily wipe out a season’s efforts. And hunger often follows.
But this year, Medhin, 45, has a plan. Though she doesn’t have a penny to pay for it, she has bought herself a small package of weather insurance. It’s for her teff, the tiny grain grown across Ethiopia that’s the base for a pancake-like bread called injera. If enough rain fails to fall at a certain time, the insurance will provide Medhin with a payout to cover some of her losses.
It’s a new initiative launched by Oxfam America and a host of local partners, including the Relief Society of Tigray. And its genius is in its accessibility to the poorest of the poor. Those who don’t have cash—and many don’t—can pay for their premiums with the single most important asset they do have: their sweat. Two hundred small farmers in Adi Ha signed up for the insurance; 65 percent of them are swapping work for premiums. They’ll be tackling projects that make them less vulnerable to drought.
Medhin is trading 24 days of labor for the comfort of knowing that if her teff crop fails for lack of rain, her family will get critical assistance in its time of need. The insurance will make sure of that.
“It’s good for me to have the insurance as long as I can work and pay with labor,” she said before heading back to her corn patch. “That is the only asset I have.”
-Coco McCabe, Oxfam America
Photos courtesy of Eva-Lotta Jansson/Oxfam America
Ambassador Richard S. Williamson wrote a guest column for the Des Moines Register recently exploring the humanitarian crisis in Darfur and how agricultural underdevelopment contributes to conflict.
We recently wrote about the World Food Prize awarded in Des Moines, Iowa and the Bourlag Symposium of which Ambassador Williamson was a part. The symposium as you know was named after the late Norman Bourlag, who made tremendous contributions towards addressing global food insecurity.
Excerpts from Ambassador Williamson’s piece below, full text here:
A World Bank report, “Economic Causes of Civil War and Their Implications for Policy,” points out that while grievances such as “inequality, political repression, and ethnic and religious divisions” contribute to social unrest and political conflict, they are not reliable in predicting civil war. It is economic characteristics that are “significant and powerful predicators of civil war.”
In many areas of conflict, economic deprivation, hunger, agricultural underdevelopment and desperation are critical factors that enable violence to begin and which sustain it. Following conflict, without agricultural development there can be no successful return and reintegration of those displaced. Post-conflict areas cannot become self-sustaining with no productive work available and there will be little productive work without agricultural development. As a result, peace accords often cannot be fully implemented and warfare will reignite.
In many conflict areas agricultural development is critical to sustainable peace. And in fragile states vulnerable to violence, agricultural development will create the required economic opportunity, help alleviate hunger, improve health and contribute to infrastructure development.
Here’s another partner post for our Food Security in Focus series, this time from USAID’s West Africa Trade Hub. The West Africa Trade Hub works directly with West African companies, helping them become more competitive in the world market by linking them to buyers who assist in product development. The post below is from Paully Appea-Kubi , the founder of Ebenut, a company that produces dried fruit mixes in Accra, Ghana. With help from an American food distribution company, Ebenut will soon introduce dried jollof rice and dried gari foto dishes to U.S. supermarkets. Her story demonstrates the importance of market access and agricultural value chains in establishing food security.
-Kara Arsenault
I started Ebenut by myself in 1996. I have a food science background and I like to experiment with food. I asked a farmer if he could supply me with pineapples and it was a good match: he needed a market for the pineapples that he did not export or were rejected, but were still fine for drying. I had one dryer and I used my own money to start Ebenut. After six months, I added two people. Eight months later, I hired five more.
Today, I have 35 people. I’m getting mangoes from 15 farmers, pineapples from 12, papayas from 2 and I have four suppliers of coconuts. The farmers are expanding and their workers are better paid because they have a reliable market for their fruits—they know there’s a constant buyer.
Jollof rice is very common in Ghana—we use it at our parties, we eat it for lunch, we serve it at weddings and funerals. We use a spicy pepper, oil, tomato and local seasonings. We then mix it up with rice and cook it. I took the recipe from there, drying it in order to preserve it and make it easy to prepare. Gari foto is very much like jollof, but instead of rice we use gari, or cassava, that has been dried. It’s very convenient—you just add water and a prepared tomato sauce.
I’m working with a rice factory in the Volta Region. They buy from about 100 growers. So I work with those farmers indirectly, creating a market for their grain. I’m also working with rice growers in the north, where rice farming is done mostly by women.
Last year, I met Jim Thaller of Talier Trading Group. He told me that he wanted a locally prepared dish to go on to the U.S. market. I developed a dried jollof rice dish (reported in Tradewinds, the Trade Hub’s monthly newsletter) and a dried gari foto for supermarkets across the U.S. It was important to have Jim’s help. While we were telling his group about the local dish, they tasted it to see whether it would be suitable for the market. The names, the packaging design—these were all very important. He encouraged us. My fear was that we would spend all this money, invest all of this time and then it wouldn’t go very well. Jim had high hopes.
I know Americans like foods that are easy to prepare and are tasty. It’s very colorful and the fact that you can serve it with other foods makes it versatile. It takes about 5 minutes to make it and it’s very nutritious. I think they’ll really like it. It’s an exciting time for me.
-Paully Appea-Kubi
Last week for UN Food Security and Agriculture Organization (FAO) held a forum for high-level experts to discuss the question: How to Feed the World in 2050. This forum lays the groundwork for conversation at the World Food Summit to be held in mid-November. The meeting brought together international specialists working in all aspects of food security. Experts discussed how to address increasing food needs as the global population grows, and as impacts on global food security driven by external shocks, like climate change, become more menacing. The group also evaluated financing needs to successfully feed the world in 2050.
Reports from the meeting note that there was a general consensus amongst scholars that it should be possible to provide enough food to feed the expected global population of more than 9 billion people in 2050. This ability does depend, however, on how external shocks that affect the food supply—like climate change—play out. In order to achieve this growth, investments in research, technology, infrastructure, and sustainable resource management are essential.
Achieving food security will not only depend on whether the world can produce enough food. Increasing agricultural productivity must be complemented by policies that enhance access and usage of food so that people can live healthy and productive lives. Programs that fight poverty and catch families before they fall deeper into poverty—like effective safety net programs—must also be implemented along with plans to increase agricultural productivity.
Well functioning markets, increased opportunities for market access, and the development of value chains in which smallholder farmers can participate are also critical components of achieving food security.
In a report released ahead of the experts meeting, the FAO noted the following critical points that demonstrate the magnitude of the challenge:
- By 2050 the global population will be 9.1 billion people, about one third more than today, and 70% of those will live in urban areas, compared to approximately 50% today.
- In order to feed this larger and wealthier population, food production must increase by 70%.
- It is estimated that $83 billion per year in agricultural investments in the developing world will be required to achieve the necessary increases in food production.
The FAO report also emphasizes that come 2050, fewer people will be living in rural areas, and fewer people in those areas will choose to farm. This means that farmers will need new technologies which will allow them to produce more per acre of land even with fewer helping hands.
Continue to follow our Food Security in Focus series here on the blog for more information on the topic.
Check out the articles below highlighting some key issues in agriculture and food security, including expected population growth, and the current drought plaguing East Africa. Leave your comments; we’d love to hear what you think.
Four-year drought pushes 23 million Africans to brink of starvation (The Times Online)
Carcasses litter a parched and barren wilderness (The Times Online)
Experts Worry as Population and Hunger Grow (New York Times)
Uganda food crisis undermining efforts to fight HIV/Aids (The Guardian)
Cholera breaks out in Zimbabwe again amid fears of an epidemic in summer rains (The Times Online)
