World Food Crisis
Last week, I attended the Senate hearing for the Global Food Security Act (S-384) that was re-introduced in the Senate in February by Senators Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) and Robert Casey (D-Penn.). The bill is being co-sponsored by Senators Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), and Tom Harkin (D-Iowa).
The bill calls for $10 billion over five years for agricultural initiatives in the developing world. In particular, the bill focuses on rural agricultural programming, research and technological innovation, and contains some funding for emergency food assistance with the option of purchasing the food locally rather than shipping it from the U.S.
It was exciting to hear ONE’s themes resound at the hearing. This palpable support is essential as the developing world is facing high food prices, coupled with the global economic turndown. The World Bank estimates that the financial crisis could push 53 million more people into poverty this year, and already 963 million people are hungry worldwide – an increase of 40 million people between 2007 and 2008.
In his opening statement, Senator Kerry cautioned that the world has a long way to go before we reach the first Millennium Development Goal of halving hunger and poverty. Senator Lugar outlined four primary challenges effecting agriculture and food security in the developing world – population growth, rising energy costs, water scarcity, and climate change – noting that “Despite these alarming trends, investments in agriculture have tumbled in recent decades.”
Highlights from the testimonies included former Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman and former head of the UN World Food Program Catherine Bertini, who co-chaired the recently released Chicago Council task force report on global hunger and poverty, praising more assistance for programs that will increase food production in developing countries – like agricultural extension, research, and training – in complement to traditional food aid. Dr. Gebisa Ejeta, a plant geneticist working with sorghum, proposed that investments in people, local institutions, and policies that all support research and technology transfer could assist a future agricultural revolution in developing countries. Senator Kerry and David Beckmann of Bread for the World also both made references to the importance of pursuing a foreign assistance reform process that would ensure that the U.S. has an effective foreign aid system. A list of witnesses and their full statements can be found here.
The Global Food Security Act is an important step towards achieving the economic opportunity and food security so urgently needed in the developing world. Increased funding for agriculture could have a significant impact on sub-Saharan Africa in particular where the sector employs approximately two-thirds of the population and accounts for, on average, one-third of GDP. Hopefully the introduction of this legislation – and the support that it has clearly garnered in the legislative, academic, and NGO communities – signals a trend that the U.S. is putting agriculture in the developing world on the agenda.
The bill could be reviewed by the Committee as soon as this week; we will keep you updated about any developments.
-Beth Adler
On Tuesday, a broad-based coalition that includes several of ONE’s partners launched A Roadmap to End Global Hunger – a comprehensive strategy for addressing global hunger through short, medium, and long-term initiatives and reaching the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of halving hunger by 2015. Representatives Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) and Jo Ann Emerson (R-Mo.) joined the co-sponsoring NGOs* at Tuesday’s release on Capitol Hill, and new bipartisan legislation that incorporates the key points of the Roadmap to End Global Hunger is expected to be introduced in the coming weeks.
The Roadmap pitches several strategies for addressing the dire situation of global hunger. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), 963 million people are hungry around the world, the majority of whom live in developing countries. As the document notes, despite previous U.S. commitments to end global hunger, the number of hungry people continues to rise as global hunger is exacerbated by continued higher than average food prices and the global economic downturn. The Roadmap calls for a total of approximately $50 billion in U.S. funding for agriculture and food security initiatives over five years.
The document details the need for a faster, more efficient response to food emergencies and emphasizes the importance of flexibility in the provision of emergency food assistance, including options for buying food locally and regionally, and implementing voucher programs where food is available but families are too poor to afford it. The plan calls for donated food aid, like bags of rice or maize, as well as cash assistance that can provide timely and appropriate emergency assistance. The plan also calls for additional funding for safety-net programs – like cash-for-work and school feeding programs – to prevent the most vulnerable populations from descending further into hunger. It also stresses the importance of establishing and expanding early childhood nutrition programs.
In order to promote the development of the agricultural sector in the developing world and break the cycle of hunger and poverty, the Roadmap suggests a more than quadruple investment in market-based agriculture and market development. The suggested $1.38 billion over five years would be aimed at initiatives supporting low-income, smallholder farmers – particularly women. Considering that agriculture employs nearly two-thirds of the population in Sub-Saharan Africa, programs that assist farmers in producing more goods, and helping farmers access markets in which to sell these goods, could have a wide-spread, positive impact on household income and food security.
The Roadmap calls for the (more…)
Late last week, hundreds of ONE members called to urge Senators on the Foreign Relations Committee to ask questions about global poverty during Hillary Clinton’s Secretary of State confirmation hearing.
Some of those senators didn’t even get a chance, because Secretary-designate Clinton answered their questions before they could be asked. Her opening statement featured a long section on the two billion people worldwide living on less than $2 a day. She emphasized that the plight of the poor is “not marginal to our foreign policy but integral to accomplishing our goals.”
Opening remarks by Senator John Kerry (Massachusetts) also included a strong statement about the ongoing global hunger crisis. “The United States is uniquely situated to help the world feed itself and has the opportunities to recast its image by making the eradication of hunger a centerpiece of United States foreign policy,” he said.
In the subsequent question-and-answer period, ten out of fifteen of the Foreign Relations Committee Senators raised issues related to ONE issues, including these:
- Senator Bob Corker (Tennessee) asked about reforming and modernizing U.S. foreign aid, referring to the “maze of aid efforts that are underway” and the need for the State Department to examine and streamline these efforts.
- Senator Barbara Boxer (California) stated that “HIV, AIDS, tuberculosis — Africa, Asia, Latin America need our attention,” and went on to describe the persecution of women in the developing world.
Clinton responded with this assurance: “I want to pledge to you that as Secretary of State I view these issues as central to our foreign policy, not as adjunct or auxiliary or in any way lesser than all of the other issues that we have to confront.”
- Senator George Voinovich (Ohio) inquired about how “smart power” — (more…)
As we move on to a new year in our fight against global poverty and hunger, UNICEF is introducing an innovative food supplement — “Plumpy’Doz” — to very young children in Somalia.
The brown paste supplement is made from vegetable fat, peanut butter, sugar, milk, and other nutrients, and is designed to taste good to kid. Critically, it also has a longer shelf life than previous diet supplements and doesn’t need to be mixed with water.
Three teaspoons of Plumpy’Doz three times a day provides each young child with additional energy, including fats, high-quality protein and all the essential minerals and vitamins required to ensure growth and a healthy immune system.
Other partners, such as the World Food Programme and Doctors Without Borders, have already been using the supplement, but: “this is the first time that Plumpy’Doz will be distributed on such a large scale. UNICEF is working with partners to take proactive action to not only treat but prevent malnutrition,” said Christian Balslev-Olesen, said UNICEF Somalia Representative. “By adopting this new approach, we aim to reach children before they become malnourished.”
You can read a AFP article here and statements from UNICEF here.
-Virginia Simmons
In the last week, Bloomberg has featured a series of articles detailing the food crisis facing the developing world. The seven-part compilation delves into some of the challenges surrounding this crisis, and the importance of agricultural development that we have been highlighting on the blog. Last week the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reported that 963 million people are now hungry, which means another 40 million people have been pushed into hunger between last year and this one – an increased estimate from just two months ago. The Bloomberg article series provides a glimpse into some of the causes behind the food crisis, with several dominant themes.
Policies in the developed world can have serious impacts on the livelihood and wellbeing of developing communities. Among other policy topics, the series highlights the U.S. mandate that most of U.S. food aid be supplied and shipped from the United States. The result is that food aid can be delayed in reaching already-malnourished people in countries like Ethiopia. Similar food aid programs in Canada and the European Union allow the purchase of food near where it is to be distributed, where possible. Not only does this practice ensure that food is delivered in a more in a timely manner, but it supports local and regional economies in the developing world.
The series also examines the potential role of speculation in commodities markets, and of the possibility of fertilizer companies colluding to raise prices, in exacerbating the food crisis. From August to November, the price for potash, a particular kind of fertilizer, rose by 20 percent. This meant that farmers could not afford to apply fertilizer to their fields, leaving some unfarmed, and others producing smaller yields. When grain prices dropped earlier in the year, fertilizer prices remained high, further squeezing farmers in the developing world. The series also examines the topic of biofuels and how biofuel production can drive up commodity prices.
A lack of investment in agriculture is a central theme of the articles, which note that (more…)
The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) now estimates the number of people who go hungry every day at 963 million—up 40 million from last year. This is mainly due to the rise in food prices worldwide. The number of people who are unable to afford to eat enough calories to lead a normal life now account for 14% of the world’s population.
Excerpts below, full piece here
The FAO’s hunger report, the State of Food Insecurity in the World 2008, found that the majority of the hungry live in the developing world, 65% of them in just seven countries: India, China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan and Ethiopia. The worst affected are landless families, particularly households headed by women.
“For millions of people in developing countries, eating the minimum amount of food every day to live an active and healthy life is a distant dream,” said the FAO’s assistant director general, Hafez Ghanem. “The structural problems of hunger, like the lack of access to land, credit and employment, combined with high food prices remain a dire reality.”
“This sad reality should not be acceptable at the dawn of the 21st century,” the FAO’s director general, Jacques Diouf, said in a speech to launch the report. “Not enough has been done to reduce hunger and not enough is being done to prevent more people becoming hungry.”
-Chris Scott
On Monday, one of ONE’s partners – Bread for the World – released their annual Hunger Report. The report, entitled Hunger 2009: Global Development: Charting a New Course, focuses on how particular changes and investment in approaches to development can combat the global hunger crisis.
In addition to the global financial crisis, the world is in the midst of a food and a fuel crisis. In less than two years, the number of people who are hungry globally has increased by 75 million, and 100 million people are at risk of being pushed into poverty. Paying more for food – especially for poor families who already spend half or more of their income on food – means shifting to fewer, less nutritious meals per day, and reducing expenditures on other necessities like education and health care.
As the Hunger Report explains, there are several causes for the increase in food prices including an increased demand from people who have moved out of poverty, drought in major grain-producing regions like Australia, fuel price hikes, and years of poor policy choices by the developed world – like subsidies and tariffs – that have ravaged agricultural sectors in the developing world.
The Hunger Report proposes two primary solutions for ensuring long-term global food security. The first is to invest in agriculture in the developing world. Historically, the U.S. and other Official Development Assistance (ODA) providers have addressed hunger by investing in food aid. While in certain emergent situations food aid is vital, the long cycle of hunger and poverty that has left millions vulnerable to the smallest increase in food costs can only be addressed by developing local agricultural sectors.
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