World Food Crisis
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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NPR aired a fantastic piece this morning about the food crisis in Zimbabwe. You can check out the interactive feature at NPR.org, complete with photos and a stunning audio slideshow. Definitely recommended!
Excerpts below, full piece here:
The U.N. says that a little less than half of Zimbabwe’s population — about 5 million people — will need international food assistance by the end of the year, with talk of a full-scale humanitarian emergency. Lee says the World Food Program is feeding 4 million people this month alone, but that stocks will run out by year’s end.
“At the moment, we have no food supplies for distribution in January and February, just when the crisis is reaching its peak,” Lee says. “So we can get to enough people in Zimbabwe, we can provide them with sufficient assistance, but we need additional resources, and we need those additional resources now.”
President Robert Mugabe’s critics blame his land reform and redistribution policies for triggering the current food crisis and economic meltdown. Productive white-owned commercial farms in this region used to be part of the Zimbabwean miracle — the regional grain basket — until they were occupied by Mugabe allies, and many farmers and workers were driven from their lands.
-Chris Scott
Some interesting news from the world of agriculture and development: last week South Korea announced plans to plant corn in Madagascar, reflecting a growing trend in the region to secure cropland abroad to address the duel challenge of recent food price increases and a shortage of cropland at home.
Daewoo Logistics, a South Korean company best known for its automobile production, has secured rights to develop 1.3 million hectares in Madagascar; 1 million will be used to grow corn and 300,000 will be used for palm oil production. This scheme will enable Daewoo to produce 10,000 tons of corn in 2010 and 5 million tons of corn annually – more than half of South Korea’s annual need – once the land is fully developed, which will take about 15 years. Daewoo plans to manage its plantations directly and use labor from South Africa.
The area that Daewoo will be planting in Madagascar is approximately equivalent to 240 large US farms. Currently, South Korea imports corn primarily from the US. In 2007 the US harvested approximately 37 million hectares of corn, and is expected to harvest about 32 million in 2008.
South Korea is one of several countries following the trend of developing agricultural commodities abroad. Companies in Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, and Kuwait have done the same. Especially considering the fear of decreasing Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) to Africa because of the global economic crisis, new investments like South Korea’s are encouraging for Africa’s economic climate. It is unclear, however, why Daewoo intends to staff their farms with South Africans rather than local people from Madagascar.
-Beth Adler
I thought I should share some inside skinny on the week we spent in New York September 22-26 at the UN’s special summit on the Millennium Development Goals. We went there to try to attract some attention to – indeed celebrate – the efforts against extreme poverty in recent years, and to call for an acceleration of that progress.
Bono was frantically blogging for the Financial Times in every spare second throughout the week on his way to and from meetings with various leaders. The meetings were many: with Spanish President Zapatero to plan for their E.U. presidency in 2010; with President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf of Liberia to discuss their remaining private commercial debt (think that’s sorted now); with UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown to push on the overall Millennium Goals project; and with President Sarkozy of France and President Barroso of the EU to push Europe on delivering an extra billion euros from the EU budget to fight hunger and invest in agricultural productivity in Africa. Bob Geldof arrived a few days into the melee and participated on the opening panel of the Clinton Global Initiative, popped up on CNN, and met with Mayor Bloomberg, Bill Gates and others along the way.
One highlight was unveiling our “Celebrate Accelerate” video to a crowd of activists and leaders (including Bill Gates, Bob Geldof, Jeff Sachs) honoring the “quietest storm in town”: the UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon. Another, was dropping in on the “In My Name” launch where we regrouped with will.i.am and other activist allies.
An important part of the week was passing over ONE members’ hunger petition, with 50,000 signers, to Bob Orr, the Assistant Secretary General. The petition targets Ban Ki-moon, and all the G8 leaders, asking them to finance the current $1 billion gap in worldwide agricultural financing.
In addition to all of this, Kim Smith and a team of staff and volunteers brought the ONE Bus to town and, thanks to Mayor Bloomberg, parked it in some highly visible locations in the city.
By September 26th, it was clear it had been a decent week. In total there were $16 billion worth of commitments, some old, and some new, focused largely on building upon success to get more kids in school; eliminating malaria deaths by 2015 (yes, that’s got chutzpah – but by acting together it can be done); and renewing efforts against maternal mortality and hunger.
By investing in the fight against extreme poverty we can create new and stable markets where currently there are none; build strong global growth engines that can keep the global economy going when some of us falter; ensure strong health systems; and ensure that other’s instability doesn’t become ours. Above all – because it’s morally the right thing to do.
So now this piece of the campaign goes on to upcoming votes in Brussels on agriculture funding, and a key meeting about financing for development that is happening in Doha, Qatar, in the Middle East, at the end of November. We’ll keep you updated on both.
-Jamie Drummond
