International
World Food Crisis
A cause for alarm: Rising food prices
If you haven’t heard yet, food prices are spiking again and food is starting to be out of reach of the poor. Prices haven’t been this high since the 2008 food crisis where prices jumped 83 percent, pushing roughly 150 million more people into poverty.
After the onset of the global economic downturn, prices quieted, but only temporarily. From June to December 2010, global prices for wheat increased 75 percent, corn 73 percent and rice 17 percent. Prices for other main staples such as sorghum, beans and cassava have risen between 20 percent and 48 percent in some countries. Rising wheat prices have surged the highest in Central Asian countries, whereas corn prices have affected South American countries like Brazil and Argentina the most. Rice prices on the other hand have increased at a much slower rate and remain about 70 percent below their peak in 2008. Africa also seems to be relatively insulated from bumper corn harvests last year.
Maybe experts haven’t declared an official emergency, but how can you not be alarmed? The World Bank says food prices have pushed about 44 million people in low- and middle- income countries into poverty. High and rising prices, even without a declared state of emergency, should be reason enough for global leaders take action to prevent an impending food crisis in 2011.
Trouble is, most global leaders hardly seem to be raising an eyebrow.
Clearly after the experience of 2008 we should be wiser. We should know how to stop it from happening again. But do we? Or better yet, can we? Global leaders may be up against challenging domestic budget issues, but they still need to find political capital and will do what is needed. It’s not just a matter of doing the right thing, but ensuring global political and financial stability.
High food prices are symptomatic of structural problems and recent shocks that will require big actions to solve. Least of which will be ensuring that investments in agriculture are made on a large scale. Donors committed in 2009 to invest $22.5 billion in agriculture and food security in developing countries. In 2010, they claimed to have spent about a third, but they haven’t clarified what for or who’s spent what. So, what about the rest? And where do we go from here?
Meeting these commitments NOW couldn’t be more urgent.
Food prices have been climbing since mid 2010. There’s no reason to suggest prices will go down anytime soon. Most signs just point up. The high cost of food is increasingly cited as an agitator in the political unrest in Northern Africa. Oil prices are now above $100 a barrel, making growing and transporting food more expensive and demand for biofuels grow stronger. Adverse weather has lowered production and fears remain that more droughts ahead will continue to drive up prices. Speculation in food commodity markets is on the rise…need we go on? Prices are high, and rising, and it is pushing more people into poverty.
Hopefully global leaders can find the political will to put this tragic story to rest.
Over the next month, ONE will be taking a close look at what’s happening on the ground: how this price spike compares to the last, what lessons have we learned, and what we can take forward to prevent another food crisis. We hope you will follow along.
Do we have another global food crisis on our hands?
Headlines have reported the food crisis in Niger as a “silent crisis” and a “double disaster,” where roughly 8 million people and 1 million undernourished children have been hit by devastating drought and flood in the course of less than a year.
Rising costs of bread in Mozambique last week spurred riots on the streets of Maputo, causing seven deaths. Massive floods in Pakistan affected 2.5 million people, says the BBC, leaving thousands food-insecure and homeless.
Russia has experienced severe droughts and has banned all exports of wheat, barley, maize and flour through the end of 2011. Global wheat prices have been on the rise since late June, notwithstanding that prices are much higher than historical averages, and over the long-term, predicted to keep going up.
According to the FAO food price index — at a score of 176 — wheat prices have reached their highest since September 2008. Does this raise cause for concern? It should.
According to Reuters, global leaders are called upon to heed this “wake up call.” Olivier de Shutter, the U.N. special rapporteur, says that “donors are not living up to their commitments” when it comes to a person’s right to food. In fact, the 2008 global food crisis is what promoted the G8 and others to reinvigorate investments in agricultural development.
We are now two years out from the height of the crisis and it’s not evident that a whole lot has been accomplished. Sure, there have been strong milestones, such as the U.S. Feed the Future Initiative and the creation of the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program, but what has been delivered so far? And better yet, has it been enough? Will it be enough?
The G8 Muskoka Accountability Report –- released by the G8 at the most recent summit in Muskoka Canada in June 2010 –- reveals that as of April 2010, L’Aquila Initiative donors have disbursed $6.5 billion and remain committed to disburse the full amount of the commitments by 2012.
Who has actually disbursed these funds and for what purposes remain a mystery. Even though the full $22 billion was not explicitly linked to the first Millennium Development Goal (MDG) to halve hunger and poverty by 2015, it certainly will not be enough to reach MDG1. And the global response looks unlikely to prevent another major global food crisis without a better plan and more resources.
Without more attention to sustainable and effective investments in agricultural development, the smallholder and women farmers — which the G8 and other donors promised to target their funds to — will be no more affluent to afford higher food costs, no more resilient to the deteriorating effects of food that stays out of reach and no more capable to take advantage of market opportunities.
Worse yet, the donor community is largely ignoring a massive and recurring food crisis in the Sahel. Arguably if it’s recurring, we can be smart enough to recognize the underlying causes and start to correct course. “Securing the Gains”, a new Oxfam report shows the damage that drought, flooding and climate
change continually cause across the Sahel region. It calls on donors to “learn from their mistakes” and “provide greater financial and technical support to strengthen existing government agricultural policies and contingency plans” to begin building resilience to weather and economic shocks.
This seems like a sensible alternative to responding to the same humanitarian emergencies time and time again, especially when the emergencies go underfunded. Currently, the World Food Programme is experiencing a funding shortage of $80 million, limiting its food distribution to just 40 percent to those in need.
Surely as a global community we can do better. By investing in agricultural development, with a particular focus on women and smallholders, we can prevent another food crisis and should be at the top of global leaders’ priorities at the upcoming MDG summit in New York next week. If we can’t manage to meet MDG 1, how ever will we accomplish the other seven?
ONE Partners Propose Strategy to End Global Hunger
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…)
The 2008 G8 Summit: Outcomes for Africa
African development was again the subject of G8 discussions as world leaders gathered in Toyako, Hokkaido in northern Japan from July 7-9 for the 2008 G8 Summit. While the G8 was confronted with multiple global challenges, including climate change and a weakening global economy, the 2008 Hokkaido Summit marked an important “mid point” moment in the fight against poverty. The Hokkaido Summit came at the critical halfway point to both the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the G8 Gleneagles promises to Africa. The G8 are dangerously behind on their landmark commitments to the region, having delivered only $3 billion of the promised $25 billion in additional assistance to Africa by 2010, according to the 2008 DATA Report.
After difficult negotiations, the G8 summit yielded small gains for the poorest. The bulk of G8 agreements on development and Africa and food security reiterated previous pledges rather than outlining new measures to get the group back on track. The G8 did announce plans for a new effort to tackle the global food crisis, though more details are needed to ensure its effectiveness and delivery. They highlighted the UN High-level meeting on the MDGs in September as an important opportunity to review progress and identify actions needed to overcome remaining challenges.
At a time when G8 credibility is at risk due to slow progress in delivering on commitments, there was a strong call for greater accountability in the G8 Communique. The G8 agreed to track progress against previous commitments in health, education, water and agriculture, as well as its compliance with anti-corruption measures.
Overall, the US, UK and Germany provided strong leadership in negotiations and have significantly increased their funding for Africa in recent years.
After the jump, the following brief overview of outcomes for Africa from the 2008 G8 Summit.
-Ben Hubbard
……
- Previous Posts
- Next Posts
 |
 |
 |
About the Blog
The International ONE Blog is a daily log of the anti-poverty movement. The site is operated by ONE staff, with guest contributions from ONE volunteers, members and allies.
The content of each post and each comment represents the views of that author and does not necessarily reflect the views of ONE. ONE does not support or oppose any candidate for elected office, and any post expressing support or opposition for a candidate is not endorsed by ONE.
TAGS: Agriculture, Policy News, World Food Crisis