As climate change rears its ugly head, agriculture is becoming harder and harder to sustain. A resident of Faza Island gives his story…
Posted on December 6th 2011 in general interest, News flash
Group of leading scientists urge investment in sustainable agriculture to solve hunger crisis and reduce global warming
Agricultural farmland in Ukraine being prepared for planting wheat. Photograph: Vincent Mundy/Bloomberg /Getty Images
Billions more investment is needed in agriculture and food distribution systems around the world in the next few years, if widespread hunger is to be avoided, according to a group of leading scientists.
If that investment is directed towards sustainable forms of agriculture, then farming can also be made into a weapon in the fight against dangerous global warming, they said, as more environmentally friendly farming methods can result in soils absorbing carbon dioxide rather than releasing it.
Agriculture has been neglected in international climate changenegotiations, but if governments persist in ignoring the problem then millions are likely to go hungry, according to a new report published on Wednesday morning, before the next round of negotiations in South Africa later this month.
“If you intensify agriculture to produce more food while producing less [greenhouse gas emissions] then you deliver benefits in terms of climate change as well – reducing emissions and increasing food security in vulnerable regions,” said Sir John Beddington, the UK’s chief scientist and one of the authors of the report, Achieving food security in the face of climate change, published by the Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change, convened by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research.
Sir John added: “We need a socially equitable and global approach to produce the funding and policy initiatives that will deliver nutrition, income and climate benefits for all.”
Investment should be targeted at the regions most vulnerable to climate change, as they are also the areas at greatest risk of food insecurity, the scientists said.
Another vital factor in improving food security is to reduce waste and improve food distribution systems. As much as half of the food produced is wasted before it reaches market in some developing countries, because of a lack of infrastructure such as refrigeration systems and reliable transport networks.
Waste is a problem not confined to the developing world, however – cheap food in the developed world has led to a culture of waste that means billions of tonnes of perfectly edible products are thrown away each year. The UK’s Waste Resources Action Programme said this week there had been a sharp fall in household food waste, by 13% in the past year. But waste remains a serious problem – in the UK alone, at least £12bn worth of food is thrown away each year. Campaigners are preparing for an event in London on Friday to “feed the 5,000″, using misshapen vegetables rejected by retailers to illustrate the enormous waste of edible food that takes place in the UK each day.
The scientists also called for a change in consumption patterns “to ensure that basic nutritional needs are met and to foster healthy and sustainable eating habits worldwide”. An increasing amount of food production is geared towards feeding livestock, as people like to eat more meat as they grow more affluent.
The scientists also called for governments to create “comprehensive, shared, integrated information systems” on agriculture. But they said that the demands of an increasing global population for more food could be met without environmental harm, if farming methods were reformed and farmers educated in sustainable techniques.
Agriculture is likely to play only a minor role at Durban, where the next round of international climate change negotiations start at the end of November. Countries are hoping to sort out some of the details of a new agreement on climate change, such as how to ensure a flow of public and private sector finance from rich to poor countries, to help them cut greenhouse gas emissions and tackle the effects of climate change.
Posted on November 17th 2011 in News flash
A little baby born in India earlier this week was welcomed to the world as our planet’s seven billionth citizen. Not only is it a staggering statistic to realize earth’s inhabitants have increased two-fold in the past fifty years, but in light of “World Food Week” last month and in thinking about the ongoing famine, I wondered, “How is the earth going to feed all these people?” and “What can Americans do to stop hunger here at home and worldwide?”
As an advocate for fighting hunger and poverty, I decided to canvas a panel of colleagues and experts for thoughts on how corporations and governments (and the rest of us) can make a difference to ensure a sustainable future. Below, our thoughts:
Support Women in Agriculture
“Women farmers are the pillars of agriculture,” says Cherae Robinson of CIMMYT, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center. “According to the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations), women produce nearly 90 percent of food on the African continent. Support efforts to encourage inclusion of gender into food security policy through organizations like Women Thrive Worldwide.”
“Empowering female farmers to take charge of food production in developing countries is a large and growing part of our work,” says Justin Smith of the World Food Programme. “Through the “Purchase for Progress” program, WFP buys food from small farmers to distribute as aid to hungry people in the same country, rather than spending U.S. dollars to ship food across the world.”
Rely on the Little Guy
“Most of the food produced in the world is grown by small and medium-sized farmers, not the big corporate farms,” says Bill Ayres, Executive Director and co-Founder of WhyHunger, a leader in the fight against hunger and poverty that was co-founded by late singer Harry Chapin (and holds an annual Hungerthon auction in November featuring rock ‘n’ roll memorabilia). “Small farmers need low-interest loans and credit, title to their land, grain reserves, safe storage, roads and other infrastructure. We need to wake up and partner with them to feed the world.”
Hold Brands Accountable For Making Changes in the Food-Supply Chain
“The private sector has a lot to offer when it comes to the fight against hunger,” says Smith. “That’s why we’re working with companies like Pepsico, in addition to USAID, to tackle child malnutrition. An innovative project just launched a few weeks ago aims to help Ethiopian farmers to grow more and higher quality chickpeas, which will then be purchased and transformed into a special paste that we provide to malnourished children. People in the U.S. can help by writing their favorite brands and telling them to get onboard with the fight against hunger. When customers talk, companies listen, so this is a real opportunity for people to make a real impact without spending a dime.”
Innovate and Educate
“After 10,000 years — it’s time to throw away the plow! There are new ways to farm that use less water, fertilizer, and energy than traditional plows,” Robinson says. “This method of ‘Conservation Agriculture‘ actually produces more crops and increases the income of farming families. Plus, developing new storage methods can help countries such as Ethiopia and Somalia better prepare for drought. Farmers in developing countries typically lose 20-30 percent of their crop due to poor storage options for their most important staple foods (corn, wheat, and rice). A small metal storage silo costs $75USD while a large silo costs $300USD. Those are good investments.”
Plant the Seeds of Good Nutrition
“Both in the U.S. and around the world, one of the longest-term solutions to hunger is providing people with the right food,” says Smith. “Calories aren’t enough, people need the right vitamins and nutrients to be healthy. School meals are one of our oldest and most successful programs. In addition to protecting kids from malnutrition, in the developing world, it gives their parents an added incentive to send them in school. In various countries, we’ve seen that school meals help to raise enrollment rates among girls, which is so important.”
In the U.S., more than 16 million children are at risk of hunger because their families can’t afford to keep food on their tables. Actor Jeff Bridges, who founded the End Hunger Network in 1983, also supports organizations such as Share Our Strength, which is activating campaigns like “No Kid Hungry.” The campaign, which kicked off a “Bag Hunger” fundraiser this week, works to provide kids with a healthy breakfast, improve access to after-school meal programs, encourage healthy food choices, and more.
Speak Out
“Call your legislator, send an email, and speak up about the 2012 Farm Bill,” Robinson urges. “Let’s make sure that we balance security for American farmers with support for initiatives like Feed The Future that help developing countries institute their own solutions to food insecurity.”
Advocacy groups such as Bread for the World, whose president David Beckmann was a co-winner of the 2010 World Food Prize, are advocating to defend the funding the U.S. government devotes to programs that alleviate poverty and hunger in developing countries.
“People need to understand that we actually do have solutions to hunger that are working,” says Smith. “Social media affords the best means of doing that, but the World Food Programme can’t do it alone. We, like every organization working to fight hunger, need people to help us spread the word. Twitter and Facebook are good places to do that.”
“There are some two billion people who are on the edge of hunger living on less than $2 a day,” adds Ayres. “Food is not primarily a commodity. It is, above all, a human right. All food and agriculture policies must start there.”
Posted on November 10th 2011 in News flash
Author Jon Foley says feeding a growing world presents a huge challenge. But employing many strategies simultaneously can meet the problem.
A farmer loads potatoes on a truck on a farmland in Hui-Tu Autonomous County of Datong, northwest China’s Qinghai Province.
Zhang Hongxiang/Xinhua/Photoshot/Newscom
Recent global population growth estimates (10 billion by 2100, anyone?) plus slowing annual increases in agricultural yields have a lot of analysts worried that many of those new people will suffer from chronic hunger – and that much of the land that hasn’t been converted to agriculture will be plowed under to grow crops.
But a new study in the journal Nature argues that we can feed the world’s growing population without destroying the planet… if we make major adjustments now in agricultural and consumption practices and patterns. (Hey, if it were easy, we’d already be there, right?)
Based on new data about the Earth’s agricultural lands and crop yields, the study offers some core strategies to meet future food production needs and environmental challenges. Those strategies include:
- Stop farming in places like tropical rainforests, which have high ecological value and low food output;
- Improve crop yields in regions of Africa, Latin America, and Eastern Europe, where farmland isn’t meeting its potential;
- Change farming practices to better manage water, nutrients, and chemicals;
- Shift diets away from meat; and
- Stop wasting food (up to 1/3 of all food grown is wasted either in production, transport, or after purchase).
Taken together, these strategies could lead to 100-180 percent more food available for consumption and sustain the lakes, rivers, forests, and soil that food production depends on.
I talked with Jon Foley – lead author of the study and director of the University of Minnesota’s Institute for the Environment, as well as a member of The Nature Conservancy’s Science Council advisory board – to find out what it would take to make these recommendations a reality.
Your study’s findings are very promising. But the money question is: How do we do this? Roughly 1 billion people don’t have enough food right now, so it’s clearly a difficult challenge.
JON FOLEY: In this paper we’re looking at, “What does the science say?” A lot of people talk about the issue of food, but don’t have much data or science to back up the claims. So we wanted to find out which ideas can actually solve the problem. We found that there is no silver bullet – we need to incorporate the best of what we know now into solving the world’s food problems and protecting our natural resources.
Can we do it? We have to – it’s absolutely necessary. It’s up to us to decide what’s politically feasible. We can change how we govern, tax, ship, produce, etc. What we can’t change are the laws of physics.
The problem of feeding the world and not wrecking the planet is a huge challenge, and it’s going to shape a lot of the 21st century. Solving it will require huge cooperation, innovation, and hard work. What our study does is lay out the data
One focus of the article is how much land is given over to meat and dairy production, especially for growing fodder crops for these animals. Are you recommending that everyone should be vegetarian?
No, we’re not saying that – and that’s not realistic. People are going to eat meat. But it matters how meat is produced.
Thirty-five percent of our agricultural lands go to producing animal feed, and cattle and dairy farming take up 3.38 billion hectares. Grain-fed beef is a huge drain on the planet – it takes 30 kilos of grain to produce 1 kilo of boneless beef. It’s just not efficient. We’re better off producing grass-fed beef or more chicken and pork, which requires far less grain feed. And we’re clearing rainforests to produce this meat! It’s not necessary.
Speaking of rainforests, agriculture in tropical areas is increasing rapidly, yet your study says we could stop this growth altogether with little to no loss in food production. Can you explain that?
We found that agriculture in tropical areas yields limited food calories – most of it is going to crops like sugarcane, palm oil, and soybeans for animal feed or biofuel. Ceasing agricultural expansion into the tropics would have an impact on global food crops, but it would be small and we could offset those losses elsewhere.
It’s about the trade-offs. We lose rainforests, with huge impacts to climate change, but we don’t feed many people. Instead, we’re better off improving production in places where we currently farm than clearing more rainforests.
Improving crop production and yields aren’t new ideas. What makes your approach different?
Yes, these things are already happening. But our study looks at it from a new perspective. Instead of trying to get high-performing farmlands to perform even better, we found that improving the lower-performing farmlands could dramatically increase the amount of food produced.
For instance, if we close the “yield gaps” in underperforming regions of Latin America, Africa, and Eastern Europe, food production could be increased by 60 percent. Closing “yield gaps” means helping poor farming regions meet their potential with basic improvements, like better use of crop varieties, irrigation, and fertilizer – giving them access to these things, and helping them manage their land better.
Our idea is focus on lifting the people near the bottom of the floor up closer to the ceiling, rather than lifting the ceiling higher. We need to change our approach to agriculture. Instead of sitting back and waiting for famine to strike, let’s ask: How can we prevent the next big famine?
What about organic farming—does it have a role to play in solving the global food problem?
Organics make up less than 1 percent of the world’s food supply right now. So, organic broccoli is not going to solve the problem of feeding the world and saving the planet’s natural resources.
But our current farming practices use a lot of water and chemicals. We need to ask, how can we improve that? Our research found that nearly half the fertilizer applied runs off rather than nourishes crops – and some places, like China and the central United States, could substantially reduce fertilizer use with little to no impact on food production.
Ultimately, it’s not about either organic or conventional; it’s about using the best from all our options. Organic farming practices blended with conventional ones – when brought to large scales – could have big impacts.
That goes for local food, too. What’s appealing about local food is that it’s grown in a competent manner, with more transparency – you know who grew it and where. Same with organic, it includes more scrutiny. But local food isn’t necessarily better for the planet on an environmental level, and it’s not practical for all the various food products we use.
The question is, could we take that same degree of competency and put it to work on the global food system? Let’s take the best from organic, local, and conventional farming practices and global trade and use all these tools.
What’s an ecologist like you doing looking at agriculture and food security issues anyway?
Agriculture is the biggest thing we do to the planet – it covers 38 percent of the planet’s land surface – and it’s the biggest thing we do for humanity. So it makes sense for ecologists to be looking at these issues.
I’m a climatologist as well, and I was originally looking at climate change issues in my research but noticed how agriculture has such a big impact on water, climate, and land use. And the role of agriculture was not being looked at enough – remarkably very little science has been done to figure out the role of agriculture in climate change.
And vice versa. Our understanding of the role that climate change plays on agriculture is still in the early stages. No doubt it will have an effect on crops – some people focus on temperature change, some focus on water. Personally, I think water will be the bigger issue.
It’s a big, messy, complicated problem.
Now that the study is out, what kinds of reactions are you hoping for?
So far the reception to our research has been mostly positive, because we’re laying the facts out on the table and saying, “This is the science,” rather than pointing fingers or advocating for certain changes.
I hope we’ll see more collaboration – we need everyone to work together on this problem, from big ag companies to organic farmers. It’s time to have a sensible, grown-up conversation about these issues.
The good news is: We can feed the world and not wreck the planet.
The bad news: It’s going to take a lot of work, and right now we’re not headed in the right direction. There’s no room for error, because the pressures on our natural system are tremendous.
Read the press release about this new study and watch Jon Foley’s 2011 TED Talk.
Editor’s note: The study’s findings and recommendations are not necessarily the positions of The Nature Conservancy.
• This article originally appeared on Cool Green Science, a blog published by The Nature Conservancy.
Posted on October 20th 2011 in News flash
Climate change skeptics would have you believe that global warming is an abstract theory, a dispute between scientists with differing interpretations of computer models, temperature data and ice measurements. So when the conversation turns to real people facing real hardship on the frontlines of climate change, it’s no surprise that they redirect the conversation back to the abstract.
Take a look at the 171 arguments of climate skeptics compiled by Skeptical Science. You can count on the number of fingers it takes to make a peace sign the arguments about the immediate directly observable impacts of climate change (and one of these is about polar bears).
Today is World Food Day, a perfect moment to reflect on what the very real impacts of climate change mean for those who suffer from hunger and malnutrition. It comes at a time when millions of people are struggling to survive in East Africa where the worst drought in 60 years is devastating millions of lives and livelihoods.
Those on the frontlines are convinced that climate change is responsible.
As UN Humanitarian Relief Coordinator, Valerie Amos, says, “We have to take the impact of climate change more seriously… Everything I’ve heard has said that we used to have drought every 10 years, then it became every five years and now it’s every two years.”
A 2009 report by the World Food Programme, which describes itself as the world’s largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger, explains:
By 2050, the number of people at risk of hunger as a result of climate change is expected to increase by 10 to 20 percent more than would be expected without climate change; and the number of malnourished children is expected to increase by 24 million – 21 percent more than without climate change. Sub-Saharan Africa is likely to be the worst affected region.
Think about it. 24 million additional kids — that’s roughly equivalent to a third of US children.
But it’s not just a question of changing climate and weather patterns; it’s also about the resilience of communities to withstand such changes. As Rajiv Shah, the administrator of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) explained to the Huffington Post in July, “There’s no question that hotter and drier growing conditions in sub-Saharan Africa have reduced the resiliency of these communities. Absolutely the change in climate has contributed to this problem, without question.”
On that front, it’s not all bad news. Investments in community resilience projects show a promising way forward. See for example the success of the Morulem irrigation project in Kenya originally funded by World Vision more than 10 years ago.
If you’ve ever looked at the labels identifying the origin of the food on the shelves of your local supermarket (grapes from Chile, apple juice from China, rice from Thailand) you’ll know that the global food supply system is complex. In a warming world there will be winners and losers across a range of factors. Higher temperatures and more CO2 in the atmosphere may lead to higher crop yields in some parts of the world, and lower in others. But in an increasingly interconnected world other factors will be equally important and the net result doesn’t bode well.
Creative Commons: International Foundation of Red Cross
Consider these three for example:
1) There is increasing competition for arable land: A new report by Oxfam International shows that foreign investors are grabbing up land in developing countries at an alarming pace. These land deals are often designed to provide food for international trade or biofuels, at the expense of local food production. Quite apart from the morally dubious implication that we are stealing food from the mouths of babes, let’s not forget the riots which erupted in Egypt, Bangladesh and Haiti in 2008 when food prices reached their all-time high. The global security implications are obvious, especially considering that vulnerable communities will increasingly be hit by other impacts from climate change as well.
2) Price of food: Earlier this year, the World Bank announced that food prices had risen by 36% since 2010, on par with the peak reached in 2008. According to the report, “The recent food price volatility is in the context of several other factors that have driven prices higher over the past year. These drivers include: (i) severe weather events in key grain exporters such as the Russian Federation, Kazakhstan, Canada, Australia, and Argentina in the second half of 2010; (ii) the broadbased increase in agricultural commodity prices in 2010, which increased the competition for land and other inputs; and (iii) the link between higher oil prices and biofuels.”
3) Water for irrigation: The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has warned that water for agricultural purposes will become increasingly scarce due to climate change. Increased drought, the loss of glaciers, reduced snowmelt, and salt water intrusion into aquifers as a result of sea level rise will all have an impact on food production.
So as you sit down to dinner tonight, please spare a thought for where that food came from, and a blessing for those who produced it.
Creative Commons: Kelly Rigg, 2011
Posted on October 18th 2011 in News flash, videos
Food prices have hovered near an all-time peak since late 2010 sending tens of millions of people into poverty. Oxfam’s new interactive map shows how poor communities across the world are being hurt by high and volatile food prices. This ‘food price pressure points map’ provides a global snapshot of the impacts of the global food price crisis.
What causes food price spikes?
Failed crops – often caused by our changing climate – hit food prices hard. So does the rising cost of oil – used to grow, fertilize and transport food.
Short-sighted biofuels strategies play a part too – taking food off of people’s plates and putting it into car tanks. And dysfunctional commodities markets mean that food prices go up faster and higher than they should.
But despite all these complex causes, the effects on poor people are painfully simple. Parents choose between feeding their children and feeding themselves.
Whole communities face an uncertain future, because all anyone can think about is where their next meal will come from.
It’s time to grow out of food price spikes.
The way to GROW
Food price spikes happen because of things like climate change and rising oil prices – so a major part of the solution involves getting those root causes under control.
But what’s also needed is more effective global handling of food price crises when they do happen. That way, the poorest families have somewhere to turn even when things do get desperate – and when they suddenly can’t afford even the meager amount they could afford a week earlier.
For our world to GROW together, we need to get food price spikes under control.
Posted on October 18th 2011 in News flash
Many of world’s poorest ‘being left worse off by unprecedented land deals’, despite claims by governments and speculators
A Filippino employee works in a field near Khartoum, Sudan, where Arab and Asian investors are competing to exploit large fertile land. Photograph: Ashraf Shazly/AFP/Getty Images
The scale of the rush by speculators, pension funds and global agri-businesses to acquire large areas of developing countries is far greater than previously thought, and is already leading to conflict, hunger and human rights abuses, says Oxfam.
The NGO has identified 227m ha (561m acre ha) of land – an area the size of north-west Europe – as having being reportedly sold, leased or licensed, largely in Africa and mostly to international investors in thousands of secretive deals since 2001. This compares with about 56m ha identified by the World Bank earlier this year, again predominantly in Africa.
The new land rush, which was triggered by food riots, a series of harvest failures following major droughts and the western investors moving out of the US property market in 2008, is being justified by governments and speculators in the name of growing food for hungry people and biofuels for environmental benefit.
But, says Oxfam, “many of the deals are in fact ‘land grabs’ where the rights and needs of the people previously living on the land are ignored, leaving them homeless and without land to grow enough food to eat and make a living”.
“Many of the world’s poorest people are being left worse off by the unprecedented pace of land deals and the frenetic competition for land. The blinkered scramble for land by investors is ignoring the people who live on the land and rely on it to survive,” said Oxfam chief executive Dame Barbara Stocking.
Oxfam expects the land grabbing to increase as populations grow. The report said: “The huge increase in demand for food will need to be met by land resources that are under increasing pressure from climate change, water depletion, and other resource constraints, and squeezed by biofuel production, carbon sequestration and forest conservation, timber production, and non-food crops.”
While some investors might claim to have experience in agricultural production, many may only be purchasing land speculatively, anticipating price increases in the coming years, a practice known as ‘land banking’.
In addition, developing countries are under pressure from the IMF, the World Bank and other regional banks to put farmland on the international market to increase economic development and improve the balance of payments.
Much of the land grabbing has being driven by the expansion of sugar cane and oil palm for biofuel production. “Thousands of people have been persuaded to part with their land on the basis of false promises in Indonesia, or have been evicted from their lands and their homes in Uganda, Guatemala and Honduras,” says the report.
Most of the land deals done in Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali, Mozambique Senegal, and Tanzania have been to grow crops for export commodities, including cut flowers as well as biofuels. In Mozambique, where approximately 35% of households are chronically food insecure, only 32,000 ha out of the 433,000 approved for land deals between 2007 and 2009 were for food crops.
The report said: “Unrestricted export clauses in contracts, together with small-scale food producers losing their key productive asset, may well worsen rather than improve food security. Moreover, investors’ short time scales may tempt them into unsustainable cultivation practices, undermining food production in the long-term.
Stocking called on the EU to scrap the incentive offered to investors to grow biofuel crops, and organisations like the World Bank to ensure that local people are consulted on land deals.
“Governments should avoid pandering to investors’ wishes, and prioritise existing land use rights – not just where legal land title or formal ownership rights are held,” said the report.
Stocking said: “Land investment has great potential to help people work themselves out of poverty, but the current rush for land is leaving people worse off. Global action is crucial if we are to protect local people from losing what little they have for the profits of a few, and build towards a tomorrow where everyone has enough.”
Posted on September 22nd 2011 in News flash
It is a graphic demonstration of the sickening, symbiotic relationship between hunger and conflict and highlights food supply problems from Somalia to India to Spain
Sub-saharan Africa dominates a new food security risk map, while the Indian sub-continent and Iberian peninsula also stand out Map: Maplecroft
A new map of food security risk around the world is, in some ways, depressingly familiar. Sub-saharan Africa leaps out as the place where the most people fear for their next meal, while the rich world has more to fear from obesity. But there’s plenty of salutary reminders and fascinating detail, like India’s food problems and the vulnerability of Spain.
And it demonstrates the sickening, symbiotic relationship between lack of food and conflict: where one leads, the other follows.
We must start with the worst, in the horn of Africa. In Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea, human failings mean a severe drought has tipped millions into famine. It’s a textbook case of why things go wrong. War begets poverty, leaving food unaffordable. Devastated infrastructure destroys both food production and the ability to truck in emergency food. The collapse of society means the effects of extreme weather such as drought cannot be dealt with. And the fear of violence turns people into refugees, leaving their livelihoods and social networks behind.
Refugees wait for food aid in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu on August 18, 2011. Photograph: Ismail Taxta/Reuters
The recent spike in food prices, linked by some to the uprisings across north Africa and the Middle East, had also hit hard in Somalia. Maize prices in Mogadishu were 100% higher in June 2011 than in June 2010, and the price of sorghum in Somalia rose by 180% compared with 2010 prices.
Sharing Somalia’s unhappy ranking as having the greatest risk of food crisis is the Democratic Republic of Congo, where all the factors above apply, plus the impact of as much as half its rich arable land being land grabbed by foreigners. The situation in DRC is simply scary: it is on track to be one of the most populous nations on Earth in coming years.
Turning to India, the new map, produced by risk analysts Maplecroft, reminds us that behind the booming economy of that vast nation,hundreds of millions of poor people remain hungry. Almost half of India’s children are malnourished and one in four of the world’s hungry poor live there.
“Despite the enormous economic growth India has and is experiencing, it still has very stark income inequality, which is reflected in the malnourishment and infant mortality data,” says Helen Hodge, head of maps and indices at Maplecroft. The Maplecroft index, reviewed by the World Food Programme, uses 12 types of data to derive a measure of food risk that is based on the UN FAO’s concept. That covers the availability, access and stability of food supplies, as well as the nutritional and health status of populations.
Spain and Portugal stand out as very rare examples of rich nations with a medium risk of food security problems. Hodge explains, that while waterproblems are an issue there, the major reason is heavy reliance on grain imports. Spain buys in 11bn kilograms of grain more than it exports every year at a cost of $2.6bn, while Portugal pays $890m for 3.3bn kilograms.
“Spain and Portugal have made the decision that olive oil and wine exports are more profitable than grain,” she says, along with salad crops. So they sell lettuce and Rioja and buy wheat and corn with the profits.
That calculation may change if global food prices continue on their current upwards trend. In other parts of the world, soaring food costs may well ignite further conflict. “It is striking is how much food security plays into the wider picture of unrest,” says Hodge.
Posted on August 31st 2011 in News flash
A new report from the FAO blows the myth about increased grain consumption from developing countries leads to higher global demand and higher prices
The perception that one of the main reasons for the price spikes in major food items, especially food grain, is the increased demand from countries like China and India persists in many parts of the world.
Photograph: Diego Giudice/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Ever since the global food crisis of 2007-08, a perception has persisted in many parts of the world that one of the main underlying reasons for the price spikes in major food items – especially food grain – is the increased demand from countries such as China and India. If anything, this perception has become even more widespread since prices started rising again, especially since early 2010.
On the face of it, such a perception seems quite reasonable. After all, China and India both have huge populations, accounting for nearly 40% of the total world population between them. Their economies have both been expanding very rapidly, much faster than most of the rest of the world, so per capita incomes have been rising from relatively low bases. It is well known that as incomes rise from low levels, people tend to consume more food grain – not necessarily directly, but indirectly through the consumption of livestock products that require more grain in the form of food.
So it is only to be expected that the increased incomes in China and India would translate into more demand for food grain, and this could certainly affect the global supply demand balance in ways that would cause food prices to rise. Expected, yes: but did this actually happen?
It turns out that there has been barely any change, and if anything a slowdown, in the rate of grain consumption in these two large countries. And the global consumption of grain for all food purposes has actually decelerated in recent years compared with previous periods.
This is very evident from an important new report from the high level panel of experts set up by the FAO to study commodity price volatility and its relationship to food security. The report contains a careful assessment of both the actual trends and the various attempts to explain the price changes. In the process, it blows the myth about increased consumption from developing countries leading to higher global demand and, therefore, higher grain prices.
Consider the evidence it provides on rates of change of global cereal consumption, as shown in the chart. The growth rate of total cereal consumption was considerably slower in the period since 2000 than it was in the 1960s and 1970s, and only around the same as it was in the 1980s. It did increase relative to the 1990s, but not by very much. And, contrary to the general feeling, feed consumption for livestock actually increased more slowly than direct (or non-feed) consumption.
Source: FAO HLPE report on price volatility and food security, 2011In fact, the report notes that even the apparent acceleration of feed use in the last decade was essentially because of the recovery of feed use in the former Soviet Union after the 1990s. So, despite all the booming demand for meat in fast-growing Asia, the growth of feed consumption in the rest of the world outside the former Soviet Union was not accelerating. Rather, it has actually been slowing down.
As it happens, FAO food balance sheets show that both direct and indirect demand for grain in China and India barely increased between 2000 and 2007, and cereal imports were actually lower. Why this has been happening, and why the economic growth has not translated into more aggregate demand for grain, is obviously a fascinating question on its own and one that deserves more study. It is likely that the worsening income distribution in both countries may have had something to do with it, so that increased demand from high-income groups is counterbalanced by reduced demand from poorer sections. But this needs to be explored further.
The relevant point is that it is not increased demand from China and India that is driving up grain prices. This does not mean that there are no other demand forces at work, however. Financial speculation in commodity markets is clearly significant, but it is also true that even such speculation must be based on some assessments of changing global balances. What could that be based on?
The report from the FAO has a convincing response to that as well: it notes that the biofuel boom has had a major impact on the evolution of world food demand for cereals and vegetable oils. According to page 32 of the report “there is a real acceleration of non-feed uses boosted by biofuel development. Excluding use for biofuel, the growth rate for non-feed use is stable compared with the 1990s and markedly inferior to its historical performance. Without biofuel, the growth rate of world cereal consumption is equal to 1.3% compared with 1.8% for biofuel”.
This massively increased demand from biofuel is largely determined by the very large subsidies provided in many western countries, which have, ironically, been increasing their subsidisation of biofuel at the same time that they have reduced subsidies on food cultivation. Aside from a few producers, such as Brazil and Cuba, biofuel production in most locations would be completely unviable without these large subsidies.
The impact of these on diverting production and affecting price has been even more significant in the case of edible oils. The report shows that “the use of vegetable oils for food slowed down between the 1990s and the 2000s (from 4.4% a year to 3.3%), but industrial use of vegetable oil soared, pushed by the booming European biofuel industry. As a result, the share of industrial use in world consumption of vegetable oils jumped from 11% to 24% between 2000 and 2010″.
The surprising conclusion from all this is that, leaving out the impact of the biofuel boom of the 2000s, global consumption of both cereals and edible oils is actually slowing down. All the more tragic, then, that speculative forces are still allowed to run amok in global commodity markets and global food prices are kept so high as to increase the deprivation of the millions of hungry people in the world.
Posted on August 2nd 2011 in News flash
Trees are being cut down for farming, but a new study shows that a lot of land already cleared could be used instead.
“We are one shock away from a full-blown crisis,” stated Robert Zoellick, the president of the World Bank, at a recent meeting of the bank and the IMF. He was referring to a critical increase in poverty, resulting from the escalating cost of food. The UN’s food price index has risen 37% since March 2010. Basic cereal prices are up 60% over this period. Wheat is up 63%, and maize 83%.
Roughly 1 million people slide into extreme poverty for each 1% rise in global food prices, the bank’s analysts calculate.
Availability of land for farming is a key factor in long-term food supply and prices. As the human population expands, the remaining forests, wetlands and other fragile ecosystems will come under greater threat as farmers push further into the frontiers of the Amazon, Borneo and the Congo, as well as intensifying production in North America, Europe and beyond. Feeding billions more and feeding the poor properly will be possible only if better use is made of available land.
About half the world’s forest has been cleared for farming or seriously damaged by logging, fires, drainage, pollution and other ills. But where forests once grew they can grow again.
A new analysis, carried out by the World Resources Institute, South Dakota State University, the International Union for Conservation of Nature and the Global Partnership on Forest Landscape Restoration, found that more than 1bn hectares of land where forest once stood is now degraded, and could be put to more productive uses. This is an area larger than the entire United States.
The World from a Forest Landscape Restoration Perspective
Some of this degraded and underused land could be used for food and tree crop production without cutting down another square inch of standing forest. In order to make this possible, governments and development agencies need to invest in more careful planning, incentives, investment and controls. Special care is needed to ensure that local communities that may be using parts of the land are respected and fully involved in decisions to intensify use or to restore forest.
The remainder of the 1bn hectares could be restored to forest and woodland. Once restored, it will also play a greater role in supporting nutrient cycling, reducing erosion, sequestering carbon,managing water and further supporting food production across the wider landscape downstream.
In Indonesia, the World Resources Institute, together with a local partner, Sekala, is putting these ideas to the test by working with the Indonesian government, communities and industry to shift new oil palm estates on to already cleared and burnt land instead of cutting species-rich rainforest. Indonesia has rapidly become the world’s largest producer of palm oil. The government plans to expand oil palm plantations by about a million hectares a year to meet surging global demand for vegetable oil and biofuel. Until now, it was assumed that most of this expansion would result in the clearing and burning of precious rainforest. With more careful mapping and analysis, a new vision has emerged. Top officials are proposing new plans to use degraded land for the expansion of plantations. Mapping has shown that there is more than enough such land potentially available to meet demand.
Brazilian groups are looking to the Indonesian experience as they struggle to find space for that country’s expanding beef, soya and sugar cane enterprises. Through a careful process of defining degraded land, mapping it, and consulting with existing landowners and local communities, plans and policies encourage a shift in future investment to this kind of land and away from the forests of the Amazon.
Development agencies, charities, national governments and business should transfer some of their attention to the opportunity of restoring already cleared and degraded land to more productive use. This needs to be done equitably and should be driven by the local communities, who have the most to gain from the long-term potential of these efforts to contribute to enhanced food production, ecosystem services and poverty reduction.
Cleared virgin forest on land given over to palm oil plantations in Borneo. Photograph: Romeo Gacad/AFP/Getty Images
Posted on May 18th 2011 in News flash
