Tackling the Global Food Crisis?

 

Back in 2010 I wrote an essay on the ‘world food shortage’, focussing on the World Food Programme’s strategies to ‘increase family nutrition’, namely by providing cash transfers and vouchers, and school feeding programmes.  This essay was largely informed by debates related to the 2007/2008 rise in food prices and increased food shortages, and there seemed to be a sense that this was a problem that we were already seeing the back of as governments, global institutions and NGOs presented various solutions.

However, in 2011, the global food crisis is an issue being placed at the forefront of development discussions, as we have seen the global food price index (produced by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation) reach a historic peak this February, at 237 points. As in early 2010 when the WFP’s responses clearly seemed inadequate for tackling the scale of the crisis, numerous debates are emerging around how the related problems should be solved, and who should solve them, and it seems the debate is even more urgent as it has been proved that this is an issue that can’t be swept under the carpet and forgotten about in global development discussions.

In the past few weeks, discussions related to the food crisis on blogs, development news sites etc have been numerous, in part due to the publication of various reports and policy papers, speculation around recent and future G8 and G20 meetings, and the launch of Oxfam’s new campaign, ‘Grow’. The key statistic being quoted by all food crisis writers is that there are 7 billion people in the world and 1 billion going hungry, despite the fact that there is enough food to feed everyone; as Oxfam put it, ‘People do not go hungry because there is not enough food to go round. They go hungry because the system that delivers food from the fields to our plates is broken’. This is a human rights issue and is exacerbated by the same inequalities that affect all other poverty-related areas, including significant gender differences.

(In developing countries women often make their living from agriculture, and are also more likely to reduce their own diets to feed the family – see the World Bank’s discussion of the impact of biofuel on women farmers, and Duncan Green’s experiences discussing food and hunger with men and women).

Addressing hunger and poverty is the first Millennium Development Goal, and the current crisis is a major threat to achieving this. The poorest people in the poorest countries are the ones most affect by rising food prices – in their roles as buyers and farmers – and the World Bank has concluded that an additional 44 million people fell below the poverty line as a result of the 2010 food price shocks. Staple foods make up a large proportion of the expenditure of the poorest countries (around 70% according to the World Bank) and whilst high food prices could – in a more balanced world – provide an opportunity for those poorer people making a living from agriculture, many of these people are unable to produce enough to feed their own families, let alone contribute to markets, because costs of fertilizers, irrigation systems etc are so high. Oxfam’s new campaign is based on the argument that there will soon be 9 billion people on the planet, and more and more of the world’s poorest will be going to bed hungry every night.

The causes of the food crisis are numerous, and are the same as those discussed back in 2007. The major culprits are usually cited as including population growth; energy prices and biofuel; climate change; the increase in Western diets and the use of food stocks and land for feeding livestock; poor governance in vulnerable countries; and global trade policies. Added to these overarching causes are issues like subtle changes to agriculture, such as the introduction of techniques and systems for food production that make life hard for small-scale farmers and have a negative impact on the environment (e.g. monocropping – see ActionAid’s simple introduction to these harmful practices in this article).

All of these causes are interlinked in various ways, creating a ‘perfect storm of factors’ and increasing the difficulty of finding a solution. For example, Western diets are criticised because more meat is being consumed, which results in land being used for livestock rather than agriculture, staple foods being fed to the livestock, and the degradation of rainforests for farmland which exacerbates climate change, in addition to the fact that, in richer countries, excessive amounts of food are wasted and thrown away.

However, I would argue that most causes lead back to poor governance at a global level. For example, the global trade system means that a handful of multinational corporations dominate trade and control the market in food and fertilizer (ADM, Bunge, Cargill and (Louis) Dreyfus,account for between 75% and 90% of the global grain trade, according toestimates); regulations and targets (and/or the lack of them in different circumstances) mean that biofuel production is increasing at harmful rates (this year, 40% ofAmerica's corn crop will go into car engines rather than stomachs); climate change is still under-managed by the world’s largest carbon-producing nations.

Oxfam’s Grow campaign, launched at the start of the month and led by the report ‘Growing a Better Future’, outlines the nature of the crisis and its causes, and in doing so calls for a total transformation of the food system. At the centre of this lies the need for Governments to implement policy changes that support poorer food producers (and help them adapt to climate change), regulate the volatile markets, and remove rewards for turning food crops into fuel.  

This campaign appears to follow current debates about what is needed to tackle this multi-faceted problem, recognising the variety of causes and the ability of different actors at different levels of governance to change the overarching system. The solutions being put forward by Oxfam reflect arguments that have been made since the last peak in food prices, such as those presented at the 2009 G8 Summit, when members called for:

‘increased agriculture productivity, stimulus to pre and post-harvest interventions, emphasis on private sector growth, smallholders, women and families, preservation of the natural resource base, expansion of employment and decent work opportunities, knowledge and training, increased trade flows, and support for good governance and policy reform.’

Similarly, the 2008 United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) called for a ‘coordinated global response’, including a review of ‘the granting of subsidies to domestic biofuel and feedstock producers’ (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (2008) Tackling the Global Food Crisis, Policy Briefs No.2, UNCTAD)

It would seem that there is a relatively universal understanding of the steps that need to be made to solve this global food crisis and major players in the development world are readily coming forward with their opinions and plans.

However, although we can all see the causes and solutions, little has altered so far. In 2009 the G8 and G20 agreed to commit £22billion to increase food security, but only half that amount has been spent or allocated to tackle the problem (The Gaurdian). ActionAid recently produced a report on the G8’s progress and concluded that progress is not promising, describing that:

‘The EU, Germany and Japan are not even able to account on their expenditure to date and are still only reporting on what they have committed to doing.  Others countries, such as Italy, are reporting against progress on projects and items which were outside of their original pledge… The US government is one of the few exceptions: not only is the US being clear in its reporting but they are also being transparent about their disbursement delays. France… appears to be trying to mask their poor performance behind some bad reporting. Following their moderately good L’Aquila pledge to agriculture, they are now failing to deliver it, with less than 50 percent of their commitments being spent two-thirds of the way into the pledge timeline.’ (ActionAid)

There are also claims that particular issues related to the food crisis are still being avoided, in terms of taking effective action. For example, the Guardian reported that during a recent speech on food security, the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, failed to mention biofuels at all despite the fact that this is a cause that is widely accepted as being a major factor in increasing food prices.

So what will happen now in the light of these recent development and increases in the discussion of the food crisis? Some seem positive; amongst its recent surge in Global Food Crisis reporting, the Guardian presented an optimistic assessment of up-coming developments at the end of one blog post, stating signs of action in the G8 and G20, and other international organisations such as the IMF, the World Bank and the World Trade Organisation, as reason to be hopeful for change. The fact that these relatively neo-liberal organisations are taking some action actually seems to offer some promise, in that they are known for being more successful than the UN agencies for implementing their wishes for change, but at the same time that very nature presents a worry that not enough will be done to address the problems with the market - I will watch the outcome of the G20 meetings with interest and aim to work through the collaborative report ‘Price Volatility in Food andAgricultural Markets: Policy Responses’.

Similarly, the World Food Programme says ‘it’s encouraging that these issues will be firmly on the agenda of the G20 meetings this year, along with ways to address possible reactions such as export bans’, and the prominence of the Grow campaign, and the work of organisations such as ActionAid, hopefully contributes to increasing discussion in development circles.

However, my own feelings about the crisis regularly change from hope to pessimism. Although part of the battle has been won in that causes are now identified and understood, the enormity of the solution is worrying. For example, even though the Oxfam campaign is clearly wide-ranging and has probably been in development for several years, critics and supporters have still found holes in the approach. For example, whilst being largely supportive, the Aid Thoughts blog disputes the lack of focus on the importance of jobs and unemployment and the emphasis on agriculture. Furthermore, the campaign is being dismissed without due consideration of the arguments by those who have focussed on the validity of Oxfam’s claims and criticised the numbers and stats being presented. (As I’m about to post this I have come across an interesting response to the criticisms made about Grow, by Duncan Green – worth a read.)

My main concern, however, is whether the global capitalist food system can really be changed. Studying Global Social Policy, I realised it is difficult enough trying to get international governmental organisations and national governments to change their ways – getting multinational corporations that dominate the markets in food, fertilizer, seeds and other agricultural resources, to change their ways seems near impossible. This is especially the case when you read comments such as those made by Babatunde Osotimehin, head of the UN’s Population Fund, in the Guardian, where - in classic UN style - there is no clear assertion about what the private sector should do to help the crisis, jut various ‘suggestions’.

Furthermore, we still seem to be at a stage where everyone knows change is needed, but no specific action is suggested. For example, Aid Thoughts identifies that in Oxfam’s campaign there is no clear strategy for changing the actions of those with power, ‘beyond ‘naming and shaming’ and advocacy for better practices’.

However, we can be hopeful that in the up-coming G20 meetings, solid solutions will be presented and – perhaps with the pressure that the Grow campaign and media attention are creating – they will be implemented in an effective time-frame. It is difficult to assess the effect that campaigns and advocacy from NGOs has on global governance decisions, and whether increased awareness in Western countries will really help those in the poorest countries, but in this situation I do feel hopeful that Grow can make a difference, because Oxfam is working along the same lines as the major international organisations. When the World Bank and Oxfam agree, there is definitely a reason to be optimistic for change, and I hope that between the global, national and local actors, realistic, sustainable solutions can be developed. There is definitely a feeling of optimism in the air and, although that is something that is not unusual in global development, this time – as Oxfam says – there is a lot at stake for all of us. So if we can make a change, why shouldn’t it be now?