by Reinhard Koradi, Switzerland
cc. Hunger would not have to be this is not a new finding. The World Food Report confirms this statement in spite of the alarming findings it has to make. Not later than after the arousing hunger revolts two years ago, the shameful hunger problem should have disappeared from the globe. Instead the number of hungry people has not shrunk but has drastically increased. At the same time, the report shows a way out of the crisis: Reinforcement of the food supply on a local basis, observing all at once the regional conditions, the ecological handling of the resources and among others the unrestricted access to seeds.
An essential aspect relating to the question of such an unrestricted access is the question of the reusability of the applied seed sorts: People must be able, independently from the industrial producers of seeds like Monsanto or Syngenta, to cultivate its own food. Sovereignty of food is a fundamental right, it must be a fundamental freedom of mankind.
With respect to the World Food Day on 17 October 2009, the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) and WFP (World Food Program) have published their tenth World Food Report since the World Food Summit in 1996. The results of their research are alarming. The number of starving people rose over 100 million to 1.02 billion and thereby reached an unacceptably high level. Every sixth person in this world suffers from hunger with unhealthy or even life-threatening consequences. The hunger problem cannot be located any longer in single regions. The poorest countries are still most strongly affected by famines, but hunger and poverty spread over the entire globe however, in different markedness. According to the report, 642 million people in Asia and the Pacific Region suffer from chronic hunger, in Africa south of the Sahara there are 265 million suffering from hunger. In Latin America and in the Caribbean UN-organizations estimate the number of underfed people by 53 million, in the Middle East and in North Africa by 42 million. Even in the industrial nations, 15 million people are lacking sufficient food according to the report.
The World Food Report specifies three main causes for the aggravation of the hunger crisis.
The food crisis and the ensuing price increases on food products, particularly on the home markets in the less developed countries.
The financial and economic crisis, which started just when the food crisis had reached its peak, as well as the intensified integration of the developing countries into the world economy both in finances and the exchange of goods.
High unemployment and the associated loss of purchasing power with the poor social classes.
The food crisis
The riots in Mexico at the beginning of 2007 as well as those in Haiti in 2008 illustrated the plight and anger of the population about insufficient food supplies and exorbitantly rising prices for staple food. They also expressed the despair of underfed people and relentlessly revealed the weaknesses of a misled agricultural, economic, energy and commercial policy. The refusals to pay prices for the farmers products that covered their costs and ensured their existence have forced the farmers in industrialized countries to fall back on industrial farming and overproduction. In combination with misleading incentive systems in agriculture (higher income by productivity increase with appropriate overproduction), the consumption of resources by relentless exploitation and the unrestrained use of artificial growth stimulators as well as chemical pesticides, food production and supply got into serious difficulties.
Western agrarian exports destroy bases of existence
The big agrarian export nations of the Western Hemisphere try to adjust the imbalance between production and demand by the extremely problematic inundation of developing countries with staple food at dumping prices (export subsidies). This destroys the basis of existence for local small farmers. Local production of staple food as well as the opportunity of supplying oneself collapse. Adding to this, there are crop failures due to droughts and inundations, an increasing number of imported goods from China and India as well as the bio fuel boom, which led to a reduction of cultivated areas for food. Last but not least, international investment funds are among those who caused the food crisis by forcing the prices up through virtual demand.
The prices for important staple food have now decreased to a certain extent on the international markets. They remain, however, still on a higher level than at the beginning of the millennium and, together with the inflationary consequences of the weak dollar and the high energy prices, present a heavy strain on the household budgets of single families.
The financial and economic crisis
Right in the middle of the food crisis originating in the USA the real estate bubble burst, surfeited by speculations. Very fast the global financial crisis followed, which made large and renowned banks collapse just like a chain of falling dominos mainly in the Western World. The entire financial system of neoliberal economic architecture lost grounds and had to be supported or saved respectively with the help of several thousand millions of US dollars, euros etc. taken from the different treasuries.
Solution for the banks at the expense of the taxpayers
The rigorous financial support by the public sector helped the private banks to bolster the crisis within their own industry to a large extent. What remains is a huge debt burden of the states. A burden for which the citizens ultimately will have to pay, whether through higher taxes or through the ongoing degradation of the social services, of the public health service and the education system. Primary care (services) is massively being redimensioned by the states due to the lack of funds. The financial crisis has called for yet another victim the economy. And the crisis of the national economies is more profound and more difficult to overcome , since it is not about single private banks.
Destruction of the economical order and control system
It is about the work place of each nation and the domestic creation of value, about a variety of different industries, about big, medium and small enterprises, about employment and finally about securing the livelihood of each individual family. A task or a challenge which can not be solved in a global context, because of the diverse frameworks and conditions of the problems. In fact we are dealing with locally, problem-oriented almost surgical interventions, which cannot be undertaken top down or by a centralistic instituition. However, in the context of the globalisation and economic liberalisation the nation states have been deprived of their economical instruments. These instruments are now at the headquarters (Brussels, Washington, New York, etc.), but they are useless because they are literally falling short of the tasks at hand. They literally break to peaces in front of this global tasks, since a national economy cannot exist on a global scale. Rather, measures that show positive effects in one state may exacerbate the crisis in another. The low dollar exchange rate may be a blessing for the USA (improved competitiveness on foreign markets, currency-related reduction of foreign debt, etc.) but worsens the situation in other countries and regions (exports to the USA are no longer competitive, depreciation of purchases on the US dollar accounts).
Integration creates vulnerabilities
Consequently, the Food Report therefore refers to the fact that developing countries through the progressive integration into the global economy - both in terms of finances and exchange of goods - have become much more vulnerable to changes in the international markets. Thus, developing countries suffer from the current economic crisis more as they did twenty years ago. They did not cause the crisis, but they feel the consequences very well. Loans and aid from abroad, foreign investment, exports and the funds from family members who have found work outside their homes, shrank remarkably.
As an example, the report highlighted the development of the financial inflows from abroad in the 17 largest Latin American economies. In 2007, 184 billion US dollars flowed to these countries, in 2008, the figure had dropped to 89 billion, and for the year 2009, the influx is estimated 43 billion.
Overcoming unemployment
In the report, the UN World Food Program (WFP) outlines a way out of the crisis in a case study on five countries - Armenia, Bangladesh, Ghana, Nicaragua, and Zambia . This study shows how the families were affected by the loss of cash remittances and by other factors of economic decline. But it also shows how the government of those countries responded to the crisis. They invested in local agriculture and infrastructure, and thus expanded the safety net for the affected families. These measures will help to save lives and families, but because of the severity of the current crisis much more needs to be done, the report says.
Jacques Diouf, Director-General of FAO, therefore wants to make the agriculture failsafe to crises. He demands access to high quality seeds, fertilizer, and animal food as well as modern technologies for small farmers. The governments of developing countries also need appropriate economic and policy instruments to stabilize their economies and to dissolve their one-sided dependency on the global economy. Investment in agriculture may not only help to overcome hunger, it also contributes to economic stability, ensuring economic growth and creating jobs in the less developed countries. The world has the economic and technical resources to feed everyone. What is now required are effective steps to fight hunger and poverty.
The World Agricultural Report oulines the necessary steps
The claims of the World Food Report and the World Agricultural Report coincide. The principle is to strengthen the food production and supply at the local level. It calls for an ecological agriculture that preserves the increasingly scarce resources and the environment. The ability to self-sufficiency with regard to the geographical, climatic, cultural and economic conditions is to be promoted. The regionally oriented peasant agriculture is the most effective answer to the problem of hunger in the world. This requires unimpeded access to soil, water, seeds and knowledge for all people and organizations involved in the production, processing and distribution of food. It is equally necessary to elicit the actual needs of the local population and to accept the knowledge of men and women about their local farming.
Finally, all of these findings have to flow into the development aid and into agricultural policies - both in the industrialized countries and in emerging and developing countries. We need to protect farming methods, climate and resources. We need human rights and sustainability criteria for all agricultural products. The industrialization of agriculture (which leads to ever growing mono-culture plantation) and the use of genetic engineering is no solution, but part of the problem! Market and trade policies should be targeted towards helping to solve the problem of hunger and poverty for all people on our planet. Therefore, the influence of an employment-oriented subsistence agriculture must be weighed appropriately. Any future-oriented agriculture and food politics has to deal with food security, ecologic sustainability and the livelihoods of small-and medium-sized family farms.
The causes of hunger and poverty are recognized, and the solutions are at hand. What is needed now is a bold step to an effective means to empower people to self-help in the fight against hunger and poverty. Or as FAO Director General Jacques Diouf puts it: The World Leaders have responded forcefully within the financial and economic crisis and recently successfully mobilized billions of dollars. An equally strong action is now necessary to combat hunger and poverty.
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