There is enough space in the world to produce the extra food needed to feed a growing population. And contrary to expectation, most of it can be grown in Africa, say two international reports published this week. The first, projecting 10 years into the future, was compiled by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). The second report, launched jointly by the FAO and the World Bank, concludes that 400 million hectares, straddlin more...
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'This paper serves as a background document to help frame discussion at the Food Security Forum in Rome, April 2008. It focuses on policy and institutional reform issues centered on the links between chronic and transitory crises. The first part of the paper provides an overview of trends and future challenges. The second considers effectiveness of the “humanitarian system” in addressing food insecurity and whether the current institutional set-up is fit for service. The third part examines more...
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'Although developing innovative agricultural technologies may prove crucial, to address the needs of poor farmers, the gap left by private sector neglect must be filled by the public sector. No single intervention can help them all. But reducing poverty, mitigating climate change, and building resilience to climatic and market shocks means empowering these farmers and their communities to identify the investments that will best meet their needs.'
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'Global food prices are up 83 per cent compared with three years ago. The resulting food price crisis constitutes an unprecedented threat to the livelihoods and well-being of millions of rural and urban households who are net food buyers. Around the world, Oxfam International and many of its partners have seen soaring prices force people to eat less food or less nutritious food and drive poor households to cut back on health care, education, and other necessities. Women and children’s nutritio more...
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'The year 2008 is halfway to the deadline for reaching the Millennium Development Goals. Despite some progress, they will not be achieved if current trends continue. Aid promises are predicted to be missed by $30bn, at a potential cost of 5 million lives. Starting with the G8 meeting in Japan, rich countries must use a series of high-profile summits in 2008 to make sure the Goals are met, and to tackle both climate change and the current food crisis. Economic woes must not be used as excuses: ri more...
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'Biofuels are presented in rich countries as a solution to two crises: the climate crisis and the oil crisis. But they may not be a solution to either, and instead are contributing to a third: the current food crisis.
Meanwhile, the danger is that they allow rich-country governments to avoid difficult but urgent decisions about how to reduce consumption of oil, while offering new avenues to continue expensive support to agriculture at the cost of taxpayers.
In the meantime, the most seriou more...
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'When trade ministers from 35 countries gather in Geneva at the World Trade Organization [WTO] for what is being billed yet again as a last-ditch attempt to forge a Doha trade deal, they will be forced to meet an unwelcome guest: the 2008 US Farm Bill. With a host of newly bolstered subsidies that will hurt farmers in developing countries, as well as higher farm payment rates, squeezing the new Farm Bill into the ‘boxes’ defined under existing WTO obligations will be a remarkable trick. That more...
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