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Tuesday, May 05, 2009
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‘Food insecurity on the rise’

Gargi Parsai

NEW DELHI: To address concerns over the expected increase in the level of global food security owing to the financial and economic crisis that has hit the world, senior experts from the Food and Agriculture Organisation and the 30-nation Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) will meet on Tuesday to map out long-term investment and financing strategies.

“Underinvestment in agriculture over the past 30 years, high and volatile food prices and continuing economic turmoil were combining to sharply increase the level of global food insecurity, which is expected to aggravate further this year as the financial and economic crisis hits the world,” the FAO said.

Goals unattainable

It is estimated that close to one billion people in the world suffer from hunger and malnutrition, compared with some 825 million a decade ago. On current trends, the 1996 World Food Summit’s target of halving the number of hungry people by 2015 and the first Millennium Development Goal of halving the prevalence of hunger and poverty appear increasingly unattainable, according to the U.N. agency.

Continuing high population growth in developing countries — some 80 million extra mouths to be fed every year — plus the rising challenges of climate change and a limited resource base are also some of the longer-term constraints on the world’s capacity to adequately feed all of its inhabitants.

Starting some 50 years ago, the Green Revolution produced an abundance of cheap food for a world population which doubled to six billion between 1960 and 2000. But what made it possible was a high level of both public and private investments, combined with a conducive public policy framework, the FAO said. Investments have lagged more recently, however, prompting some to doubt whether the feat can be repeated as humankind swells to over nine billion in 2050, it added.

“Investment in sustainable agriculture is the key to ensuring the food security of present and future generations,” says Hafez Ghanem, FAO Assistant Director-General for Economic and Social Development.

Share in ODA

“But agriculture’s share in total Official Development Assistance slumped from 17 per cent in 1980 to a mere 3.8 per cent in 2006. It urgently needs to be reversed to its historical level of some three decades ago,” he added.

As normally during periods of international economic crises investment tends to fall, the FAO predicts that as a result of the current crisis, marked underinvestment in agricultural capital will occur unless an investment push is launched to increase long-term growth rates.

Policy coherence

The meeting will review current policies and incentives provided to farmers in developed and developing countries. It will also consider how policy coherence could make investment in food and agriculture more effective and how the appropriate timing, pacing and sequencing of trade liberalisation measures could be conducive to agricultural development and investment.

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