Food crisis cuts calorie consumption

By IFPRI - From 2006 to 2008, the world experienced a dramatic increase in global food prices which especially affected the poor, whose diets depend on staple commodities such as maize, rice, and wheat. 

Studies in Latin America show urban and rural households have cut their calorie intake to cope with the price shock.

Data from national household surveys in Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Haiti, Ecuador, and Peru found that each country experienced an 8% average reduction in calorie intake after the food price crisis.

Read more: http://bit.ly/mYcAKb

Invest in agriculture now or repeat crisis

Governments, UN agencies and international organisations meeting in Rome today warned that food producing farmers and herders need immediate help to prevent the crisis from deepening in the Horn of Africa.

Attending the meeting were agricultural ministers from countries in the Horn of Africa, ministers and representatives of FAO Member nations, the African Union, the Presidency of the G20 (France), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the UN World Food Programme (WFP), the UN Secretary-General representative, Oxfam and many other international and civil society organisations.

The day-long meeting ended with a call for a twin track approach that involves both meeting pressing relief needs as well as addressing the root causes of the problem and strengthening the affected populations' resilience in the face of future shocks.

"Even as we deal with saving lives today, we should also go further and take steps to prevent future calamities. We have to start building for the future -- now. Comprehensive, government-endorsed investment plans are already available -- the funding gaps are clear and large. If governments and their donor partners do not invest in agriculture now, the appalling famine we are struggling to redress will return to shame us yet again," said FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf.

"Feeding the hungry does not end hunger, unless we help people provide for their futures. If donors, development agencies and governments do not attend to the medium and long term, this kind of tragedy will happen again," said IFAD Vice President Yukiko Omura. "We cannot control droughts, but we can control hunger. To do so we must invest in the world's smallholder farmers so that they can feed their communities and their families."

WFP Deputy Executive Director Sheila Sisulu said: "By harnessing the power of regional institutions and of partnerships, national institutions, political will and international commitment, we can break this cycle by building household resilience, protecting productive assets, and putting in place measures to avoid a similar crisis when the rains, inevitably, fail in the future."

"What the Horn of Africa region is enduring today is a manifestation of the extent to which livelihoods in Africa are extremely vulnerable to shocks -- hence the need to address such extreme vulnerability of livelihoods, and of the economies of communities and nations," said Tumusiime Rhoda Peace, Commissioner for Rural Economy and Agriculture of the African Union.

Safeguarding local food production

While the food crisis in the Horn of Africa was triggered by drought, conflict and high food prices, the underlying reason for the region's vulnerability to such shocks is underinvestment in agriculture and inadequate management of natural resources.

Specific immediate-term measures that were flagged for priority action during today's talks include:

• Ensuring that lifesaving food assistance needs are met and that nutrition support is scaled up
• Saving surviving livestock to protect the food security of  pastoralists
• Saving the forthcoming planting season starting in October ensuring that farmers have access to inputs such as seeds, fertilizer, and irrigation water
• Expanding cash-for-work programmes to allow people to buy food at local markets and prevent the sale of assets

The meeting also stressed the vital importance of supporting actions aimed at addressing the root causes of the problem in the Horn:

• Protecting and restoring degraded land resources
• Improving water management and expanding irrigation (only 1% of the land in the Horn of Africa region is irrigated, versus 7% in Africa and 38% in Asia)
• Improving animal, plant, and range management practices of small scale farmers to make them less vulnerable to hazards and climate variability
• Strengthening community-based animal health services
• Identifying viable and acceptable alternatives to pastoral livelihoods

Support for such activities should be a sustained, multi-year effort and be linked to improvements in basic services including education, health and clean water, participants added.

The meeting recommended continued support for the African Union-sponsored Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), which envisions investing more in supporting livelihood resilience in drought prone areas.

From crisis to recovery

The technical meeting was organized by FAO as a follow-up to the Emergency Ministerial-Level Meeting on the Horn of Africa, convened on 25 July 2011 at the request of the French Presidency of the G-20. The event aimed to review both immediate as well as longer-term responses to the crisis. Recommendations generated by the meeting will guide international response efforts and help prepare upcoming advocacy, fundraising and coordination events to support the affected population in the region.

Plea from the head of the World Food Program

The following is an extract from the blog written by Josette Sheeran, the head of the UN's World Food Program

For the past few weeks, my tweets have been focusing on famine in South East Africa as I find the dire situation in Africa heartbreaking and requiring our utmost attention.  The shift is a necessary and important one to raise awareness and help facilitate donations to prevent the senseless loss of innocent lives.

When reading article after article, I find myself filled with many emotions. I get angry reading that some political groups deny their own people food and shelter in the name of an ideology which I find unacceptable and frustrating. I cry reading that a mother had to decide between her children and left her three year old on the side of the road to die to save the other two. I’m enraged to read six year old girls getting raped on their way to find food. I find myself very sad that as human beings we are failing at many levels. It is time to wake up and help our fellow brothers and sisters in the Horn of Africa, it is time to save children who are subjected to war, hunger, rape, disease, and we should not close our eyes and pretend it is not happening. We need to step up and help as much as we can.

To read more or to help, go to: http://bit.ly/pEpNXl

Food price monitor for Africa

FAO has released an updated edition of its monthly Food Price Monitor.

Highlights of the report include:

International prices of wheat decreased for the third consecutive month but those of rice continue to increase. Maize prices declined marginally, globally.

In Eastern Africa, cereal prices are at generally high levels, with new peaks reached in several countries. Prices of milk are at record or very high levels in most countries of the region.

In Somalia, prices of domestically produced staples, sorghum and maize, showed some signs of decline in July. However, prices of maize and sorghum remained at very high levels as compared to July 2010 -- up to 150 and 200 percent higher, respectively. Similarly, while prices of milk decreased or stabilized in several markets in July they remain well above the levels of the previous year  In the most affected south-eastern Somali region, milk prices in June were twice their levels of a year earlier.

In Kenya, prices of the main staple maize rose sharply in July, reaching new peaks.

In Ethiopia, prices of staple maize rose again in July in most markets. Prices of milk have surged due to the deteriorating conditions of the livestock in recent months.

Read the full report: http://www.fao.org/giews/english/gfpm/GFPM_08_2011.pdf  

Billion year upgrade via UV?

Ultraviolet light exposure could kick-start the photosynthetic machinery in seedlings.

Senior lecturer at the Institute of Natural Resources Dr Jason Wargent, has found exposing lettuce crops to ultraviolet (UV) light in the early stages of growth leads to increased photosynthetic activity and increased yield.

His United Kingdom-based research team took two sets of lettuce seedlings and exposed one to UV-B light while still seedlings.

“Many crops are quite heavily protected from the sun when they are very young, via the use of poly-tunnels or glasshouses, but in this study we allowed the lettuce crops to be exposed to UV light earlier,” Wargent says. “Usually they are grown indoors until they are a youngish age then they get moved outside. In this study we put the plants into poly-tunnels which were covered in a film that allowed the UV light through.”

At harvest, the plants that had the early UV exposure were bigger.

“We examined photosynthetic capability in the plants, and our study shows the plants that were being exposed to UV had higher photosynthetic rates, and also seemed to be more robust against high temperature and light stress,” he says.

“What we think is happening is that the early period of exposure allows a plant to, in effect, build up a tolerance to UV so that when they get moved outside, they’re able to withstand sunlight better.”

Many crops in New Zealand are grown outdoors, and Wargent says if they were better prepared to make that transition, yields could increase.

“This has ramifications for most of the vegetable and some other crops grown in New Zealand, not just lettuces.”

Wargent says further research is being carried out to see what the New Zealand levels of UV can really do in terms of the potential to manipulate crop quality. 

Joint FAO-WFP statement: Aid for East Africa, now and in the future

Following the emergency meeting on the food and humanitarian crisis in the Horn of Africa held in Rome on 25 July at the request of the French Presidency of the G20, FAO and WFP welcome the international community's determined mobilization in response to the situation.

A press release from the two organisations says this mobilization is aimed first of all at meeting the challenges of the humanitarian and food emergency by coordinating the response of international agencies and humanitarian organizations and by raising the funds required. 


"Beyond the emergency, it will be necessary to put into place the long-term solutions needed to guarantee food security in the Horn of Africa. There will be no sustainable solution to the crisis without measures that enable the countries of the region to become food self-sufficient, develop food crop production and support pastoralism and massively reinvest in agriculture and livestock-raising in the region."

FAO and WFP welcome the fact that the the French Presidency of the G20 has "put agriculture and food security at the top of its priorities" and hail its initiatives such as the Action Plan on Food Price Volatility and Agriculture to mobilize the international community in support of the Horn of Africa's food security.

The FAO says that mobilization must not diminish.

Urgency needed for Horn of Africa

The international community rallied today to the aid of drought- and famine-affected populations in the Horn of Africa with an immediate, twin-track programme designed to avert an imminent humanitarian catastrophe and build long-term food security in the region.

The meeting was organized by FAO at the urgent request of the French Presidency of the Group of 20 and was attended by Ministers and senior representatives from FAO's 191 Member Countries, other UN agencies and international and non-governmental organizations. 

The food crisis in the Horn of Africa, triggered by drought, conflict and high food prices, is affecting more than 12 million people, with two regions of southern Somalia suffering from famine.

Today's emergency meeting recognized that "if this crisis is not quickly contained and reversed, it could grow rapidly into a humanitarian disaster affecting many parts of the greater Horn of Africa region and that it is of paramount importance that we address the needs of the people affected and the livelihood systems upon which they depend for survival".

Saving lives and livelihoods

FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf said: "The combined forces of drought, inflation and conflict have created a catastrophic situation that urgently requires massive international support. If we want to avoid future famine and food insecurity crises in the region, countries and the international community urgently need to bolster the agricultural sector and accelerate investments in rural development."

Bruno Le Maire, the French Minister of Agriculture said: "This crisis highlights the need for urgent implementation of the action plan on food price volatility and agriculture adopted by G20 Agriculture ministers on 23 June in Paris, notably regarding international policy coordination, agricultural production and productivity and targeted emergency humanitarian food reserves."

"Many of the women I met in Somalia and Kenya over the past few days had lost their children and had no one to depend on but the humanitarian agencies on the ground," said WFP Executive Director, Josette Sheeran. "This drought has swept the Horn of Africa where more than 11 million people are in need of food assistance.  We are particularly worried about Somalia right now and it is vital that we reach those at the epicentre of the famine with food assistance — especially the highly fortified nutritious products that are so important for vulnerable children.

The President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), Kanayo F. Nwanze said: "Building resilience of farming and herding communities in the Horn of Africa and the world over requires a long-term commitment. But time — as we can see from the devastating situation in the Horn of Africa — is running out. Increased investment in sustainable agriculture needs to happen now, so that when the next drought comes, wherever in the world, there will be less suffering, less desperation. Even if the rains fail, we cannot."

Oxfam Chief Executive Barbara Stocking said: "Lives in East Africa hang in balance, now, today. World leaders have no excuses for not generously responding. There can be no problem more pressing, more acute, more urgent than millions of people staring at the spectre of starvation in this part of Africa. This should not be happening. It is a colossal outrage that the warnings went unheeded, that the lessons of previous famines have been ignored. Yes we need to save lives today but we also need to ensure that people have a future. Above all we need to build a global food system that allows everyone enough to eat."

Country-led response

The meeting agreed that governments of the six countries hit by the crisis would manage the response to the crisis, informed by the Inter-Agency Standing Committee's (IASC) Horn of Africa Plan of Action.

The meeting stressed that there is still a "window of opportunity" to support affected populations to resume their livelihoods and to enable farmers, fishers and herders to help themselves through these times of crisis within their own communities and emphasised that displacement of populations should be avoided as far as possible.

Specifically, support should be given to pastoralists and agropastoralists, who constitute a dynamic and sustainable livelihood system in the region, the meeting agreed. At the same time, however, it was recognized that the mobility of pastoralists and their livestock within countries and across borders was essential for saving lives and preserving the foundations of food and nutrition security.

Humanitarian issues

Securing long-term food and nutrition security in the Horn of Africa requires focussing on a range of humanitarian issues affecting the region, including conflict, preservation of humanitarian space, nutrition, disaster risk reduction, health and education services and climate change adaptation and mitigation. In addition, sustainable agriculture needs to become an investment priority along with policies that will help it expand. The issue of women's workload and their control of productive resources should also be addressed. 

"We commit to an immediate and appropriate response to ensure that affected countries and communities have the capacity to preserve the vulnerable livelihoods on which so many people's lives depend while building long-term resilience and safeguarding the foundations of food security to ensure sustainable reduction of hunger and malnutrition," the meeting concluded. 

- Source: FAO