THREE ROME-based UN agencies yesterday warned that food commodities prices are likely to remain high and volatile in the immediate future.
In their annual flagship report, The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2011, the three UN agencies – the Food and Agriculture Programme, the International Fund For Agricultural Development and the World Food Programme – paint a bleak picture, arguing that in the current economic climate “small, import-dependent countries, particularly in Africa, are especially at risk”.
Population growth, the increased use of biofuels, frequent extreme weather events and the “linkage between agricultural and energy markets” are all cited as factors that have prompted worldwide rising demand, which in turn leads to both volatility and price rises in the food markets.
In such a global context, says the report, poor farmers, poor consumers and poor countries will almost inevitably suffer most, given that they are especially vulnerable to food insecurity.
The UN report usually quantifies the number of hungry people in the world. This year, however, the agencies have offered no precise figure because they are currently reviewing their methodology with regard to chronic hunger.
In a separate report released last week, though, the international NGO, Oxfam suggests that “about one billion people – one in seven of humanity – go to bed hungry”.
The three UN agencies suggest a similar figure, 925 million approximately, for the year 2010 while they put the number of hungry for the period 2006-2008 at 850 million.
The UN agencies argue that the world food and economic crisis of 2006-2008 had a severe impact on many poorer countries, pointing out that the roots of the current Horn of Africa crisis are partly to be found in that crisis, adding: “Such crises (Horn Of Africa) . . . are challenging our efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goal of reducing the proportion of people who suffer from hunger by half in 2015 . . . But even if the Millennium Development Goal were achieved by 2015, some 600 million people in developing countries would still be undernourished.
“Having 600 million people suffering from hunger on a daily basis is never acceptable. The entire international community must act today and act forcefully to banish food insecurity from the planet”.
The report calls on governments to guarantee a “transparent and predictable regulatory environment” which would both stimulate private investment and increase farm productivity. The report also calls for the reduction of food waste in developed countries through education and the concurrent reduction of food loss in developing countries, largely through the boosting of investment in the “entire value chain”.
Pointing out that price volatility makes both smallholder farmers and poor consumers “increasingly vulnerable”, the report also concludes that short-term price changes (ie market speculation) can have “long term impacts on development”.