Global food security - time for action
8 October 2009
A world summit on food security has been called by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). Against a backdrop of famine in the horn of Africa and the spectre of a return to high food prices, the FAO wants governments from around the world to meet in Rome in November this year and cooperate on eradicating hunger by the year 2025.
Lloyd’s highlighted the growing threat to the security of the global food supply in its recent 360 report “Climate Change & Security: Risks and Opportunities For Business”.
Now FAO director general Jacques Diouf wants governments to agree to form a new food security governance structure and to explore how to avoid food crises, improve emergency aid and increase agricultural production in developing countries. Dr Diouf said, “The time has come to tackle the root causes of hunger and find a structural and lasting solution for world food security.”
But how realistic is it to expect governments to cooperate on a global scale to end hunger?
Alex Evans, non-resident fellow, Center on International Cooperation, New York University and author of the recent Chatham House report “The Feeding of the Nine Billion – Global Food Security for the 21st Century”, says for the food summit to be meaningful it needs to have very clear objectives.
“The longterm challenge for governments is to revolutionise the way we produce food: we need to produce 50% more to meet projected demand in 2030 and 100% more by 2050. But we need to do it sustainably and also in a way that is resilient to outside risks,” he told Lloyd’s 360 Risk Insight. “All too often agriculture is part of the problem in terms of energy and water resources.”
Prof. David R. Harvey of the School of Agriculture, Food and Rural Development at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, says that a commitment to research and development is essential to feed an additional three billion people in the next 30 years with existing, finite, resources.
In conditions of climate uncertainty and unreliability, and increasing real prices of fossil fuel, major technological advances at least equivalent to the Green revolution of the 1970s are needed, he told Lloyd’s 360 Risk Insight.
“One which substantially improves productivity (especially of land and water), while also conserving the environment and minimising dependence on fossil fuel and greenhouse gas emissions,” Professor Harvey said. “This is a major challenge, which cannot be met with recent levels of R&D funding - and almost certainly cannot be met without making very substantial use of GM [food crops].”
World leaders also need to make a commitment to economic growth in developing countries, Professor Harvey believes. “For the increasing global population to be able to make a decent living requires growth - in direct contradiction to the ‘green’ notion that self-sufficient organic peasantry is the only sustainable solution,” he said. “Efficient and effective feeding of the world’s increasing population is very unlikely to involve more people being engaged in growing food than at present, and is very likely to require very substantially fewer people than now.”
Alex Evans identifies a number of short term measures which the FAO Food Summit could address, before the next food price hike occurs. He says that governments should speed up their funding of the World Food Programme. In addition, he believes that emergency measures ought to be put in place at the next WTO trade round to prevent countries implementing export trade restrictions if a crisis occurs.
Multilateral managed food stocks should be built up for emergencies. These could be real or virtual (in the form of promises). Finally, exposed countries should be encouraged to scale up their social protection systems as part of development policy, Evans said.
Evans suggests forming an equivalent to the International Energy Agency, the organisation established in 1973 to coordinate collective action in the event of oil crises. “The IEA has different functions but its key one is the emergency mechanism that says country members have to hold stock. If we can have a mechanism for managing oil stocks why can’t we do it for food?” Evans asks.
Professor Harvey believes that a failure to provide food security for significant numbers of people could generate riots, social unrest and migrations of catastrophic proportions: “The planet is, I believe, perfectly capable of growing enough food to feed nine billion people more than adequately, providing we exploit our scientific and practical knowledge appropriately. But, whether or not it manages to do so depends on governance, which in turn depends on tolerance.”
So the future presents both risks and opportunities for businesses. If a solution to food security is not found soon businesses everywhere could face disruption and major uncertainty. But if governments reach accord and agree to fund progress, the growth opportunities resulting from a revolution in agriculture, particularly in terms of new technologies, could be huge.
Last updated on 08 Oct 2009
