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An
astonishing 50 million people were added to the millions
of the hungry last year due to soaring food prices,
according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO).
The FAO
noted that the global food crisis is a combination of
rising demand for agricultural products due to
population growth and economic development in emerging
countries, the rapid expansion of food crop-based
biofuels, and climate change, in particular drought and
floods, at a time when cereal stocks, at 409 million
tons, are at their lowest levels in 30 years.
These
trends are exacerbated by restrictive measures taken by
some grain-exporting countries to protect their
consumers and the speculations by hedge, index and other
funds in the futures markets.
“Poor
countries are feeling the serious impact of soaring food
and energy prices. We urgently need new and stronger
partnerships to address the growing food-security
problems in poor countries. No single institution or
country will be able to resolve this crisis,” said FAO
director-general Jacques Diouf in a recent address at
the European Parliament in Brussels.
The FAO
also noted that high prices of agricultural inputs are a
major obstacle for developing countries to increasing
agricultural production. From January 2007 to April
2008, fertilizer prices, in particular, shot up at a
much faster rate than food prices.
To
reduce the number of undernourished in the world and
meet growing demands, global food production needs to
double by 2050. The FAO said production increase must
occur mainly in developing countries where the poor and
hungry live, and where more than 95 percent of the
projected population increase will occur.
Their farmers will have great need for access to modern
inputs, postproduction facilities and rural
infrastructure.
World
agriculture will also have to address major challenges
like water control and climate change. The FAO noted
that more than 1.2 billion people today live in river
basins—the area drained by a river and its
tributaries—with very limited water supply and the trend
of increasing water shortages is worrisome, but
sub-Saharan Africa is using only 4 percent of its
renewable-water resources.
The FAO
official said the world is losing 5 million to 10
million hectares of agricultural land every year due to
severe degradation, but in Africa, Latin America and
Central Asia there is a great potential for expanding
land under cultivation.
“Governments and farmers will also have to cope with the
burden of climate change on agriculture. If temperatures
rise by more than 3 degrees, yields of major crops like
maize may fall by 20 percent to 40 percent in parts of
Africa, Asia and Latin America,” said Diouf.
The FAO
said the existing situation is a result of the
international community’s neglect of agriculture in
developing countries for a long time.
“The
share of agriculture in official development assistance
[ODA] has declined from 17 percent in 1980 to only 3
percent in 2006. Investment in agricultural research in
developing countries is less than 0.6 percent of their
gross domestic product, compared to more than 5 percent
in the OECD-countries,” said Diouf.
FAO
estimates that incremental public investment of about
$24 billion every year is needed to increase water
resources management, build rural roads, postproduction
facilities, as well as research and extension. |
