A new edition of the annual The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2009 report was  released jointly today by the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and World Food Programme (WFP).  Subtitled “Economic Crises - Impact and lessons learned,” the report looks at the convergence of the recent global food crisis that hit the world from 2006-2008 and the global economic crisis that began in late 2007 and continues to affect financial markets as well as global food supplies today.

FAO estimates that due to the crisis, over 1.02 billion people were hungry in 2009 around the world.

To examine the “impact” of the crises. the report offers cases studies of Armenia, Bangladesh, Ghana, Nicaragua, and Zambia  in order to show how the global economic crisis (which unlike other crises that affected one country or a region) affected all global markets, particularly impacting developing countries.

In presenting the “lessons learned,” the report recommends short-term solutions such as food safety-net programs to fight hunger and poverty.  Long-term solutions include increased development aid, expertise sharing and new domestic policies to help the most vulnerable countries provide food more consistently and readily for their people.

The recent issue of Time Magazine reflects on how America eats, what it pays for its food and the source of its food supply.  Citing that:

For all the grumbling you do about your weekly grocery bill, the fact is you’ve never had it so good, at least in terms of what you pay for every calorie you eat. According to the USDA, Americans spend less than 10% of their incomes on food, down from 18% in 1966.

The article discusses how the rise of corn as an ingredient in many foods has increased the supply of food available to Americans.  Over time, the agricultural subsidies paid to produce corn, large-scale farm operations and consumer preferences have contributed to a cycle of cheaper, but in some cases, less healthy food.  Several recent high-profile recalls, the use of antibiotics in raising farm animals and health problems like diabetes are increasing the concerns of many Americans about their food supply.

The article also discusses the environmental impact of large-scale food production, as well as the effect it has on prices of organic foods and healthier foods like fruits and vegetables.

In addition to the cover story, there is also a comparison of how an organic hamburger is produced versus a conventional hamburger.  There are several photo essays including one that shows families from around the world, detailing the amount they spend on food and what they typically buy.

For you tomato lovers out there, good luck this season. According to Dan Barber’s op-ed piece in the New York Times, tomatoes have been scarce this year, especially in the Northeast United States, and we’ve already seen price increases of 20%. So what’s the problem? Late blight—the same plant disease that caused the Irish potato famine in the mid-nineteenth century—has struck once again. While this year the blight will not lead to widespread famine, we do have a lot to learn from the extensive spread of the disease in tomatoes this year.

What about this year has created a breeding ground for late blight? For one thing, this summer’s humidity and abundance of precipitation has done more than just make your hair frizzy. Late blight loves warm temperatures, high humidity, and lots of rain.

But weather is only part of this formula. Where our tomato plants come from also plays a large part. Experts say that there was a prevalence of late blight in industrial breeding facilities which distributed starter plants across the country via large chains such as Home Depot, Kmart, Lowe’s and Wal-Mart. Expediting the contamination process is an increased interest in gardening and growing locally. According to the National Gardening Association, 7 million more households have either planted small gardens in their homes or invested in a community garden. So instead of spreading through large farms, late blight has contaminated people’s backyards. This is the irony of the situation: the people who are conscious of the problems with the traditional food system and buy and grow food locally are actually causing a dreadful situation for tomato lovers and growers.

The problem, according to the article, is that people these days are not as educated about agriculture. An increased interest and conscientiousness exists, but experience does not, resulting in a lack of diversity in growing methods and crop variety.

Ultimately, Barber believes that food should not be grown just for yield, but for taste and heartiness as well. If we learned to grow tomatoes that were specific to the many climates in our country, he says, late blight might not have spread across all the different varieties.

For more information on late blight, click here.

The soaring price of food was one of the drivers of the Global Food Crisis, making it difficult for people to purchase food for themselves or feed for their animals.  The Financial Times cites a biannual United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) report that states that amount spent globally on  food supplies will decrease for 2009, following their all-time highs in 2008.  The damage done by the global financial crisis may be,

“Eroding purchasing power through a combination of falling incomes and real exchange rates… [afflicting] the affordability of food, however cheap it has become on the international market place.”

The report forecasts a building danger from natural disasters, which could hurt food availability and the recent spikes in the prices of staple foods like corn, wheat and soybeans.

This article by Lester Brown, founder of the Earth Policy Institute, appears in the May 2009 issue of Scientific American magazine.

In his analysis, Brown argues that causal factors such as the current world order, water shortages, eroding soil, and rising global temperatures are threatening not only the global food supply, but world civilization as a whole because of it.  He warns that a lack of widespread intervention on the latter three environmental factors, global water tables in particular, could push governments in poorer countries to collapse, with the resulting failed states threatening global security.

Brown also argues that the current food crisis is of concern for reasons beyond food shortage issues of the past.  He cites examples of event-driven shortages, such as droughts in the 1970s, and charges that today’s food crisis is trend-driven - following the intertwining of food production and the  energy economy as well as the growing world population and shifts in population affluence.  These trend-driven shortages, he says, pose a larger threat because they demand a shift in far-reaching global trends rather than isolated environmental conditions.

He also finds  acts by states to hoard food exports as a result of shortage concerns, worrisome.  These actions drive food prices up and deprive needy states of food imports.  Should that behavior continue, food access could become a forefront motivation in international conflict.

Lester Brown appeared as a guest on the Great Decisions Television Series 2009 episode entitled, “Running Out: The Global Food Crisis.”  The full episode can be viewed here.

Read Brown’s full article and please feel free to react in the “Comments” section below.

The World Trade Organization’s (WTO) chief countered the perception put forward by development experts that the international food trade was key to the recent global food crisis.

Speaking at the International Food and Agricultural Trade Policy Council conference in Austria, Pascal Lamy, the Director General of the World Trade Organization, rebuffed the idea put forward by UN Rapporteur on the Right to Food that unfair trade practices contributed to the recent global food crisis and persistent food insecurity in the developing world.  Lamy stated,

“International trade was not the source of last year’s food crisis…If anything, international trade has reduced the price of food over the years through greater competition, and enhanced consumer purchasing power.”

Some food security and development experts have previously stated that some trade policies for food are responsible for keeping food prices low, which has a negative effect on farmers in the developing world seeking to make a profit on food products.  Reuters reports that Lamy’s response to this position is that “…agriculture accounts for less than 10 percent of world trade, while only 25 percent of world farm output is traded globally…” meaning trade policies alone could not account for price fluctuations that end up hurting farmers.

Instead, Lamy called for changes in local policies on land use, taxes on agricultural goods, infrastructure, credit and new technology for agriculure, etc. will have a greater impact on food security than global trade policy.

The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) held an event on April 8, 2009 with Professor Olivier De Schutter, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food.  Professor De Shutter presented an analysis of the global food crisis titled “From Malthus to Sen.”  Following his remarks, he took questions from Steven Schonberger from the World Bank and Gawain Kripke from Oxfam America.

During his talk, Professor De Schutter made the point that the global food supply may be sufficient, but access to food has become one of the most dangerous barriers for the hungry.  Some of these barriers include uneven trade policies and imbalanced markets for food products.  Steven Schonberger focused his statements on the need to keep global food prices lower to prevent future food crises.  Gawain Kripke spoke on the idea of food as a human right, and the new U.S. administration’s opportunity to address global food issues.

In addition to the account of the event, a summary of De Schutter’s report and Schonberger’s presentation are also available.

Following UN Food and Agriculture Organization Director-General Jacques Diouf’s appeal to G-20 leaders to discuss agricultural initiatives for alleviating the global food crisis while meeting in London this week, the Fairtrade Foundation has repeated that call and said a fresh approach to trade was greatly needed to address the issue.

The group called on the hosting UK Government to stop pushing developing countries to liberalize their economies and not to rush through a completion of the WTO Doha trade round, claiming a global trade agreement is not in the interests of the world’s poorest countries.

The Fairtrade Foundation warned that the combination effects of the current food and financial crises are having a ‘devastating’ impact on farmers in the third world and called on the G-20 leaders to install measures to ensure food supplies and refrain from moving forward with trade negotiations.

Barbara Crowther, the Fairtrade Foundation’s director of communications and policy, said:

“The current crisis poses many new threats to the livelihoods of the poorest people on the planet.

“But they also offer an unprecedented opportunity for world leaders to develop a fresh approach to the global trading system, prioritizing justice and equity, including social and environmental standards, and build new trade relationships, fit to deal with the current financial, food and climate crises we now face.

“A new approach to global trade must put poor people and the planet first, strengthening local and regional supply chains, and ensuring cooperation in fairer global trade at an international level.”

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization director-general, Jacques Diouf, called for restraint in tightening credit as a response to the global financial crisis while speaking at the biennial UN food policy conference in Bangkok, Thailand.  In another example of the tie between the global food crisis and the economic downturn, Diouf voiced concern that the tightening of credit could lead to a repeat spike in food prices, as farmers would find it more difficult to expand production.

After the  2007 and 2008 surges in the price of corn, rice, and other grains, prices have fallen by a third.  However, grains prices are still 27% higher than in 2005, and global stocks remain low.  And although several countries have invested more heavily in agriculture as part of their respective economic stimulus initiatives, food policy analysts are wary that a constriction of credit could negate any progress made.

Diouf also appealed to the leaders of the Group of 20 (G-20), the collection of heads of government and state from the 20 largest industrialized countries, to address agriculture initiatives during the group’s summit this week in London.  Diouf pushed for the inclusion of a food crisis discussion to alleviate the effects of the global economic slowdown on the developing world.

How do you think the G-20 might address the global food crisis?  Leave your reactions and questions in the comments section of this post.

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Do you have a question about food security you would like to hear addressed at the Town Hall?  Click on the “Town Hall Questions” link to the right to submit a question and learn about this special event.  Posted questions may be presented to the panelists at the Town Hall on April 4th.

A coalition of 183 social justice and civil society groups, including 76 U.S.-based organizations and 107 international groups from 29 countries, signed a letter appealing to President Obama and the U.S. Congress to re-regulate the commodities market as a means of preventing continued food price speculation - a practice food poliocy experts claim was a factor in the development of the food crisis, and continues to complicate the cost of foodstuffs.

Speculation in commodity markets occurs when businesses– such as hedge funds and investment banks — buy or sell raw or primary products in international markets in hope of making profits down the road.

The letter’s signatories were largely from farm, food, hunger, faith-based and international development groups, collectively railed against financial institutions for taking such risks and the issue’s lack of oversight:

“A significant part of last year’s food price fluctuations were the result of excessive speculation in the commodities markets by the very hedge funds and investment banks that helped create the current economic meltdown….and could have been stopped with sensible rules that, if enforced, would have staved off the malnutrition and starvation that was caused by excessive gambling of food prices. Important reforms are needed now to prevent mega-investors from viewing the futures market like a casino where they can gamble on hunger.”