The UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) released a report this week revealing Britain’s food supply vulnerabilities and strategies for combating a domestic shortage should the ongoing global crisis intensify.

Although the UK is largely self-sufficient with regards to food production, the Defra plan focuses largely on increasing that productivity, perhaps through the use of genetically modified (GM) crops - currently a deeply unpopular approach among Britons.

While introducing the report publicly, Hilary Benn, the Cabinet Minister who heads Defra and oversees national food policy, voiced support for GM crop trials aimed at finding out the facts about the technology and to use the science to boost production.

The Defra report also cites a number of extreme measures for combating the food supply problem domestically if the crisis becomes catastrophic.  Those methods include rationing food in the manner enlisted during the Second World War.  Britons would be required to eat lower-calorie diets, deemed “a highly restricted, if sufficiently nutritious diet” in the Defra report, and would be encouraged to take on a vegetarian lifestyle if food security issues interfere with the UK’s meat trade with countries like Argentina and Brazil.

However, outlining plans for a doomsday scenario was not the only goal of the report.  Other portions focused on long-term sustainability as global warming and water shortages could press the need for alternative food growth technology.  In his statement Benn argued,

“..we live in an interconnected world — where the price of soya in Brazil affects the price of steak at the local supermarket — we need to look at global issues that affect food security here. That’s why we need to consider what food systems should look like in 20 years and what must happen to get there.”

20 years is a relevant milestone, but so is 41.  The report states that the UK will  “play a full part” in hitting the UN’s target for increasing global food production by 70% by the year 2050.

This article, by Martin Hickman of The Independent, asks some important questions about the state of the UK food supply and the plausibility of some of the Defra report’s goals.

Another food strategy plan is set to be published by the end of the year.

Access to food,  restricted by conditions related to the Global Financial Crisis, has exacerbated the Global Food Crisis, says the UN Food and Agricultural Organization’s (FAO) new estimate.  The full report will be released in October.

With global food markets still recovering from the 2008 food crisis, lower incomes and unemployment have pushed more people into hunger, especially in developing countries.  FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf explained the problem as,

“A dangerous mix of the global economic slowdown combined with stubbornly high food prices in many countries [which] has pushed some 100 million more people than last year into chronic hunger and poverty.”

An FAO spokesman told the BBC that although the global financial crisis has affected the entire world population, the food needs of those mostly living in the developing world have been acutely affected.

The BBC cites UN data of the world’s population affected by hunger, showing that

• nearly 642 million people live in the Asia-Pacific region
• 265 million live in sub-Saharan Africa
• 15 million people live in the developed world

Despite the challenges of the overall financial crisis, the FAO’s Diouf recommends avoiding “indifference” to the pervasive problem of hunger, which can be driven by conditions natural and/or economic.  He says that developing countries,

“…must be given the development, economic and policy tools required to boost their agricultural production and productivity. Investment in agriculture must be increased because for the majority of poor countries a healthy agricultural sector is essential to overcome poverty and hunger and is a pre-requisite for overall economic growth.”

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 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.

A joint report issued by the Center on International Cooperation (CIC) in New York and the Overseas Development Institute in London cited that 122 aid workers were killed and over 260 were attacked in 2008 while conducting aid programs, making it the most dangerous year for aid workers.

A Reuters article quotes Abby Stoddard from CIC about this surge in danger for aid workers:

“It’s a very dangerous profession indeed and I don’t think that’s understood as much as maybe it should be. The numbers are quite startling and certainly the fatality rate exceeds that of U.N. peacekeepers.”

The largest numbers of attacks and fatalities have occurred in conflict zones where the humanitarian workers are operating, particularly Sudan, Somalia and Afghanistan.  The aid workers, who may be foreign-born or local people working for international agencies, are often targeted, “…not just because they were perceived to be cooperating with Western political actors, but because they were seen as part of a Western agenda.”

You can read the full report, “Providing Aid in Insecure Environments: 2009 Update- Trends in violence against aid workers and the operational response” here.

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.

On Monday, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) announced plans for a summit on the global food crisis at the 36th Session of the Conference of the Organization in Rome this November.  The proposal for the meeting had already received support from the heads of State and Government of the League of Arab States at the Arab Economic and Social Development Summit in Kuwait last January, the African Union (AU) at its assembly in Addis Ababa in February this year, and the heads of state and governments of several other States.

After the announcement, FAO Director-General Jaques Diouf said this of the food security summit:

“The Summit should lead to greater coherence in the global governance of world food security. It will define how we can improve policies and the structural aspects of the international agricultural system by putting forward lasting political, financial and technical solutions to the problem of food insecurity in the world”

The announcement was made after the leaders of the countries of the Caribbean Economic Community (CARICOM) announced their support for the food summit.  President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil was among the supporters.  Town Hall panelist Guilherme de Aguiar Patriota is minister counselor of the Brazilian Mission to the UN, and will be speaking about the impact of the food crisis on Brazil.  Mr. Patriota’s bio can be found here.

The Kenya Food Security Steering Group - a consortium of Kenyan government officials, UN agencies, foreign aid officials, and NGOs - stated in a new report that the food security of 2.5 million Kenyans is threatened by an extended drought period in certain parts of the country.  There are also more than 7 million Kenyans who must compete for a smaller food supply because of the high prices brought on by last year’s global food crisis and post-election unrest.

The report also cited how Kenyans with HIV/AIDS face added challenges to food security and health:

“[The h]ousehold’s ability to produce and buy food is compromised due reduced labor that would otherwise be engaged in agricultural production or in earning an income. In addition, HIV disease increases health expenditure. Therefore, the household capacity to obtain an adequate amount and variety of food, and to adopt appropriate health and nutritional responses to HIV/AIDs, especially for the already vulnerable ones, is grossly reduced.”

The Kenya Food Security Steering Group made several recommendations to confront the immediate food shortages and to create conditions for long-term food security.

President Obama met with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for the first time on Tuesday, talking at length about the humanitarian crisis in Darfur, the war in Afghanistan, the aftermath of Hurricanes in Haiti - and the ongoing shortages in global food supply, as reported in this Boston Globe article.

Following the meeting, President Obama remarked on how the two discussed the influence of the current global economic crisis on food security and the issue’s warranting of “international coordination.”

In his remarks on the meeting, Secretary-General Ban added:

“The leaders of industrialized countries should keep their commitment on Millennium Development goals and official development assistance, and help developing countries overcome food security and also help them to adapt and mitigate climate change.”

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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.

Countries hit heavily by food shortages often rely greatly on foreign food aid to prevent starvation.   The United States is the leading donor in food aid worldwide, but its food aid policies have come under heavy criticism by analysts.  Often this criticism comes as a result of the practice of “dumping,” as described in the Great Decisions 2009 article and in this earlier Global Food Crisis posting, in which crops produced by developing countries must meet a litany of standards before they can be used as domestic food aid.

However, a new approach to U.S. foreign food aid may be on the horizon, according to this IRIN Global report.  The article details a possible shift in policy to include the coupling of U.S. donations into beneficiary countries with U.S. purchases of foods produced by the beneficiary country.

These measures are included in legislation currently making its way through Congress, with many supporters claiming that it will broaden U.S. policy while providing more fundamental assistance to local farms in beneficiary countries.  Its detractors, however, are less convinced that it will help those local markets.

How do you think this kind of approach to U.S. food aid policy will affect the global food crisis?  Leave your reactions and questions in the comments section on 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.