essay of food crisis

Recognizing and tackling a global food crisis

Globally, over 200 million people are facing emergency and famine conditions.

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This year, acute food insecurity is projected to reach a new peak, surpassing the food crisis experienced in 2007-2008. A combination of factors—including greater poverty and supply chain disruptions in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, rising inflation, and high commodity prices—has increased food and nutrition insecurity. This is a multifaceted crisis, affecting access to and availability of food, with long-term consequences for health and productivity. The World Bank has scaled up its efforts to bolster food security, reduce risks, and strengthen food systems over the short and long term. Urgent action is needed across governments and multilateral partners to avert a severe and prolonged food crisis.

Declining food access and availability, with high risks

For most countries, domestic food prices have risen sharply in 2022, compromising access to food—particularly for low-income households, who spend the majority of their incomes on food and are especially vulnerable to food price increases. Higher food inflation followed a sharp spike in global food commodity prices, exacerbated by the war in Ukraine. Average global wheat, maize, and rice prices were respectively 18 percent, 27 percent, and 10 percent higher in October 2022 relative to October 2021.

At the same time, food availability is declining. For the first time in a decade, global cereal production will fall in 2022 relative to 2021. More countries are relying on existing food stocks and reserves to fill the gap, raising the risk if the current crisis persists. And rising energy and fertilizer prices—key inputs to produce food—threaten production for the next season, especially in net fertilizer-importing countries and regions like East Africa.

These trends are already affecting health. Stunting and wasting in children, and anaemia in pregnant women, are increasing as households are less able to include sufficient nutrition in their diets. A recent World Bank survey indicated that 42 percent of households across all countries covered were unable to eat healthy or nutritious food in the previous 30 days. These health effects carry long-term consequences for the ability to learn and work, and therefore escape poverty.

Globally, food security is under threat beyond just the immediate crisis. Growing public debt burdens, currency depreciation, higher inflation, increasing interest rates, and the rising risk of a global recession may compound access to and availability of food, especially for importing countries. At the same time, the agricultural food sector is both vulnerable and a contributor to climate change, responsible for one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions. And agricultural productivity growth is not staying ahead of the impacts of climate change, contributing to more food-related shocks. For example, an unprecedented multi-season drought has worsened food insecurity in the Horn of Africa, with Somalia on the verge of famine.

Managing the crisis and preparing for the future

The World Bank is responding to this escalating crisis with four areas of actions: (i) supporting production and producers, (ii) facilitating increased trade in food and production inputs, (iii) supporting vulnerable households, and (iv) investing in sustainable food security. It has made over $26 billion available for short- and long-term food security interventions in 69 countries, including active interventions in 22 of the 24 hunger hotspots identified as countries with the most pressing needs by the Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Food Programme. Since April 2022, the World Bank has disbursed $8.1 billion, approximately evenly split between crisis response and long-term resilience projects. In the short term, projects like the Emergency Project to Combat the Food Crisis in Cameroon will provide 98,490 beneficiaries with emergency food and nutrition assistance with support from the World Food Programme. In addition to supporting vulnerable households, governments of food-exporting countries can improve global food security by limiting measures like export bans and stockpiling of food. In the longer term, governments can make an enormous difference by repurposing public spending on agricultural policies and support for a more resilient and sustainable food system that directly improves health, economies, and the planet.

These actions and newly released funding underline the scale of the crisis. Timely, coordinated, and sustained action through partnerships such as the Global Alliance on Food Security can maximize the impact of new policies and funding, and mitigate the scale of the crisis. The time to act is now.

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International Development Policy | Revue internationale de politique de développement

Home Issues 1 Revue annuelle The Food Crisis and Food Security...

The Food Crisis and Food Security: Towards a New World Food Order?

The worst food crisis since 1974 broke out in 2007-08. Higher world market prices of food commodities (especially wheat, rice, soya and maize) sparked an unprecedented increase in the number of hungry people. Despite moderately lower prices since the summer of 2008, the number of the hungry continued to rise in 2009. This food crisis has placed the fight against hunger on the international agenda. Since March 2008 governments UN agencies and many social movements have adopted positions on the causes of the crisis and the means to address it. Unfortunately, while these parties are trying to coordinate their activities and suggest new approaches, the old recipes for producing more food are often brought up. Contradictory proposals are made and the thought given to the causes underlying hunger and the food crisis (social, economic and political discrimination and exclusion) has gone largely unheeded. The first Millennium Development Goal, which calls for cutting the percentage of hungry people by half by 2015, is clearly out of reach. But the food crisis might lead to a new world food order based on the three pillars of food assistance, food security and the right to food.

Index terms

Thematic keywords: .

The author would like to thank Ioana Cismas for her precious help in research on source materials for this article. The author would also like to thank the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) for kindly granting permission to reproduce figures from its documentation and website (specific sources are given below each figure).

1. Introduction

1 Access to food is more than ever a question of interest. Since the food crisis broke out in 2007-08 governments, United Nations (UN) agencies and many social movements have taken up a position on its causes and the means to address it. For the first time a special high-level task force grouping all UN agency heads was set up by the Secretary-General with the goal of finding solutions to hunger and malnutrition.

2 Meanwhile, States have been participating in international meetings in an effort to coordinate responses to the unprecedented increase in the number of hungry people worldwide. The food crisis has also received much attention in Switzerland. The Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) has increased its amount of aid directed towards humanitarian assistance and rural development and placed food security among its top priorities. Furthermore, several non-governmental organisations have launched campaigns on the food crisis and the fight against hunger (Wolf and Baumann 2008).

3 The first Millennium Development Goal, i.e. to halve the percentage of people suffering from hunger and living in extreme poverty by 2015, already seemed hard to realise. Since the food crisis it is clearly out of reach (FAO 2008b, 4).

4 This article seeks to place the 2007-08 food crisis in the perspective of chronic undernourishment, which has affected more than 840 million people since 1990. It will start by describing the scope and causes of malnutrition from 1990 to 2005, before analysing the statistics and causes of the food crisis. It will then present the solutions proposed by States, the UN and non-governmental organisations, while assessing their coherence and innovativeness. At a time when experts are glimpsing an emerging world food order (HRC 2008b, 32-35), I shall conclude by trying to point out the conditions for effectively coming to grips with hunger.

2. World hunger before the food crisis

2.1. statistics on chronic undernourishment, 1990-2005.

• 1  Paragraph 7 of the Rome Declaration on World Food Security and paragraph 7 of the World Food Summi (...)

5 Twice, in 1996 and 2000, governments unanimously and solemnly made a commitment with statistical targets for battling hunger. In the Rome Declaration on World Food Security and the World Food Summit Plan of Action they pledged, in 1996, to cut by half the number of the hungry by 2015. 1 Then, four years later in the UN Millennium Declaration they promised, in a show of modesty, to halve the proportion of the hungry by 2015 (UN General Assembly 2000, 4-6). These two commitments took 1990 as the baseline for calculating the progress to achieve. According to statistics from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the UN, 842 million people were chronically undernourished in 1990 (FAO 2008b, 12). In Rome in 1996 States therefore pledged to scale the number of the hungry back to 421 million by 2015, whereas in the UN Millennium Declaration in 2000 their pledge amounted to reducing the number of the hungry to 591 million by 2015 (Kracht 2005, 120).

6 In 2005, more than half way towards the deadline, experts reluctantly acknowledged that these objectives could not be reached (Kracht 2005, 120; FAO 2008b, 12), since 848 million people were still chronically undernourished (FAO 2008b, 12): 16 million in industrialised countries and 832 million in developing countries, with 212 million in Sub-Saharan Africa, 231 million in India and 123 million in China. These statistics include millions of children living without access to an adequate diet. Six million children die every year, directly or indirectly, from malnutrition, i.e. one child every five seconds (FAO 2005, 20).

7 Between 1990 and 2005 the number of the hungry rose by six million, while their proportion fell from 20% to 16% of the world’s population (FAO 2006, 6), a decrease too small to back up any claim about reaching the first Millennium Development Goal by 2015.

2.2. Causes of chronic undernourishment

8 The causes of chronic undernourishment are complex. To make them easy to understand, U. Jonsson (1988, 28-35) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) (1998, 25-37) have proposed a useful distinction between immediate, physiological causes, underlying causes at the household level and fundamental causes at the society level (Golay 2009a, 63-67).

9 The immediate causes are the lack of food eaten and the individual’s low resistance to disease. These physiological causes have to do with the person’s lack of access to enough food and its effects on health. They are the same for anyone suffering from malnutrition.

• 2  See J. Ziegler’s field reports on Brazil, India and Bangladesh available at: http://www.righttofoo (...)

10 The underlying causes are more complex. For a long time the main cause of undernourishment was thought to be the dearth of available food. A. Sen (1981; 2001) proved that famines can occur without any decrease in the available food supply because groups in certain areas no longer have access to food despite its availability. Based on a study of the major 20th century famines (in India, Bangladesh and Ethiopia in particular), Sen’s analysis validly explains the causes underlying chronic undernourishment. In most lands in the West, Latin America, Asia and Africa food is very often available in sufficient quantities, but millions of families, usually victims of discrimination and exclusion, do not have access to it. 2

11 Out of the 848 million chronically undernourished persons in 2005, 50% lived on small farms, 20% were rural families without any access to land, 10% were pastoral nomads, fishermen or persons who depended on the forest for their livelihood and 20% were living in urban poverty (UN Millennium Project Task Force on Hunger 2005, 3-4). Moreover, 70% were women (FAO 2008d). These people were undernourished because they lacked sufficient rights over productive resources (such as land, water, seeds grain, fish and the forest) or an income or benefits that would have enabled them to acquire food.

12 The fundamental causes of chronic undernourishment have their roots in the structure of society. Whether historic, political, economic, cultural or even environmental (Jonsson 1988, 29-33), they explain why the most vulnerable groups in a society are deprived of rights to the productive resources necessary for gaining access to food.

• 3  J. De Castro (1952), Chairman of the FAO Executive Committee from 1952 to 1956, was among the firs (...)

13 Contrary to prevailing ideas, these fundamental causes should not be reduced to wars or natural catastrophes. While armed conflicts and natural catastrophes (mainly droughts and floods) do severely restrict access to food, they affect only 10% of the persons suffering from chronic undernourishment (UN Millennium Project Task Force on Hunger 2005, 3-4). Most researchers now agree that the fundamental causes of undernourishment are political and economic exclusion, social injustice and discrimination (Brunel 2009, 43-59). In J. De Castro’s words (FAO 2004, 9): “Hunger is exclusion: exclusion from the land, income, jobs, wages, life and citizenship. When a person gets to the point of not having anything to eat, it is because all the rest has been denied. This is a modern form of exile. It is death in life.” 3

3. The food crisis

14 The 2007-08 crisis had its origins in the rising world market prices of food commodities, in particular of wheat, rice, soya and maize, resulting in an increase in the cost of food imports and in the percentage of household budgets devoted to food. The rising prices of foodstuffs had repercussions on local markets and fuelled an unprecedented increase in the number of hungry people in 2007, 2008 and 2009.

3.1. Statistics on the food crisis

3.1.1. fluctuating food commodity prices.

15 According to studies by the World Bank (2008), FAO (2008b; 2008c) and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) (Van Braun 2008), food prices rose by 40% between March 2007 and March 2008, by 56% between January 2007 and June 2008, by 83% between February 2005 and February 2008 (181% for wheat) and by 130% between January 2002 and June 2008. From March 2007 to March 2008 wheat prices rose by 130% on the world market, rice by 74%, soya by 87% and maize by 31% (FAO 2008c). This price spike amplified the structural trend from 2002 to 2008 towards rising food prices (see figure 1).

Figure 1 - Evolution of FAO food price indices, 1961-2008

Source: FAO (2008b, 9).

Note: 1998-2000 = 100

16 As O. De Schutter, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, has remarked, this situation has been exceptional: “During the first three months of 2008 international nominal prices of all major food commodities reached their highest levels in nearly 50 years, while prices in real terms were the highest in nearly 30 years, and social unrest developed in more than 40 countries as a result” (UN General Assembly 2008, 4).

17 Rising world market prices substantially increased the cost of food imports, especially for countries dependent on them for the food security of their population. In the countries severely affected by the food crisis that depended on food imports to satisfy at least 40% of their needs food costs rose by 37% from 2006 to 2007 and by 56% from 2007 to 2008. In Africa they swelled by 74% from 2007 to 2008 (FAO 2008b).

18 These rising prices have also disastrously affected the ability of households to feed themselves, especially the poorest households in the cities and countryside of developing countries (see figure 2). Households headed by women have been the hardest hit (FAO 2008c, 26).

Figure 2 - A 10% rise in the price of food staples hits poor households the hardest

Source: FAO (2008b, 23).

Note : The methodology employed is similar to that used by A. Deaton in “Rice prices and income distribution in Thailand: A non-parametric analysis” (The Economic Journal, vol. 99, no. 395, 1989, pp. 1–37) and by N. Minot and F. Goletti in Rice market liberalization and poverty in Viet Nam (Research Report no. 114, Washington, DC: IFPRI, 2000).

• 4  The most recent FAO statistics can be consulted at: http://www.fao.org/worldfoodsituation/FoodPric (...)

19 Since the summer of 2008 cereal prices have fallen considerably on the world market. 4 However, they have gone down less rapidly on local markets in many developing countries where, in late 2008, they were still, on the average, 24% higher than in early 2007 (FAO 2009a, 1).

3.1.2. The increasing number of hungry people

20 The food crisis has sparked an unprecedented rise in the number of hungry people around the world. On 16 October 2008, World Hunger Day, Jacques Diouf, FAO Director-General, announced that the 2007 food crisis affected 75 million people, thus placing the number of the hungry at 923 million at the end of 2007 (FAO 2008b, 6). By the end of 2008 40 million more people were affected, thus raising the number of the hungry to 963 million (FAO 2008e). According to FAO estimates published in October 2009, the trend has not stopped. For the first time in humanity’s history more than a billion people are now going hungry (FAO 2009b).

21 Given this new situation, the goals of the World Food Summit and the UN Millennium Declaration definitely cannot be reached by 2015 (see figure 3).

Figure 3 - Number of hungry people in the world (in millions)

Source: FAO (2009a, 1).

3.2. The causes of the food crisis

22 To analyse the factors behind the food crisis, we must distinguish between the causes of rising food prices, on one hand, and of the increasing number of hungry people, on the other.

3.2.1. Causes of rising food prices

23 Much has been said about the factors driving food prices up. It seems necessary to distinguish between the causes of the structural price increase since 2002 and the causes of the price spike in the markets from March 2007 to March 2008.

24 Increasing demand from the middle classes in emerging countries

25 One of the first causes advanced to explain rising food prices was the growing demand for meat (China) and milk products (India) from the middle classes in emerging countries. From four to 10 kilograms of cereals are needed to produce a kilogram of meat; four kilograms are needed to produce a litre of milk. The growing demand from the Chinese and Indian middle classes automatically boosts the demand for cereals (Parmentier 2009, 121-131). Though partly accounting for the structural price increase since 2002 (Van Braun 2008, 3), this does not explain the 2007-08 spike, nor the lower prices since the summer of 2008 (Berthelot 2008).

26 Less food produced owing to the climate and natural catastrophes

27 A second explanation, soon brought forth, attributed the decrease in the cereal supply to climate change: several years of droughts in Australia and many African lands, repeated flooding in Asia, hurricanes in Latin America and the Caribbean Basin. Like the foregoing, this cause partly accounts for the structural price rise since 2002 (Van Braun 2008, 3-5), but its impact on the 2007-08 price spike must be qualified (Berthelot 2008).

28 The production of biofuels

29 In recent years billions of dollars, mainly in the United States (US) and the European Union (EU), have been devoted to subsidising biofuels (UN General Assembly 2007, 8-17). A third of the production of maize in the US, the leading exporter of this crop on the world market, went to biofuels in 2007 (Berthelot 2008). Biofuels have reduced the cereal supply on the world market, a trend exacerbated in 2008 when oil prices shot up (Van Braun 2008, 3). According to a World Bank report, biofuels accounted for 70-75% of the rise in food prices from 2002 to 2008, mainly because of the reduced supply of food and the replacement of crops for food with crops for biofuels (Mitchell 2008).

30 Two cyclical causes played a larger part in the sudden increase in food commodity prices in late 2007 and early 2008: the rising price of oil and speculation.

31 The rising price of oil

32 Food and oil prices have always been tightly correlated (Van Braun 2008, 3) because producing and transporting food necessitates a large quantity of energy (see figure 4). Evidence of this can be found in 2007 and 2008, when food prices reached their highest level on the world market at the same time as oil prices, i.e. up to USD 120-150 per barrel between April and July 2008 (Berthelot 2008).

Figure 4 - World commodity prices, January 2000-February 2008

Source: Van Braun (2008, 1).

Note : Although there is a strong correlation between food price levels and oil price levels, this is not the only forceful relationship. Other factors, such as high demand for food due to economic growth and lack of response in production, play a role in food price increases as well.

33 Speculation

5  World Bank, 14 April 2008.

34 Finally, very low cereal stocks in late 2007, along with the sub-prime crisis in the US, fuelled speculation on cereals, which hiked food prices in early 2008. In the first quarter of 2008 the volume of short-term contracts and options traded on the cereal grain market rose by 32% compared with the same period in 2007 (Van Braun 2008, 6). This speculation pushed world market prices up. According to the World Bank, speculation accounted for nearly 30% of the spike in food commodity prices from March 2007 to March 2008. 5

3.2.2. Causes of the rising number of hungry people

35 Most studies devoted to the food crisis have only analysed rising food commodity prices. It is taken for granted that higher prices on the world and then local markets normally make more people go hungry. However, the effects of rising food prices on the ability of households, rich or poor, to feed themselves vary from one country to another, from city to countryside. This calls for a deeper analysis, in particular, of two major causes of the growing number of the hungry from 2007 to 2009: the abandonment of policies in favour of smallholder farmers over the past 30 years and the extreme poverty in the cities of developing countries.

36 Rising food prices on the world market would not have set off such a large increase in the number of hungry people if the countries concerned had not been dependent on food imports (FAO 2009a, 4). Had they invested heavily in rural development and local agriculture over the last three decades, instead of abandoning their support for smallholders, these countries could have replaced food imports with local produce. Instead of having to ride out rising food prices as consumers rather than producers, small farmers would have grown enough to feed their families, had access to the market for selling any surplus and benefited from rising prices in local markets (Oxfam 2008).

37 At the time of independence several countries adopted policies in favour of farmers, while others preferred investing heavily in industry and urban centres (Brunel 2009). Given the debt crisis in the 1980s, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) persuaded countries in the South to open their agriculture to the world market, eliminate their support for smallholders and boost crops for exportation as a source of foreign currency for paying off the debt (Carfantan 2009, 30-35; HRC 2009a, 11-12). At the same time, between 1983 and 2006 the amount of public development funds granted to agriculture went down from more than USD 20 billion (value 2006) to less than USD 5 billion (Oxfam 2009, 10-11).

38 The abandonment of policies in favour of small farmers and the opening of agriculture to the world market have had dire consequences on food security, even more so during the crisis. In Haiti, for instance, structural adjustment programmes reduced customs duties on rice imports from 35% in the 1980s to 3% in 2005, which resulted in the massive importation of (heavily subsidised) American rice and the devastation of local rice farmers, who figured among the first victims of the food crisis (Wolf and Baumann 2008, 15). This abandonment has also had dramatic repercussions in many African countries and had been blamed in part for the 2005 Niger famine (HRC 2009b, 18-19).

39 The other fundamental cause of the growing number of hungry people is the extreme poverty of families living in cities in the areas affected by the food crisis. Before the crisis the poorest households devoted, on the average, from 60% to 80% of their income to food. This percentage rose in 2007 and 2008, thus drastically reducing other expenditures (especially on health and education) and sparking hunger riots in the cities of approximately 40 countries in the spring of 2008, notably in March in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, Ethiopia, Haiti, Indonesia, Madagascar and Senegal.

40 To come to grips with the food crisis and chronic undernourishment, governments must base their efforts on the causes underlying these plagues: social, economic and political exclusion and discrimination. They must guarantee rural populations fair access to productive resources (primarily the land, water and seeds, but also fishing and forests). They will thus help the most vulnerable while increasing production both locally and nationally. In parallel, they must guarantee sufficient earnings or allowances to those who dwell in urban areas.

4. Responses to the food crisis

41 In his September 2008 report to the Human Rights Council (HRC) the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, O. De Schutter, described the responses of national governments and the UN to the food crisis (HRC 2008b, 32-35). He pointed out three phases: an initial one of individual, uncoordinated measures, a second phase of coordination with international meetings and conferences and a third phase of discussions about a new world food order. I will present the first two phases here in chapter 4 and discuss the conditions for effectively fighting against hunger within a new world food order in the conclusion.

42 4.1. Uncoordinated responses from States and international organisations

43 From the start of the food crisis several governments adopted measures to improve their population’s access to foodstuffs (see figure 5). In response to hunger riots, some subsidised staples (e.g . bread in Egypt). Others reduced customs duties on food imports or, on the contrary, restricted such exports. At least 15 countries, including Cambodia, China, India, Pakistan and Vietnam, drastically limited their exportation of staples in order to feed their own population (Van Braun 2008, 5). Several governments announced a revival of policies in favour of agriculture (HRC 2009c).

Figure 5 - Policy actions to address rising food prices by region

Source: FAO (2008b, 32).

Note: Based on preliminary information collected by the World Bank staff and amended by FAO (April 2008).

44 National reactions to the crisis were uncoordinated, but it is important to realise that some governments did not even have the means to take these measures in response to their population’s demands (HRC 2009a, 6). The spike in food prices most strongly affected the poorest countries, such as Haiti, which were powerless.

45 A new phenomenon took place during the food crisis: the purchase or rental of millions of hectares of land in nations with a high degree of food insecurity by wealthy countries or private companies based, in particular, in Korea, China, the United Arab Emirates or Saudi Arabia (Grain 2008). The best-known example is the purchase of 1.3 million hectares of arable land in Madagascar by Daewoo, a Korean firm. This set off demonstrations and led to the ousting of the President of Madagascar in March 2008.

46 UN agencies also reacted fast and, initially, in an uncoordinated manner to the food crisis. The World Food Programme (WFP) urgently called for USD 500 million to offset the rising cost of food in its budget. Due to the 40% increase in food commodity prices during a year, WFP either had to cut the number of beneficiaries by 40% or had to raise more funds.

47 FAO was one of the first organisations to foresee the price spike. As early as 2007 the Director-General had floated the idea of taking action against sharply increasing food prices. FAO earmarked USD 17 million for this purpose and, at the outset of the crisis, asked for more than USD 1 billion. It wanted to raise money to help the poorest farmers acquire the supplies necessary for growing more food.

• 6  J. Ziegler fielded the idea of a moratorium in his report to the UN General Assembly in October 20 (...)

48 International financial institutions also proposed solutions. At the start of the crisis the World Bank declared that it was going to make agriculture a priority, by doubling the volume of loans to this sector in Africa (from USD 400 million to USD 800 million in 2009). For its part, the IMF, via its Managing Director, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, defended the idea of a moratorium on biofuels, which were competing for the use of crops. 6

4.2. Coordinated but sometimes contradictory responses from States and international organisations

49 As from April 2008 States and international organisations tried to move beyond the phase of individual reactions and coordinate their responses to the crisis. International meetings were held in Rome, Geneva, New York and Madrid. Despite the sincerity of the parties involved and the fact that all efforts converged on the need to reinvest heavily in rural development and local agriculture and to help small farmers, the solutions proposed often ran counter to each other.

4.2.1. International organisations

• 7  Information about the High-Level Task Force on the Global Food Security Crisis can be found at: ht (...)

8  Conference documents are available at: http://www.ransa2009.org/html/index.html .

50 To coordinate international responses to the food crisis, Ban Ki-Moon, UN Secretary-General, set up the High-Level Task Force on the Global Food Security Crisis in April 2008. 7 It brings together the heads of UN agencies, international financial institutions and the World Trade Organization (WTO). It met nine times from May 2008 to June 2009. In July 2008 it adopted a Comprehensive Framework for Action with two major objectives: provide food assistance to the most vulnerable and reinforce their food security in the long run. In his closing speech to a high-level meeting on food security for all, in Madrid on 27 January 2009, the UN Secretary-General proposed adding a third axis, the right to food: “We must continue to meet urgent hunger and humanitarian needs by providing food and nutrition assistance and safety nets, while focusing on improving food production and smallholder agriculture. This is the twin-track approach taken in the Comprehensive Framework for Action. We should be ready to add a third track, the right to food, as a basis for analysis, action and accountability.” 8

9  For these guidelines see: http://www.fao.org/righttofood .

51 The importance of the right to food in the fight against hunger was recognised in the guidelines unanimously adopted by the FAO Council in November 2004. 9 It is, we might assume, to be as important as food assistance and food security in the UN approach to the crisis. These three pillars could form the grounds for a new world food order for battling hunger (HRC 2008b, 32-35).

10  See Ziegler (2001) on the schizophrenia in international organisations.

52 Unfortunately, despite their willingness to coordinate activities, international organisations are still defending quite divergent approaches on this question. The UN Secretary-General is surrounded by parties supporting often contradictory agricultural policies, some of them (e.g. the WTO) calling for a full liberalisation of trade and others (e.g. FAO) advocating the protection of smallholders’ right to food. 10

4.2.2. States

53 Within two weeks during May and June 2008 countries proposed quite different approaches to the food crisis. Some called for a change of paradigm with a focus on the right to food, whereas others emphasised efforts to support local agriculture and pursue existing policies.

• 11  HRC, The negative impact of the worsening of the world food crisis on the realisation of the right (...)

54 On 22 May 2008, for the first thematic session in the HRC’s history, the 43 member States unanimously adopted a resolution on the “negative impact of the worsening of the world food crisis on the realisation of the right to food for all”. 11 This resolution reasserted that the right to food was a fundamental human right, which member States had to guarantee to their population and in particular to the most vulnerable. States pledged to boost local production and they called on the international community to reinforce national efforts to do so. In a noteworthy passage the HRC (2008a, 4) called for “States, individually and through cooperation and assistance, relevant multilateral institutions and other relevant stakeholders, (…) to consider reviewing any policy or measure which could have a negative impact on the realisation of the right to food, particularly the right of everyone to be free from hunger, before instituting such a policy or measure”. Accordingly, the production of biofuels, speculation and the liberalisation of the agricultural sector should be reviewed in the light of their impact on the right to food (HRC 2008b).

12  Declaration of the G-8 leaders on World Food Security, Japan, July 2008.

55 Two weeks later, from 3 to 5 June 2008 FAO organised a “High-level conference on world food security: The challenges of climate change and bioenergy”, in which 42 heads of State and of government, along with 100 senior ministers, took part. The goal was to debate the orientation for dealing with the food crisis and reaching the first Millennium Development Goal. As we can clearly see in the conference’s final statement, the proposed orientations were then far from the right to food, which is not even mentioned (FAO 2008a). This statement reaffirmed the need to boost local production and support agriculture at the national level, but the proposed structural solution to the food crisis is to pursue current policies, including the opening of trade in agriculture. In 2008 promises of donations were also proffered and in July 2008 leaders of the Group of Eight (G-8) proposed the creation of a Global Partnership for Agriculture and Food Security. 12

13  For information on this meeting see: http://www.canadainternational.gc.ca/g8 .

• 14  G-8, L’Aquila joint statement on global food security , 10 July 2009. For information on this summi (...)

56 The food crisis still held a major place on official agendas during 2009. A meeting of the G-8 ministers of agriculture, together with ministers of today’s Group of Five (G-5), i.e. Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa, plus Argentina, Australia and Egypt, was devoted to it. 13 At the July 2009 G-8 summit in L’Aquila the G-8 pledged to increase donations for sustainable agriculture in developing countries (to USD 20 billion over the coming three years) in addition to contributing to food assistance. 14

15 For information on this meeting see: http://www.fao.org/cfs/cfs-home/en .

57 The 35th session of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) then took place from 14 to 17 October, reaching a consensus on the reform of the CFS. 15 With the explicit objective to improve coordination at the global level to fight against hunger, States created a new CFS open to all States, acting as members, as well as to representatives of the UN agencies, civil society organisations, international financial institutions, the WTO and the private sector (FAO 2009c).

16  For information on the FAO summit see http://www.fao.org/wsfs/world-summit/en/ .

58 Finally, FAO held the World Summit on Food Security in Rome from 16 to 18 November 2009. 16 More than 40 heads of State and of government, along with more than 70 senior ministers, took part and adopted the Declaration of the World Summit on Food Security (FAO 2009d). In this Declaration, adopted by consensus, States tried to respond holistically to the increasing number of undernourished people. They reaffirmed each one of the solutions proposed in 2008 and 2009, including the need to reinvest in local agriculture, the right to food and the necessity for open markets. They also endorsed the reform of the CFS, with the indication that it will be an essential element of the future Global Partnership for Agriculture and Food Security.

• 17  For more information about this programme see: http://www.ddc.admin.ch/fr/Accueil/La_DDC/Organisat (...)

59 Switzerland is among the countries that have taken concrete measures in response to the food crisis. Its donations to WFP amounted to CHF 43 million in 2006 and CHF 38.3 million in 2007, an amount increased by CHF 11 million in 2008. In 2008 the SDC set up a Global Programme on Food Security with an annual budget of CHF 30 million, including CHF 20 million for multilateral donations for research in agriculture oriented towards small farmers. By 2011 this programme’s budget is expected to reach CHF 20 million, not counting multilateral contributions. For 2010-12 this programme will have three objectives: reinforcing access to food for the most vulnerable, guaranteeing access to land and to natural resources for smallholders and improving access to know-how, technology and farming input so as to enable small farmers to boost productivity in a sustainable manner. 17

4.3. Responses from civil society

18  For information on AGRA see: http://www.agra-alliance.org .

60 Two responses from civil society have emerged to the food crisis. The first was the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). Created by African organisations and chaired by Kofi Annan, former UN Secretary-General, this alliance has received support from the Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF). AGRA brings together agricultural research centres in Africa, universities and businesses. 18 Its objectives are to improve seeds, fortify the soil, make water and markets more accessible, develop agricultural know-how and back policies in favour of smallholders.

61 During the June 2008 FAO conference AGRA signed a partnership with FAO, WFP and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). Some countries have joined in, such as the United Kingdom which has promised to put up USD 15 million over a three-year period. Japan has created a Coalition for the Development of Rice in Africa in partnership with AGRA and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD). The goals are to boost rice production on the continent by using improved seed grain and to reduce the dependence on food imports.

• 19  See: http://www.fian.org/resources/documents/others/the-world-doesnt-need-more-of-the-same-medicin (...)
• 20  In Switzerland, for example, Swiss Catholic Lenten Fund and Bread for All have launched a three-ye (...)

62 The second response from civil society came from the farmer organisations and non-governmental organisations that, involved in development and human rights, feel excluded from the process for making decisions about the food crisis. Just before the “High-level conference on world food security: The challenges of climate change and bioenergy” these organisations adopted a joint declaration entitled: “The world doesn’t need more of the same medicine.” 19 Their criticism has pointed out that several proposed solutions (such as more free trade and cooperation with firms that seek to maximise profits), as well as the parties backing them, were at the origin of the food crisis. The non-governmental organisations have proposed an approach that, based on food sovereignty and the right to food, addresses the underlying causes of hunger and applies the principles of responsibility, participation and non-discrimination (Golay 2008, 11-15). Since 2007 several have been actively advancing the cause of the right to food around the world (Golay 2009b). 20

21  See: http://www.viacampesina.org .

63 Via Campesina has gone even further by proposing the recognition of new rights for smallholder farmers. This movement brings together more than 140 peasant organisations from nearly 70 countries and represents more than 200 million peasants. During its June 2008 International Conference on Peasant Rights in Jakarta it adopted the Declaration on the Rights of Peasants: Women and Men 21 and then submitted it to the UN as a solution to both the food crisis and chronic undernourishment (Golay 2009c).

5. Conclusion: a new world food order for fighting against hunger?

64 O. De Schutter, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, sees the emergence of a new world food order as a response to the 2007-08 food crisis (HRC 2008b, 32-35). There is no denying that battling hunger and ploughing funds back into agriculture are topics now receiving attention internationally; and there is no denying that international organisations and States have made efforts to increase coordination. The creation of the High-Level Task Force on the Global Food Security Crisis for bringing together the heads of all UN agencies is without parallel, as are the reform of the CFS and the creation of the Global Partnership for Agriculture and Food Security.

65 Nonetheless, the coherence and innovativeness of the solutions proposed by governments, the UN and non-governmental organisations are open to question. Let us remember that within two weeks during the spring of 2008 governments adopted radically different texts, the first calling for shifting the paradigm towards the right to food, the second giving priority to local agriculture while at the same time pursuing the very policies that led to the crisis, such as the unbridled liberalisation of trade in foodstuffs. Given this, how can we be certain that the emerging world food order will help us fight effectively against hunger?

66 We must, I am convinced, start by addressing the causes underlying chronic malnutrition and the food crisis, which are often political, social and economic exclusion and discrimination. For this purpose it is necessary to give underprivileged rural populations fair access to productive resources (land, water and seeds in particular, but also fisheries and forests) and to grant to the urban poor sufficient income or allocations. But this will not suffice. Whatever the means used, they will prove ineffective if they do not include improved governance at the international, national and local levels, based on institutions with a mandate for ensuring the right to food (FAO 2009a, 4).

67 Even though the World Food Summit’s objectives and the Millennium Development Goals definitely cannot be achieved by 2015, we must continue to fight against hunger and rapidly set new objectives. In the pursuit of these new objectives, the fight against hunger must be based on the three pillars of food assistance, food security and the right to food.

Berthelot, J. 2008. Démêler le vrai du faux dans la flambée des prix agricoles. Unpublished paper.

Brunel, S. 2009. Nourrir le monde, vaincre la faim. Paris: Larousse.

Carfantan, J. Y. 2009. Le choc alimentaire mondial: ce qui nous attend demain. Paris: Albin Michel.

De Castro, J. 1952. The geography of hunger. Boston: Little and Brown.

Eide, A. 2008. The right to food and the impact of liquid biofuels (agrofuels). Right to Food Studies. Rome: FAO.

FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization). 1996. Report on the World Food Summit, 13-17 November 1996. WFS 96/REP. http://www.fao.org/righttofood/kc/downloads/vl/en/details/214905.htm

FAO. 2004. Right to food case study: Brazil. IGWG RTFG /INF 4/APP.1. http://www.fao.org/righttofood/kc/downloads/vl/docs/AH193.pdf

FAO. 2005. The state of food insecurity in the world, 2005: Eradicating world hunger, key to achieving the Millennium Development Goals. Rome: FAO.

FAO. 2006. The state of food insecurity in the world, 2006: Eradicating world hunger, taking stock 10 years after the World Food Summit. Rome: FAO.

FAO. 2008a. Declaration of the high-level conference on world food security: The challenges of climate change and bioenergy. 5 June. Rome: FAO.

FAO. 2008b. The state of food insecurity in the world, 2008: High food prices and food security, threats and opportunities. Rome: FAO.

FAO. 2008c. Women and the right to food: International law and State practice. Rome: FAO.

FAO. 2008d. Crop prospects and food situation. Rome: FAO.

FAO. 2008e. Number of hungry people rises to 963 million. News Release. 9 December. Rome: FAO.

FAO. 2009a. More people than ever are victims of hunger. News Release. 15 June. Rome: FAO.

FAO. 2009b. The state of food insecurity in the world, 2009: Economic crises, impacts and lessons learned. Rome: FAO.

FAO. 2009c. Reform of the Committee on World Food Security. Final Version. 14-17 October 2009. Rome: FAO.

FAO. 2009d. Declaration of the World Summit on Food Security. 16-18 November 2009. Rome: FAO.

Golay, C. 2008. La crise alimentaire mondiale et le droit à l’alimentation. Geneva: CETIM.

Golay, C. 2009a. Droit à l’alimentation et accès à la justice. PhD dissertation in international relations (international law), University of Geneva: Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies.

Golay, C. 2009b. Les droits des paysans. Geneva: CETIM.

Golay, C. 2009c. Droit à l’alimentation et accès à la justice: exemples au niveaux national, régional et international. Rome: FAO.

Grain. 2008. Main basse sur les terres agricoles en pleine crise alimentaire et financière. Barcelona: Grain.

HRC (Human Rights Council). 2008a. Report of the Human Rights Council on its seventh special session. A/HRC/S-7/2.

HRC. 2008b. Building resilience: A human rights framework for world food and nutrition security. Report by O. de Schutter, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food. A/HRC/9/23.

HRC. 2009a. Preliminary report to the drafting group of the Human Rights Council Advisory Committee on the Right to Food. Working Paper by Jean Ziegler submitted to the Advisory Committee. A/HRC/AC/2/CRP.2. http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/advisorycommittee/session2/docs/A.HRC.AC.2.CRP.2.doc

HRC. 2009b. Advisory Committee. Peasant farmers and the right to food: A history of discrimination and exploitation. Working Paper by Jean Ziegler submitted to the Advisory Committee. A/HRC/AC/3/CRP.5. http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/advisorycommittee/A.HRC.AC.3.CRP.5.pdf

HRC. 2009c. Crisis into opportunity: Reinforcing multilateralism. Report by O. de Schutter, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food. A/HRC/12/31. http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/12session/A-HRC-12-31.pdf

Jonsson, U. 1988. The socio-economic causes of hunger. In Food as a human right, eds. A. Eide, W. Barth Eide, S. Goonatilake, J. Gussow, and J. Omawale, 28-35. Singapore: United Nations University.

Kracht, U. 2005. Whose right to food? Vulnerable groups and the hungry poor. In Food and human rights in development: Legal and institutional dimensions and selected topics, eds. W. Barth Eide, and U. Kracht, 119-139. Antwerp and Oxford: Intersentia.

Mitchell, D. 2008. A note on rising food prices. World Bank Policy Research Working Paper. July.

Oxfam. 2008. Double-edged prices, lessons from the food price crisis: 10 actions developing countries should take. Oxfam Briefing Paper 121.

Oxfam. 2009. Investing in poor farmers pays: Rethinking how to invest in agriculture. Oxfam Briefing Paper 129.

Parmentier, B. 2009. Nourrir l’humanité: les grands problèmes de l’agriculture mondiale du xxie siècle. Paris: La Découverte.

Sen, A. 1981. Poverty and famines: An essay on entitlement and deprivation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Sen, A. 2001. Food security and entitlement. Politica Internazionale, 3-4 (May-August): 19-25.

UN General Assembly. 2000. United Nations Millennium Declaration. A/RES/55/2.

UN General Assembly. 2007. Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food. A/62/289. http://www.righttofood.org/new/PDF/A62289.pdf

UN General Assembly. 2008. Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food. A/63/278.

UN Millennium Project Task Force on Hunger. 2005. Halving hunger: It can be done. London: Earthscan.

UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Fund). 1998. The state of the world’s children, 1998. Geneva: UNICEF.

Van Braun, J. 2008. Rising food prices: What should be done? IFPRI Policy Brief. April. Washington: International Food Policy Research Institute.

Wolf, E., and M. Baumann. 2008. Solutions pour sortir de la crise alimentaire. Lausanne: Swiss Catholic Lenten Fund and Bread for All.

World Bank. 2008. Rising food prices: Policy options and World Bank response. Washington: World Bank.

Ziegler, J. 2001. Schizophrénie des Nations Unies. Le Monde diplomatique, November.

AGRA (Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa): http://www.agra-alliance.org

Campaign in Switzerland on the right to food: http://www.droitalimentation.ch

De Schutter, O., UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food: http://www.srfood.org

FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) website on the right to food: http://www.fao.org/righttofood

Global Programme on Food Security: http://www.sdc.admin.ch/fr/Accueil/La_DDC/Organisation/Cooperation_globale/Programme_global_Securite_alimentaire

IFPRI (International Food Policy Research Institute): http://www.ifpri.org

Via Campesina: http://www.viacampesina.org

Ziegler, J.: http://www.righttofood.org

1  Paragraph 7 of the Rome Declaration on World Food Security and paragraph 7 of the World Food Summit Plan of Action (FAO 1996). http://www.fao.org/docrep/003/FAFA/w3613e00.HTM .

2  See J. Ziegler’s field reports on Brazil, India and Bangladesh available at: http://www.righttofood.org .

3  J. De Castro (1952), Chairman of the FAO Executive Committee from 1952 to 1956, was among the first to show that chronic undernourishment was to be attributed not to the climate but to political, economic and social factors.

4  The most recent FAO statistics can be consulted at: http://www.fao.org/worldfoodsituation/FoodPricesIndex/en/ .

6  J. Ziegler fielded the idea of a moratorium in his report to the UN General Assembly in October 2007 (UN General Assembly 2007, 8-17). Several experts supported it (Eide 2008).

7  Information about the High-Level Task Force on the Global Food Security Crisis can be found at: http://www.un.org/issues/food/taskforce/ .

11  HRC, The negative impact of the worsening of the world food crisis on the realisation of the right to food for all , A/HRC/S-7/1, is included in HRC (2008a, 3-5).

14  G-8, L’Aquila joint statement on global food security , 10 July 2009. For information on this summit see http://www.g8italia2009.it .

17  For more information about this programme see: http://www.ddc.admin.ch/fr/Accueil/La_DDC/Organisation/Cooperation_globale/Programme_global_Securite_alimentaire .

19  See: http://www.fian.org/resources/documents/others/the-world-doesnt-need-more-of-the-same-medicine/pdf .

20  In Switzerland, for example, Swiss Catholic Lenten Fund and Bread for All have launched a three-year campaign on the right to food with as its focus: in 2008 the need for public policies, in 2009 the impact of climate change, in 2010 the impact of trade. Information on this campaign can be found at: http://www.droitalimentation.ch .

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Cite this article, bibliographical reference.

Christophe Golay , “The Food Crisis and Food Security: Towards a New World Food Order?” ,  International Development Policy | Revue internationale de politique de développement , 1 | 2010, 215-232.

Electronic reference

Christophe Golay , “The Food Crisis and Food Security: Towards a New World Food Order?” ,  International Development Policy | Revue internationale de politique de développement [Online], 1 | 2010, Online since 11 March 2010 , connection on 21 May 2024 . URL : http://journals.openedition.org/poldev/145; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/poldev.145

About the author

Christophe golay.

Joint Coordinator of the Project on Economic, Social and Cultural rights at the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights; Visiting Lecturer at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva; from November 2001 to April 2008 he was Legal Adviser to the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food.

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Global food crisis: what you need to know in 2023

The global food crisis is affecting millions of people around the world.

In 2023, record levels of acute food insecurity persist due to protracted food crises and new shocks. In 48 countries, 238 million people are facing high levels of acute food insecurity – 10% more than in 2022.

How is the EU reacting to this alarming trend? What are the main drivers of these crises and the countries affected?

21.6 million more people face high level of acute insecurity than in 2022

According to the Mid-Year Update of the Global Report on Food Crises , there are currently at least 238 million acutely food insecure people around the world, with a 10% increase on the 2022 figure.

How is the EU helping?

The EU is at the forefront of fighting global hunger. The European Commission is a member of the Food Assistance Convention and commits to providing a minimum of €350 million annually to alleviate food insecurity.

In 2022, the EU largely exceeded this commitment already allocating approximately €1 billion for humanitarian food assistance and nutrition, which accounted for more than 1/3 of the EU’s total humanitarian budget.

• EU humanitarian food assistance
• EU humanitarian nutrition assistance

In 2023, the main drivers were conflict/insecurity, economic shocks, and weather extremes

The drivers of food crises are interlinked and mutually reinforcing. Food insecurity is caused by a combination of factors that feed off each other and by the interaction between hazards and people specific vulnerabilities.

The main drivers are:

• Conflict: it remains the main driver of food insecurity in 2023. Conflict disrupts income sources and hinders food access due to market disruptions, leading to price spikes and food shortages. In addition, it affects the delivery of humanitarian aid, and warring  parties intentionally deny access to food as a weapon of war.
• Economic shocks : they are a prominent driver of hunger, exacerbated by repercussions of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The economic resilience of poor countries has dramatically decreased, and they now face extended recovery periods and less ability to cope with future shocks.
• Weather extremes:  droughts, floods, dry spells, storms, cyclones, hurricanes, typhoons, or the untimely start of rainy seasons remain key drivers of food insecurity. They directly impact crops and livestock, disrupt transportation routes, and hinder market stocking. Many countries are still recovering from the prolonged effects of droughts or floods.

Some 8.6 million people in Sudan are facing high levels of acute food insecurity

Since the start of the conflict in April 2023, acute food insecurity in Sudan has strongly increased, further worsening an already alarming nutrition crisis .

Prior to conflict, food insecurity was at the highest levels in a decade, with 11.7 million people (1/4 of the population) facing acute hunger. Sudan had one of the highest numbers of people in the emergency level of food insecurity ( IPC4 ), with 3.1 million people affected.

According to the Mid-Year Update of the Global Report on Food Crises, due to the conflict, an additional 8.6 million people in the Sudan are facing high levels of acute food insecurity.

This is a 74% increase since the 2022 peak, bringing the total to 20.3 million people (42% of the population) in IPC Phase 3 or above during July-September 2023.

The humanitarian crisis is exacerbated by both the absence of humanitarian assistance in the area and the frequent theft of humanitarian supplies.

For this reason, EU stepped up its humanitarian assistance and delivered around 400 tonnes of humanitarian supplies through 6 air bridge flights to Sudan and 5 air bridge flights to Chad between May and October.

In Chad, particularly, returnees concentrated spontaneously in locations near the border lacking essential commodities and services, including food, according to the International Organization for Migration.

The EU tries to meet the needs of the ever-increasing number of displaced people, refugees, and Chadians fleeing the conflict in neighbouring Sudan, as well as the needs of the host communities welcoming them, and has mobilised over €18.6 million so far.

The war in Ukraine continues to create uncertainty in global food markets

The 2023 Mid-Year Update of the Global Report on Food Crises shows that the Ukraine war still impacts on food prices, which are sensitive to any global food supply changes.

For example, the Kakhovka dam breach in June 2023 and the termination of the Black Sea Grain Initiative in July 2023 could decrease the amount of exportable surpluses and the volume of exports. As a result, these factors could impact future global food supplies and the stability of international food prices.

In June, the EU and its humanitarian partner WFP delivered thousands of life-saving food rations to people affected by the Nova Kakhovka catastrophe.

• A disaster in photos: Nova Kakhovka dam breach in Ukraine

To further support humanitarian operations on the ground, the EU has also mobilised an additional €500,000 to address the immediate needs resulting from the destruction of the Kakhovka dam. This comes on top of the €200 million in humanitarian aid already allocated in 2023 for Ukraine.

The withdrawal by Russia from the Black Sea Grain Initiative is also affecting food aid delivery by humanitarian organisations. For instance, Ukraine supplied over half of the wheat procured by the World Food Programme in 2022, and 80% so far in 2023. ( DG ECHO Reports on Food security no.6, September 2023 )

The EU continues to step up its action to mitigate food insecurity

The EU is one of the main donors of humanitarian assistance, including for emergency food and nutrition aid. Since 2010, the EU has been rolling out its humanitarian food-assistance policy and helped more than 100 million people lacking access to sufficient amounts of safe and nutritious food.

In 2022, the EU allocated around €1.1 billion for humanitarian food and nutrition assistance, 90% more than in 2021, and more than twice the amount in 2020.

In 2023, we are working to maintain appropriate levels of food assistance and mobilise additional funds.

The EU provides humanitarian food assistance to victims of food crises worldwide and invests in reducing the risk of famine. Our support is targeted and context-specific, depending on the needs of specific groups, such as children under 5 years old.

A significant part of our food assistance is provided in the form of cash transfers . This is because sometimes there is enough food in shops and markets, but the victims of disasters do not have money to purchase it.

When this happens, the EU prefers helping vulnerable people get access to the food they need by giving them money to buy it. This is often more efficient and effective than shipping sacks of rice or flour across the globe.

Story by Beatrice Molinari , EU Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations.

Publication date: 16/10/2023

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Global food crisis: Let’s move from ‘despair to hope and action’, urges Guterres

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In the face of the growing hunger crisis, the head of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization stressed on Friday, ahead of World Food Day , the need to “harness the power of solidarity and collective action” to build a sustainable world with enough to eat for everyone.

Director-General QU Dongyu led the ceremony at FAO Headquarters in Rome, declaring that with food security worsening, and risk of serious levels of hunger in Asia and Africa at an all-time high, the world must “leave no one behind”.

‘A challenging moment’

In the face of global crises, global solutions are needed more than ever. As individuals, we can play an important role in ensuring that no one is left behind. We must all be the change. Share this thread to help spread the word! #WorldFoodDay https://t.co/VgrbCoP9Pe Food and Agriculture Organization FAO October 14, 2022

Sending a special message to the event, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said it was taking place “at a challenging moment for global food security”.

A staggering three billion people cannot afford a healthy diet; the war in Ukraine has triggered surging food, fertilizer, and energy prices; and the most vulnerable are being battered by the pandemic, climate crisis, environmental degradation, conflict, and deepening inequalities.

“The number of people affected by hunger has more than doubled in the past three years”, he said, adding that “almost a million people are living in famine conditions, with starvation and death a daily reality”.  

Be the change

Referring to this year’s theme, Leave no one behind. Better production, better nutrition, a better environment, and a better life , Mr. Guterres said that farmers need to access reasonably priced fertilizers to ensure enough food next year.

Governments, scientists, and civil society need to work together to make nutritious diets available and affordable for everyone and financial institutions must increase support to developing countries.

“Together, we must move from despair to hope and action” the Secretary-General said. “On World Food Day and every day, I call on you to be part of the change”.

Multiple threats

The commemoration took place at a time when global food security faces multiple threats, pushing food, energy and fertilizer prices sky high amidst climate crisis and long-standing conflicts.

Moreover, the knock-on effect of COVID continues to highlight how interconnected economies and lives have become, as 970,000 people risk famine  in Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen.

FAO’s latest  The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World  report illuminates that hunger worldwide is on the rise.

Raising their voices

A message read on behalf of Pope Francis reminded that people “are not just numbers, data or an endless stream of statistics”.

Alvaro Lario, President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development ( IFAD ) said the day should be a call to ramp up action to “help small-scale farmers in rural areas, who supply food to their communities and countries…despite inequality, vulnerability, and poverty”.

World Food Programme ( WFP ) chief David Beasley described the food availability crisis as his “gravest concern”, saying “the world must open its eyes to this unprecedented global food crisis and act now to stop it spinning out of control”.

Celebrating the day

Events in Rome included an exhibit featuring photos taken from space by European Space Agency astronaut and FAO Goodwill Ambassador Thomas Pesquet, which highlights the climate crisis.

FAO’s first-ever  Achievement Awards were handed out to people whose actions are transforming agrifood systems, and a Junior World Food Day event was held with a host of Food Heroes .

Awareness-raising events on the global fight against hunger will continue to take centre stage in the coming week.

Meanwhile, FAO’s Hand in Hand initiative continues to work to accelerate agrifood system transformation by eradicating poverty , ending hunger , and reducing inequalities .

It aims to promote decent rural employment, foster gender equality, social protection, end child labour, and support rural and Indigenous Peoples - custodians of much of the earth’s biodiversity.

Click here to watch the ceremony.

• eradicate hunger

12.4 Annotated Student Sample: "Healthy Diets from Sustainable Sources Can Save the Earth" by Lily Tran

Learning outcomes.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Analyze how writers use evidence in research writing.
• Analyze the ways a writer incorporates sources into research writing, while retaining their own voice.
• Explain the use of headings as organizational tools in research writing.
• Analyze how writers use evidence to address counterarguments when writing a research essay.

Introduction

In this argumentative research essay for a first-year composition class, student Lily Tran creates a solid, focused argument and supports it with researched evidence. Throughout the essay, she uses this evidence to support cause-and-effect and problem-solution reasoning, make strong appeals, and develop her ethos on the topic.

Living by Their Own Words

Food as change.

public domain text For the human race to have a sustainable future, massive changes in the way food is produced, processed, and distributed are necessary on a global scale. end public domain text

annotated text Purpose. Lily Tran refers to what she sees as the general purpose for writing this paper: the problem of current global practices in food production, processing, and distribution. By presenting the “problem,” she immediately prepares readers for her proposed solution. end annotated text

public domain text The required changes will affect nearly all aspects of life, including not only world hunger but also health and welfare, land use and habitats, water quality and availability, energy use and production, greenhouse gas emissions and climate change, economics, and even cultural and social values. These changes may not be popular, but they are imperative. The human race must turn to sustainable food systems that provide healthy diets with minimal environmental impact—and starting now. end public domain text

annotated text Thesis. Leading up to this clear, declarative thesis statement are key points on which Tran will expand later. In doing this, she presents some foundational evidence that connects the problem to the proposed solution. end annotated text

THE COMING FOOD CRISIS

public domain text The world population has been rising exponentially in modern history. From 1 billion in 1804, it doubled to approximately 2 billion by 1927, then doubled again to approximately 4 billion in 1974. By 2019, it had nearly doubled again, rising to 7.7 billion (“World Population by Year”). It has been projected to reach nearly 10 billion by 2050 (Berners-Lee et al.). At the same time, the average life span also has been increasing. These situations have led to severe stress on the environment, particularly in the demands for food. It has been estimated, for example, that by 2050, milk production will increase 58 percent and meat production 73 percent (Chai et al.). end public domain text

annotated text Evidence. In this first supporting paragraph, Tran uses numerical evidence from several sources. This numerical data as evidence helps establish the projection of population growth. By beginning with such evidence, Tran underscores the severity of the situation. end annotated text

public domain text Theoretically, the planet can produce enough food for everyone, but human activities have endangered this capability through unsustainable practices. Currently, agriculture produces 10–23 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Greenhouse gases—the most common being carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and water vapor— trap heat in the atmosphere, reradiate it, and send it back to Earth again. Heat trapped in the atmosphere is a problem because it causes unnatural global warming as well as air pollution, extreme weather conditions, and respiratory diseases. end public domain text

annotated text Audience. With her audience in mind, Tran briefly explains the problem of greenhouse gases and global warming. end annotated text

public domain text It has been estimated that global greenhouse gas emissions will increase by as much as 150 percent by 2030 (Chai et al.). Transportation also has a negative effect on the environment when foods are shipped around the world. As Joseph Poore of the University of Oxford commented, “It’s essential to be mindful about everything we consume: air-transported fruit and veg can create more greenhouse gas emissions per kilogram than poultry meat, for example” (qtd. in Gray). end public domain text

annotated text Transition. By beginning this paragraph with her own transition of ideas, Tran establishes control over the organization and development of ideas. Thus, she retains her sources as supports and does not allow them to dominate her essay. end annotated text

public domain text Current practices have affected the nutritional value of foods. Concentrated animal-feeding operations, intended to increase production, have had the side effect of decreasing nutritional content in animal protein and increasing saturated fat. One study found that an intensively raised chicken in 2017 contained only one-sixth of the amount of omega-3 fatty acid, an essential nutrient, that was in a chicken in 1970. Today the majority of calories in chicken come from fat rather than protein (World Wildlife Fund). end public domain text

annotated text Example. By focusing on an example (chicken), Tran uses specific research data to develop the nuance of the argument. end annotated text

public domain text Current policies such as government subsidies that divert food to biofuels are counterproductive to the goal of achieving adequate global nutrition. Some trade policies allow “dumping” of below-cost, subsidized foods on developing countries that should instead be enabled to protect their farmers and meet their own nutritional needs (Sierra Club). Too often, agriculture’s objectives are geared toward maximizing quantities produced per acre rather than optimizing output of critical nutritional needs and protection of the environment. end public domain text

AREAS OF CONCERN

Hunger and nutrition.

annotated text Headings and Subheadings. Throughout the essay, Tran has created headings and subheadings to help organize her argument and clarify it for readers. end annotated text

public domain text More than 820 million people around the world do not have enough to eat. At the same time, about a third of all grains and almost two-thirds of all soybeans, maize, and barley crops are fed to animals (Barnard). According to the World Health Organization, 462 million adults are underweight, 47 million children under 5 years of age are underweight for their height, 14.3 million are severely underweight for their height, and 144 million are stunted (“Malnutrition”). About 45 percent of mortality among children under 5 is linked to undernutrition. These deaths occur mainly in low- and middle-income countries where, in stark contrast, the rate of childhood obesity is rising. Globally, 1.9 billion adults and 38.3 million children are overweight or obese (“Obesity”). Undernutrition and obesity can be found in the same household, largely a result of eating energy-dense foods that are high in fat and sugars. The global impact of malnutrition, which includes both undernutrition and obesity, has lasting developmental, economic, social, and medical consequences. end public domain text

public domain text In 2019, Berners-Lee et al. published the results of their quantitative analysis of global and regional food supply. They determined that significant changes are needed on four fronts: end public domain text

Food production must be sufficient, in quantity and quality, to feed the global population without unacceptable environmental impacts. Food distribution must be sufficiently efficient so that a diverse range of foods containing adequate nutrition is available to all, again without unacceptable environmental impacts. Socio-economic conditions must be sufficiently equitable so that all consumers can access the quantity and range of foods needed for a healthy diet. Consumers need to be able to make informed and rational choices so that they consume a healthy and environmentally sustainable diet (10).

annotated text Block Quote. The writer has chosen to present important evidence as a direct quotation, using the correct format for direct quotations longer than four lines. See Section Editing Focus: Integrating Sources and Quotations for more information about block quotes. end annotated text

public domain text Among their findings, they singled out, in particular, the practice of using human-edible crops to produce meat, dairy, and fish for the human table. Currently 34 percent of human-edible crops are fed to animals, a practice that reduces calorie and protein supplies. They state in their report, “If society continues on a ‘business-as-usual’ dietary trajectory, a 119% increase in edible crops grown will be required by 2050” (1). Future food production and distribution must be transformed into systems that are nutritionally adequate, environmentally sound, and economically affordable. end public domain text

Land and Water Use

public domain text Agriculture occupies 40 percent of Earth’s ice-free land mass (Barnard). While the net area used for producing food has been fairly constant since the mid-20th century, the locations have shifted significantly. Temperate regions of North America, Europe, and Russia have lost agricultural land to other uses, while in the tropics, agricultural land has expanded, mainly as a result of clearing forests and burning biomass (Willett et al.). Seventy percent of the rainforest that has been cut down is being used to graze livestock (Münter). Agricultural use of water is of critical concern both quantitatively and qualitatively. Agriculture accounts for about 70 percent of freshwater use, making it “the world’s largest water-consuming sector” (Barnard). Meat, dairy, and egg production causes water pollution, as liquid wastes flow into rivers and to the ocean (World Wildlife Fund and Knorr Foods). According to the Hertwich et al., “the impacts related to these activities are unlikely to be reduced, but rather enhanced, in a business-as-usual scenario for the future” (13). end public domain text

annotated text Statistical Data. To develop her points related to land and water use, Tran presents specific statistical data throughout this section. Notice that she has chosen only the needed words of these key points to ensure that she controls the development of the supporting point and does not overuse borrowed source material. end annotated text

annotated text Defining Terms. Aware of her audience, Tran defines monocropping , a term that may be unfamiliar. end annotated text

public domain text Earth’s resources and ability to absorb pollution are limited, and many current agricultural practices undermine these capacities. Among these unsustainable practices are monocropping [growing a single crop year after year on the same land], concentrated animal-feeding operations, and overdependence on manufactured pesticides and fertilizers (Hamilton). Such practices deplete the soil, dramatically increase energy use, reduce pollinator populations, and lead to the collapse of resource supplies. One study found that producing one gram of beef for human consumption requires 42 times more land, 2 times more water, and 4 times more nitrogen than staple crops. It also creates 3 times more greenhouse gas emissions (Chai et al.). The EAT– Lancet Commission calls for “halting expansion of new agricultural land at the expense of natural ecosystems . . . strict protections on intact ecosystems, suspending concessions for logging in protected areas, or conversion of remaining intact ecosystems, particularly peatlands and forest areas” (Willett et al. 481). The Commission also calls for land-use zoning, regulations prohibiting land clearing, and incentives for protecting natural areas, including forests. end public domain text

annotated text Synthesis. The paragraphs above and below this comment show how Tran has synthesized content from several sources to help establish and reinforce key supports of her essay . end annotated text

Greenhouse Gas and Climate Change

public domain text Climate change is heavily affected by two factors: greenhouse gas emissions and carbon sequestration. In nature, the two remain in balance; for example, most animals exhale carbon dioxide, and most plants capture carbon dioxide. Carbon is also captured, or sequestered, by soil and water, especially oceans, in what are called “sinks.” Human activities have skewed this balance over the past two centuries. The shift in land use, which exploits land, water, and fossil energy, has caused increased greenhouse-gas emissions, which in turn accelerate climate change. end public domain text

public domain text Global food systems are threatened by climate change because farmers depend on relatively stable climate systems to plan for production and harvest. Yet food production is responsible for up to 30 percent of greenhouse gas emissions (Barnard). While soil can be a highly effective means of carbon sequestration, agricultural soils have lost much of their effectiveness from overgrazing, erosion, overuse of chemical fertilizer, and excess tilling. Hamilton reports that the world’s cultivated and grazed soils have lost 50 to 70 percent of their ability to accumulate and store carbon. As a result, “billions of tons of carbon have been released into the atmosphere.” end public domain text

annotated text Direct Quotation and Paraphrase. While Tran has paraphrased some content of this source borrowing, because of the specificity and impact of the number— “billions of tons of carbon”—she has chosen to use the author’s original words. As she has done elsewhere in the essay, she has indicated these as directly borrowed words by placing them within quotation marks. See Section 12.5 for more about paraphrasing. end annotated text

public domain text While carbon sequestration has been falling, greenhouse gas emissions have been increasing as a result of the production, transport, processing, storage, waste disposal, and other life stages of food production. Agriculture alone is responsible for fully 10 to 12 percent of global emissions, and that figure is estimated to rise by up to 150 percent of current levels by 2030 (Chai et al.). Münter reports that “more greenhouse gas emissions are produced by growing livestock for meat than all the planes, trains, ships, cars, trucks, and all forms of fossil fuel-based transportation combined” (5). Additional greenhouse gases, methane and nitrous oxide, are produced by the decomposition of organic wastes. Methane has 25 times and nitrous oxide has nearly 300 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide (Curnow). Agricultural and food production systems must be reformed to shift agriculture from greenhouse gas source to sink. end public domain text

Social and Cultural Values

public domain text As the Sierra Club has pointed out, agriculture is inherently cultural: all systems of food production have “the capacity to generate . . . economic benefits and ecological capital” as well as “a sense of meaning and connection to natural resources.” Yet this connection is more evident in some cultures and less so in others. Wealthy countries built on a consumer culture emphasize excess consumption. One result of this attitude is that in 2014, Americans discarded the equivalent of $165 billion worth of food. Much of this waste ended up rotting in landfills, comprised the single largest component of U.S. municipal solid waste, and contributed a substantial portion of U.S. methane emissions (Sierra Club). In low- and middle-income countries, food waste tends to occur in early production stages because of poor scheduling of harvests, improper handling of produce, or lack of market access (Willett et al.). The recent “America First” philosophy has encouraged prioritizing the economic welfare of one nation to the detriment of global welfare and sustainability. end public domain text

annotated text Synthesis and Response to Claims. Here, as in subsequent sections, while still relying heavily on facts and content from borrowed sources, Tran provides her synthesized understanding of the information by responding to key points. end annotated text

public domain text In response to claims that a vegetarian diet is a necessary component of sustainable food production and consumption, Lusk and Norwood determined the importance of meat in a consumer’s diet. Their study indicated that meat is the most valuable food category to consumers, and “humans derive great pleasure from consuming beef, pork, and poultry” (120). Currently only 4 percent of Americans are vegetarians, and it would be difficult to convince consumers to change their eating habits. Purdy adds “there’s the issue of philosophy. A lot of vegans aren’t in the business of avoiding animal products for the sake of land sustainability. Many would prefer to just leave animal husbandry out of food altogether.” end public domain text

public domain text At the same time, consumers expect ready availability of the foods they desire, regardless of health implications or sustainability of sources. Unhealthy and unsustainable foods are heavily marketed. Out-of-season produce is imported year-round, increasing carbon emissions from air transportation. Highly processed and packaged convenience foods are nutritionally inferior and waste both energy and packaging materials. Serving sizes are larger than necessary, contributing to overconsumption and obesity. Snack food vending machines are ubiquitous in schools and public buildings. What is needed is a widespread attitude shift toward reducing waste, choosing local fruits and vegetables that are in season, and paying attention to how foods are grown and transported. end public domain text

annotated text Thesis Restated. Restating her thesis, Tran ends this section by advocating for a change in attitude to bring about sustainability. end annotated text

DISSENTING OPINIONS

annotated text Counterclaims . Tran uses equally strong research to present the counterargument. Presenting both sides by addressing objections is important in constructing a clear, well-reasoned argument. Writers should use as much rigor in finding research-based evidence to counter the opposition as they do to develop their argument. end annotated text

public domain text Transformation of the food production system faces resistance for a number of reasons, most of which dispute the need for plant-based diets. Historically, meat has been considered integral to athletes’ diets and thus has caused many consumers to believe meat is necessary for a healthy diet. Lynch et al. examined the impact of plant-based diets on human physical health, environmental sustainability, and exercise performance capacity. The results show “it is unlikely that plant-based diets provide advantages, but do not suffer from disadvantages, compared to omnivorous diets for strength, anaerobic, or aerobic exercise performance” (1). end public domain text

public domain text A second objection addresses the claim that land use for animal-based food production contributes to pollution and greenhouse gas emissions and is inefficient in terms of nutrient delivery. Berners-Lee et al. point out that animal nutrition from grass, pasture, and silage comes partially from land that cannot be used for other purposes, such as producing food directly edible by humans or for other ecosystem services such as biofuel production. Consequently, nutritional losses from such land use do not fully translate into losses of human-available nutrients (3). end public domain text

annotated text Paraphrase. Tran has paraphrased the information as support. Though she still cites the source, she has changed the words to her own, most likely to condense a larger amount of original text or to make it more accessible. end annotated text

public domain text While this objection may be correct, it does not address the fact that natural carbon sinks are being destroyed to increase agricultural land and, therefore, increase greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere. end public domain text

public domain text Another significant dissenting opinion is that transforming food production will place hardships on farmers and others employed in the food industry. Farmers and ranchers make a major investment in their own operations. At the same time, they support jobs in related industries, as consumers of farm machinery, customers at local businesses, and suppliers for other industries such as food processing (Schulz). Sparks reports that “livestock farmers are being unfairly ‘demonized’ by vegans and environmental advocates” and argues that while farming includes both costs and benefits, the costs receive much more attention than the benefits. end public domain text

FUTURE GENERATIONS

public domain text The EAT– Lancet Commission calls for a transformation in the global food system, implementing different core processes and feedback. This transformation will not happen unless there is “widespread, multi-sector, multilevel action to change what food is eaten, how it is produced, and its effects on the environment and health, while providing healthy diets for the global population” (Willett et al. 476). System changes will require global efforts coordinated across all levels and will require governments, the private sector, and civil society to share a common vision and goals. Scientific modeling indicates 10 billion people could indeed be fed a healthy and sustainable diet. end public domain text

annotated text Conclusion. While still using research-based sources as evidence in the concluding section, Tran finishes with her own words, restating her thesis. end annotated text

public domain text For the human race to have a sustainable future, massive changes in the way food is produced, processed, and distributed are necessary on a global scale. The required changes will affect nearly all aspects of life, including not only world hunger but also health and welfare, land use and habitats, water quality and availability, energy use and production, greenhouse gas emissions and climate change, economics, and even cultural and social values. These changes may not be popular, but they are imperative. They are also achievable. The human race must turn to sustainable food systems that provide healthy diets with minimal environmental impact, starting now. end public domain text

annotated text Sources. Note two important aspects of the sources chosen: 1) They represent a range of perspectives, and 2) They are all quite current. When exploring a contemporary topic, it is important to avoid research that is out of date. end annotated text

Works Cited

Barnard, Neal. “How Eating More Plants Can Save Lives and the Planet.” Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine , 24 Jan. 2019, www.pcrm.org/news/blog/how-eating-more-plants-can-save-lives-and-planet. Accessed 6 Dec. 2020.

Berners-Lee, M., et al. “Current Global Food Production Is Sufficient to Meet Human Nutritional Needs in 2050 Provided There Is Radical Societal Adaptation.” Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene , vol. 6, no. 52, 2018, doi:10.1525/elementa.310. Accessed 7 Dec. 2020.

Chai, Bingli Clark, et al. “Which Diet Has the Least Environmental Impact on Our Planet? A Systematic Review of Vegan, Vegetarian and Omnivorous Diets.” Sustainability , vol. 11, no. 15, 2019, doi: underline 10.3390/su11154110 end underline . Accessed 6 Dec. 2020.

Curnow, Mandy. “Managing Manure to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions.” Government of Western Australia, Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development, 2 Nov. 2020, www.agric.wa.gov.au/climate-change/managing-manure-reduce-greenhouse-gas-emissions. Accessed 9 Dec. 2020.

Gray, Richard. “Why the Vegan Diet Is Not Always Green.” BBC , 13 Feb. 2020, www.bbc.com/future/article/20200211-why-the-vegan-diet-is-not-always-green. Accessed 6 Dec. 2020.

Hamilton, Bruce. “Food and Our Climate.” Sierra Club, 2014, www.sierraclub.org/compass/2014/10/food-and-our-climate. Accessed 6 Dec. 2020.

Hertwich. Edgar G., et al. Assessing the Environmental Impacts of Consumption and Production. United Nations Environment Programme, 2010, www.resourcepanel.org/reports/assessing-environmental-impacts-consumption-and-production.

Lusk, Jayson L., and F. Bailey Norwood. “Some Economic Benefits and Costs of Vegetarianism.” Agricultural and Resource Economics Review , vol. 38, no. 2, 2009, pp. 109-24, doi: 10.1017/S1068280500003142. Accessed 6 Dec. 2020.

Lynch Heidi, et al. “Plant-Based Diets: Considerations for Environmental Impact, Protein Quality, and Exercise Performance.” Nutrients, vol. 10, no. 12, 2018, doi:10.3390/nu10121841. Accessed 6 Dec. 2020.

Münter, Leilani. “Why a Plant-Based Diet Will Save the World.” Health and the Environment. Disruptive Women in Health Care & the United States Environmental Protection Agency, 2012, archive.epa.gov/womenandgirls/web/pdf/1016healththeenvironmentebook.pdf.

Purdy, Chase. “Being Vegan Isn’t as Good for Humanity as You Think.” Quartz , 4 Aug. 2016, qz.com/749443/being-vegan-isnt-as-environmentally-friendly-as-you-think/. Accessed 7 Dec. 2020.

Schulz, Lee. “Would a Sudden Loss of the Meat and Dairy Industry, and All the Ripple Effects, Destroy the Economy?” Iowa State U Department of Economics, www.econ.iastate.edu/node/691. Accessed 6 Dec. 2020.

Sierra Club. “Agriculture and Food.” Sierra Club, 28 Feb. 2015, www.sierraclub.org/policy/agriculture/food. Accessed 6 Dec. 2020.

Sparks, Hannah. “Veganism Won’t Save the World from Environmental Ruin, Researchers Warn.” New York Post , 29 Nov. 2019, nypost.com/2019/11/29/veganism-wont-save-the-world-from-environmental-ruin-researchers-warn/. Accessed 6 Dec. 2020.

Willett, Walter, et al. “Food in the Anthropocene: The EAT– Lancet Commission on Healthy Diets from Sustainable Food Systems.” The Lancet, vol. 393, no. 10170, 2019. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(18)31788-4. Accessed 6 Dec. 2020.

World Health Organization. “Malnutrition.” World Health Organization, 1 Apr. 2020, www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/malnutrition. Accessed 8 Dec. 2020.

World Health Organization. “Obesity and Overweight.” World Health Organization, 1 Apr. 2020, www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/obesity-and-overweight. Accessed 8 Dec. 2020.

World Wildlife Fund. Appetite for Destruction: Summary Report. World Wildlife Fund, 2017, www.wwf.org.uk/sites/default/files/2017-10/WWF_AppetiteForDestruction_Summary_Report_SignOff.pdf.

World Wildlife Fund and Knorr Foods. Future Fifty Foods. World Wildlife Fund, 2019, www.wwf.org.uk/sites/default/files/2019-02/Knorr_Future_50_Report_FINAL_Online.pdf.

“World Population by Year.” Worldometer , www.worldometers.info/world-population/world-population-by-year/. Accessed 8 Dec. 2020.

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Food Security Crisis Resolution Essay

Introduction, global governance, importance and aids by global governance, works cited.

Food is one of the fundamental needs of human. Food security is the ability to access food by those who need it. Every household is termed as secured food wise if it has access to safe and enough food hence freedom from hunger. The World Food Organization describes this security as access to nutritious, safe and sufficient food to cater for the basic human desires.

The rapid increase of population all over the world is the major result for food insecurity (Harman 18). To ensure the situation does not run out of hand, the global body Food and Agricultural Organization has been at the forefront since time immemorial to cater for issues related to this basic human need. Central to this organization is governance. This can ensure that even if there is increased population, there can be enough resources or produce to cater for the increase and even shortages.

Food security has become a complex task to achieve with the development of globalization. Initially the main focus of the governing body was on agriculture. This ensured carefully monitoring of production and even the surplus that are stored. Today, different issues of concern have cropped up. These are in terms of food processing, food distribution and food consumption. Governance of food security has become challenging with the forms of contradictory policies that exist.

Most third world countries have weak connections with the global governance (Harman 18). These countries are always the worst hit groups when there is hunger breakout. On the other hand America and most of its environs have high influence in the global governance. Their exports have greatly increased while other third world countries exports have reduced. These countries used to export in a massive way but have since declined in production.

These countries are not promising at all. Therefore they have less influence of the global investment kitties. One will find that those countries that are stable in terms of agricultural production and are also doing great in the processing have much attraction to investment and are therefore considered a priority by the governing bodies

Several methods have been employed to cater for increasing cases of food insecurity. One of these methods is research. The cases of reduced land for tenure have been the main cause of low agricultural production. Currently, researchers have introduced novel ways of producing crops.

This has been aided greatly by biotechnology. This new research concept has enabled the production of crops that can resist adverse conditions. In addition, other crops can also do well in green houses. Unfortunately, other countries cannot afford this. Although global governance has given out these good options, some countries cannot afford. This is because their government cannot afford the finances in one way or another (Harman 18). This paints a bad picture of the governance while it is evident that it is not their fault.

Other forms of governance that would improve food security include Rule of law, internal peace, improvement of infrastructure from rural areas and support from the government for research. These proposals are best when employed on the ground. Developed countries have already put these practices in place and are ahead. There have been problems caused by global warming and other related disaster but this has been solved by having alternative methods. This does not mean that the conventional methods have been neglected.

Adoption measures have been for the purpose of bridging the gap between production and consumption. There is need for all countries to be stakeholders of global food programmes and government. This will ensure that there is a legitimate process for handling problems and also providing solutions for future activities. Unfortunately, the developing countries do not take part in the same footing. This therefore calls for a better government that will have honor for legitimate, political and democratic process.

Current Global Economic Situation

This is an economy which comprises all the economies of the world. The issue of globalization brought a great revolution in the economy of the world. This revolution comprised of merging of trade markets, free trade in international stock markets and many more. Initially, this impacted nations in a positive way (Harman 18). There was expansion of markets and industries, creation of employment opportunities for both the young and old the people and a paradigm shift from job search to creation of jobs. More so was the issue of innovation that brought about great investment both in foreign and indigenous countries.

Developed and developing countries have had different effects due to the dynamic global economy. Currently, the economy is at its worst. The economic metrics stand at a free fall at the moment. Some are quite rapid that it has become so scary. The situation has continued to deepen day by day from banks bail out to individual country bail outs.

Central to this crisis is the unavailability of basic commodities such as food. In addition, oil prices have posed the hardest hit to most countries. The oil crisis was brought about by the unstable situation in Japan and Northern part of America. These unrests led to reduced production of oil from the main oil producing countries such as Libya. The rising oil prices have been due to the scarce in the commodity or the raw material. This crisis has also translated to the current energy crisis

On the other hand is food crisis. This has also arisen due to globalization of the economy. Increased industries led to the deterioration of the environment. This consequently led to global warming. Global warming has had a great impact on Agriculture. The climate of the globe has changed tremendously towards the negative. This has contributed to the accumulation of greenhouse gases hence global warming.

Therefore the climate has changed affecting the agricultural activities. This has directly affected food prices mostly for people living in poor countries and the Asian community. This has since resulted in high increase in food prices. For instance, in Asia the food prices have increased to 10%. This has affected about sixty five million people in the country.

Another factor that has put the current economy at risk is the weakening of the Dollar. This has led to the rapid rise in market prices. The American people have huge debts to pay hence this has greatly affected their economy and even the grand global economy. Goods traded across the global market are as expensive as has never been experienced before.

The most affected are the developing countries which have to add an extra coin to get goods across the global market. There has been cumulative unemployment for fresh college students in both developing and developed nations. Also there has been a rebound in the trade globally. In 2010 the increase in trade was about 12% which was positive.

Resolution for the Crisis

The main resolution strategy to the current economic crisis is the issue of changing policies. This can be achieved by using neutral bodies that can help save the matter starting with the matters that are of priorities. First of all the weakening of the Dollar is one crisis that should be resolved. It actually affects the global markets and hence touches every part of the world. The crisis in the economic sector unfortunately combines almost all international affairs from trade, agriculture, social status, political status and many more affairs.

This then means that there is need to restructure the financial operations. As mentioned above, a policy reform is the ways to go. International organizations dealing with specific global issues should sit down and allow room for policy interventions that will be able to advocate for the independence of countries in terms of control of each country resources (Pacula etal., 276).

For instance, every country should have the sovereign authority to strategize on self sufficiency. That is, every country should have the capacity to state their productivity, consumption and even surplus without being influenced externally. Central regulation has proven to lack transparency hence failure in the part of governance.

The issue of central control can be avoided by having each country regulate their resources and present what they have to the international organizations. This does not mean that the mandates of these international organizations are being neglected but it means that the essence of external interventions is nullified.

Another critical sector that needs quick salvaging is the financial sector. There are policies that were imposed by the World health organization, World Bank, international Monetary Fund and the regional and bilateral trade (Pacula etal., 276).

These policies have tremendously caused the current financial crisis that has been predicted to last for about two years before it picks up in a steady state. It is speculated that the years 2012 and 2013 will be bad years for more so the developed countries. Controls such as the forced quotas, regulated market prizes, control of imports should be solely left within the agreements by countries.

In the case of finances, the issue of financial literacy needs to be worked out. The current crisis means that there has been inefficiency in management of money matters. It there was a well sophisticated system able to work out the financial problem and even speculate the trends in an actual way then the issue of global crisis could not be a pandemic at the moment. For example, the issue of high mortgage ownership in developed countries has led to the banks running in huge debts hence a need for bailouts.

If there were plans put in place to train the consumers who were taking credits then there would not be the issue of debt default. This would mean that the consumers would be aware of the steps they are taking and would only participate in taking debts that they are able to clear. This can also translate in the global credit acquisition by countries. There have been increasing complexities in the financial markets both in individual countries and globally. Having financial literacy would solve the issue of this crisis.

Approach to Crisis Resolution

Fortunately, these approaches are underway as there have been non partisan groups that are lobbying for reforms and policy change in international organizations. Having and ear for the cry of these lobbyists will be a good step taken by the developed countries and even the international organization in working out the crisis. Therefore, to have success, there should be great interest by these organizations and countries to take part in reforms especially on the issue of financial education which is very important.

Harman, Chris. “Financial and Economic Crisis”. The Guardian Weekly 3 Aug. 2007: 18. Print.

Pacula etal. “Politics of the United Nations”. Journal of Political Economy . 95.2 (2006): 107-300. Print.

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IvyPanda . "Food Security Crisis Resolution." May 20, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/food-security-essay/.

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Essay on world food crisis (with diagrams and tables).

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Essay on World Food Crisis!

Socrates said that the best sauce for food is hunger. Today, as in the age of Socrates, there is no lack of hunger sauce. There is widespread concern about the relationship between population and food supply throughout the world. Numerous actions have been proposed. Jean Mayer, the famed nutritionist, holds that a 10 per cent decrease in meat consumption by Americans would release enough grain to feed 60 million people.

The concern about the relationship between population and the food supply is not new. Sir Thomas Malthus predicted in 1798 that population would continu­ally increase faster than the food supply, causing chronic food shortages. Today, in much of Asia, Africa and Latin America the food problem looms large. The prospect of world famine is held before us with hundreds of millions of people starving.

The world food crisis is caused primarily because of unequal distribution. Enough food is available to provide at least 4.3 pounds of food per person per day world­wide. The problem, therefore, is not of production but clearly of access and dis­tribution.

The average calories available (2807 per person per day) exceed aver­age requirements (2511 per person per day) worldwide. The other reasons of food shortage cited are population explosion and numerous other reasons like war, droughts, floods, earthquakes, and the like.

India has a serious hunger problem which gets worse each day. Only a few years ago, the food situation appeared fairly bright. There was an agricultural boom, with food production doubling from 1950 to 1970. Yields increased, stocks of food were built up, and India produced more food than it consumed as weather and technology contributed to bumper yields in a Green Revolution. Today, however, the hunger problem in India commands the world’s attention.

There are two kinds of food insufficiency:

Undernourishment and Malnutrition. Both of these are global problems.

(1) Undernourishment:

Undernourishment occurs when the body does not consume enough food or enough calories to support its needs. As a result, the body begins to break down its own stored fats and proteins.

Like malnutrition – the result of a diet that is lacking in certain nutrients (such as protein or vitamins) – undernourishment is common in poor countries. Both lead to a reduction in mental and physical efficiency, a lowering of resistance to disease in general, and often to deficiency diseases such as beriberi or anemia. In the developing world, lack of adequate food is a common cause of death.

In 1996, an estimated 195 million children under the age of five were under­nourished in the world. Undernourishment is not just a problem of the develop­ing world only. There were an estimated 12 million children eating inadequately in the USA in 1992. According to UN figures there were 200 million Africans suffering from undernourishment in 1996.

Millions of people, including 6 million children under the age of five, die each year as a result of hunger. Of these millions, relatively few are the victims of Famines. Far more die unnoticed, killed by the effects of chronic hunger and malnutrition, a “covert famine” that stunts their development, saps their strength and cripples their immune systems.

The Fig. 2.5 below shows the scale of undernourishment.

(2) Malnourishment:

Malnourishment is the lack of the minimum amount of fluids, proteins, carbohydrates, lipids, vitamins, minerals and other nutri­ents essential for sound health and growth.

Faulty nutrition may result from poor diet, lack of appetite or abnormal absorption of nutrients from the gastrointestinal tract. Whether in their mildest or most severe form, the consequences of poor nutrition and health result in a reduction in overall well- being and quality of life, and in the levels of development of human potential.

Malnutri­tion can result in productivity and economic losses, as adults afflicted by nutritional and related disorders are unable to work; edu­cation losses, as children are too weakened or sickly to attend school or to learn prop­erly; health care costs of caring for those suf­fering from nutrition-related illnesses; and costs to society of caring for those who are disabled and, in some circumstances, their families as well.

Malnourished children who survive childhood thus face diminished futures as adults with compromised abilities, productivity and health. This loss of human potential is all the more tragic in societies with little economic capac­ity for therapeutic and rehabilitative measures, and has the unfortunate effect 01 worsening their economic plights.

By one reckoning the worldwide loss of social productivity associated with four overlapping types of malnutrition — nutritional stunting and wasting iodine deficiency disorders and deficiencies of iron and vitamin A — amounted to al­most 46 million years of productive, disability-free life.

With an aim to produce more, intensive irrigation involved as part of the agri­cultural technology following the Green Revolution has resulted in soil alkalin­ity and depletion of soil micronutrients. Efforts at correcting this through peri­odic soil testing and soil repletion have been tardy. Depletion of soil iodine is part of this problem and is reflected in the diminished content of iodine in foods and water.

Hunger hotspots:

As of July 2003, 36 countries around the world faced serious food emergencies requiring international food assistance. The causes of these food shortages were varied and complex. All the countries affected in 2003 had experienced food emergencies for at least two consecutive years. Many had been plagued by se­vere food shortages for a decade or longer.

In southern Africa, food production has started to recover from the severe drought that reduced harvests by as much as 50 percent in 2001/2002. But several coun­tries in the region still face severe shortages and all must contend with the long-term impact of the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

Further to the north, pre-famine conditions have been reported in Eritrea and parts of Ethiopia, where crops have withered, livestock are dying from lack of water and grazing, and millions of people need emergency food aid. Several Asian countries have also been fac­ing the effects of harsh weather, including drought and unusually cold snows winters in Mongolia.

Although drought and other natural disasters remain the common causes of food emergencies, an increasing proportion are now human-induced in several countries in Central and West Africa, civil strife has disrupted both food pro­duction and access to food.

Even developments in international commodity markets can trigger food crises in countries that depend heavily on agricultural exports or food imports. The collapse of coffee prices has been a major cause of increased food insecurity in Central America.

Overall, conflict and economic problems were cited as the main cause of more than 35 percent of food emergencies during 1992-2003. The recurrence and per­sistence of emergencies highlights a number of countries that could be consid­ered as “food emergency hotspots”.

Thirty-three countries experienced food emer­gencies during more than half the years of the 17-year period between 1986 and 2003. Many conflict-induced complex emergencies are persistent and turn into long-term crises. Eight countries suffered emergencies during 15 or more years during 1986-2003. War or civil strife was a major factor in all eight.

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World Food Problems

The world produces enough food and agricultural products that are more than sufficient to satisfy the great demand, at least for many decades ahead of it. However, the world is still faced with a serious crisis for food. People worldwide have been affected in one way or another by a shortage of food, especially caused by climate change. The main objective of this essay is to explore the food situation in the world and critically analyze the root causes of food insecurity worldwide and the efforts made to deal with food shortages and issues arising from poor food management.

Current World Food Situation

Currently, the world food situation is being defined by some new driving forces. These include climate change, globalization, urbanization, energy prices, and income growth, as they are responsible for transforming food production, consumption, and markets. According to FAO, there is a possible “food price shock” if the current prices continue to soar. Food shortage and high prices led to riots in more than 30 countries in 2008. The current food situation does not look very promising in several countries, especially caused by floods or droughts (Environment News Service and Maffeo).

The security of food in the world depends on the available food supply, the income of the targeted population, accessibility of food, food consumption rate, as well as the amount that can be stocked for future use. Data from a recent conference show that about nine hundred million people lack enough food and some literary starving, with those malnourished approximated at two billion. There is a call for continuous innovation in the food production industry to meet the rising global demand for food. If the crop area and traditional methods remain the same, then food production will be deficient compared to the needs by 2050. There must be a strategy to increase global food production by about 25% and more to feed nine billion people by 2050 using the same land area.

There has been a decreasing trend of consumer confidence in safety based on consuming foods that have been genetically modified. Extensive legislation meant to monitor marketing tactics since biotechnology became prominent.  This is because of claims that resistant or tolerant genetically modified maize causes many health problems. However, some criticize this claim, arguing that those associating health and environmental problems with GM technology base their claims on poor science. Moreover, the lack of adequate nutrition in large cities has led to the deaths of children from diseases like diarrhea. It also hinders proper brain and body development, which irreversibly limits children’s ability to grow, learn, and become productive adults (Maffeo).

Causes of World Food Problem

The available water currently decreases at an alarming rate. This warns that there will not be enough water on the agricultural land needed to produce enough food to feed the population of 9 billion people by 2050. Also, food prices have skyrocketed in the past few years, making it difficult for average earners to afford a three-course meal. These effects are witnessed in developing countries that rely heavily on imported food, such as North Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. Biotechnology, which has been identified to be a major solution to the food crisis, is also a major cause of the looming problem. Rising demand for protein-heavy food will lead to 505 increases in food demand by 2030 due to supply constraints in developing countries.

Despite laying the blame for health problems on biotechnology, there are also many disadvantages associated with the lack of technology. This can be food loss and waste especially in undeveloped countries which cannot afford the resources to acquire proper or adequate harvesting techniques. The food practices in developing and undeveloped countries show a loss or a waste of almost one-third of food meant for human consumption. It is evident in the U.S. that allowing GM use will benefit massive food production, although public health will be at stake. For instance, GMOs have been relentlessly blamed for $190 billion in medical expenditure for obesity (Maffeo). In addition, the diversion of grains for other purposes, such as biofuel, which is non-food, is on the increase. This reduces both the amount of food and also drives increased price volatility.

Technology in Food Production

Many assumptions that increased agricultural and food production can remedy world food shortages. However, with the introduction of agricultural technology, there is greater production if land and financial resources are available. The latest issue of the American Medical Association (AMA) resolution denies scientific justification for bioengineered food’s special labeling. AMA argues that genetically engineered (GE) species of crops developed from recombinant DNA are not more dangerous than traditional plant crops. This view has been supported by the World Health Organization, European Commission, and Food and Agricultural Organization of the U.N., among many other non-governmental organizations and National Science Academies. In November 2012, Californians will go on the ballot concerning the law to mandate labeling cigarette-like food derived from genetically engineered plants. Proponents demand consumers make informed choices on the food they eat. To drum up support, they promise a technology subject to “Frankenfoods” demagoguery, provoking fear (Sexton).

In 2003, it was declared inquiry by a research academy representing 140 countries that during that time, genetically modified foods (GMOs) were not safe for consumption. California can tolerate only about 0.5% of the genetically modified composition in a GE-free food. With this high standard of purity, farmers will have to incur a greater cost for separate equipment to produce GE plant crops to avoid contamination of other operations that are non-GE. With the high cost of contamination, farmers will stop production of GE crops, discouraging scientists’ efforts in agricultural biotechnology research. If firms in GE’s most aggressive country shelve their potential innovations, which provide life-saving solutions, then there will be diminished consumer choices due to a hike in food prices (Sexton).

Introducing new technologies will only impact the increase of food and agricultural production if appropriate technology evolves within the available framework of agricultural production methods. This is achieved by analyzing the operation of traditional and social institutions and economic systems. Using modern and intensive technologies to maximize yields has one difficulty: There must be imported capital, a very scarce resource in impoverished countries. As a result, despite a registered growth in the produce from agriculture, most of it will be used to pay for the imported capital. Hence, the imported technology is insufficient, but there are costs to be met besides alleviating hunger.

Through technology, a greater volume of food produced leads to food affordability so that the masses can access it and also allow safe consumption of all kinds of food. This is an advantage, especially for remote areas where refrigeration is unimportant. Due to the sale of high-volume production, it is easier to afford processes for food preservation, such as vacuuming. Poor farmers can be helped by providing them with knowledge such as drip irrigation and soil management. This also includes working hard with researchers to provide new seed varieties to improve their yield (Maffeo).

Remedy for World Food Problems

Scientists warn of a catastrophic food shortage unless the world switches to a vegetarian diet. This will involve using technology to increase water supply in a climatically unpredictable world.  Protein-rich foods from animals require a greater amount of water than vegetarian food. International Water Management Institute (IWMI) suggested that farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia invest in their agricultural sector using simple technology and small pumps instead of trying to develop expensive and large-scale irrigation projects (Sexton).

Technology has made an effort to improve the content of nutrients in stable crops, which will help eliminate malnutrition prevalent in developing countries. This technology is meant to produce extreme climate-tolerant field crops supporting life in some of the world’s poorest countries (Sexton). It is time for low-income countries to upscale their production and marketing through proper organization and diversification of their small resources. For developed countries such as the U.S., unable to produce cheap food at higher volumes to meet the food demand, companies produce versions formulated to compensate for this lack (Maffeo).

Innovations in Food Production Technology

The agricultural sector is undergoing a significant transformation, driven by the need to sustainably meet the growing global food demand. Innovations in food production technology are at the forefront of this transformation, offering solutions to increase yield, enhance nutritional value, reduce environmental impact, and improve food security. This chapter explores some of the most promising technological advancements and their potential to reshape the future of food production.

Key Technological Innovations

Precision Agriculture: Utilizes GPS technology, IoT devices, and data analytics to optimize crop yields and reduce waste. This approach allows for precise application of water, fertilizers, and pesticides, enhancing efficiency and sustainability.

Vertical Farming: Involves growing crops in stacked layers, often in controlled environments. This method significantly reduces land use and water consumption and allows for year-round production in urban settings.

CRISPR/Cas9 Gene Editing: Offers a revolutionary approach to crop improvement, allowing for precise genetic modifications to enhance yield, nutritional value, and resilience to pests and climate change.

Aquaponics and Hydroponics: Soil-less farming techniques that combine aquaculture with plant cultivation, using less water and space than traditional farming methods and enabling local food production in non-arable regions.

Artificial Intelligence and Robotics: AI and robotics are being used to automate harvesting, weeding, and planting tasks. These technologies improve efficiency, reduce labor costs, and can operate in challenging conditions for human workers.

Blockchain technology is being applied to enhance transparency and traceability in the food supply chain, ensuring food safety and reducing fraud and waste.

The Impact of Technological Innovations

These innovations are increasing the efficiency and sustainability of food production and making farming more resilient to challenges such as climate change, pests, and diseases. By leveraging technology, farmers can produce more food with fewer resources, reducing agriculture’s environmental footprint and contributing to global food security.

Global Food Security Index

The Global Food Security Index (GFSI) is a comprehensive tool developed to assess the state of food security in countries worldwide. It evaluates the core issues of affordability, availability, quality, and food safety across a spectrum of economies. By analyzing these dimensions, the GFSI provides insights into the vulnerabilities and strengths of global food systems, guiding policymakers, researchers, and stakeholders in the formulation of strategies to improve food security.

Understanding the GFSI

The GFSI is structured around three primary pillars:

Affordability: This pillar measures the ability of consumers to purchase food, the presence of policies that support consumers’ capability to buy food, and the level of price volatility.

Availability: This assesses the sufficiency of the national food supply, the risk of supply disruption, the existence of infrastructure to facilitate food transport, and the presence of policies to promote crop and livestock production.

Quality and Safety: This evaluates the variety and nutritional value of average diets, as well as the safety and wholesomeness of food.

Each of these pillars is critical for understanding the multifaceted nature of food security and provides a basis for targeted interventions to address specific challenges.

Trends and Insights

Analysis of the GFSI reveals several global trends. For instance, countries with strong economies and stable political systems generally score higher on the index, reflecting the importance of economic and political stability in ensuring food security. However, even high-scoring countries face challenges such as obesity, food waste, and the environmental impact of agricultural practices.

In contrast, countries with lower scores often struggle with issues related to economic access to food, agricultural productivity, and infrastructural deficiencies. These insights underscore the need for a holistic approach to food security, encompassing economic development, sustainable agriculture, and equitable food distribution.

The Global Food Security Index offers valuable insights into the complex issue of food security. By dissecting the components of affordability, availability, quality, and safety, the GFSI highlights areas where countries can focus their efforts to improve. It is a call to action for governments, non-governmental organizations, and the private sector to collaborate in addressing the root causes of food insecurity. Achieving global food security requires a concerted, multifaceted approach that simultaneously addresses economic, social, and environmental challenges.

World food problems are as diverse as their solutions. The main causes of these problems are surging population growth, decreasing land for crops, lack of resources and technology sufficient to deal with food deficit, and poor methods of consumption. The problems partly contribute to starvation, poor physical health, and poverty. To curb the current trend of these problems, scientists are working to improve technology and increase food production as well as provide solutions to the negative impacts of poor food management.

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The UK's food poverty crisis

Austerity, Brexit, the Covid-19 pandemic and high inflation have led to one of Europe's worst rates of food insecurity

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A record 3.1 million emergency food parcels have been handed out by a leading UK charity's food banks in just a year, according to latest figures.

Of the food parcels distributed by the Trussell Trust's network of 1,300 food banks in the 12 months until March, more than a million went to children. The total number is "nearly double that of five years ago", said Sky News . 

How bad is Britain's food crisis?

According to the Department for Work and Pensions, the government's cost-of-living support package prevented 1.3 million people falling into poverty in 2022-23. But Alison McGovern, Labour's acting shadow work and pensions secretary, said the "dreadful" emergency good parcel figures "lay bare the reality facing households across the country after 14 years of Tory misery".

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Trussell Trust boss Emma Revie warned that the UK is facing "historically high levels of food bank need". Official food bank use is only part of the picture, with food pantries and other community initiatives on the rise nationwide.

The UK's food poverty level is now among the highest in Europe. Roughly 15% of UK households were experiencing food insecurity in January, according to the Food Foundation . That's equivalent to eight million adults and three million children going hungry or skipping meals because they cannot regularly afford to buy groceries. 

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation reported last year that "exceptionally high food inflation", combined with "inadequate support from Universal Credit", has created a "horrendous new normal", where those on the lowest incomes are being "forced into making impossible choices about how often they eat". 

Experts have warned that high levels of food insecurity among low-income families constitute a "health emergency", driving the recorded rise in hospital admissions for conditions linked to poor nutrition, such as malnutrition and rickets.

Last week MPs heard that schoolchildren were pretending to eat out of empty lunch boxes and eating rubbers, because they do not qualify for free school meals . 

A third of school-age children living in poverty are thought to be falling short of the government-set threshold, according Child Poverty Action Group .

What has caused this? 

There are a number of factors involved including austerity, compounded by Brexit , the Covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent cost-of-living crisis .

In 2019, about 2.2 million people in Britain were "severely food insecure", according to a public health nutrition report in World Nutrition . A decade of government austerity policies after the financial crash of 2008 resulted in "significant reductions in social sector expenditure", leading to the highest reported level of food insecurity in Europe. 

Public health nutrition was reduced to all but essential services and most vulnerable groups, the report found.

But after Covid-19 emerged "on the back of Brexit" in 2020, the UK saw "dramatic and cumulative increases in food poverty and the inability of many to afford adequate food to meet their basic nutritional requirements", Lynne Kennedy, food poverty expert and study co-author, told The Independent in 2022.

By May 2020, job losses and the impact of the pandemic had sent numbers of severely food insecure people rocketing to more than 5 million. 

And the impact of Brexit since then has only compounded the problem. Last year, economists at LSE's independent Centre for Economic Performance concluded that, thanks to border and regulatory checks, Brexit was responsible for about a third of UK food price inflation since 2019.

What can be done?

Some 85 charities and civil society organisations are calling on Rishi Sunak to reverse what they call the "deeply disappointing" decision to postpone a UK visit by the UN inspector on food poverty until after the next general election. 

"We believe now is an opportune time for a country visit by the UN special rapporteur on the right to food," said the open letter , coordinated by the charity Just Fair. 

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Harriet Marsden is a writer for The Week, mostly covering UK and global news and politics. Before joining the site, she was a freelance journalist for seven years, specialising in social affairs, gender equality and culture. She worked for The Guardian, The Times and The Independent, and regularly contributed articles to The Sunday Times, The Telegraph, The New Statesman, Tortoise Media and Metro, as well as appearing on BBC Radio London, Times Radio and “Woman’s Hour”. She has a master’s in international journalism from City University, London, and was awarded the "journalist-at-large" fellowship by the Local Trust charity in 2021. 

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How I learned to stop worrying and love fake meat

Let’s stop inventing reasons to reject cultured meat and other protein alternatives that could dramatically cut climate emissions.

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Fixing our collective meat problem is one of the trickiest challenges in addressing climate change—and for some baffling reason, the world seems intent on making the task even harder.

The latest example occurred last week, when Florida governor Ron DeSantis signed a law banning the production, sale, and transportation of cultured meat across the Sunshine State. 

“Florida is fighting back against the global elite’s plan to force the world to eat meat grown in a petri dish or bugs to achieve their authoritarian goals,” DeSantis seethed in a statement.

Alternative meat and animal products—be they lab-grown or plant-based—offer a far more sustainable path to mass-producing protein than raising animals for milk or slaughter. Yet again and again, politicians, dietitians, and even the press continue to devise ways to portray these products as controversial, suspect, or substandard. No matter how good they taste or how much they might reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, there’s always some new obstacle standing in the way—in this case, Governor DeSantis, wearing a not-at-all-uncomfortable smile.  

The new law clearly has nothing to do with the creeping threat of authoritarianism (though for more on that, do check out his administration’s crusade to ban books about gay penguins). First and foremost it is an act of political pandering, a way to coddle Florida’s sizable cattle industry, which he goes on to mention in the statement.

Cultured meat is seen as a threat to the livestock industry because animals are only minimally involved in its production. Companies grow cells originally extracted from animals in a nutrient broth and then form them into nuggets, patties or fillets. The US Department of Agriculture has already given its blessing to two companies , Upside Foods and Good Meat, to begin selling cultured chicken products to consumers. Israel recently became the first nation to sign off on a beef version.

It’s still hard to say if cultured meat will get good enough and cheap enough anytime soon to meaningfully reduce our dependence on cattle, chicken, pigs, sheep, goats, and other animals for our protein and our dining pleasure. And it’s sure to take years before we can produce it in ways that generate significantly lower emissions than standard livestock practices today.

But there are high hopes it could become a cleaner and less cruel way of producing meat, since it wouldn’t require all the land, food, and energy needed to raise, feed, slaughter, and process animals today. One study found that cultured meat could reduce emissions per kilogram of meat 92% by 2030, even if cattle farming also achieves substantial improvements.

Those sorts of gains are essential if we hope to ease the rising dangers of climate change, because meat, dairy, and cheese production are huge contributors to greenhouse-gas emissions.

DeSantis and politicians in other states that may follow suit, including Alabama and Tennessee, are raising the specter of mandated bug-eating and global-elite string-pulling to turn cultured meat into a cultural issue, and kill the industry in its infancy. 

But, again, it’s always something. I’ve heard a host of other arguments across the political spectrum directed against various alternative protein products, which also include plant-based burgers, cheeses, and milks, or even cricket-derived powders and meal bars . Apparently these meat and dairy alternatives shouldn’t be highly processed, mass-produced, or genetically engineered, nor should they ever be as unhealthy as their animal-based counterparts. 

In effect, we are setting up tests that almost no products can pass, when really all we should ask of alternative proteins is that they be safe, taste good, and cut climate pollution.

The meat of the matter

Here’s the problem. 

Livestock production generates more than 7 billion tons of carbon dioxide, making up 14.5% of the world’s overall climate emissions, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.

Beef, milk, and cheese production are, by far, the biggest problems, representing some 65% of the sector’s emissions. We burn down carbon-dense forests to provide cows with lots of grazing land; then they return the favor by burping up staggering amounts of methane, one of the most powerful greenhouse gases. Florida’s cattle population alone, for example, could generate about 180 million pounds of methane every year, as calculated from standard per-animal emissions . 

In an earlier paper , the World Resources Institute noted that in the average US diet, beef contributed 3% of the calories but almost half the climate pollution from food production. (If you want to take a single action that could meaningfully ease your climate footprint, read that sentence again.)

The added challenge is that the world’s population is both growing and becoming richer, which means more people can afford more meat. 

There are ways to address some of the emissions from livestock production without cultured meat or plant-based burgers, including developing supplements that reduce methane burps and encouraging consumers to simply reduce meat consumption. Even just switching from beef to chicken can make a huge difference .

Let’s clear up one matter, though. I can’t imagine a politician in my lifetime, in the US or most of the world, proposing a ban on meat and expecting to survive the next election. So no, dear reader. No one’s coming for your rib eye. If there’s any attack on personal freedoms and economic liberty here, DeSantis is the one waging it by not allowing Floridians to choose for themselves what they want to eat.

But there is a real problem in need of solving. And the grand hope of companies like Beyond Meat, Upside Foods, Miyoko’s Creamery, and dozens of others is that we can develop meat, milk, and cheese alternatives that are akin to EVs: that is to say, products that are good enough to solve the problem without demanding any sacrifice from consumers or requiring government mandates. (Though subsidies always help.)

The good news is the world is making some real progress in developing substitutes that increasingly taste like, look like, and have (with apologies for the snooty term) the “mouthfeel” of the traditional versions, whether they’ve been developed from animal cells or plants. If they catch on and scale up, it could make a real dent in emissions—with the bonus of reducing animal suffering, environmental damage, and the spillover of animal disease into the human population.

The bad news is we can’t seem to take the wins when we get them. 

The blue cheese blues

For lunch last Friday, I swung by the Butcher’s Son Vegan Delicatessen & Bakery in Berkeley, California, and ordered a vegan Buffalo chicken sandwich with a blue cheese on the side that was developed by Climax Foods , also based in Berkeley.

Late last month, it emerged that the product had, improbably, clinched the cheese category in the blind taste tests of the prestigious Good Food awards, as the Washington Post revealed .

Let’s pause here to note that this is a stunning victory for vegan cheeses, a clear sign that we can use plants to produce top-notch artisanal products, indistinguishable even to the refined palates of expert gourmands. If a product is every bit as tasty and satisfying as the original but can be produced without milking methane-burping animals, that’s a big climate win.

But sadly, that’s not where the story ended.

After word leaked out that the blue cheese was a finalist, if not the winner, the Good Food Foundation seems to have added a rule that didn’t exist when the competition began but which disqualified Climax Blue , the Post reported.

I have no special insights into what unfolded behind the scenes. But it reads at least a little as if the competition concocted an excuse to dethrone a vegan cheese that had bested its animal counterparts and left traditionalists aghast. 

That victory might have done wonders to help promote acceptance of the Climax product, if not the wider category. But now the story is the controversy. And that’s a shame. Because the cheese is actually pretty good. 

I’m no professional foodie, but I do have a lifetime of expertise born of stubbornly refusing to eat any salad dressing other than blue cheese. In my own taste test, I can report it looked and tasted like mild blue cheese, which is all it needs to do.

A beef about burgers

Banning a product or changing a cheese contest’s rules after determining the winner are both bad enough. But the reaction to alternative proteins that has left me most befuddled is the media narrative that formed around the latest generation of plant-based burgers soon after they started getting popular a few years ago. Story after story would note, in the tone of a bold truth-teller revealing something new each time: Did you know these newfangled plant-based burgers aren’t actually all that much healthier than the meat variety? 

To which I would scream at my monitor: THAT WAS NEVER THE POINT!

The world has long been perfectly capable of producing plant-based burgers that are better for you, but the problem is that they tend to taste like plants. The actual innovation with the more recent options like Beyond Burger or Impossible Burger is that they look and taste like the real thing but can be produced with a dramatically smaller climate footprint .

That’s a big enough win in itself. 

If I were a health reporter, maybe I’d focus on these issues too. And if health is your personal priority, you should shop for a different plant-based patty (or I might recommend a nice salad, preferably with blue cheese dressing).

But speaking as a climate reporter, expecting a product to ease global warming, taste like a juicy burger, and also be low in salt, fat, and calories is absurd. You may as well ask a startup to conduct sorcery.

More important, making a plant-based burger healthier for us may also come at the cost of having it taste like a burger. Which would make it that much harder to win over consumers beyond the niche of vegetarians and thus have any meaningful impact on emissions. WHICH IS THE POINT!

It’s incredibly difficult to convince consumers to switch brands and change behaviors, even for a product as basic as toothpaste or toilet paper. Food is trickier still, because it’s deeply entwined with local culture, family traditions, festivals and celebrations. Whether we find a novel food product to be yummy or yucky is subjective and highly subject to suggestion. 

And so I’m ending with a plea. Let’s grant ourselves the best shot possible at solving one of the hardest, most urgent problems before us. Treat bans and political posturing with the ridicule they deserve. Reject the argument that any single product must, or can, solve all the problems related to food, health, and the environment.

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Essay on Food Crisis

In the present day world the crisis of food in the whole world has become a burning problem. It is essential that mainly in is connected with the countries of the third world, which are located on the African continent: “This series explores the causes and effects of the world’s worst food crisis since the 1970s. A complex combination of poor harvests, competition with biofuels, higher energy prices, surging demand in China and India, and a blockage in global trade is driving food prices up worldwide. Some countries, especially in Africa, are facing an increasingly dire situation while even consumers in wealthy nations are being forced to adjust”. The food problem has become the acute problem for Ethiopia since the 70-s of twentieth century. Another African country – Zimbabwe is also suffering from starvation. Numerous programs supported by United Nations Organization US AID and many othersdoing their best to help the starving countries of Africa, providing humanitarian help.

“Zimbabwe is in the midst of a political and economic crisis. Agreement between the unity government is fragile, and the economy is in tatters, with inflation continuing at a staggering rate. The education and health systems have collapsed, and 10 million people are now living below the poverty line.

While it was once the breadbasket of southern Africa, it now produces only one-third of the grain it needs to feed its own population. More than half — around 65% — of the population urgently need food assistance” (Save the Children, 2009). In the present day situation the government of Zimbabwe is trying to regulate humanitarian help. But the situation is not as good as it should be. According to the BBC investigation in 2002 the regions that did not voted for current President Mugabe were left without humanitarian help. The representatives of opposed movements said that government did not give him a chance to but wheat even according to commercial prices. The staff of Binga city hospitals (which according some suppositions humanitarian help does not reach according to non-official block, regulated by Mugabe adherents) nearly thirty children died during several weeks. Their deaths according to physicians’ data were closely connected with lack of food. At this period grew a number a poisoning deaths. Without ability to get regular supply of food, Zimbabwe citizens ate some roots, some of them turned to be poisonous. Many children did not go to school as their days are occupied by endless search for food. The representatives of charitable organizations say that government tries to control the spreading of humanitarian help in their hands.

“Mercy, seven, collects mulberry leaves to boil and eat. Her mother often goes out begging to try and get something for her family to eat. They usually survive on one cup of mealy meal (ground maize) each day. One-third of all children in Zimbabwe are chronically malnourished, and 10 million people (out of a population of 13 million) live below the poverty line. We’ve been working in Zimbabwe for twenty five years. During the current food crisis, we’re helping families increase their income so they can afford food all year round by providing crops and farming materials and promoting drought-resistant crops. We’re also distributing food to the children and poorest families who need it most. So far we have reached more than 600,000 people, 438,993 of whom are children” (Save the Children, 2009). The information provided by charitable foundation “Save the Children” shows how many it is done, by UNO and other organizations in order to support Zimbabwe to struggle against food Crisis. People should understand that world is much bigger than their city or even country. WE should help and support developing countries and countries of the third world in difficult and scrutinized situations.

“The first of the Millennium Development Goals, set by world leaders at the U.N. summit in 2000, aims to reduce the proportion of hungry people by half by 2015. This was already a major challenge, not least in Africa, where many nations have fallen behind. But we are also facing a perfect storm of new challenges. The prices of basic staples — wheat, corn, rice — are at record highs, up 50 percent or more in the past six months. Global food stocks are at historic lows. The causes range from rising demand in major economies” (Ban Ki-Moon, 2008). “LONDON – Keen to show that everyone can play a role in the fight against hunger, an enterprising group of LSE students kicked off their new academic year by grabbing red cups and staging a week-long campus campaign to raise awareness and funds for WFP. “Food is such a basic human right; it’s incredible that there are now a billion hungry people. Ending hunger is within reach for my generation and we are determined to make it happen,” said LSE student Isabella Hayward, organiser of the initiative. Isabella planned her campaign with WFP’s London Liaison office, arming herself with 10 plastic red cups, a WFP banner and various brochures. Then she set out with her troupe of student volunteers” (Nina Severn for UN WPF, 2009)

“Better known for its recurring famines than for its distinction as Africa’s oldest independent country, Ethiopia suffers from one of the highest malnutrition levels and lowest primary-education enrollment ratios in the world. The agricultural sector, which accounts for half of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), 60 percent of its exports, and 80 percent of all employment, suffers from frequent droughts and poor farming practices. The country’s poverty-stricken economy has taken a hit in recent years from historically low coffee prices—Ethiopia’s most lucrative export—and a costly war with Eritrea in 1998-2002. According to international aid agencies, things may be looking up for Ethiopia, at least in the short term. A third successive good harvest season will bolster the country’s real GDP growth, which stands at 6 percent. Also, USAID reports that good harvests, in conjunction with “significant improvements in humanitarian assistance,” have helped ease the heavy burden of Ethiopia’s food shortages for the time being” (Mary Crane, 2005). The Government of Ethiopia regularly turn to International Community for help in the reason of 5 years lasting droughts and as an after affects starvation. Regular malnutrition causes danger for life of more than 6 million people. According to the information given by Agriculture Ministry of Ethiopia, the country needs “food help” on the sum nearly 121 million dollars. The most damaged regions in Ethiopia are northern and eastern ones. Critical situation happened around children’s feeding. To carry out urgent measures in order to save hundreds of lives in the country, government needs emergency food support on nearly 9 million dollars. In 2009, 25 years have passed since humanitarian catastrophe in Ethiopia, when more than million people died on starvation. According to the official repot of British “Oxfam” foundation, released up to the memorable date, International Community through the passed time still have not learned how to prevent such disasters as providing humanitarian food help only turned to be ineffective as situation with starvation have become a typical practice in this region. It is essential that the following steps will be systematic measures. In this report was signified one of the unsolved problems – exhaustion of the soil, which could not feed working on it people even with regular and normal atmospheric precipitations and during the droughts it doea not give crops at all. Social problems, low level of farming culture and lack of investments cause the threat of starvation to regular event. “One in seven children dies before their fifth birthday in Ethiopia, one of the poorest countries in the world. More than 80% live on less than US$2 a day. Escalating food prices and higher transport costs mean more people are going hungry, and are unable to afford food for themselves or their families. Thomas, 1, has his arm circumference measured at Tulla Health Center in Southern Ethiopia. His mother has brought him to Save the Children’s clinic to be tested for severe malnutrition. Save the Children is currently working to help nearly 900,000 people in six of the worst-affected regions. We’re setting up work schemes to provide parents with a way to earn food and money, providing clean water, emergency feeding and healthcare for malnourished children, delivering veterinary drugs and animal feed to help families keep their animals alive. With over 800 staff on the ground, we’ve launched a major emergency response in six of the worst affected areas in Ethiopia. These are the eastern and arid southern parts of the country, including Oromiya, the Southern Nations Nationalities and People’s Region (SNNPR), Somali and Afar Regions, and parts of Amhara and Tigray” (Save the Children, 2009), “The WFP has budgeted $2.9 billion this year — all from donor nations — to conduct its feeding programs around the world, including large efforts in Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia and other nations that could not otherwise feed themselves. Sheeran said soaring prices mean that the WFP needs an additional $755 million to meet its needs. That “food gap” jumped from $500 million just two months ago as prices keep rising, she said” (Kevin Sullivan, 2008)

Contemporary situation with Ethiopia and Zimbabwe shows that International Community does everything it can to save children and people in these countries. Still the presidents of some foundations note that humanitarian support is just a half-measure. The countries are seriously suffering from HIV/AIDS, civil wars, inner disagreements and many other problems. The problems should be solved complexly and now the leaders of International Community, Accompanied with United Nations Organization and Numerous foundations try find out what they got to do with the situation not only in those two particular countries, but in the whole continent “As part of the President’s $770 million Food Security Response Initiative, USAID/OFDA developed the Horn Food Price Crisis Response (HFPCR) strategy to increase household and community resiliency to shocks that impact household food security.

The HFPCR strategy combines humanitarian activities with longer term recovery interventions to create and diversify household assets, as well as improve economic opportunities for vulnerable populations. To date in FY 2009, USAID/OFDA has provided more than $40 million through the HFPCR in East Africa, including Ethiopia, Kenya, and Uganda. In Ethiopia, USAID/OFDA has provided more than $20 million to implementing partners Mercy Corps and Food for the Hungry International (FH) to support agriculture and food security and economy and market systems programs through the HFPCR strategy, targeting more than 800,000 beneficiaries. Programs aim to preserve livelihood assets through reducing post harvest losses, diversifying income and asset sources, and promoting longer-term agricultural initiatives, including seed quality improvement. In addition, USAID/OFDA has provided nearly $1 million in PFSRI funding to International Medical Corps (IMC) for nutrition programs in Oromiya and Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples regions to address the impact of increased food insecurity” (US AIDS, 2009) It shows but now there is now direct strategy, but still International Community will not just look at the dying from starvation children. But will provide all the possible help, to ease the suffering of people.

References:

US AID from American People official web site. 22 May 2009. Global Food Insecurity and Price Increase Updates. December 10 2009

BBC News World Edition. 30 July 2002. Zimbabwe Food Crisis: Region by Region. December 10 2009.

Kevin Sullivan. “Food Crisis Is Depicted As ‘Silent Tsunami’. Sharp Price Hikes Leave Many Millions in Hunger”. The Washington Post. Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Ban Ki-moon. “The New Face of Hunger”. The Washington Post. Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Anthony Faila. “Soaring Food Prices Putting U.S. Emergency Aid in Peril. Supplies and Recipients Likely to Be Reduced”. The Washington Post. Saturday, March 1, 2008

Nina Severn. London Students Take the Actions to Fight Hunger. News of WPF. November 18 2009

Save the Children Official Web site. 2009. Ethiopia Food Crisis. December 10, 2009.

Save the Children Official Web site. 2009. Food Crisis in Zimbabwe. December 10, 2009.

Mary Crane. Africa’s Food Crisis. Council on Foreign Relations. October 28 2005.

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Gaza updates: WFP responds to hunger crisis as Rafah incursion cuts access to warehouse

CLICK TO VIEW:  LATEST NEWS RELEASES

Update 17 May 16:00

World Food Programme Country Director for Palestine Matthew Hollingworth :

“We’ve not been able to access our warehouse in Rafah for more than a week. We have very little food and fuel coming through the border crossings in the south.

“We are always trying hard but failing currently to bring in consistent volumes of food.

“We know we need additional entry points. Every new entry point is a new artery, pumping lifeblood into Gaza , so we will work hard to continue to find new entry points and get more assistance in, at volume, consistently, to help stop famine in its tracks."

Update 15 May 2024 20:30

• The escalation of military activity in Rafah, southern Gaza, has displaced hundreds of thousands of people, making life even harder for thousands of families who have already been displaced several times. WFP is deeply concerned that a further escalation could precipitate a humanitarian catastrophe, and bring aid operations to a complete standstill. 
• World Food Programme food and fuel stocks will run out in a matter of days. Since 6 May, we have not been able to access and receive aid from the Kerem Shalom crossing. The situation is becoming unsustainable.

• WFP continues to distribute food aid despite significant challenges. But to reverse six months of near starvation conditions and avert a famine, steady flows of food supplies, every day and every week, through multiple entry points are required.
• The incursion into Rafah is a significant setback to recent modest progress on access. The threat of famine in Gaza never loomed larger.
• All parties involved must prioritize safe and sustained access for humanitarian staff, and the safeguarding of civilian lives,

The World Food Programme (WFP) has been providing special nutritional foods to pregnant and breastfeeding women, and children aged under-5, across Gaza. However, as of 11 May, distributions have been suspended in Rafah and are only ongoing in Khan Younis and Deir El Balah in a limited capacity.

In northern Gaza, rates of acute malnutrition among children aged under-2 have doubled from 15 percent in January to 30 percent in March. (Acute malnutrition is the most deadly form of malnutrition, with affected children between three to 12 times more likely to die than a well-nourished child.)

Hunger in Gaza: Famine findings a ‘dark mark’ on the world, says WFP Palestine country director

• We have seen the impact of prolonged closures in northern Gaza, and despite recent improvements in access to help mitigate a famine there, we are now also deeply concerned about the fate of hundreds of thousands in the south, if a full-scale operation and closures continue.
•  Kerem Shalom crossing is a militarized zone, roads are unsafe, with security incidents
•  The militarized area in Rafah poses obstacles to WFP accessing its main warehouse.

WFP is still on the ground working with partners to deliver:

• for the north , which had highest levels of food insecurity
• for central areas, where the displaced have no money, no basic resources; we are prioritizing hot meals to reach more people with less resources
• in the south (Rafah), where people face ongoing military activity, we distributed until we had no more stocks.

Recently introduced self-registration tool enables faster assistance by allowing people to update their location

The new coordinated route to north, plus use of Erez and Ashdod, allowed WFP to double aid to northern Gaza in April. Visible effect in Gaza City markets, where prices still very high however.

Four bakeries are open and operating in Gaza City, providing essential bread.   

Learn more about WFP's work in Palestine and DONATE

Now is the time to act, related stories.

Hunger’s border: Why aid trucks taking humanitarian gear and food into Gaza face long waits

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