Losing 25,000 to hunger every day.

• Author: Holmes, John

During the past two decades, population growth, improvement in incomes and diversification of diets have steadily increased the demand for food. Prior to 2000, food prices were in decline, largely through record harvests. At the same time, however, public and private investment in agriculture, especially in the production of staple food, decreased, which led to stagnant or declining crop yields in most developing countries. (1) Rapid urbanization has led to the conversion of farmland to non-agricultural uses, and low food prices have encouraged farmers to shift to alternative food and non-food crops. Long-term unstable land use has also caused land degradation, soil erosion, nutrient depletion, water scarcity and disruption of biological cycles.

Food prices began to rise in 2004 and production increased but more slowly than demand. (2) The past few years saw a steep rise. In 2005, extreme weather events in major food-producing countries caused world cereal production to fall by 2.1 per cent in 2006. (3) In 2007, rapid increases in oil prices not only increased fertilizer and food production costs but also provided a climate favourable to expansion of coarse grains and oil crops for biofuels. Many countries began to impose export restrictions on commodities to control prices; others purchased grains at any price to maintain domestic food supplies or considered taxes on imported food. This has led to panic and instability in international grain markets, attracted speculative investments and contributed to a surge in food prices.

While some food prices appear to be stabilizing, most are expected to remain high. Good harvests anticipated in key grain-producing countries and indications that some major producers will relax export restrictions have calmed grain markets. International prices have come down from their recent peaks. However, over the medium-to-long term, supply and demand dynamics, high fuel prices, global threats, such as climate change, (4) water stress and scarcity, and degradation of natural resources are expected to keep food prices well above their 2004 levels.

A TRIPLE CHALLENGE

The current global food crisis is a huge challenge. It will require sustained political commitment at the highest levels for many years if we are to deal with it successfully and prevent further mass pauperization and the rolling back of development gains painfully won. It cannot be seen in isolation. Indeed, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has identified the global food crisis, the Millennium Development Goals and climate change as the fundamental triple challenge for the world over the next few years.

As stake is whether the international community is capable of working together to genuinely promote sustainable development, given a rapidly growing population and increasing scarcities of key land, water and energy resources.

In response to this food crisis, the United Nations established a High-Level Task Force on the Global Food Security Crisis, under the leadership of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. It brought together the Heads of the United Nations specialized agencies, funds and programmes, the Bretton Woods institutions and relevant parts of the United Nations Secretariat. (5) The aim of the task force was to create a plan of action in response to the crisis and coordinate its implementation. The result is the Comprehensive Framework for Action, which proposes ways and means to respond to threats and opportunities resulting from high food prices; create policy changes to avoid future food crisis; and contribute to national, regional and international food and nutrition security.

While the Comprehensive Framework for Action is the agreed product of the high-level task force, other parts of the UN system, international experts, the Red Cross/Red Crescent Movement, private-sector companies and non-governmental organizations have been widely consulted. The Comprehensive Framework for Action does not claim to offer a magic solution to all the problems of the global food crisis, let alone to the triple challenge. However, I believe it does set out a programme of coordinated actions and outcomes that can make a real difference over time, in an area fundamental to all human life, that is, food and nutrition security.

WHAT THE PROBLEM IS

Food prices began rising in 2004, with a particularly steep increase in 2006. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations forecasts that the world will spend $1,035 billion on food imports in 2008, about $215 billion more than in 2007. (6) This will severely strain the budgets of Low-Income Food-Deficit Countries whose food bills will soar by more than 40 per cent in 2008. This may also cause inflation, disrupt the balance of payments and increase debt for many low-income countries.

The dramatic rise in global food prices over the past twelve months, coupled with diminishing food stocks and escalating fuel costs, has gravely jeopardized global food and nutrition security, and has re-emphasized the critical actions needed to realize the right to adequate food. Hunger and under-nutrition are the greatest threats to public health, killing more people than HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined. Each day, 25,000 people, including more than 10,000 children, die from hunger and related causes. Some 854 million people world-wide are estimated to be undernourished, and high food prices may drive another 100 million into poverty and hunger. The risks are particularly acute among those who must spend at least 60 per cent of their income on food: the urban poor and displaced populations, the rural landless, pastoralists and the majority of smallholder farmers.

Urbanization is a crucial dynamic for food supply. The urban poor, approximately 1.2 billion people, are highly vulnerable to rising food and energy prices. Even under normal price conditions, they often cannot produce or purchase enough food or energy for household use. Urbanization is further changing both consumption and production patterns through the conversion of agricultural lands and competing demands for water and energy. Lastly, urban food habits change and become more vulnerable to outside shocks when a dependence on imported staples occurs at the expense of locally produced food.

Smallholder farmers and their families represent some 2 billion people, about one third of the global population. An estimated 85 per cent of farms (or 450 million) worldwide measure less than 2 hectares, and the average farm size is shrinking. The majority of smallholder farmers and landless farm workers live on less than $2 per day and buy more food than they produce. Many of them are women who face disadvantages in access to land tenure, agricultural inputs, extension services, markets and financing. The capacity of smallholder farms to grow more food is limited when farmers cannot afford quality seed, fertilizer, veterinary drugs or services. Expanding agriculture onto less suitable lands degrades the ecosystems, with severe consequences for surrounding communities.

The Comprehensive Framework for Action aims to be a catalyst by providing governments, international and regional organizations, as well as civil society groups, with a menu of policies and actions to address the crisis. It recognizes that any response must consider the specific needs, capacities and circumstances of particular countries or regions. While many actions may require external assistance, the policies and actions described in the framework are intended, above all, to improve country capacity and resilience to absorb future shocks. The key to achieving the outcomes set in the framework will be close partnerships between national governments, the high-level task force, civil society and private-sector organizations and donors.

UNDERNUTRITION AND CHRONIC DISEASE: A DUAL THREAT

The immediate consequences of escalating food prices highlight the vulnerability of households, governments and the international system to food and nutrition insecurity. (7) The risks may be more pronounced in urban areas where people are dependent on markets for food. However, 75 per cent of the world's poor reside in rural...