Following on from Wednesday's discussion about crops, technology and our food supply, Off-Guardian provides this overview of the worldwide food crisis that's currently unfolding. Follow the links in the article for more information.
Today, a fifth (278 million) of the African population are undernourished, and 55 million of that continent’s children under the age of five are stunted due to severe malnutrition.
In 2021, an Oxfam review of IMF COVID-19 loans showed that 33 African countries were encouraged to pursue austerity policies. Oxfam and Development Finance International also revealed that 43 out of 55 African Union member states face public expenditure cuts totalling $183 billion over the next few years.
As a result, almost three-quarters of Africa’s governments have reduced their agricultural budgets since 2019, and more than 20 million people have been pushed into severe hunger. In addition, the world’s poorest countries were due to pay $43 billion in debt repayments in 2022, which could otherwise cover the costs of their food imports.
Last year, Oxfam International Executive Director Gabriela Bucher stated that there was a terrifying prospect that in excess of a quarter of a billion more people would fall into extreme levels of poverty in 2022 alone. That year, food inflation rose by double digits in most African countries.
By September 2022, some 345 million people across the world were experiencing acute hunger, a number that has more than doubled since 2019. Moreover, one person is dying of hunger every four seconds. From 2019 to 2022, the number of undernourished people grew by 150 million.
Billions of dollars’ worth of arms continue to pour into Ukraine from the NATO countries as US neocons pursue their goal of regime change in Russia and balkanisation of that country.
Yet people in those NATO countries are experiencing increasing levels of hardship. The US has sent almost 80 billion dollars to Ukraine, while 30 million low-income people across the US are on the edge of a ‘hunger cliff’ as a portion of their federal food assistance is taken away. In 2021, it was estimated that one in eight children were going hungry in the US. In England, 100,000 children have been frozen out of free school meals.
Due to the disruptive supply chain effects of the conflict in Ukraine, speculative trading that drives up food prices, the impact of closing down the global economy under the guise of COVID and the inflationary impacts of pumping trillions of dollars into the financial system between September 2019 and March 2020, people are being driven into poverty and denied access to sufficient food.
Matters are not helped by issues that have long plagued the global food system: cutbacks in public subsidies to agriculture, WTO rules that facilitate cheap, subsidised imports which undermine or wipe out indigenous agriculture in poorer countries and loan conditionalities, resulting in countries ‘structurally adjusting’ their agri sectors thereby eradicating food security and self-sufficiency – consider that Africa has been transformed from a net food exporter in the 1960s to a net food importer today.
Great game food geopolitics continue and result in elite interests playing with the lives of hundreds of millions who are regarded as collateral damage. Policies, underpinned by neoliberal dogma masquerading as economic science and necessity, which are designed to create dependency and benefit a handful of multi-billionaires and global agribusiness corporations who, ably assisted by the World Bank, IMF and WTO, now preside over an increasingly centralised food regime.
. . .
As a paper in the journal Frontiers noted in 2021, these corporations form part of a powerful alliance of multinational corporations, philanthropies and export-oriented countries who are subverting multilateral institutions of food governance. Many who are involved in this alliance are co-opting the narrative of ‘food systems transformation’ as they anticipate new investment opportunities and seek total control of the global food system.
This type of ‘transformation’ is more of the same wrapped in a climate emergency narrative in an attempt to move food and farming further towards an ecomodernist techno-dystopia controlled by big agribusiness and big tech, as described in the article The Netherlands: Template for Ecomodernism’s Brave New World.
There's more at the link.
Of course, all these problems combine to produce much wider consequences. A shortage of a staple crop in Country A will lead it to buy as much as it can of that crop on the open market; but that, in turn, will reduce the available supply of that staple crop, meaning that Country B can no longer get enough. In its efforts to make up for the shortfall, Country B will bid up the price, which means that (poorer) Country C can no longer afford to buy it, even if supplies were available. Thus, the starvation problem is transferred from Country A, through Country B, to Country C. As Country C becomes politically and socially destabilized through hunger, its citizens will flee to neighboring countries in an attempt to get enough to eat, thereby destabilizing even more countries . . . and so the process continues.
Here in the USA, we're largely sheltered from most of those consequences, apart from the higher prices we'll have to pay at our supermarkets. However, we're still importing a lot of our food, because we can afford to; and that's causing problems for other countries that aren't as rich as we are, and have to compete with us for a reduced supply of foodstuffs. It's a never-ending ripple effect, and it's going to cause us harm as well.
The article cited above inclines towards an acroecological solution, which I find unconvincing; I see more moonbats than pragmatists in that field, and I don't trust their methodology. Nevertheless, it's clear that the world food production model, as presently implemented, is unbalanced. We have to find a better way. The question is, what is it? Right now, nobody seems to be offering a practical, pragmatic, efficient, effective solution. There are plenty of ideological suggestions, but all fail when tested in practice. We need new and better ideas.
Peter
These dire warnings aren't showing up in the place they should be most obvious: the futures markets. Wheat futures peaked a year ago, and right now are about where they were in 2021.
ReplyDeleteHow much of those concerns about "food insecurity" are just aid bureaucrats and third world governments trying to keep the aid dollars flowing when so much is getting diverted to the Ukraine war and climate boondoggles?
"Africa has been transformed from a net food exporter in the 1960s to a
ReplyDeletenet food importer today." Why? The African countries exporting food where
European colonies. As decolonization took place many of the farms were
seized (from the white owners) and given to people who had no idea how
to run a farm. It seems to me that getting rid of the white run governments
and the white run farms basically destroyed the agriculture in Africa. Is
that a fair assessment Peter? You surely know more about Africa then I do.
I figure the primary reason for Africa going from food exporter in '60s to an importer now is that population has probably tripled.
DeleteEnough of this crap the article winces about "IMFpolicy this & that".
Stop with the uninterrupted birth rates
@Anonymous at 10:36AM: You're quite right. The "new" farmers were far less informed, educated and skilled than those they replaced, and it shows.
ReplyDeleteDon't forget that part of the increase this article talks about is a change in definitions used.
ReplyDeleteFor example, in the US one is counted as "food insecure" if one has skipped a meal for any reason in the last year OR because one didn't know where their next meal was coming from because they hadn't planned ahead or were traveling and didn't know which restaurant they'd eat at next.
Just like with mental health redefinitions in the DSM5, almost anyone can qualify, obscuring the extent of real problems.
Jonathan
Well, first would be to STOP taking producing farms out of production (Holland), stop the corn/ethanol production (lots of folks NEED corn for food, like Mexico), and stop trying to put dairies/beef producers out of business.
ReplyDeleteOh, Africa is starving, still.
ReplyDeleteSo?
50% of green space in the US is grass lawns. Sheep convert grass to meat more efficiently than cows. In the UK you can see sheep grazing alongside the motorways. Chickens eat bugs pretty well and give eggs in return. People's lawns were clover instead of grass until mowers got engines. If you think organic farming is easy you should try it. Fertilizers tend to flood the biome and kill many of the micro organisms that healthy plants needs. Neat study done that showed the quantity of grass is irrelevant, it is the quality that feeds animals. I remember my grandmother's basement full of jars - she traded this for that. There are people who plant potatoes where the homeowners association thinks they are flowers.
ReplyDeleteThe point - All of us, at least in the US, could be a lot more self-sufficient with respect to food. Sheep are good lawn mowers. More chickens, less pesticides, more bees. Imagine what kids would learn taking care of sheep/goats, chickens, bees and a garden that they eat from. This wouldn't work for inner city but could work in the suburbs. Heat tunnels are another method of extending the growing season.
There are more and more small farmers who work directly with local meat processors to provide locally grown beef. Skip the grocery stores and the big 5 that control all our meat. Hens lay eggs without a rooster - get a pet hen or 2. (chickens have a lot of up front cost but especially when the weather is warm their maintenance costs are low)
This would mean 1 income households as the stay at home parent would have more to manage, especially as the kids are learning. Given inflation and current actions this is a pipe dream. Yet the article talks about governments managing the food supply. Talk about single source failure and a non-robust system, and that's if the gov't has the citizens best interests in mind.
People outside the USA still think that our Dollar is worth something. Big surprise coming soon.
ReplyDeleteFrom what I've seen written on a number of different sites over the years, the main cause of starvation is politicians. Not sure how you can fix that, as the replacements often appear to be as bad as the ones thrown out.
ReplyDeleteCheck out Joel Salatin's work. He uses silvopasture, which utilizes marginal land and a rotation of cattle, pigs, and chickens, to grow meat and rebuild soil. If you planted productive trees such as pecan or other nuts, you could also get a secondary crop.
ReplyDeleteThis is not the only method that's being pioneered currently, and it does require some land and more people to actually move the animals, but it's promising as far as scalability, and it's currently being tested in many different climates by enterprising young farmers with some success. It also makes for a healthier animal and healthier land.
Farming these days is complicated.
ReplyDeleteStates impose rules on what they can grow.
Lots of farmers are growing corn for ethanol, which is a different corn than food corn.
To support the dairies, farmers are growing hay, not food crops.
Large corporation farms are politically driven and are not producing food for humans.
Foreign assets own too much land here in the US.
It is gonna take a lot of changes to let us survive.
Sheesh. Maybe we ARE in the END TIMES.
This leaves out the fact that there have been a lot of mysterious firs and explosions in western food processing plants over the last few years. We are in more trouble than we think.
ReplyDeleteThe entire time of that article was "poor people are starving because of rich countries elsewhere, and you need to send them your money for food"." We've been sending aid to Africa, Haiti, etc. for decades and nothing changes. At some point we need to stop enabling the dysfunction. As to people starving in the US....show me the stunted kids here with distended bellies and perhaps I'll concede that point.....I'm waiting.
ReplyDeleteThat article extensively quotes Oxfam. It is therefore almost certainly bovine fecal matter. It also talks about requirements for African governments subsidizing agricultural production which is another sing, since as Peter for sure knows, African governments subsidizing something means African politicians and bureaucrats enriching themselves while failing to provide anything of use to the populace.
ReplyDeleteThings that I did not see mentioned in the article were GM foods designed for African climates and resistant to African pests.
Yes fighting in Ukraine is bad because Ukraine is a major grain etc. exporter but the bigger issue is that governments screw up the agriculture and food distribution systems by subsidies and regulations (and graft to evade one and profit from the other) that make it harder for people to obtain the food they need