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Written evidence submitted by the Small Foundation
1. Summary and recommendations 1.1. Small Foundation (SF) is a grant-making organization registered as a charity in Ireland. Its objective is the speedy and permanent elimination of the threat of famine from Africa. The people most at risk of famine are rural smallholder families. SF believes the threat of famine can be eliminated only through the widespread creation of opportunities for these people to gain economic independence through income generation. The necessary first steps are the improvement of agricultural productivity in volume, quality and reliability and the creation of linkages to markets. This will contribute to food security not just for the producers but globally. 1.2. SF funds the scaling up of initiatives by NGOs and businesses that open up access for smallholder communities to knowledge, technology, finance and markets. But it believes only the private sector can create those opportunities on the required continent-wide scale. 1.3. The private sector does not operate in a vacuum. Action is required by the public sector and other actors to enable smallholders to become part of opportunity-creating value chains. 1.4. We therefore believe that the key issues for the inquiry are: What are the obstacles to the private sector providing adequate and sustainable opportunities for smallholders and their communities? These are all the factors, whether physical, legal, political or institutional, that inhibit access by smallholders to knowledge, technology, finance and markets. How can the public sector foster the conditions for private sector-led solutions to thrive? This role lies in the removal of the obstacles referred to above. This involves public investment in: education at all levels, including training in community organisation, business and entrepreneurship; last-mile distribution (and, where appropriate, local manufacture) of productivity-enhancing technology, including improved inputs and irrigation; financial institutions to meet the financing needs of farmers and of all the players along the value chain; transport and communication infrastructure; and legal systems to create a robust and trusted commercial law framework, including title to land. How can we bring the required parties together to enable smallholder farmers to be embedded in viable value chains? A new type of organisation to broker effective partnerships may have a role. How can the Doing Business in Agriculture Index being developed by the World Bank help African governments improve the environment for domestic and international investment and for smallholders seeking to improve their incomes? GFS 01 2. Smallholder farmers and food security 2.1. Small-scale subsistence farmers, who make up about 80% of the population in sub-Saharan Africa, mostly rely on rain-fed agriculture to provide for their families’ needs. As a result, even in good years, they are often hungry and their children are malnourished.
2.2. SF believes that, given the opportunity, even the most impoverished subsistence farming communities in sub-Saharan Africa can transform their own lives. Such a transformation requires them to move from subsistence farming to farming as a business with diversified produce for the market as well as their own consumption, with larger and more reliable harvests and more off- farm income. The farmer's family would then be able to meet its own food needs and the surplus income can be invested in health, education and further improvements in productivity. At the broader level, the surplus food produced contributes to the global food supply.
2.3. SF believes that this transformation can be achieved by giving smallholder farmers access to opportunities. It funds a range of approaches, run by NGOs, social businesses and profit making businesses, aimed at finding ways to do this. However, SF firmly believes that scaling up these opportunities so that the majority of smallholder farmers can benefit will require a greatly enhanced private sector in Africa. This will be mostly local small-scale businesses, though larger businesses, both local and multinational, also have an important role to play.
2.4. The probable long-term future for the majority of poor people in rural Africa is to become urbanized, as has happened with their counterparts in the histories of now-developed countries. The conclusion is sometimes drawn from this that it is futile to try to improve rural economies in Africa. This conclusion is seriously wrong-headed. Improving rural economies is a necessary step on the road to prosperous urbanization in Africa, as it has been everywhere else with the exception of a handful of small city states.
3. The role of the private sector 3.1. In SF’s thinking, the private sector encompasses small local businesses in Africa, including smallholder farming businesses, as well as the largest multinationals, and every business in between.
3.2. Agriculture is, for the most part, the domain of the private sector. This has always been the case, but there is renewed interest in the role of the private sector in providing more of the inputs and income generation opportunities, including access to markets, that smallholders need to thrive. This was reflected in the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition announcement at the Camp David Summit in May 2012 that aimed to forge a new partnership between African governments, international donors and the private sector “to increase responsible domestic and foreign private investments in African agriculture, take innovations that can enhance agricultural productivity to scale, and reduce the risk borne by vulnerable economies and communities.” The announcement recognised “the critical role played by smallholder farmers, especially women, in GFS 01 transforming agriculture and building thriving economies.” The New Alliance seeks to align public and private sector investments with African strategies for food security and nutrition, but recognises that the conditions for private sector investment need to be right.
3.3. SF applauds this initiative but it must be built on and broadened.
4. The need for effective partnerships 4.1. Companies such as Diageo, SAB Miller, Unilever, as well as African companies, are already using African smallholder farmers to supply them with produce. SF knows of, and has some involvement with, examples of this in Ethiopia, South Sudan, Mozambique and Kenya. Several private sector companies have signed up to the New Alliance country plans, outlining what they will provide. Most of them – domestic and international - are looking to expand their use of small-scale producers in their supply chains. Working with smallholder farmers, however, presents particular challenges, not least ensuring a consistent quantity and quality of supply. Ill-conceived plans that underestimate the effort and understanding required to get farmers to the required level of expertise, both organisational and technical, can be disastrous for both business and farmers.
4.2. Reducing and overcoming these challenges requires action from others. African governments can create conditions conducive to such investment. Non-governmental actors, from local cooperatives to international NGOs, have an important role to play in working with farmers, and farmer organizations, to reach the levels of output and standards required to enter supply chains securely and profitably. Donors and financial institutions are needed to provide the 'patient' finance required to move these businesses forward.
5. Improving the investment climate 5.1. CAADP, and particularly its 'Pillar 2' on market access, is doing important work in encouraging domestic and international investments of this kind. We are also pleased to see that the World Bank is working on a 'Doing Business in Agriculture' index and would like to see DFID and other sovereign donors supporting this initiative. This index will look at the various factors required to make a country a conducive environment in which to invest in agriculture – measuring the ease, for example, of accessing credit, irrigated land and inputs.
5.2. To capture the full picture, the Index should include factors that particularly affect smallholders, that reflect the developmental and food security benefits of increasing their incomes and that help governments, donors, NGOs and others to identify areas that need to be addressed to help them achieve this. The environment for the creation of cooperatives and other producer organizations, vital to aggregating smallholders' production, will be a key factor.
6. The need to broker more and better partnerships GFS 01 6.1. If the private sector and value chains are to expand the opportunities for income creation for smallholder farmers, more partnerships are needed between all the necessary elements: companies who need produce, smallholders who can meet that demand, cooperatives and NGOs who can work with the farmers to prepare them to supply the produce, the patient capital required to get these projects off the ground and the trade and pre-harvest finance needed to keep them going.
6.2. We therefore believe that sparking an exploration of how these partnerships might be brokered more effectively would be a productive line of inquiry for the Select Committee.
7. The role for the UK Government 7.1. The UK Government has the opportunity to build on the New Alliance when it assumes the G8 Presidency in 2013. As the sixth largest donor to African agriculture, helping smallholder farmers position themselves to access the opportunities provided by the private sector should be a priority for its bilateral and multilateral spending. This should include helping marginalised smallholders, including women, get into a position where they have the opportunity to become integrated in value chains. Vehicles for this could include increasing funding via the African Enterprise Challenge Fund; the Private Infrastructure Development Group (PIDG); regional enterprise funds similar to the Maendeleo Agricultural Enterprise Fund1; increased support to NGOs and cooperatives that have the motivation and skills to work with the private sector on sustainable and inclusive value chains, perhaps via a dedicated fund; and additional support to cooperatives, building on the AGRA initiative supporting centres of excellence for cooperatives in Tanzania and Mali.
Small Foundation
December 2012
1 http://www.farmafrica.org.uk/news-views/news-archive---2010/post/133-farm-africa-proposes-a-new- agricultural-fund-at-the-clinton-global-initiative GFS02
Written evidence submitted by Farm Africa and Self Help Africa
1. Summary
1.1. Farm Africa and Self Help Africa share common strategic objectives of reducing poverty, improving environmental sustainability and developing an economically prosperous rural Africa. Together our work aims to increase the ability of rural Africans to play an active role in local and global supply chains.
1.2. Farm Africa and Self Help Africa believe that the private sector has a significant role to play in securing global food security by promoting improved production and generating income for smallholder farmers. We urge the Government to broker this role by promoting partnerships between smallholder farmers and companies; supporting African governments to establish a positive environment for smallholder farmers to access domestic and international markets; and continuing to provide appropriate levels of capital to enable public/private partnership projects to get off the ground (see recommendations in section 4 below).
1.3. We also believe the following should be key questions for the inquiry:
What is the private sector's potential as a vehicle for scaling up income generation opportunities for smallholder farmers?
What needs to happen to fulfil this potential and ensure the greatest benefits to smallholder farmers and their communities? What action is required from governments, donors and NGOs?
How is the benefit to smallholder farmers measured and what best practice ensures that those benefits are maximised?
How do companies find smallholder farmers who can supply particular goods? Are there challenges and what could make this easier?
How will the UK use its Presidency of the G8 and its position as co-chair of the Leadership Council of the New Alliance for Food and Nutrition to promote more and better partnerships between the private sector and smallholder farmers?
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2. Context: smallholder farmers and food security
2.1. The global food system is facing an unprecedented challenge in meeting anticipated population growth, with forecasts suggesting that food production needs to rise by over 70% over the next 40 years1. Within Africa, and sub-Saharan Africa in particular, the pressures on food supply are even more striking. Chronic hunger, under- nutrition, and persistent poverty have been exacerbated by continuing droughts. Africa’s net food imports are substantial, and growing2; and the recent surges in global food prices have seen food import bills soar. In Africa, 65% of the population (80% in some countries) rely on smallholder agriculture for their living. While most smallholders own less than two hectares of land, they deliver 90% of the continent’s agricultural production.
2.2. Despite increasing concerns over food security, donor investment in agriculture has actually decreased. Globally, the agricultural share of total ODA decreased from 20% in the 1980s to 4% in mid-2000s and 6% by 20093. Agriculture represented only 3.1% of the UK Government’s total ODA in 2009 and 1.4% in 20104. Of the top 10 countries receiving bilateral ODA for agriculture from the UK Government, only four were in Africa5. And Government expenditure on agriculture is also low: in sub-Saharan Africa, the share of Government expenditure on agriculture averaged 3-6% in between 2003 and 20076. It was only in the 1980s that the share was close to the Maputo Declaration target of 10%. 2.3. Women smallholders comprise an average of 43 percent of the agricultural labour force of developing countries (50% in Sub-Saharan Africa)7. Of those women in the least developed countries who report being economically active, 79% identify agriculture as their primary economic activity8. Yet, despite many communities’ dependence on women to grow food, women often lack access to productive assets such as land, and services like extension services, credit and quality inputs, that can enhance farm productivity. For example, women receive less than 10% of all credit going to smallholder farmers9. Women farmers could grow 30% more food if they had access to the same resources as men: by helping women farmers boost production, we could reduce global hunger by 150 million people10.
1 FAO (2009) ‘How to Feed the World in 2050.’ 2 East Africa’s total food net imports (excluding fish) have risen from $805m in 2001 to $3.7bn in 2008 (a 24% year on year increase over the period) (Source: FAOStat) 3 Lowder, S.K and Carisma, B (2011) ‘Financial resource flows to agriculture: A review of data on government spending, official development assistance and foreign direct investment.’ ESA Working Paper No. 11-19, Agricultural Development Economics Division, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, December 2011. 4 www.donortracker.org 5 Zimbabwe, Ghana, Rwanda, Malawi (Source: http://www.donortracker.org) 6 Lowder, S.K and Carisma, B (2011) ‘Financial resource flows to agriculture: A review of data on government spending, official development assistance and foreign direct investment.’ ESA Working Paper No. 11-19, Agricultural Development Economics Division, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, December 2011. 7 FAO (2011) ‘The State of Food and Agriculture in 2010-2011: Women in Agriculture’ 8 FAOSAT quoted in Doss, C (2011) ‘If women hold up half the sky, how much of the world’s food do they produce?’ FAO, March 2011 9 Ibid 10 http://www.gatesfoundation.org/infographics/Pages/women-in-agriculture-info.aspx GFS02
2.4. Extreme weather events such as drought or flooding are likely to become more frequent and they hit the poorest, hardest. Agriculture also contributes to climate change: land use change, principally as a result of deforestation, is responsible for between 12% and 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions11 (in Ethiopia, or example, forest areas decline by 1% each year12 as land is cleared for wood fuel or to plant crops). Fertilisers, ruminant digestion, rice cultivation and fuel use all contribute to green house gas emissions. Innovative and affordable ways to mitigate the effects of climate change, such as drought resistant seeds, or water harvesting and irrigation techniques, are essential if smallholder farmers are to mitigate the impact of the changing climate. Sustainable practices that will reduce agriculture’s environmental footprint are relatively easy to introduce and allow farmers and their communities to become more resilient to climate change challenges and protect natural resources.
2.5. Smallholder farmers’ income has a direct impact on production and ultimately on food security, yet income levels are subject to a variety of constraints. Population increases mean farmers have to cultivate the same land season after season. Fertilisers, or grazing cattle, are required to ensure the land remains productive: fertilisers and cattle cost money. Pest infestations require pesticides to save the crop: pesticides cost money. When the rains are no longer consistent, farmers need to buy improved, drought resistant seeds: improved seeds cost money. As household income decreases, so too does family labour: young men frequently move to the city to earn cash for the family. Now the farmer needs to hire local labour to help with weeding or harvesting: labour costs money. And smallholder farmers themselves spend days on other people’s farms to earn cash for their families, taking time away from their own farms, potentially missing opportunities to plant seeds before the rains come. Breaking this vicious cycle of poverty is key to increasing smallholder farmer incomes and food security.
2.6. Farm Africa and Self Help Africa believe smallholder farmers are at the heart of the solution to food insecurity. Our work has shown that investing in smallholders not only helps them to lift them and their families directly out of poverty, but helps produce sufficient food for themselves and the wider region. There is potential to scale-up this work to impact global food production. Productivity improvements are vital given the low yields prevalent in much of rural Africa (2 to 3 times lower than global averages). But our experience shows that productivity improvements alone are not sufficient. Demand side solutions are also critical: farmers need to be able to maximise increased production through improved post-harvest technologies and better links to markets. In addition, there is also greater recognition of the importance of markets and the role that the private sector – both multi-nationals and local African enterprises – can play. Long- term change lies in ensuring long-term sustainability by developing value chains, lobbying to change unfavourable trade policies and improving access to finance.
11 ODI, Climate Funds Update (November 2012) ‘Climate Finance Thematic Briefing – REDD+ Finance’. 12 Final Report from the Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change (March 2012), ‘Achieving Food Security in the Face of Climate Change, Final Report from the Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change’ GFS02
3. The role of the private sector in improving smallholders' productivity and incomes
3.1. Smallholder farmers are, of course, already part of the private sector, but recent years have seen growing interest from the international private sector in African farmers as suppliers of goods. The growing African middle class and potential expansion of domestic and regional markets also promise to increase the opportunities for smallholder farmers to benefit from greater market access closer to home. This interest from both international and African companies is reflected in the creation of Grow Africa, which brings together the international private sector, African and donor governments, and the announcement of the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition at this year's G8 Summit. In the latter, individual African and international companies as well as donors identified the ways in which they would be working with or supporting smallholder farmers based on country plans developed by African governments around Pillar II of CAADP.
3.2. The private sector is therefore increasingly seen as a key player in scaling up support to smallholder farmers and providing them with the markets and access to inputs they require to increase their productivity and income. Yet, there remains a gap between the recognition of the importance of the private sector, the development of related policies, and practice on the ground. Greater emphasis must be placed on turning theory into practice.
3.3. The private sector cannot act alone. Action is required by a range of other actors if smallholders are to benefit from the opportunities that expanding supply chains can bring and if private sector actors are to invest:
African governments need to provide the right conditions to encourage domestic and international investment – for example, investing in agriculture and rural infrastructure; implementing policies that encourage smallholders to form cooperatives; taking steps to reduce delays or costs to smallholders; and working with neighbours to promote the expansion of regional trade.
Farmers’ organisations are often vital in bringing together individual farmers so that they can aggregate production and collectively improve access to inputs and markets.
International NGOs can provide expertise and support for the development of supply chains and to help farmers and farmer organisations reach the standards required by companies for their supply chains.
Private and public donors, investors and regional trade structures can provide the 'patient capital' (both in terms of finance and the appropriate environment) necessary to get projects off the ground.
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3.4. Self Help Africa and Farm Africa both work to help smallholder farmers to access supply chains:
Farm Africa has been supporting smallholder farmers in Ethiopia to supply Diageo’s Meta Brewery with barley. Earlier this year, Ethiopia’s Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA) prioritised barley as one of the country’s key value chains and Diageo pledged to source an initial 1,000 metric tonnes of malt barley locally from smallholder farmers. Farm Africa played a key role in supporting smallholder farmers to negotiate and secure their contracts with the Meta Brewery, as well as using research and knowledge to increase productivity and quality. Having a trusted partner on-the-ground (Farm Africa) has been vital to both Diageo and ATA and the pilot project has yielded important lessons for the government, for Diageo and for private sector engagement in agriculture more generally. Diageo eventually want to source 20,000MT of barley per year in Ethiopia, and advance contracting will be a key pillar of the ATA’s ‘Barley Roadmap’. There is clearly potential for scale-up and replication of this supply chain model.
Self Help Africa has an initiative for cashew value chain development working in Benin alliance with the private sector. The cashew sector presents huge potential for growth in Benin. With approximately 200,000 smallholders engaged in cashew nut, yields are remarkably low at just 120,000 tonnes, of which only 5% is processed in country. This initiative has started by working with 1,000 smallholders to increase the quality and quantity of cashew yields by improving farmers' skills, organisational capacity and access to markets. The initiative has three key private sector partners: PepsiCo as investor and ultimate market buyer; Tolaro Global as the processor and which has recently opened a factory in Parakou; and DREDAS as the local partner with many years' experience working with cashew producers in the area. Self Help Africa played an initial brokerage role and is overseeing project implementation and capacity building. Self Help Africa aims to use the project to document and disseminate scalable, proven good practices for integrating farmers into value chains.
3.5. Farm Africa and Self Help Africa are also both members of the African Smallholder Farmers Group of UK NGOs. We are working with other members of this group to look at what factors contribute to smallholder farmers' ability to increase their income through access to markets and entrepreneurship. Self Help Africa, Practical Action, CAFOD and Christian Aid have formed a steering group that has commissioned research into what factors are most important in enabling farmers to successfully benefit from market access. One of the aims of this research is to feed into the development of the 'Doing Business in Agriculture Index' being developed by the World Bank, as referenced in the text launching the New Alliance for Food and Nutrition at this year's G8.
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4. The way forward – recommendations
4.1. If the UK government wants to ensure that the private sector plays a positive role in promoting improved production and income generation for smallholders, enabling them to ensure their own food security, it should:
Support African governments in generating a positive environment for smallholders to access domestic and international markets. It should also support the development of a Doing Business in Agriculture Index by the World Bank that includes factors relevant to small-scale producers.
Support or promote mechanisms that enable more successful partnerships to be formed between smallholder farmers and those domestic and international companies looking to integrate them into their supply chains. This should include facilitating access to knowledge, support services, markets and investment.
Build on the work they are already doing through the African Enterprise Challenge Fund and the New Alliance, to provide capital to enable projects to get off the ground.
December 2012 GFS 03
Written evidence submitted by the Wellcome Trust
Thank you for the opportunity to comment on how the global food system can ensure food security. The Wellcome Trust’s strategic plan 2010-20201 includes a new strategic challenge, ‘Connecting environment, nutrition and health’. This challenge recognises that factors like food security, nutrition and climate have a fundamental connection to health. We are developing our work in this area, including addressing under- and over nutrition by supporting basic, clinical and population level studies as well as supporting research that improves the evidence base to inform policy and address health consequences.
The World Food Summit of 1996 defined food security as “when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food”2. Globally 1.2 billion people are undernourished and 99 per cent of these live in the developing world, with the majority in sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia3. However, discussion around food security often focuses on ensuring that the population receives sufficient calories, with limited attention to how nutritious this food is. Since these issues are clearly interrelated, any consideration of how the global food system can be adapted to ensure an end to hunger must take into account the importance of ensuring adequate nutrition.
As developing countries become wealthier, with rising household incomes and greater access to refined foods, there are trends towards increased consumption of processed foods and those higher in calories, as well as an increase in the quantity of sugar and oil purchased. Combined with more sedentary lifestyles, these dietary changes are leading to increasing levels of obesity. This ‘nutrition transition’ means that for some developing countries, such as India and Mexico, a ‘double burden’ of obesity and under nutrition exists. The increasing prevalence of obesity is leading to the development of a new subset of the population that suffer health problems caused by their excess weight, but also lacking essential nutrients required for good health. This complex relationship means that strategies to address global food security should take into account the need to address the double burden of undernutrition and obesity.
Nutritional status has a complex relationship with other health issues, including infectious disease; hygiene and sanitation; animal health; and maternal health. It is therefore important to consider other contributing ‘nutrition-sensitive’ policy areas when addressing the issue of food and nutrition security including poverty reduction, education, gender inequalities, trade and health. There needs to be a holistic approach to these issues, with a joined up strategy that facilitates collaborations and co-operation with multiple partners. Community engagement is also important as the “most effective polices are those that have recognised and engaged all stakeholders and in particular the poor”4.
There is strong scope for the private sector to play a key role in increasing access to nutritious food. The Trust has been working in partnership with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition to develop the 'Access to Nutrition Index’ (ATNI)5. The aim of ATNI is to identify and encourage best practice in the food industry to improve global nutrition, building on the approach used by the Access to Medicine Index. A core Index, to include both under nutrition and obesity, will consider multinational companies. A further series of
1 http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/About-us/Strategy/index.htm 2 http://www.who.int/trade/glossary/story028/en/ 3 http://www.scidev.net/en/features/the-challenge-of-improving-nutrition-facts-and-figures-1.html 4 Professor Sir Gordon Conway and Professor Jeff Waage, with Sara Delaney (2010) Science and Innovation for Development p.223 5 http://www.accesstonutrition.net/ ‘spotlight’ indexes will focus on specific countries (India, Mexico, South Africa) and the companies that operate there. ATNI will be launched in early 2013. It is intended that ATNI will act as a tool for companies to benchmark their nutrition practices and serve as an impartial source of information for interested stakeholders, for example investment firms who wish to invest in ethical ventures. Initiatives such as ATNI offer opportunities for the food industry to reflect on the impact they have on nutrition and to identify ways to improve their practices. ATNI is currently seeking further funding to ensure its sustainability in the longer term.
Globally, significant funding is committed to supporting food security, however often these funded projects are not evaluated to understand whether nutritional status is maintained or improved6. It is vital that robust and appropriate systems are put in place to monitor the impact of interventions to evaluate whether a technology or policy is working effectively or not. This information will then enable effective interventions to be appropriately implemented and disseminated to ensure the most efficient use of resources. Where interventions are large-scale and have multiple interrelated goals, such as improving nutrition and poverty alleviation, assessing effectiveness can be complex. Therefore, while randomised controlled trials remain the gold standard for evaluating interventions, it is important to recognise that other methodologies may sometimes be more appropriate or useful in certain settings.
Sir Mark Walport Director, Wellcome Trust
6 Corinna Hawkes, Rachel Turner, Jeff Waage (2012) Current and planned research on agriculture for improved nutrition: A mapping and a gap analysis GFS 04
Written evidence submitted by The Co-operative Group
SUMMARY
- This submission focuses on the importance of smallholder farmers and co- operatives and the role that the co-operative sector plays in supporting them.
- It contains a brief introduction to The Co-operative’s work to tackle global poverty; an overview of our campaigning work in 2012, in partnership with Oxfam, on the role that smallholder farmers and co-operatives can play in feeding the world fairly and sustainably. This includes recommendations and appendices.
- The UK government can enhance support for smallholder farmers and co- operatives by: investing a greater proportion of the budget allocated to Economic spending in agricultural development, targeted at programmes supporting smallholder farmers and co-operatives to build capacity, grow more food and access local and international markets; and advocating that G8 and G20 members commit at future meetings to increase support for smallholders and co-operatives.
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INTRODUCTION
1 The Co-operative Group (The Co-operative) is a unique family of businesses, jointly owned and democratically controlled by its seven million members. We are the fifth largest food retailer, the third largest retail pharmacy chain and the number one provider of funeral services in the UK. We also have strong market positions in banking, insurance and legal services. We are also one of the UK’s largest commercial farmers. The Co-operative employs over 100,000 people, and has 4,800 retail outlets and branches.
2 The Co-operative has always been at the forefront on ethics and our Ethical Plan reinforces our aim to be the UK’s most socially responsible business. This leadership extends to our programme of Tackling Global Poverty work and we’ve set a number of ambitious targets on this in our Ethical Plan, from Fairtrade leadership to support for overseas co-operatives.
3 Our programme of Tackling Global Poverty work extends across four key strands: ethical trade, co-operative support, responsible finance and campaigning.
4 Ethical Trade: We were the first major retailer to champion Fairtrade and continue to lead the way as we undertake the most radical Fairtrade conversion programme ever seen. We're also committed to continually improving working conditions in our supply chain.
5 Co-operative support: We’re investing £6m each year into co-operative support initiatives in some of the world’s poorest countries. The initiatives we support go beyond Fairtrade commitments alone, and equip poor communities to better help themselves towards lasting improvements.
6 Responsible Finance: Our bank invests in microfinance and our members can also make small loans directly to entrepreneurs in the developing world through our support for lendwithcare.org. Since the inception of our bank’s unique Ethical Policy, over £320m of finance has been declined from organisations in conflict with our position on international development and human rights.
7 Campaigning: We have a long history of advocating for change and raising awareness on development issues via campaigns and outreach events with our members. In 2012, the UN-designated International Year of Co-operatives, we are campaigning alongside Oxfam to champion the role that smallholder farmers and co-operatives can play in feeding the world fairly and sustainably.
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EVIDENCE AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Public policy work to champion the role smallholder farmers and co-operatives can play in feeding the world fairly and sustainably
8 There are around 500 million smallholder farming households in the world, together feeding nearly a third of the world’s population. This figure is even higher in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, where smallholder farmers produce up to 80% of food.
9 Despite this, the majority of smallholder farmers still lack investment and consequently struggle to produce much beyond subsistence levels. Globally, investment in agriculture is declining – between 1983 and 2006, the share of agriculture in official development assistance fell from 20.4% to 3.7% in real terms1. Additionally, one in seven people around the world goes to bed hungry every night and, with global population predicted to reach 9 billion by 2050, global food production will need to increase by 70%.
10 There is broad agreement that smallholders can provide much of the extra food needed to feed the world’s growing population2. According to the United Nations International Fund for Agriculture and Development (IFAD), smallholder farms are often very efficient in terms of production per hectare and have tremendous potential for growth3. The World Bank recognises that access to markets for smallholder farmers is a vital opportunity to reduce rural poverty4. Moreover, The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (UNFAO) notes that growth in small-scale agriculture can have twice the effect on the poorest as growth in other sectors5.
11 UN FAO also notes that “one of the necessary steps to achieving food security is to support and invest in cooperatives, producer organizations and other rural institutions”, thanks to the role these groups play in helping smallholder farmers to increase food production, market their goods and create jobs, improving their own livelihoods and increasing food security in the world6. In recognition of this, the UN FAO named “Agricultural co-operatives: key to feeding the world” as the theme for World Food Day in 20127.
12 In February 2012, The Co-operative launched a campaigning partnership with Oxfam to call on the UK Government to unlock greater support for smallholder farmers and co-operatives to help feed the world fairly and sustainably,
1 http://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/growing-a-better-future-010611-summ- en.pdf 2 http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/templates/getinvolved/images/WFD2012_leaflet_en_low.pdf 3 IFAD (undated) Food prices: smallholder farmers can be part of the solution, http://www.ifad.org/operations/food/farmer.htm. IFAD cites the example of Vietnam, which has gone from being a food-deficit country to a major food exporter, largely through development of its smallholder farming sector. 4 World Bank, World Development Report 2008: Agriculture for Development. 5 FAO (2009) How to Feed the World in 2050. 6 Ibid 7 http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/templates/getinvolved/images/WFD2012_leaflet_en_low.pdf GFS 04
particularly highlighting the role of co-operatives in supporting smallholders to pool resources, realise economies of scale and secure fairer prices. We are asking the UK Government to champion: i. Fair and sustainable methods of increasing global food production • By ‘fair’ we mean methods that principally benefit the poorest and empower marginalised groups, including women, young people and indigenous communities8. • By ‘sustainable’ we mean approaches that support farmers to increase and diversify their production, manage risks, cope with volatile food prices and adapt to a changing climate, and techniques which are ecologically sustainable, promoting natural resource management and conservation9. ii. The crucial role of smallholder farmers and co-operatives • By ‘smallholder’ we refer to farms with less than two hectares of cropland10. • By ‘co-operatives’ we mean organisations that are jointly-owned and democratically run for a common need by their members, in this case smallholder farmers. iii. Increased investment in sustainable smallholder agriculture to lift farmers – many of whom are women – out of poverty • By ‘increased investment’ we are particularly focussing on investment from the UK Government and groups of donor countries, such as the G8 and G20. However we recognise that domestic governments and the private sector also have a role to play in supporting smallholder farmers and co-operatives.
13 In the run-up to the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) in June 2012, almost 18,000 Co-operative members and Oxfam supporters called on the UK Government to champion smallholder farmers and co- operatives at the Summit. A group of campaigners from The Co-operative and Oxfam met Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg ahead of his departure for Rio to represent the 18,000 people who took action. During the Summit, the UK Government announced Department for International Development (DfID) funding that will support six million smallholder farmers through the UN International Fund for Agriculture and Development’s (IFAD) Adaptation for Smallholder Agriculture Programme (ASAP).
14 In July 2012, we placed an advert in the voting booklet for our Membership elections asking our members to support the campaign. Members could sign up as part of their ballot paper to join us in calling on the UK Government to unlock greater support for smallholder farmers and co-operatives to feed the world fairly and sustainably. In total, over 56,900 of our members responded, which
8 Methods should enable farmers to participate in identifying their own needs and most suitable investments. Investments should strengthen the capacity of co-operatives to treat men’s and women’s needs equitably, undertake collective actions and bargain for better prices and services. 9 Such as low external input technologies, integrated pest management and improved soil and water management. 10 World Bank Rural Development Strategy definition
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represented the largest ever single member response to a Co-operative campaign communication.
Recommendations
15 Given the mandate from over 75,000 Co-operative members and Oxfam supporters across the UK to champion smallholder farmers and co-operatives, as well as the numerous case studies within The Co-operative’s supply chain demonstrating the benefits of building the capacity of smallholders and co- operatives (see Appendix), we recommend that IndCom highlights the following points in its ‘Inquiry into Global Food Security’: • the role of smallholder agriculture in increasing food security and the part that DFID should play; • the role of the international system, including the G8 and G20; • the role of the private sector in increasing food security.
16 The UK Government can play an important role in unlocking greater support for smallholder farmers and co-operatives, both in terms of its own investment of aid monies (paragraph 17), and leveraging funding commitments from other donor countries through fora such as the G8 and G20 (paragraph 18).
17 Against a backdrop of declining global investment in agriculture, we welcomed Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg’s announcement at Rio+20, on DfID’s commitment to support six million smallholder farmers. We believe this is an excellent starting point towards helping smallholder farmers and co-operatives to build capacity and grow more food. We would recommend that as the UK Government’s aid budget increases to 0.7% of Gross National Income from 2013, a greater proportion of the budget allocated to Economic spending should be invested in agricultural development, targeted at programmes supporting smallholder farmers and co-operatives to build capacity, grow more food and access local and international markets.
18 We are also hopeful that DfID’s announcement can help to raise awareness internationally of the need to increase investment in smallholders and co- operatives, and we believe the UK Government should play an important role in advocating that G8 and G20 members commit at future meetings to increase support for smallholders and co-operatives.
19 In terms of the role the private sector can play in increasing food security, we would recommend that IndCom highlights in its Inquiry the role that the co- operative sector is playing in this regard. For example: • We believe that as the UK’s fifth largest food retailer, with a global supply chain, we can make a significant impact on the livelihoods of smallholder farmers and their capacity to grow more food in a fair and sustainable way. Through our pioneering commitments to Fairtrade (see Appendix) we’re supporting tens of thousands of smallholder farmers in our supply chain with fair and stable prices, and Fairtrade premiums to invest in farm improvements or community welfare projects, which in turn help provide stability for rural families to plan for the future. GFS 04
• Through our work to go ‘beyond Fairtrade’ (see Appendix), we’re further strengthening relationships with smallholder farmers and co-operatives in our supply chain, helping to ensure sustainability of supply in the longer term. • Working alongside the International Co-operative Alliance (ICA), we spearheaded the new Global Development Co-operative (GDC), which aims to support co-operatives in developing countries by providing much needed access to finance with investment from co-operatives around the world. Due to make its first loans to co-operatives in 2013, the GDC will initially target agricultural co-operatives in Africa amongst its loan recipients (see Appendix). • As membership organisations, co-operatives can advocate on areas of public policy that are important to their members, pushing for broader political change. In the case of our Grow Co-operatives campaign, we’re aiming to bring about changes that could benefit smallholder farmers and co-operatives beyond our supply chain. • As the UK’s largest consumer co-operative we also play an important role in the international co-operative movement, joining with other co-operatives from around the world (as members of the ICA) to raise awareness of the importance of co-operatives to a wide range of economic and social issues.
20 In summary, in its Inquiry into Global Food Security we recommend that IndCom highlights the role the Government can now play in unlocking greater support for smallholder farmers and co-operatives, both through its own activities and investment, and on the international stage. We also recommend that IndCom highlights the important role that the co-operative sector is playing in supporting Global Food Security. To support its recommendations, we hope that the Committee can draw on the evidence presented in this submission and in the following Appendix, which demonstrates the benefits in practice of building the capacity of smallholder farmers and co-operatives.
APPENDIX
The Co-operative’s support for smallholder farmers and co-operatives
21 This appendix details examples of The Co-operative’s projects and initiatives which demonstrate the benefits in practice of supporting smallholder farmers and co-operatives to build capacity, grow more food and access international markets.
Pioneering Fairtrade
22 Through our pioneering commitments to Fairtrade over the last twenty years, we’ve been supporting tens of thousands of smallholder farmers in our supply chain with fair and stable prices and Fairtrade premiums to invest in farm improvements or community welfare projects, which in turn help provide stability for rural families to plan for the future. Today, we remain second to none in terms of Fairtrade availability11 and overtrade12 and our most ambitious target yet – that
11 We sell Fairtrade products in every one of our 2,800 Food stores. 12 We sell more Fairtrade for the size of our business than any of our competitors. GFS 04
if it can be Fairtrade, it will be13 – will extend the benefits of Fairtrade to thousands more smallholder farmers.
Going ‘beyond Fairtrade’
23 Building on our leading approach to Fairtrade, we are also investing in a range of projects and initiatives that support our Fairtrade producers with benefits above and beyond what the Fairtrade premium delivers alone. Today, sixteen co- operatives and producer associations across Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean are benefiting from our programme of beyond Fairtrade initiatives, of which five examples are given below. We’re supporting tens of thousands of producers in a variety of ways, be it helping them to strengthen democracy, boost productivity, diversify into other products, improve environmental practices, have a stronger voice in trading negotiations or improve community wide-access to basic necessities like clean water, sanitation and green energy.
Fintea tea co-operative, Kenya 24 Traditionally, small-scale tea farmers face numerous challenges. The global price of tea is highly unstable and with only a small farm, individual growers often have no bargaining power to negotiate decent terms of trade. In a project which secured match-funding from the Department for International Development (DFID), The Co-operative has supported over 15,000 tea smallholders in Kenya to form into co-operatives, become Fairtrade certified and supply into our ‘99’ Fairtrade tea blend.
25 In Kericho, where the project is located, the high cost of production coupled with the ever-declining tea prices meant many of these farmers were living under the poverty line. In addition, many farmers had no other income source and were getting poorer. By organising into five producer co-operatives, overseen by the Fintea Growers Co-operative Union, the 15,000 farmers, half of whom are women, are benefiting from a stronger negotiating position and can collectively own and share the profits from the business, increasing the incomes of participating tea farmers by as much as 30%. They are also being given the opportunity to diversify into other products to reduce their dependency on the volatile tea sector and improve local food security.
Kuapa Kokoo cocoa co-operative, Ghana 26 After years of government monopoly control over Ghana’s cocoa trade, the industry was restructured in 1993 and cocoa farmers began to organise themselves and market their own cocoa. Kuapa Kokoo co-operative was formed, aiming to empower farmers to gain a dignified livelihood, increase women's participation and enable environmentally friendly cocoa cultivation. The co- operative originally had 200 members in 22 village societies and has grown to over 1,300 village societies, representing over 48,000 farmers, 28% female.
13 In our Ethical Plan, we’ve set a target that if a primary commodity from the developing world can be Fairtrade, it will be Fairtrade, and we aim to be 90% of the way there (by sales value) by the end of 2013. GFS 04
27 In the year 2000, we launched the first own-brand product in the UK to be Fairtrade certified - The Co-operative Milk Chocolate. The conversion signalled the start of a relationship with the Kuapa Kokoo growers, who have been benefitting ever since. Fairtrade premiums received from sales of The Co- operative’s products have been significant, and have helped to improve access to clean water and health services in cocoa growing communities.
28 The Co-operative also goes beyond Fairtrade and pays a further premium on all the Fairtrade cocoa sourced from Kuapa Kokoo through Divine Chocolate’s own ‘producer support and development fund’ which aims to develop the co- operative’s capacity and strength, for example investment in ground nut milling equipment has helped create additional sources of income. Today Kuapa Kokoo supplies big brands in the UK, such as The Co-operative, Cadbury’s and Divine - a company in which the farmers themselves own a 45% stake.
FEDECOCAGUA coffee co-operative, Guatemala 29 In March 1969, thousands of small coffee growers organized into 19 co- operatives across Guatemala to form FEDECOCAGUA (Federación de Cooperativas Agrícolas de Productores de Café de Guatemala – Federation of Guatemalan Coffee Producer Co-operatives). FEDECOCAGUA started to export Fairtrade coffee in 1997, and today, 30% of its coffee exports are sold under Fairtrade terms. In 2003, we switched 100% of our own-brand coffee to Fairtrade, supporting thousands of smallholder coffee farmers, including members of Fedecocagua.
30 Today, FEDECOCAGUA is made up of 54 primary co-operative societies representing 20,000 smallholder coffee farmers. To enable FEDECOCAGUA to sell more coffee under Fairtrade terms, The Co-operative is going beyond Fairtrade to support twelve of the primary co-operatives with capacity building and training, in particular helping them to achieve Fairtrade certification. The project is also supporting three other groups of coffee producers to form into co- operatives, achieve Fairtrade certification and become member co-operatives of FEDECOCAGUA, helping them to own more of the value chain. In total, 5,000 smallholder coffee producers are set to benefit.
Banelino banana co-operative, Dominican Republic 31 The Co-operative is supporting smallholder banana producers belonging to Banelino co-operative in the Dominican Republic with capacity building and training to improve the productivity and quality of bananas and enable diversification into additional crops to help provide additional sources of income. In addition, Banelino is establishing a training school for young people to help secure the long-term sustainability of small-scale banana farming in the region.
The Global Development Co-operative
32 The Co-operative Banking Group is spearheading the Global Development Co- operative (GDC) – a development fund to help provide much needed finance to co-operatives in developing countries. Finance for co-operatives is often scarce, either because traditional lenders are not active in this market or do not GFS 04
sufficiently understand the co-operative business model. Additionally, co- operatives in developing countries often have limited collateral to put forward. Working with the International Co-operative Alliance, the GDC aims to support co-operative businesses in developing countries by raising £20m to provide access to fair priced loans for capital and infrastructure projects. Due to make its first loans to co-operatives in 2013, the GDC will initially target agricultural co- operatives in Africa amongst its loan recipients.
December 2012 MDG 05
Written evidence submitted by Research Councils UK (RCUK)
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
1. Food security is an international issue which requires an international solution. No funder or body in the UK, or elsewhere in the world, has the resources to tackle the challenge alone. From a research perspective, global co-ordination is required to achieve value for money from investments, to prevent duplicative funding commitments and to identify unexploited research areas. The UK can contribute through application of its excellent research base in areas underpinning biospheric, environmental, social and economic aspects of the food system, particularly when co-ordinated through multi-agency programmes. DFID should continue to make full use of the UK research base in supporting its work.
2. Climate and broader environmental change will have significant ramifications for agricultural and fishery productivity, particularly in the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) that are least well equipped to respond. Co-ordinated and interdisciplinary research is urgently needed to understand and address these impacts, and to assess how they will interact with economic, social, political and demographic forces to affect affordability and developing world food security.
3. The UK’s main public sector funders of food-related research and training have joined forces to develop, design and implement a programme to coordinate research and associated activity on Global Food Security (GFS), collectively spending around £400M per year.
4. DFID, alongside other funders, should continue to support collaborative research, particularly to ensure that advances in basic research are translated into practical applications which support food security worldwide. RCUK and DFID have jointly funded a number of research programmes to support research relevant to the issue of global food security, based on collaborations between UK researchers and those from developing countries. These programmes are beneficial to the developing country partners, and mutually beneficial to RCUK and DFID. RCUK greatly values its joint research programmes with DFID, and is keen to build upon their success.
5. Research underpinning the development of new technologies, mechanisms to put innovations into practice and increased understanding of environmental and socio- economic factors will have an important role to play in the achievement of food security.
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INTRODUCTION
6. Research Councils UK (RCUK) is a strategic partnership set up to champion the research supported by the seven UK Research Councils. RCUK was established in 2002 to enable the Councils to work together more effectively to enhance the overall impact and effectiveness of their research, training and innovation activities, contributing to the delivery of the Government’s objectives for science and innovation. Further details are available at www.rcuk.ac.uk.
7. This evidence is submitted by RCUK on behalf of the Research Councils listed below and represents their independent views. It does not include or necessarily reflect the views of the Science and Research Group in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS). The submission is made on behalf of the following Councils and their research centres:
• Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) • Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) • Medical Research Council (MRC) • Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) • Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)
8. This response focuses only on those questions or parts of questions relevant to RCUK or the individual Councils that have contributed to the response. It also provides some more generic briefing that is relevant to the overall subject of the Inquiry, and which the Committee may wish to consider.
GENERAL BRIEFING
THE GLOBAL FOOD SECURITY PROGRAMME
9. The UK’s main public sector funders of food-related research and training have joined forces to develop, design and implement a programme to coordinate research and associated activity on Global Food Security (GFS). The programme partners are Research Councils UK, BIS, Defra, DFID, DH, FSA, Scottish Government, Welsh Government and the Technology Strategy Board, with the Wellcome Trust and the Met Office as observers. The Global Food Security Strategic Plan 2011-2016 was launched in February 2011 and represents a single shared high-level strategy across all programme partners.1 Collectively, GFS partners spend around £400M per year on food-related research.
10. The GFS programme uses the UN FAO definition of food security: ‘Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food, that is produced sustainably, to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.’
1 http://www.foodsecurity.ac.uk/assets/pdfs/gfs-strategic-plan.pdf MDG 05
11. The programme is intended to help meet the global challenge of providing the world’s growing population with access to environmentally, economically and socially sustainable, safe, affordable and nutritious food, which will need to be produced and supplied from the same or less land and marine resources, with lower inputs of finite resources and against the constraints of climate change. The programme has four major interdisciplinary and whole-systems research themes: • economic resilience • resource efficiency • sustainable production and supply • sustainable, healthy and safe diets.
12. Meeting the challenges of our future food security is not just an issue for government: it involves everyone across the food system. The complex and inter- related problems of food security can only be tackled through coordinated and integrated interdisciplinary research, coupled with its effective translation into practice and policy. The GFS programme therefore aims to provide knowledge and evidence for policy development (both nationally and locally), and to enable food producers and processors, retailers, consumers and civil society to respond to and manage the challenges facing the food system. This research concerns both supply- side (growing sufficient food against environmental and climatic constraints) and demand-side issues (including consumer choice and waste management).
13. The Foresight report on The Future of Food and Farming2 was timely and informative in providing detailed context and analysis on the global food system and the many challenges that it faces. The GFS programme has a key role to play in providing research and evidence to help address some of the recommendations from the report.
14. In June 2011, a joint GFS-Foresight workshop was held, focused on a paper by Pretty et al entitled ‘The Top 100 Questions of Importance to the Future of Global Agriculture’3, produced as part of the Foresight report. The workshop brought together a sub-set of the lead expert group from the Foresight project, a number of key stakeholders, and the GFS Programme Coordination Group. The outputs from this joint workshop have informed the programme’s initial set of priorities, currently being taken forward together with a range of issues emerging from system-change, horizon-scanning and scoping exercises.
RCUK’S RELATIONSHIP WITH DFID
15. RCUK exists primarily to support UK research of the highest international quality, whilst DFID funds research in order to generate knowledge that will directly help to alleviate poverty in developing countries. Those aims are not mutually exclusive, and RCUK has a productive and mutually-beneficial partnership with DFID. RCUK is
2 http://www.bis.gov.uk/assets/foresight/docs/food-and-farming/11-546-future-of-food-and-farming-report.pdf 3 http://www.foodsecurity.ac.uk/news-events/news/2011/110608-n-global-food-security-priorities.html MDG 05
committed to working flexibly with DFID to promote and support research that is both of high scientific quality and has substantial relevance to international development.
16. RCUK and DFID have jointly funded a number of research programmes to support research relevant to global food security:
• The Sustainable Agriculture Research for International Development (SARID) programme, supported by BBSRC and DFID, awarded £7.3M for 12 projects in 20084 • The Combating Infectious Diseases of Livestock for International Development (CIDLID) programme, supported by BBSRC, DFID and the Scottish Government, awarded £13.5M for 16 projects in 20105 • The Sustainable Crop Production Research for International Development (SCPRID) programme, supported by BBSRC, DFID, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Government of India, awarded £16.0M for 11 projects in December 20116 • The Ecosystem Services for Poverty Alleviation (ESPA) programme, supported by NERC, ESRC and DFID and launched as part of the Living With Environmental Change partnership, is delivering a £40.5m research programme over seven years until 20167 • The Joint Fund for Poverty Alleviation, supported by ESRC and DFID, has so far supported 83 research projects totalling £36.5m, with a phase three project call recently launched8 • The Zoonoses and Emerging Livestock Systems (ZELS) programme, supported by BBSRC, ESRC, MRC, NERC and DFID, is currently open for applications and expected to provide up to £18.5m research funding9.
17. All projects funded through these programmes are based on collaborations which bring together the expertise of UK researchers with the complementary skills of developing countries researchers. RCUK and DFID are therefore supporting excellent, RCUK-funded researchers in the UK in applying their research to problems directly relevant to the food security needs of developing countries, whilst enhancing the scientific capabilities of “southern” partners for the longer term.
18. RCUK values greatly, and is keen to develop further, its productive and mutually- beneficial collaborations with DFID by building on the success of the jointly-funded research programmes described above. It recognises that DFID requires partners to implement and deliver its research strategy, and the UK research community - with its existing relationships in developing countries and excellence in science and technology - is well placed to fulfil that need.
4 http://www.bbsrc.ac.uk/funding/opportunities/2007/sustainable-agriculture.aspx 5 http://www.bbsrc.ac.uk/funding/opportunities/2008/combating-infectious-diseases-livestock.aspx 6 http://www.bbsrc.ac.uk/funding/opportunities/2011/1103-sustainable-crop-production-international.aspx 7 http://www.espa.ac.uk/ 8 http://www.esrc.ac.uk/funding-and-guidance/funding-opportunities/23327/esrc-dfid-joint-fund-for-poverty- alleviation-research-phase-3.aspx 9 http://www.bbsrc.ac.uk/funding/opportunities/2012/zoonoses-emerging-livestock-systems.aspx MDG 05
RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS
The success or otherwise of the global food system in guaranteeing food security and eliminating under-nutrition with particular reference to women, children and other vulnerable groups
19. Given that food security is dependent on access to food (rather than just on food availability), a “successfully” operating system requires food to be affordable and meeting preferences, and for there to be no political or cultural impediment to accessing it.
20. Rising malnutrition across the world, driven by rising food prices, suggests that the global food system is increasingly failing. Nutrition, including access to all essential nutrients. is important for healthy development and ageing, mental health, well- being, educational attainment and economic productivity. Chronic hunger impairs immune system function and is damaging to pregnancy and lactation, making malnutrition an underlying cause of more than a third of children's deaths worldwide10.
21. There is an urgent need to find sustainable ways to make good quality and nutritious food available to low-income families and communities at affordable prices. DFID should continue its important work on nutrition interventions for the most vulnerable (breastfeeding women and young children), ensuring that nutrition-related problems are not passed from one generation to the next.
The implications of demographic trends, rising income and climate change on the global food system and on key indicators of food security and good nutrition
22. The huge variety in food systems across the world - operating in different social, economic, political and environmental situations - will be differentially affected by interrelated factors such as climate change, energy security, water security, and market variations. Research is required to better understand the relationship between these factors, and their relative and combined impact on food security.
23. Climate change, and environmental change more broadly, will significantly impact agriculture and fisheries globally, particularly in the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) that are least well equipped to respond. The extremes of climate are predicted to widen, with increased incidence and severity of both droughts and flooding11. Some areas may be affected by both extremes, whilst the climate of others may move further towards (e.g. desertification) or away from the extremes. This has significant ramifications for agricultural productivity and related food security issues, with, for example, water stresses increasing, growing seasons and pests and diseases changing, pollutions affecting yields and soil structures being altered.
10 http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/resources/online-library/life-free-hunger-tackling-child-malnutrition 11 http://www.foodsecurity.ac.uk/assets/pdfs/frp-severe-weather-uk-food-chain- resilience.pdf#search=%22FRP%22 MDG 05
24. Co-ordinated and multidisciplinary (i.e. socio-economic, agricultural and environmental) research is urgently needed to understand and address the potential impacts of climate and environmental change on the food system. The impacts of increasingly extreme weather are already being felt, and recent work for the Food Research Partnership (FRP), led by GFS, suggests that weather-driven fluctuations in food supply will increasingly put the global food system at risk of failure12. We urgently need to understand how fluctuations in weather will interact with demographic and economic trends to impact affordability and developing world food security.
The role of the international system, including food and agriculture organisations and the G8 and G20, and ways in which collaboration could be improved
25. RCUK’s comments in this section are focused on the role of the UK within the international research system in areas underpinning global food security.
26. No funder in the UK, or elsewhere in the world, has the resources to tackle the research challenges associated with achieving global food security alone. Food security is an international issue which requires a coordinated international response. Global partnerships are needed to achieve value for money from investments, and to prevent duplicative funding commitments.
27. The UK can contribute to global challenges in agriculture, fisheries and food security through the application of its research expertise. The UK has a strong research base in many areas underpinning the biospheric, social and economic aspects of the food system, as well as internationally leading research institutes with unique public- funded research capabilities. For example, the Pirbright Institute13 is a world reference laboratory for a number of livestock diseases, Rothamsted Research14 hosts the world’s oldest long-term agricultural experiments, and the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH)15 conducts world-leading research on the environment- agriculture interface. This excellent research base is an asset to international partners, especially in some LDCs where scientific infrastructures are less well developed.
28. Co-ordination of UK research efforts through collaborations such as the UK Collaborative on Development Sciences16, the Belmont Forum17, and through multi- agency programmes such as the Research Council-led Global Food Security, Living with Environmental Change18 and Global Uncertainties19 programmes, helps to increase the impact of UK contributions to international agriculture and food security
12 http://www.foodsecurity.ac.uk/assets/pdfs/frp-severe-weather-uk-food-chain- resilience.pdf#search=%22FRP%22 13 http://pirbright.ac.uk/ 14 http://www.rothamsted.ac.uk/ 15 http://www.ceh.ac.uk 16 http://www.ukcds.org.uk/ 17 http://www.nerc.ac.uk/research/international/belmont.asp?cookieConsent=A 18 http://www.lwec.org.uk/ 19 http://www.globaluncertainties.org.uk/ MDG 05
agendas. DFID should make full use of the UK research base, and RCUK as a knowledge and research provider, in supporting its work.
29. Nonetheless, there remains an urgent need to understand the global research effort. Only by analysing research at national, regional (e.g. EU), and international (e.g. CGIAR20) levels will it become evident where there is scope for alignment, and where unaddressed opportunities remain. As discussed at the recent G20 Meeting of Agricultural Chief Scientists, the G8 and G20 have the capacity to lead such an exercise, and to facilitate delivery of partnered programmes to ensure that research gaps are appropriately filled.
The best strategies for reducing risk from short term shocks and long term structural factors and for building resilience among the most vulnerable
30. Better understanding of where short term risks arise (for example from climate and pollution extremes or pest outbreaks) will come from greater insight into how the food system as a whole, as opposed to just food production, operates. An understanding of the natural and managed environment’s role in the provision of sustainable and resilient food security will be required for full development of risk governance strategies.
The role of the following in increasing food security and the part that DFID should play in:
• Competition for land use – including for biofuels, cash crops, livestock or agriculture and the impact of diet choices on food production capacity • small holder agriculture and large scale farming • external interventions — including land deals, corporate investment and donor interventions • The private sector • New technologies, including irrigation, and the dissemination and distribution of these, with special reference to small farmers and women • Global policy measures, including monitoring, food stocks, financial shock facilities, food, nutrition and agriculture initiatives • Food markets, trading, storage and distribution • The role of commodity funds and major global commodity companies.
31. Research underpinning the development of new technologies, improvements in dietary health, mechanisms to put innovations into practice and increased understanding of socio-economic factors will have an important role to play in the achievement of food security. For example, potential lies in:
20 http://www.cgiar.org/ MDG 05
• reducing the incidence of animal disease. The Pirbright Institute, strategically funded by BBSRC, played a key role in developing the vaccination technologies which achieved global eradication of rinderpest in 201121. The economic, environmental and animal welfare benefits of this programme exemplify the extensive impact of research and innovation in controlling potentially devastating livestock diseases • improving maternal and child health in low income countries. Research supported by the MRC International Nutrition Group22, Human Nutrition Research23 and Gambia Unit24 aims to identify strategies for optimisation of maternal and child health in low income countries, with a particular focus on interventions to combat micronutrient deficiencies and early life infections • enhancing the sustainability of food production through genetic modification. Through the introduction to commercial crops of genes, from related or other plants, that confer naturally-occurring resistance to pests or pathogens, GM may offer scope for more environmentally-benign alternatives to the repeated application of pesticides. BBSRC has recently supported research on the development of potatoes resistant to nematode worms or “blight” fungus, and of aphid-resistant wheat. GM may also have the potential to increase agricultural productivity through reduction of animal disease, for example by preventing the transmission of avian influenza25 • increasing yields through pest and weed control. Research at Rothamsted has led to the development of new farming systems for sustainable intensification. The ‘push-pull’ strategy diverts (pushes) insect pests and parasitic weeds from the main crop and entices (pulls) them into a trap crop. In parts of Africa, this innovative approach is already responsible for doubling cereal crop yield on poor subsistence farms whilst minimising negative environmental impacts26 • reducing sensitivity to and impacts of air pollutants on crop yield. Air pollution, especially ozone, reduces crop yields in developing countries27. Possible strategies for mitigating such effects included pollutant resistant genotypes, chemical protection and changed management practices - and should be urgently explored • developing marine farming technologies. Aquaculture and mariculture have tremendous scope to produce high quality nutrition from fish, shellfish and algae, without using scarce resources of land and fresh water. Integrated Multi-Trophic Aquaculture (IMTA) seeks to create a functioning, self-sustaining mini-ecosystem in which high value fish (e.g. salmon) are farmed alongside parasite-feeding species, filter-feeding shellfish to consume waste products, and seaweeds (macro-algae) that provide a structure, habitat and valuable product for algal biofuels, pharmaceuticals,
21 http://www.bbsrc.ac.uk/research/impact/eradicating-rinderpest.aspx 22 http://www.ing.mrc.ac.uk/default.aspx 23 http://www.mrc-hnr.cam.ac.uk/ 24 http://www.mrc.gm/ 25 http://www.bbsrc.ac.uk/web/FILES/Publications/1102_avian_influenza_chickens.pdf 26 http://www.bbsrc.ac.uk/publications/business/2009/autumn/opinion-john-pickett.aspx 27 http://icpvegetation.ceh.ac.uk/publications/documents/ozoneandfoodsecurity-ICPVegetationreport%202011- published.pdf MDG 05
fertiliser and fuel. The Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS) is a leader in IMTA development28,29 • increasing water efficiency and exploring non-conventional water resources: Water security is essential to food security. Increasing water productivity, for example through better irrigation management and rainfall harvesting, is vital to increasing food production per land unit. Use of non- conventional water resources such as saline/brackish groundwater, treated waste water, water from cooling towers and from mines will be needed to reduce reliance on the finite, and in many regions scare, resource of fresh water. The Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH) is exploring alternative water resources, and trialling drought and salt-tolerant crops across Europe and North Africa30 • modelling and building resilient food systems in the face of climate change. Food production is determined by an integration of farming, environment and demand. Developing models to predict how weather perturbations create demand signals, and drive land-use and production changes, will be crucial in both short- and long-term planning. The UK is a world leader in climate science and modelling, and DFID should use this information to ensure that its development strategies provide future resilience in food systems by accounting for changing weather • early detection of disease and other stresses in crops. New technologies based on Earth observation techniques (from satellites or aircraft) will facilitate early identification of crop disease outbreaks for preventative action • developing sustainable landscapes delivering both food and ecosystem services. The challenge of sustainable intensification is both about producing more per unit area, with lower environmental costs, and about managing landscapes to deliver crucial wider ecosystem services such as pollination. The UK has considerable expertise in this area, as reflected by investments in the Rural Economy and Land Use (RELU)31, Social Economic and Environmental Research (SEER)32 and Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Sustainability (BESS)33 programmes • understanding pathways to sustainability in agriculture. Agriculture is central to sustainable development in food production, impacts on ecosystems and landscapes, and the development of sustainable rural economies and communities. Research is required to fully understand the role of biodiversity in delivering sustainable agriculture, for example through pollination and nitrogen fixation services. The Social, Technological and Environmental Pathways to Sustainability (STEPS) Centre34, supported by ESRC, is an interdisciplinary global research and policy engagement project which unites development studies with science and technology. The creation of sustainable food systems through local initiatives, and issues of
28 http://www.sams.ac.uk/maeve-kelly/integrated-multitrophic-aquaculture-research 29 http://www.sams.ac.uk/kenny-black/irc-imta 30 http://www.swup-med.dk/ 31 http://www.relu.ac.uk/ 32 http://www.cserge.ac.uk/current-research-projects/seer 33 http://www.nerc-bess.net/ 34 http://steps-centre.org/ MDG 05
governance and accountability throughout the food supply chain have been explored through the ESRC-supported Centre for Business Relationships, Accountability, Sustainability and Society (BRASS)35 • understanding food choices and behaviour. Eating habits are sometimes said to be among the most difficult of all to change, yet individuals are also constantly solicited in the name of responsible consumption to change their habits and/or to buy new products. Substantial changes in the relation of societies to food will be necessary to respond to issues of environmental sustainability, but it is far from clear how this might be achieved. The Sustainable Practices Research Group36, supported by ESRC, aims to cast a sociological and comparative light on processes of changing habits • reducing waste in the global food system. A significant proportion (30 to 40%) of food in the developing worlds is lost to waste, for example through inadequate food-chain infrastructure, post-harvest pests, poor storage technologies and poor access to markets. Coordinated natural and social science research is required to understand and reduce food losses37.
32. DFID should continue to support collaborative research, particularly to ensure that advances in basic research are translated into practical applications which support food security worldwide.
33. DFID should also support farmers in LDCs to articulate their technological and policy needs in the short- and long-term, stimulate local private sectors and develop LDC research capacity. These measures will help to ensure that food production technologies will be embedded within local agricultural, social, economic and environmental contexts, rather than developed as abstractions of externally perceived problems.
34. Achieving long-term sustainability in food production and food security in LDCs will necessitate long-term planning and capacity building, training, innovation and engagement between DFID and RCUK to make best use of UK research. An holistic approach that takes into account factors such as environmental change, globalisation, changes in diet and economic resilience in the food economy is required. Sustainability can be achieved when investment can be integrated with local research capacity - requiring continuity of approaches and funding, and the empowerment of LDCs to commission research from countries such as the UK.
RCUK December 2012
35 http://www.brass.cf.ac.uk/ 36 http://www.sprg.ac.uk/ 37 J. Parfitt et al., 2012. Food waste within food supply chains: quantification and potential for change to 2050. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 2010 365, 3065-3081. GFS 06
Written evidence submitted by The Vegan Society
1 Summary
1.1 The Vegan Society
1.1.1 The Vegan Society seeks life and equity for all, and sustainable plant-based agriculture and food systems.
1.2 Key points
1.2.1 Well-planned, culturally appropriate vegan diets can demonstrably support healthy living at every age and life-stage.
1.2.2 Stock-free farming, which avoids all intentional animal inputs, can enable communities to secure their own food supply.
1.2.3 To achieve universal food security, we will need to seek and accept support, involvement and leadership from all groups in the Majority World, especially women farmers and child-headed families.
1.2.4 Governments and international systems need to provide political will, financial investment, strong legal support and accountability to ensure that people in vulnerable situations can secure their own food supply.
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2 Evidence: The food security benefits of a move away from animal farming
2.1 The Vegan Society, plant-based nutrition and stock-free farming
2.1.1 The Vegan Society welcomes this opportunity to submit evidence to the International Development Select Committee's inquiry into Global Food Security. The Vegan Society works with partners to share the benefits of plant-based living for humans, non-human animals and the planet. We seek life and equity for all, and sustainable plant-based agriculture and food systems. The Vegan Society is a member of Bond, the UK body for non-governmental organisations working in international development.
2.1.2 Well-planned, culturally appropriate plant-based nutrition has been demonstrated to support healthy living at every age and life-stage1. It is the position of the American Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics that appropriate vegan diets can also help to prevent and treat chronic diseases including heart disease, cancer, obesity and diabetes2. Nutritious, tasty plant-based diets can also make efficient use of fertile land, fresh water and energy.
2.1.3 Stock-free agriculture covers all methods of farming free of the intentional use of non-human animals. Many stock-free farmers use agro-ecological approaches, viewing farms as part of the wider eco-system.
2.1.4 In the following sections, we address the issues as posed by the International Development Committee (using bold type for the Committee phrasing3).
2.2 The success or otherwise of the global food system in guaranteeing food security and eliminating under-nutrition with particular reference to women, children and other vulnerable groups;
2.2.1 The global food system is clearly failing. Food security means everyone has a reliable supply of adequate, nutritious, safe, and culturally appropriate food.
2.2.2 Each individual has the strongest interest in their own food security. We each need to have the right resources if we are to be able to secure our own food supply. However, we must give access to fertile land for all, as a necessary condition to achieving food security and food supply resilience.
2.2.3 Fertile land, fresh water and energy are all much sought-after. Food production based on animal farming needs significantly more fertile land, fresh water and energy than plant-based agriculture and nutrition. Nutritious, tasty, culturally appropriate plant-based diets can have very wide appeal whilst making efficient use of these resources. The Vegan Society have estimated that, in the UK context, we can produce well-balanced, appealing plant-based diets using just one third the fertile land, fresh water and energy currently used to feed Britain4. GFS 06
2.2.4 Human farming of non-human animals greatly increases competition for resources5.
2.2.5 Humans using crops first-hand is generally much more resource-efficient than using those resources second-hand via farmed non-human animals. For example, around a billion tonnes of grain is wasted each year by the global 'livestock' industry. Used first-hand by humans, this grain would be sufficient to meet the food energy needs of an extra 3.5 billion humans6.
2.2.6 Consuming crops second-hand, after feeding to non-human animals, is particularly an inefficient use of nitrogen (N) compared to first-hand consumption in crops as part of a healthy plant-based diet. As we choose to move to plant- based diets, we can significantly reduce demand for synthetic N fertilisers. This in turn helps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and also, to reduce competition for scarce energy resources. The human population can be sustained from plant-based (legume) sources of protein (and nitrogen) for the foreseeable future7.
2.2.7 It is therefore clear that a move away from ‘animal-based’ farming will significantly reduce competition for land, water, energy and food. We need instead to move toward appropriate plant-based farming techniques such as field- scale arable, field and garden horticulture, and agro-forestry.
2.2.8 Whenever there is competition for resources, vulnerable groups — including women and children — will always lose out. We need to take concrete actions to reduce resource competition. If we genuinely want to end malnutrition, we need to quickly get fertile land, fresh water and energy resources into the effective control of people currently in vulnerable situations.
2.2.9 We also need to rapidly support and empower everyone, including women and children, to start practicing the skills of stock-free farming and plant-based nutrition.
2.2.10 These steps will enable people to free themselves from their vulnerable situations, and secure their own food supply.
2.2.11 To achieve these outcomes, existing farmers need financial and educational support during 2013, to adopt stock-free techniques, and to stop artificially breeding animals. People interested in becoming farmers and growers will also need access to fertile land, fresh water, tools, seeds, training and finance to enable them to start using stock-free techniques to grow their own food.
2.2.12 People suffering from poor nutrition themselves need support to start exploring market gardening to help with their own food security and their own livelihoods. They also need support in planning, securing and enjoying nutritionally complete plant-based diets. This work must complement effective food aid.
2.2.13 Those of us with power to help must genuinely challenge ourselves to support a secure food supply, and an end to malnutrition and hunger, for all. GFS 06
2.2.14 We will need support, involvement and leadership from all groups in the Majority World, especially women farmers and child-headed families. International development charities such as HIPPO (Charity No 1075420) offer practical, successful examples such as the HIPPO vegetable growing projects in Kenya.
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2.3 The implications of demographic trends, rising income and climate change on the global food system and on key indicators of food security and good nutrition;
2.3.1 We already grow food sufficient for the basic needs of more than 9 billion humans. Government calculations of future food needs must fully account for both current unfair distribution, and for current food waste. We must look at supply and demand, as well as production.
2.3.2 Grain sufficient for the energy needs of 3.5 billion humans is wasted by the global 'livestock' industry (around a billion tonnes each year)8.
2.3.3 One third of all food produced for human consumption is wasted (around 1.3 billion tonnes per year) in the supply chain9. Around one billion humans contribute to food waste by eating excess calories. More is lost as biofuels.
2.3.4 We need to focus on continuing and expanding the existing sustainable production of plant-based food. We need to reduce losses in the food supply chain. We need to ensure that sufficient, culturally appropriate plant-based food reaches the plates of those who need it most.
2.3.5 We need to encourage and support everyone to choose nutritious, varied diets, based on eating plant crops first-hand. Moving to plant-based diets (including for protein) has great potential for climate change reduction and mitigation10.
2.3.6 Human farming of non-human animals is a major source of greenhouse-gas emissions, particularly high warming potential gases such as methane11.
2.3.7 However, methane leaves the atmosphere around 10 times faster than carbon dioxide. Therefore, a rapid move away from animal farming, toward stock-free farming and well-planned plant-based diets, can significantly slow down greenhouse gas accumulation in the atmosphere12. This in turn will give us more time to take decisive, fair actions to deal with the climate and food security crises.
2.3.8 Sustainability, equity and food security are intimately interdependent challenges shared by the Minority and Majority World. Sustainability means, "Enough, for all, forever".13
2.3.9 The Minority World must make major cuts to our global natural resource use, using all ethical means to rapidly come within the well-demonstrated global environmental and resource limits. We must support fair distribution of resource use to the Majority World. This will support long-term social and economic stability.
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2.4 The impact of global and local food shocks and how different countries and/or regions cope with food crises and the role of democracy in increasing food security;
2.4.1 Democratic access to fertile land, fresh water, tools and seed stocks, and the skills of stock-free farming and balanced plant-based diets, can enable almost all individuals and communities to secure their own food supply14.
2.4.2 The Market Garden Britain 2030 (MGB2030) report aims to set out concrete plans specific to the UK based upon the highly significant International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) recommendations15.
2.4.3 The MGB2030 author, Jenny Griggs uses value modes to throw new light on some very old & thorny problems. She describes three 'world views': Pioneers, Prospectors and Settlers (and their approximate prevalence in the British population16).
2.4.4 These ‘world views’ are:
2.4.4.1 Settlers (20%) tend to be socially conservative, preferring trusted channels and known behaviours. They tend to be wary of change, to follow rules, and to seek a lead from authority.
2.4.4.2 Prospectors (40%) tend to focus on making their lives more physically comfortable. They tend to be high energy, fun seeking early adopters but not innovators. They tend to avoid social risks.
2.4.4.3 Pioneers (40%) tend to be society’s 'scouts', testing, innovating and questioning new ideas. They tend to be attracted to ‘interesting issues’. They may have strong ethical beliefs, seeking to ‘make the world better place’, striving to be ‘better people’. They may also have a relaxed outlook, seeking to ‘do their own thing’. They tend to be at ease with change, and global in outlook.
2.4.5 Many suggested solutions to food insecurity suggested within mainstream political and business circles come from Prospector view-points. Prospectors are often unwilling to explore new avenues with only partial information.
2.4.6 Many suggested solutions to food insecurity based around social justice and agro-ecology come from Pioneer view-points. Pioneers are often comfortable acting from 'the precautionary principle', to address potential future risks.
2.4.7 Democratic solutions to food insecurity will involve people of all different world-views engaging in effective, appropriate collaborative work.
2.5 The role of the international system, including food and agriculture organisations and the G8 and G20, and ways in which collaboration could be improved; GFS 06
2.5.1 The international systems need to provide political will, financial investment, strong legal support and accountability to ensure that people in vulnerable situations can secure their own food supply.
2.5.2 Governments, through the United Nations and other appropriate collaborative bodies, need to set clear, specific, quantified targets. They need to ensure the targets are straightforward to monitor, and that monitoring is both carried out and communicated to citizens.
2.5.3 The international system must explicitly address (in)equality, (un)sustainability and conflict.
2.5.4 Governments must commit to substantial, demonstrably sufficient, specific funding. They must move subsidies away from animal farming toward stock-free agriculture, to support sustainable plant-based diets.
2.5.5 Governments must include sustainable plant-based farming and diets in internationally agreed common visions and goals.
2.6 The best strategies for reducing risk from short term shocks and long term structural factors and for building resilience among the most vulnerable;
2.6.1 Animal farming has significant and particular vulnerabilities, for example, to rising costs to feed the animals, to water shortages, and to creating and experiencing disease outbreaks. Animal farming also creates vulnerability, by increasing competition for scarce land, water and energy resources.
2.6.2 Stock-free farms can be virtually self-reliant using techniques such as seed saving, water cycling, and building fertility with ‘green manures’ such as legumes. Regionally appropriate crops can minimise the need for imported water resources17.
2.6.3 The International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) identified agro-forestry as ‘win-win’ land use, which can balance production—e.g. of food, fuel, fibre etc.—with protecting habitats, eco-systems and land amenity value. Combining trees with other perennial and annual crops can help conserve water, soil nutrients and biodiversity, and minimise the need for external inputs. Tree farming is therefore a powerful approach for building resilience into agricultural livelihoods, and helping people in vulnerable situations to secure their own food supply18.
2.6.4 Community-controlled plant agriculture can create resilience. The more farmers and communities are forced to rely upon outside resources, the more risk they face of their food security being undermined and their resilience being reduced.
2.7 The role of the following in increasing food security and the part that DfID should play in: GFS 06
2.7.1 Competition for land use – including for biofuels, cash crops, livestock or agriculture and the impact of diet choices on food production capacity;
2.7.1.1 DfID should take decisive action to put support into stock-free, plant- based agriculture. Communities need financial and training support to become skilled in growing and preparing culturally-appropriate food from plant ingredients.
2.7.1.2 Consuming crops first-hand can significantly reduce competition for land, by making more efficient use of the food which we already produce.
2.7.2 Small holder agriculture and large scale farming;
2.7.2.1 DfID should prioritise small stock-free farms as a powerful way to enable individuals, families and communities to secure their own food supply. Large-scale stock-free farming is a useful supplement to community- controlled small holdings.
2.7.3 External interventions — including land deals, corporate investment and donor interventions;
2.7.3.1 DfID should invest in training and equipment to enable farmers to make the transition to plant-based farming. DfID should provide leadership, financial investment, and strong legal support to enable farmers and communities in the Majority World to maintain control and access to all the fertile land, fresh water, seed, energy and other resources which they need to secure their own food supply.
2.7.4 The private sector;
2.7.4.1 DfID, governments, public institutions and the private sector should genuinely submit to being held responsible and accountable for ensuring that both ethics and natural limits are upheld. Their work must be transparent, and seen to be fair. Transparency and reporting, and robust accountability, will allow voters, customers, citizens and others to know the true impacts of their activities.
2.7.4.2 DfID should ensure that outside private interests cannot take control or access to resources away from farmers and communities in the Majority World.
2.7.5 New technologies, including irrigation, and the dissemination and distribution of these, with special reference to small farmers and women; GFS 06
2.7.5.1 DfID should take a truly balanced position, and embrace a wide range of existing, proven stock-free techniques. These widely known methods include crop rotations, green manuring, agro-forestry, composting, encouraging natural predators and so on. Certified stock-free farmers such as Iain Tolhurst in South Oxfordshire are leading the way in commercially demonstrating and developing these methods. Iain Tolhurst is also delivering and developing training programmes for new stock-free farmers in the Majority World, in Europe and in the UK.
2.7.6 Global policy measures, including monitoring, food stocks, financial shock facilities, food, nutrition and agriculture initiatives;
2.7.6.1 DfID should focus on supporting people in vulnerable situations to secure access to fertile land, and to access training in plant-based agriculture, nutrition and food preparation.
2.7.7 Food markets, trading, storage and distribution;
2.7.7.1 DfID must put in place financial incentives and support choice editing for sustainable, equitable plant-based food supply.
2.7.8 The role of commodity funds and major global commodity companies.
2.7.8.1 DfID should ensure that commodity funds and companies cannot take control of food and resources away from farmers and communities in the Majority World.
3 Recommendations
3.1 DfID should focus on supporting people in vulnerable situations to secure their own food supply. This can be achieved through protected access to fertile land for farmers and communities in the Majority World, and supporting their training in plant-based agriculture, nutrition and food preparation.
3.2 We can fix the global food system and make great strides toward ending hunger by embracing plant-based farming and food at every stage.
December 2012
1 Smith S, Hood S & Baker A, Vegan Diets Explained, Dietetics Today, 2012;38(12):16-18
2 Vegetarian Diets, J Am Diet Assoc. 2009;109:1266-1282
3 Global Food Security, http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons- select/international-development-committee/news/global-food-security-new-inquiry/
4 Walsh, S Environmental impact of vegans versus conventional diets in the UK. Birmingham, UK: The Vegan Society; 2009 http://www.vegansociety.com/feature- GFS 06
articles/Environmental%20impact%20of%20vegans%20versus%20conventional%20diets%20in%20t he%20UK.pdf [accessed 12 Dec 2012]
5 Foresight Report: The Future of Food and Farming London, UK, BIS; 2011 http://www.bis.gov.uk/assets/bispartners/foresight/docs/food-and-farming/11-546-future-of-food-and- farming-report [accessed 12 Dec 2012]
6 United Nations Environment Programme. The environmental food crisis. Nairobi, Kenya: UNEP; 2009 http://www.unep.org/publications/search/pub_details_s.asp?ID=4019 [accessed 12 Dec 2012]
7 Olewski, J. Global nitrogen use efficiency: is diet a key? In Agricultural Ecology Research: Its role in delivering sustainable farm systems Aspects of Applied Biology, 2011;109:131-135
8 United Nations Environment Programme. The environmental food crisis. Nairobi, Kenya: UNEP; 2009 http://www.unep.org/publications/search/pub_details_s.asp?ID=4019 [accessed 12 Dec 2012]
9 Gustavson J et al. Global Food Losses and Food Waste. Rome, Italy: FAO; 2011 http://www.fao.org/docrep/014/mb060e/mb060e00.pdf [accessed 16 Nov 2012]
10 Stehfest E et al. Climate benefits of changing diet, Climatic Change 2009;95:83-102
11 Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Livestock’s Long Shadow: environmental issues and options. Rome: FAO; 2006 ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/010/a0701e/a0701e00.pdf [accessed 12 Dec 2012]
12 Lelieveld J, Crutzen P J and Dentener F J, Changing concentration, lifetime and climate forcing of atmospheric methane Tellus 1998;50B:128-150
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18 Smith J, Pearce B D and Wolfe M S A European perspective for developing modern multifunctional agro-forestry systems for sustainable intensification. Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems 2012; 27:323-332 GFS 07
Written evidence submitted by WWF-UK A. Summary
1. Natural resources and ecosystems provide the platform for agricultural production, supplying both the genetic material for crops and livestock and other vital services such as pollination, water regulation, pest control and soil fertility. 2. The current food system is unsustainable; it is failing poor people and damaging ecosystems and habitats. We need to redesign the food and agriculture system to deliver better nutrition, poverty reduction, safeguard biodiversity and ensure the planet can support future generations. 3. Setting agriculture on a more sustainable footing is a challenge internationally in the 21st century. We need to ensure that the production of food and energy does not damage irretrievably the environment on which we all depend. Sustainable agriculture requires meeting the food, fuel, and fibre needs of the human population whilst ensuring the maintenance of ecosystems and the protection of biodiversity. 4. Agricultural policy, investments and practice need to be informed by analysis of a) ecological carrying capacity, including water resource availability, b) the potential impact on ecosystem services, such as soil formation and water regulation, c) the potential impacts on human populations who depend on those ecosystem services, and d) impacts of and on climate change. A particular focus is needed on poor people who often depend directly on ecosystem services and natural resources to meet their basic needs and to construct their livelihoods.
B. Introduction 5. WWF-UK welcomes the opportunity to submit evidence to the IDC inquiry on food security. WWF has extensive experience in the management of natural resources and making the environment work for the poor. WWF-UK is the UK arm of the WWF global network, the world’s leading environmental organisation, with over 5,000 staff in over 100 countries. We work in partnership with local communities, civil society organisations, governments, multinational agencies and the private sector on the issues of fresh water, biodiversity, climate change, forests, marine, sustainable consumption, infrastructure and energy.
C. The global food system and food security 6. Extremes of hunger and obesity, and high levels of food waste, illustrate the inequality and inefficiency in the food system and demonstrate that it is not insufficient overall global food production and supply that is driving food insecurity. 7. Food security encompasses four dimensions: food availability, access, utilisation and stability. An emphasis on availability or supply has led to the assumption that we need to produce more food, but improvements in other aspects of the food system would lead to increased food security and be better for the environment, for instance reducing post- harvest losses. Food security impacts on all areas of human wellbeing, particularly health. More than one billion people are undernourished worldwide.i At the same time
1.6 billion people are overweight or obese.ii In the United States and UK approximately 30% of all food ends up as waste.iii 8. Is increasing agricultural production the answer to food insecurity? In 2009 the FAO estimated that, based on a ‘business as usual’ scenario, the world may need to increase food production by 70% by 2050 to meet predicted consumption patterns.iv However, the FAO itself recognises that “increasing production is not sufficient to achieve food security. It must be complemented by policies to enhance access by fighting poverty, especially in rural areas, as well as effective safety net programmes”1 and has acknowledged that such an increase in food production would have major undesirable impacts including those on land use, water and biodiversity. Faced with these prospects, WWF believes the correct approach is to treat increasing production globally as a last resort. There must be greater emphasis on tackling the inherent problems of the food system, loss and waste, distribution, women’s rights, smallholder productivity and consumption. If these are addressed, the FAO confirms that agricultural production2 may not need to increase significantly. 9. The UK Government’s Foresight report into Food and Farming Futures concluded that the world’s food production systemsv are unsustainable. WWF-UK endorses the findings of the report and urges the UK government to act on the recommendations of the report. The authors identified the following as key challenges for policy makers: • balancing future demand and supply sustainably – to ensure that food supplies are affordable; • ensuring that there is adequate stability in food supplies – and protecting the most vulnerable from the volatility that does occur; • achieving global access to food and ending hunger; • managing the contribution of the food system to the mitigation of climate change; • maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem services while feeding the world.
The role of seafood (fisheries and aquaculture) in the global food system 10. Fisheries are a vital part of food security, but overexploitation of these resources remains a serious threat to food security worldwide. Many species of fish are rich in micronutrients, especially the smaller fish that are most accessible to people living in poverty. The consumption of fish can address ‘micronutrient deficiency’. The seasonal availability of fish in rural communities is often different from that of crops and therefore the harvest of fish can help to reduce seasonal vulnerability.
11. World seafood production reached 128 million tonnes in 2011 and continues to increase faster than the rate of population growth, supplying over 4 billion people with about 15% of their annual animal protein intake. In low income, food-deficient countries, fisheries make up 22% of animal protein consumption. In coastal areas and around major river systems the dependence on fish is usually higher.vi The livelihoods of 12% of the world's population depend directly or indirectly on seafood production. Seafood products are the most traded of food commodities worth $109 billion in 2010.vii 12. Almost 30% of wild fish stocks are overexploited and 57% are fully exploited.viii Overexploitation has negative ecological consequences and impacts fish production, with social and economic implications. To increase the contribution of marine fisheries to the food security and to the economies and well-being of coastal communities, effective management plans need to be put in place to rebuild overexploited stocks. Legal efforts to enforce tighter controls on the fishing industry are increasing globally with illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (IUU) being the main target as well as controls on
1 They have now downgraded this prediction suggest we might need to produce a maximum of 60% more food by 2050. 2 The Economist Conference Feeding the World in 2050 Geneva, Switzerland, 8 February 2012 Keynote Address by José Graziano da Silva, Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
trade. The activities of fleets working in the distant waters compete with the artisanal or local fleets that are dependent upon the resource for their livelihoods. Strict control on these activities and this industry is imperative. Certification of fisheries by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) is contributing to the goal of a global sustainable food system. 13. The continued increase in the supply of seafood is due mainly to the growth of aquaculture which is set to overtake capture fisheries as the largest source of seafood. Aquaculture production continues to grow faster than any other form of animal based foodix. Disease, escaped fish and pollution from chemicals and waste products as well as deforestation to allow for freshwater species and shrimp production are all problems associated with aquaculture. Certification of aquaculture by the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) is a key contribution to achieving a sustainable food system.
D. Implications of global trends for food security Climate Change 14. Climate change is already having an impact on food security, particularly in poor countries. It is the poorest people and the poorest countries that are experiencing the earliest and most severe impacts from climate change and are least resilient to the effects. With the World Bank predicting more than 3°C of global warming, climate change threatens to undermine, and even reverse, progress made to date on poverty reduction and development. x 15. Food production and availability is being impacted by altered hydrological cycles and rainfall patterns. Rising sea levels, increasing temperatures, soil acidification or salinity and flooding will hit hardest in the mega-deltas, which are important areas for food production.xi Climate change is predicted to make wet areas wetter and arid areas dryer, resulting in flooding and drought conditions posing challenges to sustaining food production regimes. Increasingly rapid movement of both plant and animal diseases is also linked to climate change. Examples include: viruses such as foot and mouth, bluetongue, avian influenza; plant diseases such as those spread by whiteflies; and pests such as diamond back moth.xii Climate change also threatens food security by damaging the livelihoods of the poor and reducing their ability to purchase or secure food. Climate impacts can reduce or even wipe out food production in a local area driving up prices and pricing the poor out of the food market. 16. The agricultural sector is a major contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions that are causing climate change. Worldwide, agriculture is responsible for about a third of these emissions,xiii including emissions from deforestation caused by agricultural encroachment.xiv Emissions from agriculture are expected to increase considerably unless action is taken.xv The livestock sector in particular is a major contributor to climate change.xvi
Changing diets and consumption patterns 17. From an environmental and food security perspective, the increase in the adoption of a “Western diet” is worrying. Historically, increased household income has generally correlated with an increase in demand for energy, water, livestock products and processed food. Diets that are high in livestock products and processed foods have a larger environmental impact as they require higher inputs of resources. Increased demand for meat places higher demands for water, crop and rangeland area. For example, in 1985 Chinese people ate, on average, 20kg of meat; this year, they will eat around 50kg. This difference translates into 390km3 (1km3 is 1 trillion litres) of water, almost as much as total water use in Europe.xvii
18. There is a direct correlation between a transition to a “Western diet” and an increase in diet-related ill-health and the associated social, economic and environmental costs. The costs of the health and environmental impacts of a transition to Western diets will hinder human and social development. Water security 19. Reliable, safe and sufficient water is vital for both food production and poverty reduction. Rivers, lakes and aquifers are the main sources of our freshwater. In many places these systems are over exploited due to a lack of or weak holistic policy for managing water resources. Agriculture uses approximately 70% of global water supplies, while the global demand for fresh water is projected to increase by over 30% by 2030.xviii In developing countries 85% of freshwater withdrawals are for agriculture, mainly for irrigation.xix Lack of water is already a threat to farmers’ livelihoods and contributes to political instability. 20. We face a future in which water resources are increasingly constrained, with subsequent impacts on food production. The “Green Revolution” of the 1970s doubled production of many food crops but trebled water consumptionxx and depleted aquifers and water reserves. Future increases in food production will be taking place in the context of increasing water scarcity. 21. Globally there needs to be a better system for assessing and managing water risk. Patterns of international trade and consumption influence the use and availability of water. Water is used to produce goods which are traded internationally and these products contribute to the ‘virtual water’ budget of the importing country.xxi Developed countries, including the UK, import many products with a high ‘virtual water’ content or water footprint, often from products produced in water-scarce developing countries,xxiifor example cotton products. Because of this, agriculture cannot be seen solely as a local issue; patterns of global trade and consumption are connected with the impacts of agriculture on both ecosystems and poorer populations. The UK’s own food security partly depends on better water management in countries from which we source food imports. Ecosystem degradation and biodiversity loss 22. Natural resources and natural ecosystems provide the platform for agricultural production, supplying the genetic source material for crops and livestock, and other vital services such as pollination, water regulation, pest control and maintaining soil fertility.xxiii The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment reports that over 60% of ecosystem services are degraded and used unsustainably, with the natural resources critical for livelihood security for the world’s poorest in rapid decline.xxiv This decline has implications for the sustainability and resilience of agricultural systems.xxv In many areas agriculture has become increasingly precarious as soil erosion has increased and soil fertility declined, while productivity has been affected by changes in rainfall. 23. Biodiversity provides the genetic stock for crop and livestock breeds as well as for many other products (such as timber, medicines, fisheries, textiles). Biodiversity loss contributes to disrupting agriculture and decreasing fish stocks, both vital food supplies. It is estimated that about three-quarters of the genetic diversity found in agricultural crops has been lost in the last century alone.xxvi Industrial livestock farming has only five key animal species (cattle, chickens, pigs, sheep and goats) and about 100 breeds account for almost all commercial meat and dairy production. Small-scale farmers and pastoralists maintain 40 livestock species and around 7,600 breeds that contribute to biodiversity and resilience as well as maintaining jobs and food productionxxvii. 24. Agriculture often drives land use change which leads to biodiversity loss.xxviii Inappropriate agriculture has contributed to underground water depletion, agrochemical pollution, soil exhaustion, and global climate change.xxix Conversion of natural habitats for production of food, timber, fibre, feed and fuel has been a main driver of biodiversity loss.xxx Worldwide agriculture occupies 38% of the ice free land surface.xxxi Agriculture has led to the clearance or conversion 70% of the grassland, 50% of the savannah, 45% of the temperate deciduous forest, and 27% of the tropical forest biomexxxii.
E. Strategies for reducing risk 25. Resilience and adaptation: debates about the future of the global food system tend to fall into two camps: one focusing on sustainability and the environment, the other on food security and hunger. A truly resilient food system will encompass both. The world needs food systems that deliver a range of economic, environmental and social goals, while being resilient to risks and disruptions. More sustainable and resilient food systems are likely to be based on a deeper understanding of biology and ecology, on working with natural processes as much as possible, on limiting use of external fossil fuel-based inputs, and on maintaining species diversity. 26. Resilience must operate at multiple scales, from the farm or fishing boat, to a global trading system. Adaptive capacity will be important; food systems that are diverse and flexible are more likely to have the adaptive capacity that will be needed to overcome the challenges of the coming decades. 27. Green’ agriculture and fisheries would be more productive, less polluting and would create more jobsxxxiii. The World Bank estimates that the transition to sustainable fisheries management alone could generate $50 billion more in global GDP each yearxxxiv. The Bank also estimates that agriculture is twice as effective at reducing poverty as growth in other parts of the economyxxxv. A 21st century revolution in agriculture and fisheries management, that in particular included smallholders, would also be a tool for poverty alleviation.
F. Role DFID should play 28. Smallholder agriculture: Globally 450 million small farms directly support nearly 2 billion people. Smallholders have not been a focus for donors and policymakers in recent decades. Trade liberalisation has led to the elimination of agricultural extension services, to provide knowledge and technology transfer, where they are needed most. As well as being central to food security and poverty reduction, small farms can contribute to protecting valuable ecosystem services, limiting land conversion, and both mitigating and adapting to climate change impacts.xxxvi The potential of smallholder farmers to contribute to sustainable agriculture would be increased by targeted support. 29. Recommendations - supporting smallholders: Support should be provided for measures that maximise the potential contribution of the millions of small farmers in developing countries to food security, environmental protection, and climate adaptation. Access to markets, sharing knowledge and information, along with technological assistance, could increase the productivity of small holders. Land rights and sustainable access to land and water are central to improving food security. Shorter commodity chains would benefit smallholders, as would the inclusion of smallholders in roundtable and certification schemes. Specific recommendations include: a) Agricultural extension services that encourage the application of low-external-input management practices such as integrated pest management, minimum-tillage farming, and drip irrigation could increase productivity of small farmers and benefit the environment. b) Increased availability of appropriate seeds, technology, small scale credit, water storage, and other infrastructure. c) Policy and market incentives, which help farmers to adopt or continue sustainable methods of agricultural production. d) Broader access to land, water, and natural resources, including clearer tenure and the formal recognition of communal or customary rights when appropriate. e) Expanded direct participation in the various policy, planning and governance processes that affect small farmers.
30. Food markets: In Africa smallholder productivity still underpins food security generally with low yield per unit acre. Yields are dependent on environmental factors, such as soil and climate, and the use of inputs such as fertilisers and pesticides. These inputs have
become more expensive in recent years. The gap between current and potential yields is considerable. Closing this gap requires a favorable climate and appropriate use of fertilisers, pesticides and water as well as access to markets and credit and investment in infrastructure. There is potential to increase yield globally, however, this is linked to higher prices for farmers, which may reduce access to food for some consumers, particularly the urban poor. Reducing costs through better food marketing infrastructure and improving markets so that the rent taken by brokers is smaller could increase prices for farmers without an overall increase in the cost of food to consumers. 31. Recommendation on food markets: DFID should avoid focusing on industrial farming in the developing world but look at improving yields, access to markets and inputs of small scale farmers. 32. Land and water use planning: There is an urgent need for better land and water use planning. Agricultural production for food and energy (both small and large scale) needs to sit alongside infrastructure, industry, conservation, tourism and other uses. Analysis of potential climate impacts needs to be incorporated into land and water use planning and decisions about future agricultural investments. Agriculture should be planned according to water availability; a catchment approach is important for securing ecosystem health and stability; maintaining river and aquifer flows to downstream users is crucial; and agriculture design needs to take into account the needs of other water users. Safeguards to protect the rights of subsistence farmers, smallholders and hunter gatherers are needed where land is increasingly valuable for energy and food crops. 33. Recommendations on land and water use planning: a) DFID should integrate better land and water use planning in their projects and programmes. b) The UK Government should continue to support investment in The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid-Tropics (ICRISAT) working on improving the productivity of rain-fed agriculture and directed to improve the resilience and productivity of small and medium sized farms. 34. Sustaining ecosystem services: Productive agriculture is underpinned by the availability of soil, water and biodiversity. For long term food and energy security agricultural systems must be sustainable. Global limits are being breached in respect of the carbon and nitrogen cycles and of biodiversity with unpredictable system-wide consequencesxxxvii. Proposed agricultural investments need to be informed by analysis of a) ecological carrying capacity, including water resource availability; b) the potential impact on ecosystem services; c) the potential impacts on human populations who use those ecosystem services; and d) impacts of and on climate change. Particular emphasis needs to be placed on potential impacts on poor people who often depend directly on ecosystem services and natural resources for their basic needs and livelihoods. 35. Recommendation on ecosystem services: DFID should ensure that its projects and programmes in the agricultural sector protect ecosystem services, and should promote the role of ecosystem services with key stakeholders. 36. Consumption-production-development links: The role of consumption in the UK in driving unsustainable agricultural production systems around the world should be assessed and addressed. The UK import of food from the developing world can provide economic benefits but may be a driver of damaging landuse and production practices often with a move away from traditional food systems. It is important to ensure that policies that support sustainable agriculture are not undermined by policies in other areas such as trade. The existing Common Agricultural Policy needs to be reformed so it supports a transition to sustainable agriculture, shifting payments from subsidy entitlements towards payments for public goods and environmental services.xxxviii 37. Recommendation on consumption-production-development links: DFID should work with the EU and across Whitehall to ensure policy coherence, for example ensuring
that procurement policies are sustainable, and that environment and development policies are integrated. 38. Private sector: the private sector is a central player in solving problems of hunger and food security. For example there is a need for capital to invest in systems of food storage and transfer that result in less food being wasted. Private sector can support solutions that result in less food waste, with benefits to both producers and consumers. 39. Recommendation on the private sector: DFID should build up a set of case studies that indicate how private sector contributions can aid the achievement of food security and poverty reduction. They should develop best practice recommendations for private sector actors engaged in food issues in developing countries, and be prepared to intervene when companies act inappropriately.
G. Conclusion 40. Any food and farming strategy should now be based on securing the basic human rights to adequate food and good health, while at the same time reducing the global and local environmental impacts of the food we produce and consume. It should not be premised on a continuation of the status quo with widespread hunger, ill-health associated with poor diets and increasing environmental degradation. The underlying causes of inequalities in the food system, such as unfair trade and subsidy systems, need to be addressed to ensure food security for the poor, and to promote sustainable agriculture.
December 2012
i Why No Thought for Food? A UK Parliamentary Inquiry into Global Food Security January 2010 http://www.ukcds.org.uk/_assets/file/publications/why-no-food-for-thought.pdf ii http://www.who.int/dietphysicalactivity/publications/facts/obesity/en/ iii UNEP (2009) The environmental food crisis – The environment’s role in averting future food crises. A UNEP rapid response assessment http://www.unep.org/pdf/FoodCrisis_lores.pdf iv FA0 (2009) How to feed the world by 2050 - http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/templates/wsfs/docs/expert_paper/How_to_Feed_the_World_in_2050.pdf v Foresight. 2011. The future of food and farming: challenges and choices for global sustainability. Final project report. London, The Government Office for Science. 208 pp. vi http://www.mrag.co.uk/Documents/PolicyBrief3_Food_Security.pdf
vii FAO. (2012) The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture (SOFIA) 2012. viii FAO. (2012) The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture (SOFIA) 2012 ix OECD – FAO Agricultural Outlook: Chapter on Fish Projections 2012 – 2021 x Turn Down the Heat: Why a 4°C Warmer World Must be Avoided, a Report for the World Bank by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Climate Analytics, November 2012. http://climatechange.worldbank.org/sites/default/files/Turn_Down_the_heat_Why_a_4_degree_centrigrade_warmer_world_ must_be_avoided.pdf xi Why No Thought for Food? A UK Parliamentary Inquiry into Global Food Security January 2010 http://www.ukcds.org.uk/_assets/file/publications/why-no-food-for-thought.pdf xii Why No Thought for Food? A UK Parliamentary Inquiry into Global Food Security January 2010 http://www.ukcds.org.uk/_assets/file/publications/why-no-food-for-thought.pdf xiii Audsley, E et al (2009) How Low Can We Go? An assessment of greenhouse gas emissions from the UK food system and the scope for reduction by 2050. Cranfield University/ WWF UK. xiv The World bank (2007) World Development Report 2008: Agriculture for Development http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTWDR2008/Resources/2795087-1192111580172/WDROver2008-ENG.pdf xv Garnett, T (2008) “Cooking up a storm – Food, greenhouse gas emissions and our changing climate” http://www.fcrn.org.uk/frcnPubs/publications/PDFs/CuaS_web.pdf xvi IAASTD (2009) Agriculture at the cross roads, International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development http://www.agassessment.org/reports/IAASTD/EN/Agriculture%20at%20a%20Crossroads_Global%20Report%20(English).p df xvii The Economist (April 8th 2009) Better management can help solve growing water problem http://www.peopleandplanet.net/doc.php?id=3559 xviii Why No Thought for Food? A UK Parliamentary Inquiry into Global Food Security January 2010 http://www.ukcds.org.uk/_assets/file/publications/why-no-food-for-thought.pdf
xix IAASTD (2009) Agriculture at the cross roads, International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development http://www.agassessment.org/reports/IAASTD/EN/Agriculture%20at%20a%20Crossroads_Global%20Report%20(English).p df xx Why No Thought for Food? A UK Parliamentary Inquiry into Global Food Security January 2010 http://www.ukcds.org.uk/_assets/file/publications/why-no-food-for-thought.pdf xxi http://assets.wwf.org.uk/downloads/understanding_water_risk.pdf xxii http://www.wwf.org.uk/filelibrary/pdf/uk_waterfootprint_v2.pdf xxiii UNEP (2009) The environmental food crisis – The environment’s role in averting future food crises. A UNEP rapid response assessment http://www.unep.org/pdf/FoodCrisis_lores.pdf; WWF International (2010) Hot House Brief on Biodiversity and Agriculture xxiv Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005) Ecosystems and Human Well-being: Synthesis. Island Press, Washington, DC, USA. http://www.millenniumassessment.org/documents/document.765.aspx.pdf xxv IAASTD (2009) Agriculture at the cross roads, International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development http://www.agassessment.org/reports/IAASTD/EN/Agriculture%20at%20a%20Crossroads_Global%20Report%20(English).p df xxvi FAO 2004 cited in WWF International (2010) Hot House Brief on Biodiversity and Agriculture xxvii FAO Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (2009) The roles of small-scale livestock keepers in the development, use and conservation of livestock resources. Rome: FAO, ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/meeting/017/ak525e.pdf and (2007), The state of the world’s animal genetic resources for food and agriculture. Rome: FAO ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/010/a1250e/a1250e.pdf xxviii IAASTD (2009) Agriculture at the cross roads, International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development http://www.agassessment.org/reports/IAASTD/EN/Agriculture%20at%20a%20Crossroads_Global%20Report%20(English).p df xxix The World bank (2007) World Development Report 2008: Agriculture for Development http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTWDR2008/Resources/2795087-1192111580172/WDROver2008-ENG.pdf xxx Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005) Ecosystems and Human Well-being: Synthesis. Island Press, Washington, DC, USA. http://www.millenniumassessment.org/documents/document.765.aspx.pdf xxxi Food and Agriculture Organization (June 2006). "Food and Agriculture Statistics Global Outlook." Rome: FAO Statistics Division xxxii Ramankutty, N. & Foley, J. A. Estimating historical changes in global land cover: croplands from 1700 to 1992. Glob. Biogeochem. Cycles 13, 997–1027 (1999). xxxiii UNEP. (2011) Towards a Green Economy: Pathways to Sustainable Development and Poverty Eradication. www.unep.org/greeneconomy, UNEP xxxiv World Bank, (2009). The Sunken Billions : The Economic Justification for Fisheries Reform. Washington xxxv http://siteresources.worldbank.org/SOUTHASIAEXT/Resources/223546-1171488994713/3455847- 1192738003272/Brief_AgPovRedctn_web.pdf xxxvi WWF-MPO (2009) Smallholder Agriculture and the Environment in a Changing Global Context http://assets.panda.org/downloads/wwf_mpo_smallholder_ag_policy_brief.pdf xxxvii http://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/researchnews/tippingtowardstheunknown/thenineplanetaryboundaries.4.1fe8 f33123572b59ab80007039.html xxxviii http://assets.wwf.org.uk/downloads/proposal_new_common_agricultural_policy.pdf
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Written evidence submitted by Andrew Dorward, Professor of Development Economics, SOAS, University of London
Executive summary This submission focuses on a number of issues raised by the enquiry, regarding food security indicators, the performance of the global food system in guaranteeing food security for vulnerable groups, the impact of global food shocks, challenges to the global food system, strategies for addressing these, the roles of small holder agriculture and large scale farming, and global policy measures. Various indicators of food insecurity are discussed. None provide comparable measures of food insecurity for vulnerable groups. The Food Expenditure Ratio is proposed as a measure that provides this for low income groups, and it is used to demonstrate the impacts of the 2008 food price spike on low income groups. Widely recognised challenges to the global food system are summarised. These involve tightening of both supply and demand, making the system more susceptible to increasingly severe and frequent production shocks. Strategies for addressing these issues should focus particularly on smallholder agriculture as this offers not only potential for large food production and global food security gains, but also increased productivity and incomes of large numbers of poor rural people, reduced rural food insecurity and poverty, contributions to broad based growth, and improved fertility and sustainability of large areas of cultivated land.
Contributor Andrew Dorward, Professor of Development Economics, SOAS, University of London, and member of the Leverhulme Centre for Integrative Research in Agriculture and Health (LCIRAH).
Submission
Introduction 1. This submission focuses on a number of the issues raised in the invitation for submissions, but sets these in an argument that links: 1) Definition of key indicators of food security 2) The success or otherwise of the global food system in guaranteeing food security … with particular reference to …. vulnerable groups and the impact of food shocks 3) The challenges to the global food system 4) Strategies for addressing these challenges 5) The roles of small holder agriculture and large scale farming 6) Global policy measures
The analysis in the submission has implications for other issues but does not explicitly discuss these.
Definition of key indicators of food security with particular reference to …. vulnerable groups and the impact of global and local food shocks 1. A number of different measures are used to provide indicators of food security. These share common but not universal difficulties in (a) obtaining up to date and reliable data, and (b) differentiating between vulnerable and less vulnerable groups within countries and country groups. 2. One approach for these measures is exemplified by FAO recent estimates of the Prevalence of Undernourishment (or PoU) using country level estimates of population, dietary energy GFS 08
requirements for different population groups, and dietary energy availability net of food losses (FAO, 2012). This is calculated on an annual basis with changes in population and estimated production and trade. It does not provide any information about the food insecurity of particular groups. 3. The Global Hunger Index (or GHI) is another indicator based on country level analysis of publicly generated statistics, with the construction of an index from (a) the FAO PoU (as above), (b) the incidence of under five children that are underweight (measured as low weight to age), and (c) child mortality (IFPRI, 2012). The inclusion of incidence of underweight children and of under- five mortality incidence is significant as an attempt to directly include measures of nutrition outcomes as well as of food or nutrition access. However although the GHI is estimated annually, child under-nutrition and mortality rates are often not available on an annual basis, and the annual indicators therefore come with a warning that some of the information on which they are based is not current. Like the FAO PoU it does not provide any information about the food insecurity of particular groups. 4. Headey (2011) and Verpoorten et al (2012) use national survey data (from Gallup World Poll and Afrobarometer respectively) to look at global and African populations’ perceptions of food security and access. Access to raw data allows Verpoorten et al to differentiate between some groups within countries (for example between rural and urban people, between more and less educated people, and between male and female headed households). This was not possible for Headey, as he had access only to country level summaries. 5. A third approach explicitly measures food insecurity of vulnerable groups with specific studies on these groups (see for example reviews by Compton et al (2010) and Dorward (2012a)). While these provide valuable information on the food security of the groups that they study, they are set in specific contexts and seldom employ standard comparable measures, leading to difficulties in drawing generalizable and comparable findings. 6. Food prices, normally deflated by consumer or manufactures price indices, are widely used as a very blunt indicator of changes in food access over time. Although information on ‘global food grain prices’ is readily accessible, problems arise with (a) price differences between countries, (b) standard root crops prices, and (c) differential impacts on specific population groups across and within countries and over time. More fundamentally (but closely associated with (c) above), the use of consumer or manufactures price indices to measure changes in global food prices over time fails to recognise that it is changes relative to incomes that are critical for food security, and these changes differ widely for different income groups in different countries. 7. The Food Expenditure Ratio uses price and income information to measure differential impacts of changes in food prices on specific population groups across and within countries and over time, addressing problem (c) above (Dorward, 2012b). The Food Expenditure Ratio for the lowest income decile (FERD1) is computed as the ratio of food to non-food expenditure for this group. In this, food expenditure is the cost of a minimal per capita calorific requirement from staple foods, and non-food expenditure is per capita household final consumption expenditure for the lowest income decile minus food expenditure. Non-food expenditure is thus the residual income available after food expenditure has been met. Currently available data allow calculation of the indicator for different income groups (for example the lowest income decile and the middle income quartile) at a global level, for standard World Bank country groupings, and for some individual countries. The Food Expenditure Ratio for the middle income quartile (FERQ3) is roughly the same as for households with median income per capita, and is calculated as for FERD1 but using per capita household final consumption expenditure for the middle GFS 08
income quartile instead of the lowest income decile. FERD1 and FERQ3 estimates for different continent / country groups are shown in figure 1.
(a) FERD1 (b) FERQ3 300% 300% 02 East Asia & Pacific 10 Latin America & Caribbean 22 OECD members 250% 250% 23 South Asia 25 Sub-Saharan Africa 27 World 200% 200%
150% 150%
100% 100%
50% 50%
0% 0% 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 1990 1991 1992 1993 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
Figure 1 Food expenditure ratios for Decile 1 and Quintile 3 (FERD1 and FERQ3) by regions
8. Figure 1(b) shows how the Food Expenditure Ratio for the middle income quartile (FERQ3) gives a similar overall picture of changes in food security as measures reviewed earlier: a generally improving global situation, particular improvements in south and east Asia, a more stagnant situation in Africa, and a substantial impact from the 2008 food spike in Africa but a smaller effect, largely dwarfed by growth effects, elsewhere. However the picture with the Food Expenditure Ratio for the lowest income decile (FERD1) is a little different (Figure 1(a)). The situation in Asia shows dramatic improvement in the 1990s but poor households still show a substantial increase in FERD1 in 2008. This is dwarfed by the dramatic impact of the 2008 food spike in Africa, without any prior improvement in the incomes of the poorest groups in the 1990s. The vulnerability of this group to food price rises is very clearly demonstrated, and hence the value of the FERD1 as an indicator of food insecurity of vulnerable groups. Similar types of observation can be made when examining differences between FERQ3 and FERD1 for Bangladesh, Cambodia and Vietnam in figure 2.
(a) FERD1 (b) FERQ3 200% 200% Bangladesh Bangladesh 180% Cambodia 180% Malaysia Cambodia 160% Philippines 160% Malaysia Thailand Philippines 140% Vietnam 140% Thailand 120% 120% Vietnam 100% 100%
80% 80%
60% 60%
40% 40%
20% 20%
0% 0%
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Figure 2 Food expenditure ratios for Decile 1 and Quintile 3 (FERD1 and FERQ3), selected Asian countries
9. The Food Expenditure Ratios in figures 1 and 2 do not, as calculated, describe the impact of local food price shocks as they are calculated with global food prices. If calculated with local food prices then the effects of the 2008 food price spike might be lower than indicated, as many Asian countries implemented measures to protect domestic markets from high global food prices. Where African countries suffered higher or more prolonged domestic food price shocks as a result of local food shortages (FAO, 2011), the FER spikes may be higher than indicated. Use of domestic rather than international prices in FER calculation would address this, is possible, and should be adopted as part of wider use of the FER as a food security indicator. Other refinements alongside this could include allowance for staple root crops, for consumption of own produced food (for poor food deficit producers the food price impacts will be a little lower than indicated), and, perhaps more relevant for colder countries, for essential energy expenditures (allowance for ‘fuel poverty’ would change the measure to a Food and Energy Expenditure Ratio or FEER). 10. Problems with access to micronutrients are ignored by all of the measures discussed above – but consumption is often correlated with staple access as high staple prices reduce expenditure on more expensive non-staple foods that provide micronutrients.
The success or otherwise of the global food system in guaranteeing food security … with particular reference to …. vulnerable groups and the impact of global and local food shocks 11. Figure 1 shows that there has been some success in terms of declining Food Expenditure Ratios for the lowest income decile in East and South Asia since the early 1990s, but it also shows that FERD1 was still high in East and South Asia in the early 2000s (at around 40%) and was very vulnerable to increases in food prices. In Africa, however, there is little evidence of any decline, and FERD1 is highly sensitive to increases in food prices, as shown in both 1996 and 2008. Similar observations apply to Cambodia and Bangladesh in figure 2. This suggests that the global food system is not guaranteeing food security for vulnerable (in this case low income) groups.
The challenges to the global food system (including demographic trends, rising income and climate change) 12. Challenges to the global food system are well known, and are summarised in figure 3.
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13. Systemic changes in the 2000s are shown in boxes (environmental and climate changes, policy changes, and population and economic growth). These led to reduced supply and to expansions in demand, which tightened stocks and began to raise prices from about 2005 (indicated in light bold). Simultaneous shocks (in heavy bold) of higher oil prices, biofuel policies and weather (drought in some parts of the world) then caused a sharp tightening of stocks and the price spike. This was exacerbated by financial and stock holding speculation. 14. Links and feedbacks between these variables mean that attempts to identify the most important of these interacting factors are not very helpful. This is particularly the case with speculation, which only occurs where there are expectations of tight stocks and price rises. The fundamental issue is therefore the tightening of supply versus demand and smaller stock or buffers and the increasing volatility of supply. 15. Figure 3 and the discussion above are concerned with overall food supply, demand, and prices at international, national and local scales. A major issue that is not addressed is differential ability to access food, and the differential effects of food shortages and of high food prices on particular vulnerable groups. This major issue is considered in this submission as regards differential measures of food insecurity (discussed above) and the particular potential and need for measures to increase the productivity and incomes of poor smallholder farmers (discussed below). Food insecurity of other vulnerable groups is not discussed. Another major challenge to the global food system that is not addressed here is the problem of over-consumption and obesity.
Strategies for addressing these challenges and reducing risk from short term shocks….and the roles of small holder agriculture and large scale farming 16. The argument above suggests that the fundamental issues needing to be addressed (apart from distributional issues) are the tightening of supply and demand and the susceptibility to shocks. Figure 3 indicates the variables involved. Attention is needed to both demand and supply issues. GFS 08
17. As regards demand, increasing food demands of the livestock rich diets of higher income groups are a major environmental, food security and health issue, while policies that promote the use of some biofuels decrease resources available for food supply and/or compete with food for grain. 18. As regards supply, this may be increased by renewed research to increase productivity of land, water, labour and energy use; by increases in irrigation in some areas (notably sub Saharan Africa) with wider increases in efficiency of water use; and by institutions, services and infrastructure (for example land tenure, financial, market and trade institutions; extension and market services; and roads and communications infrastructure) that support the uptake of more productive technologies. 19. Reduced vulnerability to shocks requires attention to reduce the incidence and severity of shocks, to reduce sensitivity to them, and to increase resilience. Although past greenhouse gas emissions mean that increases in the incidence and severity of climate shocks affecting crop production are inevitable (principally high temperatures, droughts and storms), mitigation to prevent further increases is critically and urgently needed. Measures listed above to raise supply should also be directed to reduce susceptibility to shocks and to increase resilience. 20. In considering strategies for increasing supply and its reliability, critical questions arise regarding the relative importance of smallholder and large scale farming. Both are important for global food supplies and global food security, but smallholder agriculture offers further potential gains in reducing rural food insecurity and poverty, particularly in Africa, where some 50% of farmers are poor net buyers rather than sellers of food. 21. Increased productivity of land currently under smallholder agriculture, particularly in Africa, offers great potential for production increases, as smallholder agriculture yields are much further below potential yields than large scale farming yields. However this is not an argument for transferring land from smallholder to large scale farming. Significant yield increases can be achieved in smallholder farming, which can be very efficient. Furthermore, alienation of land from smallholder to large scale farming would lead to severe social and food security costs. Increased smallholder production and productivity, however, should lead to major social and food security gains because it can directly address both rural poverty and food insecurity in smallholder economies, and make a major contribution to wider growth. Large scale farming, on the other hand, offers little in the way of increased labour productivity and employment opportunities for large numbers of poor people and hence little in the way of opportunities to address food insecurity and poverty. 22. Increasing the productivity of smallholder agriculture therefore potentially offers multiple benefits: a. Increased food production from currently relatively unproductive land, thus promoting global food security; b. Increased productivity and incomes of large numbers of poor rural people, reducing rural food insecurity and poverty and contributing to broad based growth ; and c. Improved fertility and sustainability of large areas of land where fertility and sustainability are currently declining 23. This promotion of smallholder agriculture should not be seen as suggesting that large numbers of smallholder farms represent an optimal long term structure for agricultural production. With time an evolution of large numbers of smallholder farms to a smaller number of larger commercial family farms and businesses is likely, reflecting the needs for (and historical development patterns of) growing labour productivity and incomes with increasing relative importance of the non-farm economy, and, in this context, increasing relative efficiency of large agricultural units. In the medium term, however, increasing the productivity of existing smallholder farms is essential to allow phased, favourable and chosen (rather than forced) exits GFS 08
from smallholder agriculture to productive non-farm employment (rather than unproductive unemployment).
Global policy measures 24. Global policy measures required follow from the strategic issues outlined above: a. Promotion of less livestock consumption in rich ‘western’ diets, with food security, health and environmental benefits b. Modification of policies promoting biofuels to ensure that biofuel crops are promoted where these do not compete with staple foods and where they are efficient and effective in mitigating greenhouse gas emissions c. Investment in research to increase land, water, labour and energy productivity d. Investment in new and extended irrigation systems and in increasing irrigation efficiency e. Investment in institutions, services and infrastructure to support the uptake of more productive technologies and to promote adaptation and resilience to shocks f. Urgent and major action to agree and implement actions to achieve rapid and substantial reductions in greenhouse gas emissions g. Attention to ensure that all the measures above are compatible and/or promote climate change mitigation, adaptation and resilience h. A particular focus on raising productivity in smallholder agriculture in ways that promote broad based increases in food security and in incomes relative to food prices.
December 2012
Attachment Dorward A (2012b) Agricultural labour productivity and food prices: fundamental development impacts and indicators. Policy Brief,. Future Agricultures Consortium, Brighton. www.future- agricultures.org/publications/research-and-analysis/doc_download/1550-agricultural-labour- productivity-and-food-prices-fundamental-development-impacts-and-indicators
Other references Compton, J., Wiggins, S., Keats, S. (2010). Impact of the global food crisis on the poor: what is the evidence? Overseas Development Institute, London. Dorward, A.R. (2012a). The short and medium term impacts of rises in staple food prices Food Security 4, 633-645. FAO (2012) State of Food Insecurity in the World Headey, D. (2011). Was the global food crisis really a crisis? simulations versus self-reporting, IFPRI Discussion Paper 01087. IFPRI (2012) Global Hunger Index Verpoorten, M., Arora, A., Swinnen, J. (2012). Self-Reported food Insecurity in Africa during the food price crisis, LICO discussion paper 303/2012. KUL LICOS Centre for Institutions and Economic Performance, Leuven.
GFS 09
Written evidence submitted by the BBC Media Action
Executive Summary
This policy note examines the role that information and communication can play in the medium term to increase food security among developing country populations. To date, relatively little emphasis has been placed on how people affected by food insecurity, especially farmers, can become sufficiently informed, engaged and empowered to take the steps they need to adapt to and confront the challenges they face. In order to address food insecurity – both at global and local levels – people require knowledge and information to understand what the risks are, what options exist for change and how to make informed choices. Those at the frontline of hunger, however, often have the least access to information and platforms for discussion to help them cope with immediate challenges, adapt to long-term trends and inform decision- making on policies that will affect their lives. The existing evidence base - which is small, but growing - indicates that media and communication can support a range of approaches to reducing food insecurity, thereby reducing the risk from short-term shocks and long-term trends. These include providing information, building skills, providing platforms for debate and enhancing accountability.
1. BBC Media Action is the BBC’s international development charity. This submission provides the perspectives of BBC Media Action on how the role of media, information and communication can contribute to improved food security. The views expressed are those of the charity, not of the BBC.
2. International attention on food security in recent years has focused on systemic issues such as agricultural and economic policy, climate change negotiations and investment in technologies capable of building resilience. While these structural variables are key to unlocking the food security puzzle, food insecurity is also influenced at the individual level. Specifically, this policy note will examine the role that information and communication can play in the medium term to increase food security among developing country populations.
3. To date, relatively little emphasis has been placed on how people affected by food insecurity, especially farmers, can become sufficiently informed, engaged and empowered to take the steps they need to adapt to and confront the challenges they face.
4. The 2011 Accra Report on Rethinking Support for Adaptive Capacity to Climate Change highlighted the importance of knowledge and information in facilitating adaptation. But while the media was mentioned in that report, media and communication were not highlighted as central tools necessary to help people adapt to changing environments.
5. In order to address food insecurity – both at global and local levels – people require knowledge and information to understand what the risks are, what options exist for change and how to make informed choices. Discussions about critical issues as well as analytic decision-making tools can also help those most plagued by food insecurity to manage the situation and to bridge the conversation among local populations, practitioners, experts and policymakers.
6. Those at the frontline of hunger, however, often have the least access to information and platforms for discussion to help them cope with immediate challenges, adapt to long-term trends and inform decision-making on policies that will affect their lives.
7. The existing evidence base - which is small, but growing - indicates that media and communication can support a range of approaches to reducing food insecurity, thereby reducing the risk from short-term shocks and long-term trends. These include:
8. Providing information: Three-quarters of the world’s poorest people (most of whom are women) rely directly or indirectly on agriculture for their livelihoods.1 But farmers often lack information that will directly affect how much food they produce. They may need to know how to apply fertilizers, where to get high-quality seed, how to manage diseases in plants and animals, how to use new technologies and how to house and manage livestock.
9. Based on research conducted by BBC Media Action, rural farmers in Uganda say that they need more information about market prices, weather forecasts and how to combat the pests and diseases that affect their crops and livestock.2 African Farm Radio Initiative, implemented by Farm Radio International and funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, found that farmers demonstrated increased knowledge of agricultural innovations as a result of listening to radio programmes, with 96% of listeners retaining over half of the knowledge promoted in the farm radio programmes.3 In Somalia, listeners to a regular radio programme supported by BBC Media Action on livestock issues for farmers were able to correctly identify symptoms of foot and mouth disease more often than farmers who didn’t listen to the programme4.
10. Information about markets can also impact how much money a farmer earns for his or her products and thus the amount of nutritious food he or she can provide for the family. A report based on experiences by the International Institute for Communication
1 http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTWDR2008/Resources/2795087-1192111580172/WDROver2008-ENG.pdf. 2 BBC Media Action (2010). “Getting on the same wavelength: Communicating livelihoods information and innovation in rural Uganda.” 3 Perkins, K., Ward, D. and Leclair, M. (2011). Participatory Radio Campaigns and food security: How radio can help farmers make informed decisions. [Online]. (URL http://www.farmradio.org/wp-content/uploads/farmradio- prcreport20111.pdf. Farm Radio International. (Accessed 10 December 2012) 4 BBC Media Action (2008). Impact research conducted on the Somali Livestock project. and Development (IICD) suggests that Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), including broadcast media, have the potential to improve access to market information to increase income.5 Farming radio programmes, for example, link farmers to new markets and buyers, strengthen farmers’ ability to negotiate prices and help them to adapt crops to meet demands6.
11. Building skills: Media can further support the development of skills. These can be analytical, decision-making or problem-solving skills which can help audiences make sense of the increasing information available. Media can also support the development of technical skills by providing instructions or encouraging people to seek local services to acquire new skills. BBC Media Action broadcast a radio programme in Somalia for livestock farmers in conjunction with a series of ‘listening groups’ across the country. These groups were led by facilitators and followed learning exercises suggested by the radio programme. Our research showed that the combination of radio and face-to-face learning was effective at building technical skills, helping farmers identify and treat diseases and ensuring good hygiene in the handling of food products from livestock. This finding has been backed up by research conducted by the African Farm Radio Initiative on radio listening groups in other countries.7
12. Sparking innovation: Innovation is often equated with introducing a new technology or encouraging new ways of doing things. Media and communication technologies can help people consider old problems in a new light and share innovative ideas at scale across audiences of millions at a time.
Providing platforms for debate: Communities that are facing threats to their food security and existing ways of life often lack platforms where they can discuss problems and seek solutions. Media and communication can provide a platform that convenes and amplifies these discussions, making them accessible to wider populations, especially marginalized communities. Controversial issues around land rights and land use, in particular, often warrant public debate. Intractable conflict can prevent farmers from cultivating food or earning enough to eat. Yet public meetings in urban areas with high- level decision makers are often inaccessible to time-pressed and resource-poor rural residents with low levels of education. Media can bridge social and geographical divides to facilitate more rounded and representative debates. In Pakistan, where a government-led drainage project was affecting the food security and health of fishermen and farmers, a project which included media-based discussions raised the debate to a national level by hosting an assembly at the affected area with community
5 Stienen, J., Bruinsma, W. and Neuman, F. (2007). “How ICT can make a difference in agricultural livelihoods.” In Commonwealth Ministers Reference Book 2007. [Online]. (URL http://www.globalgender.org/upload/%7B89B4F9C3- B4A4-49A6-A1E2-E1E074DF3368%7D_ICT%20and%20agricultural%20livelihoods.pdf).London: Henley Media Group Ltd.. (Accessed 10 December 2012). 6 Perkins, K., Ward, D. and Leclair, M. (2011). Participatory Radio Campaigns and food security: How radio can help farmers make informed decisions. [Online]. (URL http://www.farmradio.org/wp-content/uploads/farmradio- prcreport20111.pdf. Farm Radio International. (Accessed 10 December 2012). 7 Perkins, K., Ward, D. and Leclair, M. (2011). Participatory Radio Campaigns and food security: How radio can help farmers make informed decisions. [Online]. (URL http://www.farmradio.org/wp-content/uploads/farmradio- prcreport20111.pdf. Farm Radio International. (Accessed 10 December 2012). members, local leaders and landowners which was broadcast on national television.8
13. Enhancing accountability: Good governance plays a critical role in food security. Government rules and political processes can enable or constrain agricultural growth, increased food and nutrition security as well as better livelihoods.9 Media and communication can help hold leaders to account, facilitate participation and encourage transparency to secure equitable approaches to food security and timely responses to early warning systems that signal potential crisis.
14. Media and communication alone cannot grow more food. But they can provide information, inspiration and platforms for discussion and debate that will support farmers, leaders and policymakers alike to come up with new ideas and make decisions that will contribute to greater food security and nutrition.
December 2012
8 Panos London (2011). “All together now: Oral testimony,theatre, media, debate.” [Online]. (URL http://panos.org.uk/wp- content/files/2011/06/All-together-now-case-study.pdf). (Accessed 10 December 2012). 9http://www.fao.org/righttofood/project_files/goodFSgovernance/FoodSecurityGovernanceWorkshop_backgr oundpaper.pdf GFS 10
Written evidence submitted by The Soil Association
Introduction
The Soil Association is a UK charity, campaigning for healthy, humane and sustainable, food, farming and land use. We welcome the opportunity to make the following submission to the International Development Commons Select Committee’s (IDC) inquiry on ‘global food security’.
Summary
According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, IAASTD and development charities, helping to feed those currently starving or malnourished means increasing food production, supply and availability in those countries where the problems are occurring, and to the poorest people in those countries, and local agro-ecological systems are best suited to achieve this.
This is particularly the case when considering future threats to agricultural production, as the resources currently needed to produce food, oil based fertilisers and pesticides, mined phosphates and fresh water, become scarcer and more expensive.
Organic and other agro-ecological farming systems can help the world feed itself, but as well as changing our farming systems, we need to eat differently, feed our livestock differently, and waste less food.
1. Food has never before existed in such abundance. There is enough food in the world today for everyone to have the nourishment they need, and yet there are nearly 1 billion people in the world today who are hungry and another billion who are malnourished, lacking the essential micronutrients they need to lead healthy lives. At the same time, more than 1 billion are overweight, of which 300 million are obese, posing a major risk for diet-related illnesses such as type-2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. There are clearly huge global inequalities in the distribution of food. People continue to go hungry because they cannot afford to buy food, or access it in other ways such as growing it themselves. This arises directly because of poverty, but natural disasters, conflict, poor agricultural GFS 10
practices and infrastructure and over-exploitation of the environment can all be contributory factors.
2. In addition to demographic changes, it should be recognized that the dietary shift of a growing population will also have a significant impact on the natural environment. Business-as-usual global projections assume that with economic growth populations in the developing world will increase their consumption of meat and dairy products, extending the nutrition transition that is already occurring in the developed world. Whilst the human health costs of such a shift are already being felt in terms of increased rates of obesity, and non- communicable diseases such as Type-2 diabetes and some types of cancer1, the impacts on the natural environment should also be considered. Such diets involve the rapid expansion of livestock numbers, causing increased greenhouse gas emissions, and expansion of grain production as feed, putting further pressure on important bio-diverse habitats.
3. The recent increase in food prices has pushed yet more people in the Global South, who are reliant on food imports and spend a large proportion of their income on food, into hunger. Small countries that are dependent on imports especially in Africa were deeply effected by the food and economic crises. The causes of this price hike include biofuel policies that have diverted grain away from the food supply, harvest failures and commodity speculation. The majority of the people who are hungry live in the Global South, in poor rural areas, and are often directly involved in producing food. Many do not have land of their own and work for others, often in seasonal jobs, to earn money to survive. Poor people living in urban areas are another group that are at risk of hunger, and this is a growing issue as cities continue
4. A key challenge is that we are now living in a resource-constrained world and this will impact on our ability to produce food and to protect the natural environment. Peak phosphorus is the second critical resource constraint which will be a key challenge in the future. The supply of phosphorus from mined phosphate rock
1 Friel, S. et al (2009), Public health benefits of strategies to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions: food and agriculture, Lancet, 2009, 374: 2016–25. GFS 10
could ‘peak’ as soon as 20332, after which this non-renewable resource will become increasingly scarce and expensive. Thus, we are facing the end of cheap and readily-available phosphate fertiliser on which intensive agriculture is totally dependent. The impact of this is likely to be an increase in the price of food as production levels drop.
5. New support for smallholder agriculture, especially in Africa, is urgently needed to increase productivity and provide economic opportunities for small scale farmers. This investment needs to be focused on agro-ecological systems, such as organic, rather than on intensive farming methods that will further degrade the environment and require expensive inputs made from fossil fuels, that will become increasingly scarce in the future.
6. The United Nation’s Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Olivier De Schutter, has argued for the scaling up of such models of agriculture and ensuring that they work for the benefit of the poorest farmers. Developing agroecology requires supportive policy. However, in most African countries organic agriculture is not specifically supported by agricultural policy, and is sometimes actively hindered by policies advocating the use of high-input farming.
7. Agroecology is a science and a set of farming practices that seek to improve agricultural systems by mimicking natural processes, creating beneficial biological interactions among the different components of the agro-ecosystem. Organic systems put into practice the core principles of agroecology such as recycling nutrients on the farm, integrating livestock and crops, diversifying species and genetic resources, and considering the productivity of an entire agricultural system rather than a single crop. Agro-ecological farming is based on highly knowledge-intensive techniques that to expand. Urban agriculture is already a reality for many people in the Global South, but there is an increasing focus on the important role it can play in reducing hunger for the urban poor. Of course, in poor countries with a food-deficit production levels should be increased where appropriate, but agriculture also needs to play a role in reducing hunger through growing farmer and household incomes, building infrastructure and markets, and protecting and enhancing the natural environment.
2 Cordell, D., Drangert, J., and White, S. (2009) The story of phosphorus: Global food security and food for thought, Global Environmental Change, 19, pages 292-305. GFS 10
8. Investment by governments and donors in agriculture in the Global South had dropped over the last three decades, although this is now changing with new investment from agri-food companies and new global policy initiatives. New support for smallholder agriculture, especially in Africa, is urgently needed to increase productivity and provide economic opportunities for small scale farmers. This investment needs to be focused on agro-ecological systems, such as organic, rather than on intensive farming methods that will further degrade the environment and require expensive inputs made from fossil fuels, that will become increasingly scarce in the future.
9. Agro-ecological farming is based on highly knowledge-intensive techniques that are developed through farmers’ knowledge and experimentation. The International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (‘the IAASTD report’) is supported by 400 scientists and 60 countries and recommends support for agro-ecological sciences that would contribute to addressing environmental issues whilst maintaining and increasing productivity. It also recommended that community-based innovation and local knowledge combined with science-based approaches as the best way to addressing the problems, needs and opportunities of the rural poor.
10. In the world by 2050, and it has been frequently argued that a massive increase in food production, of 70–100%, will be needed to feed them all. This is not just due to more people, but reflects the assumptions made by the authors of the modelling study about the diet we will all be eating. In making and using these predictions, policy-makers are assuming that many more people in countries in the Global South will be eating a ‘Western’ diet with more intensively-produced meat, dairy products, sugar and vegetable oils, following the shift in eating habits that has already occurred in countries in the Global North as incomes rise.
11. The model also assumes that there will be no reduction in the amounts eaten in the Global North, and in fact that there will be further 14% increase in the consumption of such foods,22 despite growing recognition of the negative health impacts of such diets in both low and high income countries. This continuing shift towards higher consumption of livestock products from intensively reared animals has implications for mitigating climate change. A large rise in the production of cereals would be needed for animal feed. The greenhouse gas emissions from GFS 10
such intensively-reared livestock are significant; from converting natural habitat to land to grow feed crops. the methane from cattle and sheep, and nitrous oxide from the production and application of manufactured fertilizers to grow animal feed.
12. A 70% increase or doubling in the production of food would not solve the hunger problem with 290 million people predicted to still be malnourished in 2050 if such a strategy was implemented. Moreover, such massive increases in food produced like this would have huge negative impacts on both the environment and human health, and are not necessary with action to change diets and reductions in food losses and waste.
December 2012 GFS 11 Written evidence submitted by Mr Olivier De Schutter, Special Rapporteur on the right to food, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
Contribution of the Special Rapporteur, Mr. Olivier De Schutter, to the inquiry launched by the International Development Committee of the Parliament of the United Kingdom in advance of the June 2013 G8 Summit
As a contribution to the deliberations within the International Development Committee of the Parliament of the United Kingdom in preparation for the June 2013 G8 Summit, the Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier De Schutter, draws attention to what he considers key priorities for international action in 2013 to progressively realize the human right to adequate food.
1. The right to food is a human right recognized under international law, which protects the right of all human beings to feed themselves in dignity, either by producing their food or by purchasing it. All States have a duty to respect, protect and fulfill the right to food, which may require adopting adequate legislative and policy frameworks. The fight against hunger and malnutrition can also be enhanced by a stronger adoption of the right to food principles and requirements, which are increasingly being implemented in a number of countries. In recent years, the operational dimensions of the right to food – its added value in improving the effectiveness of food security strategies – have been better understood, and a range of regions and countries have strengthened the legislative or policy frameworks that enhance the protection of the right to food based on the principles of participation, accountability, and non-discrimination.
2. The eight priorities for international action in 2013 serve three key objectives:
(I) to support well-designed, human rights-sensitive food security policies at national level; (II) to strengthen global efforts to cope with food price volatility; and (III) to improve accountability.
I. Support well-designed, human rights-sensitive food security policies at national level
Priority 1: Strengthen national implementation of the right to food and review efforts to implement the Right to Food Guidelines
3. Grounding food security strategies in the right to food means that there will be improved safeguards against corruption or diversion of funds, and against discrimination (particularly against women or ethnic minorities); that the beneficiaries of support schemes shall be informed about their rights and shall be able to claim benefits if they are denied the support they are entitled to; and that the efforts shall focus on the most marginalized groups, thus maximizing the impact of food security strategies on poverty reduction. This is why the international community has repeatedly emphasized the need to rely on the right to food in efforts to reduce hunger and malnutrition, including in the 2009 Rome Declaration of the World Summit on Food Security. This is also why the Committee on World Food Security has decided to hold, during its 41st session in 2014, a ten year review on progress made in implementing the Voluntary Guidelines to Support the Progressive Realization of the Right to Adequate Food in the Context of National Food Security, adopted unanimously by the member States of the FAO in 2004. The review will be an opportunity to take stock of progress made over the past decade, identifying obstacles that remain and sharing good practices. The commitment of the CFS to review progress of the right to food at national level will not only provide a strong encouragement to make progress towards implementing these Guidelines in all regions. It will also provide a unique opportunity to assess the contribution the right to food can make to the effectiveness of national food security strategies grounded on accountability, participation and non-discrimination, and independent monitoring of progress.
4. All countries should set as a priority to increase their efforts in implementing the Right to Food Guidelines. A number of countries have initiated processes to build strategies or framework laws that will materialize their commitments to translate the right to food into normative or policy frameworks. Such countries should be encouraged to rapidly bring their efforts to fruition, including with external support and international cooperation. The countries that are now pioneers in the implementation of the right to food at national level, particularly in Latin America, could stimulate efforts in other countries, through South-South cooperation. The G8 States would usefully contribute to the CFS review of progress by preparing a review of their own national efforts, including how they integrate the Right to Food Guidelines in their development cooperation policies and programmes.
5. The Special Rapporteur on the right to food expresses his availability to support this process. He is currently working in support of the implementation of the right to food in Africa. The progress already achieved in implementing the right to food at national level in Africa, Asia and Latin America, are highlighted in reports presented by the Special Rapporteur, in particular in Briefing Note 1 “Countries tackling hunger with a right to food approach. Significant progress in implementing the right to food at national scale in Africa, Latin America and South Asia”; Briefing Note 5 “From Charity to Entitlement: Implementing the right to food in Southern and Eastern Africa” (June 2012); and Briefing Note 6 “A Rights Revolution: Implementing the right to food in Latin America and the Caribbean” (September 2012).1
6. National strategies should comprise the establishment of appropriate institutional mechanisms, particularly in order to: (i) identify, at the earliest stage possible, emerging threats to the right to adequate food, by adequate monitoring systems; (ii) improve coordination between the different relevant ministries and between the national and sub-national levels of government; (iii) improve accountability, through the setting of targets, with measurable indicators, defining the timeframe within which particular objectives should be achieved; and (iv) ensure the adequate participation, particularly, of the most food-insecure segments of the population. Where States do not yet have national framework laws, their creation can become a key element of national strategies on the progressive realization of the right to food. Such laws ensure that participatory rights are stipulated for civil society (including food producers' organizations), and that national strategies are adopted, and revised, at regular intervals. Participation is indeed key. Civil society organizations are also key stakeholders in the fight to eradicate hunger, malnutrition and poverty, and have proven to have a catalytic role for the adoption of national strategies; they should have a central role in all countries. Right to food strategies shall only be successful if they are informed by the views of the victims of hunger and malnutrition, and if the authorities are held accountable for results.
Priority 2: Guarantee gender equality and the empowerment of women
7. While essential to the right to food of women, this would also contribute to the realization of the right to food of other members of society: the advancement of women's rights translates into improved physical and mental development of children, whose ability to learn and to lead healthy and productive lives will gain; it translates into better health and nutritional outcomes for the household, as the decision-making power within the family is rebalanced in favour of women; and it results in higher productivity for women as small-scale food producers, in a context in which small-scale family agriculture is increasingly feminized in all regions, due to the fact that it is the men who first exit from agriculture and migrate to seek employment in the other sectors.
8. The obligation to remove all legislative provisions that discriminate against women, and to combat discrimination that has its source in social and cultural norms, is an immediate obligation that must be complied with without delay. States should also mainstream a concern for gender in all laws, policies and programmes, where appropriate by developing incentives that reward public administrations which make progress in setting and reaching targets in this regard; and they adopt multi-sector and multi-year strategies
1 Available at: http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Food/SRRTF%20BN%2005_SouthernEasternAfrica_en.pdf and http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Food/SRRTF%20BN06_LAC_en.pdf that move towards full equality for women, under the supervision of an independent body to monitor progress, and relying on gender-disaggregated data in all areas that relate to the achievement of food security. The Special Rapporteur will highlight complementary recommendations in this regard in a future report that will be presented to the 22nd session of the Human Rights Council in March 3013 (U.N. document A/HRC/22/50).
Priority 3: Direct the reinvestment in agriculture towards food security, the reduction of rural poverty, and improved resilience to climate change
9. As a result of the food price crises of 2008 and 2010, both governments and the private sector are reinvesting in agriculture, a sector that has been largely neglected over the past thirty years. This is welcome. However, depending on how they are channelled – for which producers and in support of which model of agricultural development –, investments in agriculture may diverge widely in their effects on improving food security, reducing rural poverty, and preserving the health of the soils and the ecosystems in the face of the threats emerging from climate change. In March 2011, following the presentation by the Special Rapporteur of a report assessing what agroecological techniques could contribute to the modernization of agriculture, the Human Rights Council encouraged “States and donors, both public and private, to examine and consider ways to integrate the recommendations [contained in the report “Agroecology and the right to food” (A/HRC/16/49)2] in policies and programmes” (A/HRC/RES/16/27, OP 14). G8 States could contribute to ensure that adequate follow-up is given to this recommendation not only by international agencies, but also by national aid agencies. Comparative assessments could be conducted, proactively, of how different agricultural modes of production, in different contexts, are more or less conducive to food security and the right to food. This is also a commitment made in the Outcome document “The Future We Want” adopted at the Rio Conference on Environment and Development, reaffirming “the necessity to promote, enhance and support more sustainable agriculture” as well as “the need to maintain natural ecological processes that support food production systems”, and “resolving to increase sustainable agricultural production” globally (A/RES/66/288, Annex, paras. 110-111).. The Outcome document also tasks the Committee on World Food Security in "facilitating country-initiated assessments on sustainable food production and food security” (para. 115).
10. Given the importance of improving access to land and the security of land tenure for improving food security, the implementation of the Voluntary Guidelines on Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security (VGGT) adopted by the 38th session of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) on 11 May 2012, will be another vital element in global efforts to improve food security in 2013. The Special Rapporteur also notes that an inclusive consultation process has been be adopted and initiated within the CFS for the development of principles for responsible agricultural investments which enhance food security and nutrition.
11. In his reports to the Human Rights Council and the General Assembly, the Special Rapporteur observes that investments in countries facing significant poverty levels need to be directed at promoting farming systems that contribute to employment creation and rural development, with powerful poverty- reducing effects; and that such investments should encourage modes of agricultural production that respect the environment, and do not accelerate climate change, soil depletion, and the exhaustion of freshwater reserves. He notes that the multiplier effects of investments in agriculture through linkages with the local economy are significantly larger where such investments support small-scale food producers who contribute most to local food security and to improved nutritional outcomes, and have a direct impact on the reduction of rural poverty.
2 Available at: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Food/Pages/Annual.aspx
II. Strengthen global efforts to cope with food price volatility
Priority 4: Establish a Global Fund for Social Protection
12. In the face of persistently high food prices and levels of hunger, it is unacceptable that nearly 80% of the world’s poor do not have basic social protection to fall back on. One major reason why least developed countries do not put social protection schemes in place is that they fear that the establishment of standing social protection schemes shall be fiscally unsustainable: they may face an unaffordable surge in the levels of disbursements in the wake of droughts, floods, epidemics, food price spikes and other shocks to which a high proportion of their populations are vulnerable.
13. The Special Rapporteur has called for creation of an international mechanism in order to close the funding shortfall for putting in place a social protection floor in least developed countries, and to underwrite these schemes against major shocks by brokering or providing reinsurance (see “Underwriting the Poor: a Global Fund for Social Protection”, Briefing Note 7, by the Special Rapporteur on the right to food and co- authored by Magdalena Sepúlveda, Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights, October 2012).3
14. The proposal of a Global Fund for Social Protection is intended as a contribution to the international dialogue on how to ensure the right to social security for all through the establishment of national social protection floors in all countries, as called for by the International Labour Conference. The proposal has received broad support from governments, international agencies and civil society, and a range of organizations are currently discussing ways to support its progressive operationalization. Provided the necessary political goodwill is created, G8 countries could launch a message in June 2013 on the need to overcome the crisis by ambitious measures, including efforts to strengthen social protection at the global level.
Priority 5: Establish Food Reserves
15. Excessive price volatility is still unresolved and is expected to remain on domestic and international markets. In that context, there is a demand from a number of countries, particularly the members of the African Union, that the international community address the question of volatility. These countries want to reduce their vulnerability when international markets are volatile. These governments see stocks as a useful tool to smooth prices.
16. Reserves are not a panacea, but provided the governance conditions are right, they can help reduce price variations that are inter-seasonal or that are linked to unpredictably changing weather patterns. The management of food reserves can be expensive and complex, and they only work as part of a wider system of risk management and price stabilization. But, if they are governed transparently and particularly if established at regional level, in a system in which countries of a same region provide mutual insurance against shocks, food reserves can be effective. Conversely, the lack of stocks has a higher price, both in dollar terms and in the cost on human welfare. The international community has begun to encourage some limited experiments, related to emergency stocks. The most advanced experiment to date is being conducted in the West African region, across 11 countries, on a range of strategic staple crops. It is important to broaden the strategy to think about the role stocks can play in strengthening producers’ market power, stabilizing national food supplies and providing some insulation against price shocks in international markets. Much of the existing debate relies on analysis of 1980s programs that do not take account of the very big changes in both domestic and international markets since then. There are new technologies for communication, transportation and storage that should be explored in relation to stocks.
3 Avaiable at: http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Food/20121009_GFSP_en.pdf (full text) and http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Food/20121009_GFSP_execsummary_en.pdf (executive summary).
17. Food price volatility was debated at international level during the 2011 annual session of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS), on the basis of a report from its High-Level Panel of Experts. The World Bank, in collaboration with FAO, WFP and other partners have informed the CFS that they are addressing these issues simultaneously, namely assessing buffer stocks and food reserves, and preparing a code of conduct for emergency humanitarian food reserves. While the agencies are to inform the CFS of the outcome of their efforts, the June 2013 G8 Summit could be another step in the process to take measures to curb price volatility, as to enable the 40th Session of the CFS (in October 2013) to review progress made on the recommendations made on this issue at its 37th session, including through (a) an assessment of the constraints and effectiveness of local, national and regional food reserves made by international organizations, and (b) working towards a draft code of conduct for emergency humanitarian food reserves. Postponing this question or not addressing it at the highest level would undermine the credibility of the G8 and the CFS alike.
Priority 6: Give first priority to food security in agrofuel policies.
18. Since 2008, the Special Rapporteur has consistently stated that it is imprudent to support extra agrofuel production when food prices are high and volatile and when the impacts on smallholders and land patterns are likely to be negative, and the environmental benefits highly questionable. There is now a large consensus on this issue across all international agencies. The Special Rapporteur has welcomed the European Commission's announcement, on 17 October 2012, that it would propose to revise the targets set by the EU's 2009 renewable fuels directive (Directive 2009/28/EC of 23 April 2009 on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources). However, the EU, US and others should now move towards full removal of agrofuel mandates and subsidies. In addition, any development of agroenergy production should be preceded by robust case-by-case impact assessments that are sensitive to food security and take into account, in particular, the impacts on land rights of the local communities. Putting an end to the current policies, that all impartial observers have now recognized are having a large range of unintended perverse impacts, should be a priority for the G8 in 2013.
Priority 7: Encourage local and regional markets, reshape food chains in order to strengthen the bargaining position of the small food producers, and enable a transition towards less dependency on international markets
19. Countries should build strategies to be more resilient to food price volatility, and avoid excessive dependence on international markets. Poor, net-food-importing countries should be encouraged to strengthen their agricultural sectors by investing in storage facilities and infrastructure improving the ability of small-scale producers to be linked to markets; by supporting their farmers through extension services; by encouraging small-scale farmers to form cooperatives in order to achieve economies of scale in the processing, packaging and marketing of food. These countries should also be encouraged to support the urban consumers' access to affordable and nutritious food by setting up or strengthening social protection schemes providing income support (see Priority 4), and by improving the connection of the local food producers to the nearby urban markets.
20. This transition shall take time, and it shall require investments. It is one that, although it is in the long-term interest of the countries concerned, may be in tension with their short-term interest in continuing to rely on cheap food imports, even at the expense of their agricultural sector. The G8 countries have a responsibility to facilitate such a transition. This means encouraging developing countries that currently depend on food imports to feed themselves in order to gradually reduce such dependency. Depending on each country's situation, this could mean increasing the levels of import tariffs on agricultural products and thus better protect their producers from the impacts of import surges, and using the revenues from such tariffs to finance rural development and infrastructure benefiting farmers, and to massively invest in social protection for the net food buyers and in particular for the non-food-producing poor households. In the past, trade policies that were insufficiently aware of their impacts of rural poverty and local food insecurity have resulted in the marginalization of a large number of less competitive production units – mall-scale farmers in
developing countries who were in effect crowded out by imports subsidized by OECD countries – and in an increase in inequality and poverty in the rural areas in developing countries.
21. Efforts to phase out export refunds should be accelerated. G8 countries should recall the reference made to their abolition by 2013 as part of a global trade deal, at the Hong Kong Ministerial Conference of the WTO in December 2005. It should also be acknowledged that, while the negative impacts of export refunds are particularly important, they are not the only source of distortions that could produce negative impacts on developing countries' markets. Direct payments are close to 30% in some major agricultural countries of the G8, with total subsidies accounting for 40% in the EU for instance. This comes in addition to market price support policies such as import tariffs, which ensure protection against lower-price imports. Without these various forms of support, producers in certain G8 countries would not be in a position to compete on world markets, since the social and environmental conditions under which they operate would not allow them to be competitive. G8 countries should therefore progressively build a monitoring of the impacts of their agricultural exports towards developing countries. Adequate supply management schemes aimed at avoiding overproduction could go a long way towards limiting the negative impacts on the local markets of developing countries of the support given to domestic farmers in order to stabilize their incomes and in order to help them meet the requirements they are imposed. Mechanisms should be established immediately to shield the local agricultural producers in developing countries, to the maximum extent possible, from the negative impacts of the export policies of G8 countries.
III. Improve accountability
Priority 8: Strengthen accountability mechanisms in global efforts related to food security, including MDGs and SDGs
22. A real risk exists that commitments made in international summits will remain empty promises without effective monitoring and accountability. Global commitments must be grounded in human rights and enable citizens to monitor the commitments of their Governments. They must put accountability, the foundation of a human rights-based approach to development, at the core of its commitments.
23. States should incorporate universally agreed international human rights norms and standards in any new “Global Goals” such as the Sustainable Development Goals, or possible follow-ups of the Millennium Development Goals, and they should establish strong built-in accountability mechanism to ensure their implementation. This is a call made by 22 United Nations human rights experts in March 2012, including the Special Rapporteur on the right to food (see Open letter ‘If Rio+20 is to deliver, accountability must be at its heart’),4 and it will be renewed before future international summits when necessary.
24. These 22 U.N. human rights experts have suggested a proposal as to how a double accountability mechanism could be established. At the international level, existing intergovernmental institutions could monitor, on the basis of agreed indicators, progress on global goals in a similar process to the Universal Periodic Review inaugurated in 2007 by the Human Rights Council to provide a peer review of the human rights records of all 193 Member States of the United Nations every four years. At the national level, States should establish participatory accountability mechanisms through which people’s voice can be reflected and independent monitoring can be conducted. ______
17 December 2012
4 Available at: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/SP/Pages/OpenLetterRio20.aspx
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Written evidence submitted by Concern Worldwide
1. Concern Worldwide is making a submission to inform the International Development Committee’s new inquiry on global food security.
Executive Summary
2. Despite considerable progress, 870 million people continue to go hungry every day and 170 million children under 5 are stunted due to chronic malnutrition. The vast majority of these people are poor and vulnerable farmers. In Asia and Africa for example, small farmers represent more than three quarters of all farms and contribute to a large part of the world’s agricultural production.
3. However, farmers around the world face major challenges to escape the traps of hunger and poverty. Agriculture is instrumental for achieving food and nutrition security, but it cannot solve the deeply rooted challenges that perpetuate poverty on its own. A wide-range of interventions combined with sustainable agriculture practices can help achieve agriculture’s full potential to reduce hunger and enhance people’s resilience.
About Concern
4. Concern is leading the search for innovative solutions to break the cycle of poverty and hunger, by addressing their root causes. Our work helps create the conditions that are needed to build resilient communities and lift the poorest and most vulnerable out of hunger. Since our foundation in 1968, Concern has been widely regarded as one of the world’s leading humanitarian organisations. Today, our work focuses on four sectors that are key to tackling extreme poverty: improving livelihoods, education, and health and HIV and AIDS.
5. Concern’s submission focuses on two key issues: the global food system and the role of smallholder agriculture, and the best strategies for reducing risk and building resilience among the most vulnerable. In conclusion, global policy recommendations are suggested.
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I. The limited success of the global food system in guaranteeing food security and eliminating under-nutrition
6. Considerable progress towards reducing hunger and undernutrition in mothers and children has been achieved over the past decades. From 1990 to 2008, the prevalence of stunting in children under five years of age declined from 40 to 29 percent, and 63 countries are on track to achieving the MDG-1 target of a 50 percent reduction in underweight prevalence.1
7. Yet, almost 870 million people continue to go hungry every day, out of which well over than half live in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.2 According to the 2012 Global Hunger Index, 20 countries around the world face levels of hunger that are “alarming” or “extremely alarming”.3 Today, 170 million children under 5 are stunted due to chronic malnutrition.4 It is estimated that hunger costs developing countries $450 billion per year,5 and “hidden hunger” up to 10 percent of GDP in developing countries.6
8. With rising climate variability, land degradation, cyclical droughts, food price volatility, and complex political economy systems, vulnerable regions like the Sahel and the Horn of Africa have to cope with more intense risks and recurrent crises. This requires that policy makers and donors address chronic poverty and malnutrition, risks and crises as an integral part of development, and treat disasters like drought as predictable and manageable events when designing development interventions. The role of small-scale agriculture in increasing global food and nutrition security
9. The evidence for action is overwhelming: investments in agriculture have spurred growth and reduced poverty. In low income countries, agriculture-led growth is five times more effective in reducing poverty than growth in other sectors.7
1 D. Nabarro, P. Menon, M. Ruel and S. Yosef, Scaling up in agriculture, rural development and nutrition Focus 19, Brief 9, June 2012 SUN: A Global Movement to Accelerate Progress in Reducing Maternal and Child Undernutrition, International Food Policy Research Insitute, (Washington DC, 2012). 2 The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2012, Economic growth is necessary but not sufficient to accelerate reduction of hunger and malnutrition, Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, World Food Programme and International Fund for Agricultural Development, Rome, 2012. 3 The 2012 Global Hunger Index, The challenge of hunger: ensuring sustainable food security under land, water and energy stresses, WeltHungerHilfe, IFPRI and Concern Worldwide, Bonn, Washington DC, Dublin, 2012. 4 The World Health Report 2001: Reducing risks, promoting healthy life. Geneva, World Health Organization, 2001. 5 ActionAid, Who’s really fighting hunger? Why the world is going backwards on the UN goal to halve hunger and what can be done, HungerFREE scorecard 2010, London, 2010. 6 A. Stein and M. Qaim. 2007. The human and economic cost of hidden hunger. Food and Nutrition Bulletin, 28(2): 125- 134. 7 The World Bank, World Development Report, Agriculture for development, Washington DC, 2008.
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10. However, smallholder farmers who rely on agriculture for their livelihoods do not have access to the inputs, services and markets they need to develop as strong and resilient rural entrepreneurs. Improving farmers’ access to adequate inputs like drought resistant seeds that they can afford, to appropriate and regular extension services and financial institutions, and linking farmers to markets can help make poor farmers more resilient to shocks in the short term, and enable them to plan and take risks in the long-term.
11. There is considerable evidence that sustainable intensification of small farming systems, using low external inputs, agro-ecological methods and crop diversification can reduce risks and improve food security for smallholder farmers. It is particularly suited to smallholder farmers in ecologically fragile, risk prone areas. In Zimbabwe, poor small farmers who started practising Conservation Agriculture (CA) are achieving yields that are so much higher than farmers who use traditional cultivation techniques that they have gone from food deficits to surpluses. A study carried out by Concern on the impact of CA on food security and livelihoods of smallholder farmers in low potential areas of Zimbabwe in 20088 found a dramatic improvement in food security amongst farmers who have successfully adopted CA techniques.
12. The farmers who adopted CA achieved much higher maize yields than traditional farmers. The extra maize yields contributed to over 60 percent of the food needs of the very poor and almost 70 percent of the food needs of the poor in the targeted area. The success of this programme largely hinged on intensive investment in extension services, and careful use of inputs, based on specific guidelines developed by the CA task force.
13. A year on, these farmers went from being production-deficit households to production-surplus households. Each participating village produced on average a surplus equivalent to 179 percent of the village’s annual food energy needs. This enabled farmers to provide food to surrounding food insecure villages by selling or offering grain as payment for work. Today, these farmers are selling their maize surpluses to aid agencies that distribute food aid, which is incredible evidence of the successes CA can achieve.
14. Agriculture is central to the challenges of food and nutrition security and poverty, but it cannot solve all of the deeply rooted challenges that perpetuate poverty on its own. A wide-range of
8 Concern Worldwide, Food Security and Livelihoods Recovery Programme: end of programme evaluation. Stephen Brown, FEG Consulting, November 2008.
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interventions from the nutrition, health and social protection sectors can help achieve agriculture’s full potential to reduce hunger.
II. The best strategies to reduce risk from shocks and build resilience for the most vulnerable
15. According to the United Nations (UN) resilience is “the ability of a system, community or society exposed to hazards to resist, absorb, accommodate and recover from the effects of a hazard in a timely and efficient manner, including through the preservation and restoration of its essential basic structures and functions”.9
16. In 2011, East Africa had two consecutive seasons with below-average rainfall, resulting in one of the worst droughts in 60 years. Although the 2011 drought affected the whole region of the Horn of Africa, central and southern Somalia were most affected by the crisis10. This was due to a multiple set of factors including drought, conflict, high and volatile global food prices, the region’s reliance on food imports, and the long-term deterioration of coping strategies in local communities.11 Malnutrition rates amongst children in some areas were a staggering 50 percent.
17. Food production fell drastically, leading to an increase in food prices of up to 300 percent in the southern regions of the country. In July 2011 the UN declared a famine in southern Somalia, which affected about 3 million people.12
18. Since then, an estimated 14.5 million people are still stuck in acute phases of food insecurity – that is right on the brink of a humanitarian emergency and two steps away from famine.13 These same people face complex obstacles to escaping the cycle of poverty and hunger they are trapped in. For most, economic, social and political inequality and marginalisation are at the heart of this challenge. This means the little assets they have are insufficient to create and accumulate income, afford food, health care and education. This increases their vulnerability, but also dissuades them from taking risks that could actually help them escape this cycle.
9 United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, 2007. 10 J. Mosley, Translating early warning into early action, East Africa Report, Chatham House, London 2012. 11 D. Maxwell, M. Fitzpatrick, The 2011 Somalia famine: Context, causes, and complications, Global Food Security, 5–12, 2012. 12 United Nations News Centre, UN declares famine in two regions of southern Somalia, July 20, New York, 2011. 13 Fewsnet, East Africa Food Security Outlook, October 2012 to March 2013, USAID, Washington DC, 2012.
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19. Thus, reducing chronic malnutrition requires positive changes in livelihoods, assets, production, income but also women’s access to productive resources, health services, social protection, reduction of risk, and water/sanitation/hygiene, as well as formal control over assets and decision-making power. In the absence of such changes, intolerable levels of under-nutrition will spike up even higher due to stresses or shocks.
20. In Kenya recurrent droughts have eroded people’s livelihoods, assets and coping strategies. However, a survey revealed that severe acute and global acute malnutrition (SAM and GAM respectively) in the district of Moyale were much lower than in neighbouring districts with similar conditions. As drought cycles have shortened, the need for a more flexible approach to planning, responding to, and recovering from droughts has become clearer.14 Concern’s community-based approach to disaster and risks has helped reduce malnutrition and improve resilience in the long- term. Resilience practices include using drought-resistant crops and diversifying livestock, conflict resolution in management of natural resources particularly water, including potential to exploit public–private partnerships, as well as developing trigger indicators to inform health and nutrition interventions at times of crisis, and flexible planning and funding.
Making agriculture nutrition-sensitive
21. The limitations of production-focused agriculture interventions to deliver improved nutrition have been well documented.15 The evidence is clear that while increased agricultural production and income are probably necessary, they are clearly not sufficient to reduce child under-nutrition. Far more substantial impacts were achieved when agricultural interventions incorporated non- agricultural components that addressed other determinants of child nutrition.16 Agricultural interventions aimed at improving nutrition have been undertaken for decades by governments. However, the studies that evaluated these actions presented multiple limitations, making it difficult to fully capture the linkages between nutrition and agriculture, including links with other that may have influenced nutrition outcomes.17 Uncovering agriculture’s true potential to reach poor communities where malnutrition is chronic, to increase family incomes and to diversify their diets, requires investment in broad-ranging rigorous research.
14 W. Erasmus, L. Mpoke and Y. Yishak, Mitigating the impact of drought in Moyale District, Northern Kenya, Humanitarian Exchange Magazine, Issue 53, March 2012, Overseas Development Institute, London, 2012. 15 World Bank, From Agriculture to Nutrition: Pathways, Synergies and Outcomes, Washington DC, 2008. 16 World Bank, From Agriculture to Nutrition: Pathways, Synergies and Outcomes, Washington DC, 2008. 17 Masset E, Haddad L, Cornelius A and Isaza-Castro J, A systematic review of agricultural interventions that aim to improve nutritional status of children. London: EPPI-Centre, Social Science Research Unit, Institute of Education, University of London, 2011.
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22. Concern’s Realigning Agriculture to Improve Nutrition (RAIN) programme addressed this by integrating agriculture and nutrition/health interventions at all project levels to improve nutritional status within the critical 1,000 days from conception until a child reaches its second birthday. It is currently being implemented in Zambia, and may be launched in Rwanda in the future. It goes beyond the traditional objectives of food security programs and focuses on measureable improvements in nutrition security. It is now looking to include work on the promotion of women-focused appropriate technology, links with health care, and empowerment of women.
Expanding the reach of social protection
23. The majority of the poor in low income countries depend on the health of their crops or livestock and on their own labour for their livelihoods. They are vulnerable to numerous sources of risk which when realised lead to great fluctuations in their income. Weather-related risk is particularly important, with evidence indicating that variation in rainfall and temperature is a major determinant of year‐to‐year changes in farmer yields, stocks and incomes. In the absence of social protection programmes, services and formal means to manage risks households adopt informal risk management strategies when a shock occurs including borrowing or liquidating assets.
24. Social protection encompasses all forms of social insurance and social welfare that governments regulate, provide, or otherwise make available to their citizens. There has been a growing recognition that in situations of chronic food insecurity institutionalised social protection programmes are more efficient and effective than repeated annual emergency food aid.18 Social protection programmes like cash transfers, can help smooth consumption and sustain spending on essentials in lean periods without families having to resort to selling their assets or other negative coping mechanisms. They have the potential to help poor households save, invest in productive assets and obtain better credit terms. Evidence from Latin America and South Africa is encouraging. In Brazil the national programme Bolsa Familia accounted for 21 percent of the total fall in the Gini index (a measure of income inequality) between 1995 and 2004.19 In Mexico, the Oportunidades programme was found to have reduced the poverty gap amongst beneficiaries by 30 percent after 2 years.20
18 DFID, Cash Transfers Evidence Paper’, DFID, London, 2011. 19 R. Holmes, J. Hagen-Zanker, M. Vandermoortele, Brazil’s Story: Social protection in Brazil: Impacts on poverty, inequality and growth, Development Progress, Overseas Development Institute, London, 2011. 20 M. Nino-Zarazua, Mexico’s Progresa-Oportunidades and the emergence of social assistance in Latin America, Brooks World Poverty Institute, University of Manchester, Working Paper 142, Manchester, 2-11.
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25. In its latest work with farmers, Concern is combining agriculture, micro-finance, cash transfers and business development services together to support a five step pathway out of poverty towards economic development. Although this is still in its early stages in Burundi, research from leading development experts suggests that the graduation model increased standard of living, business income and food security.21 In this model cash transfers will provide a safety net during the adoption of new production techniques, microfinance will be used to encourage financial discipline and life planning and traditional livelihoods style interventions aimed at improving agricultural production, which have been proved to work, such as conservation agriculture.
III. Global policy recommendations to improve food and nutrition security worldwide
26. The years leading up to 2015 will provide many opportunities to renew commitments to tackle global hunger and undernutrition, including the 2013 G8 Summit in Lough Erne. Donors like DFID have a crucial role to play in supporting this goal. Here are some policy measures that require urgent action:
27. (A) Promote livelihoods for chronically food insecure households: despite strong economic growth in Sahel and the Horn, in most countries, the level of chronic food insecurity, and poverty, remains persistently high. Current development practice is leaving increasing numbers of poorer households, particularly in ecologically fragile and marginalised areas, behind. This need not be. There is evidence that support for low cost, agro-ecological farming can increase productivity, resilience, adaptation to climate change, and help restore the natural resource base. Similarly, in the Sahel and the Horn, although with several important caveats, there are proven ways to improve the productivity and resilience of pastoral livelihoods, based on mobility. Such initiatives, with particular attention focused on the poorer households, needs to be scaled up in risk prone, ecologically fragile areas, as part of an integrated approach to resilience.
28. (B) Prevent chronic and acute child undernutrition: even in normal years, the level of severe acute malnutrition is close to, or above the emergency threshold in many parts of the Sahel. No matter how “early” the response, any shock will inevitably cause a spike of cases of severe acute malnutrition, on top of already unacceptably high levels. The only way to stop this is to greatly reduce current levels of severe, and moderate acute malnutrition and establish a comprehensive prevention program to address malnutrition.
21 E. Duflo, Targeting the ultra-poor : impact assessment, preliminary results, Global Graduation Meeting, July 18th, 2012.
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29. (C) Support social protection for the most vulnerable groups: Ethiopia has used its high growth rates to make significant progress in reducing poverty. A contributing factor has been Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Programme. Ethiopia recently added early warning and contingency planning functions for triggering a scaling up of PSNP interventions in response to emergencies. Resilience makes safety net/social protection programming both developmental and humanitarian.22
30. (D) Scale-up early warning / early response systems: if measures are not taken to improve early response, to protect livelihoods and loss of assets, all other efforts to strengthen resilience and the gains of development will be wiped out, and the numbers of vulnerable households locked into chronic food insecurity will increase. In addition, early warning systems, including indicators of severe and moderate malnutrition levels, as well as malnutrition response action plans that set out precise triggers, processes, and responsible stakeholders must be put in place to improve people’s ability to respond and bounce-back from extreme weather events, high food prices, and other risks.
December 2012
22 Intermon Oxfam, Définition du Cadre d’orientation stratégique de moyens d’existence (COSME) en Afrique de l’Ouest (Sahel), Avril 2010.
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Written evidence submitted by World Vision
World Vision is a child focused Christian relief, development and advocacy organisation dedicated to working with children, their families and communities to overcome poverty and injustice. World Vision is the world’s largest local charity working in 100 countries to improve the lives of 100 million people worldwide. We welcome the opportunity to provide evidence to the Committee on Global Food Security.
1. Despite the international response to the 2008 global food crisis, over 2 million children1 still die annually because of undernutrition. During the 2008 global food crisis, the international community recognised the grim reality that nearly one billion people faced undernutrition, with women and children being some of the most vulnerable to its detrimental outcomes.2 This crisis showed not only the necessity of international coordination but also the threat that food insecurity posed to the achievement of many of the millennium development goals (MDG), particularly child health and nutrition. The crisis also confirmed that “food assistance” alone was not the solution to global hunger.
1.1. Conversely it is important not to see food security as the only input needed to guarantee the elimination of undernutrition in women, children and other vulnerable groups. Undernutrition should not simply be seen as an outcome of food insecurity, but an outcome of many interlinked determinants including food security. As a recent World Vision report demonstrates, undernutrition is not simply determined by the price of food, but by the quality of diet, the strength of a health system, access to education and access to food markets.3 In addition to ensuring that the global food system is better able to provide equitable access to food, countries need to have unified, well resourced, cross-sectoral national policies and plans to address undernutrition in their context. We therefore recommend that undernutrition is not simply seen as an issue of food insecurity, but that food insecurity is seen as one of the many determinants of poor nutritional status.
1Calculated from UNICEF/WHO figures for child deaths (6.9 million n 2011) and factoring that 35% of under five deaths are nutrition related; Black et al. Maternal and Child Undernutrition 1: “Maternal and child undernutrition: global and regional exposures and health consequences.” The Lancet, Volume 371, Issue 9608, Pages 243 - 260, 19 January 2008. 2 Oxfam, A Billion Hungry People, (Oxfam Briefing Paper, January 2009) 3 World Vision, The Best Start: Saving Children’s Lives in their First Thousand Days, (World Vision 2011)
2. Fragile and conflict affected countries are some of the furthest from achieving the MDGs and should be a serious concern for the UK Government.4 The combination of conflict, resource scarcity, marginalisation, and economic instability increase factors that aggravate levels of child undernutrition in these contexts. Fragile contexts are prone to frequent crises or “protracted crisis”5 and include some of the world’s hardest places, especially for children.6 They often lack resources, community capacity or cohesiveness and political will to deal with significant issues affecting the population. According to the World Bank, people in fragile and conflict affected areas are two times less likely to have enough food than those in other developing countries.7 They are three times less likely to be able to send their children to school, twice as likely to see their children die before the age of five and more than twice as likely to lack clean water.
2.1. It is no coincidence that the Failed States Index’s top five fragile contexts (Somalia, Chad, Sudan, DRC and Haiti) also have some of the highest rates of hunger, child undernutrition and child mortality.8 The limited systems, structures and resources required to target undernutrition in some of the most fragile contexts challenge the ability of their governments to improve child nutrition internally. Responses to undernutrition in these contexts must be holistic, both meeting the humanitarian need and developing some of the systems and structures that will provide long term solutions to the undernutrition in their countries. However, often because the humanitarian need is most evident, acute issues (including acute malnutrition), overshadow chronic issues, despite the increasingly common donor rhetoric of “resilience”.
2.2. Though fragile contexts experience significant levels of child stunting, it is questionable how they will benefit from the coordination and accountability offered through movements like Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) movement if they are not signing on to them. Currently, most fragile states (defined by OECD or World Bank criteria) are not participating in the SUN dialogue and the main actors continue to
4 World Bank, World Development Report 2011, (World Bank, 2011) http://wdr2011.worldbank.org/sites/default/files/WDR2011_Overview.pdf 5 Defined as “recurrent natural disasters and/or conflict, longevity of food crises, breakdown of livelihoods and insufficient institutional capacity to react to the crises” 6 FAO (2010) “The State of Food Insecurity in the World. Addressing Food Security in Protracted Crisis”, Rome: FAO; World Bank (2011), “Fragile and Conflict-Affected Countries. Harmonized List of Fragile Situations FY11”, http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/PROJECTS/STRATEGIES/EXTLICUS/0,,contentMDK:22230 573~menuPK:6434002~pagePK:64171531~piPK:64171507~theSitePK:511778,00.html, accessed 4 August, 2011. 7 World Bank, “World Development Report 2011” 8 WFP (2011) “Interactive Hunger Map 2011: Fighting Hunger World Wide”, http://documents.wfp.org/stellent/groups/public/documents/communications/wfp229328.pdf; UNICEF (2011) “State of the World’s Children 2011 – Statistics”, http://www.unicef.org/sowc2011/statistics.php, accessed 4 Aug, 2011; Failed States Index 2011
address undernutrition through mechanisms appropriate for emergency responses (which may or may not be appropriate to address chronic issues). Vulnerable people in these contexts, especially pregnant women and children, risk being left behind if funding and policy priorities in these countries continue to focus on the “acute” problem without looking to holistically tackle child undernutrition.
2.3. Currently, DFID’s Position Paper on Nutrition9 does highlight specific countries of focus, but the focus in fragile states is on humanitarian assistance. These countries need support that gets to the root of both acute and chronic undernutrition in humanitarian, transitional and development contexts. We believe that it is important for DFID to recognise the specific needs of very fragile context in their strategies and targets to address food security and nutrition. Therefore, we recommend that the UK government outline their strategy and targets to specifically address undernutrition responses in fragile contexts in both their bilateral country programmes and through relevant multilateral agencies. In addition, we recommend that the UK use the G8 meetings in 2013, including and especially the hunger summit, to generate greater international support to tackle the specific and challenging contexts in fragile and conflict affected states.
December 2012
9 DFID, Scaling Up Nutrition: The UK’s Position Paper on Undernutrition, (DFID, September 2011) GFS 14
Written evidence submitted by Agricultural Biotechnology Council (abc)
The views expressed in this submission are those of abc - the umbrella organisation for the agricultural biotechnology industry in the UK. abc, comprising of six member companies, works with the food chain and research community to invest in a broad range of crop technologies – including conventional and advanced breeding techniques, such as GM. These are designed to promote the sustainable intensification of agriculture by tackling challenges such as pests, diseases and changing climatic conditions, whilst reducing water usage, greenhouse gas emissions and other inputs. The companies are BASF, Bayer, Dow AgroSciences, Monsanto, Pioneer (DuPont) and Syngenta.
Further information is available at www.abcinformation.org
Executive Summary
The world population is growing. It is set to soar from 7bn to 8bn within the next 13 years before reaching 9bn by 2050. Research is needed now in order to deliver more food from a similar amount of agricultural land by 2025. Otherwise food price instability will continue to increase and the pressure on precious areas of natural land will intensify. Between 1996 and 2009, 229 million tons of additional food, feed and fibre were produced thanks to the use of GM crops. Without this, it is estimated that an additional 75 million hectares of conventional crops would have been required to produce the same tonnage. GDP growth in agriculture also contributes twice as much to poverty reduction as any other sector. Just under half of the land grown with GM varieties is in developing countries - an area equivalent to the surface area of Ghana, the Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso put together The combination of enhanced productivity and efficiency generated by GM crop technology already provides a major boost to farmer income. The costs of developing GM crops are high, and for many crops (often those grown in developing countries), there is no obvious pay-back, so alternative business models are required However, research on GM crops is currently thriving in Africa, with public-private partnerships looking at everything from disease-resistant bananas to drought-resistant sorghum. GM is not a silver bullet, but should not be ignored as a tool for ensuring greater food security and reliability of agricultural supply.
GFS 14
1. The world population is growing. It is set to soar from 7bn to 8bn within the next 13 years before reaching 9bn by 2050. This necessarily increases the amount of food that we must produce, although there will be no increase in the land which we have to grow it on.
2. In addition, we have seen a number of extreme weather events this year which have had a negative impact on food production. In particular, the Midwest of America has experienced its worst drought for 50 years, and corn yields and reserves are likely to be the lowest since 2005/006. This will affect global food and feed prices. Similar poor weather has affected South America, the Ukraine and Russia.
3. In Sahel, West Africa, and elsewhere, rising global food prices are causing rising hunger, malnutrition and death. Save the Children and World Vision have called for more investment to protect against food insecurity, and highlighted the impact of price rises on the region.
4. Research is needed now in order to deliver more food from a similar amount of agricultural land by 2025. Otherwise food price instability will continue to increase and the pressure on precious areas of natural land will intensify. With rising demand and the impacts of an unpredictable climate putting pressure on production, it is increasingly clear that we need as many tools as possible to boost food security in an environmentally sensitive and sustainable way.
5. Worldwide, 1.4 billion people live in poverty - one billion of whom live in rural areas. The problem is particularly acute in rural Sub-Saharan Africa, where over 60 per cent of the rural population live in conditions of poverty. A recent report by the Overseas Development institute showed that issues of poverty can be best tackled by investment in the agricultural sector, with GDP growth in agriculture contributing twice as much to poverty reduction as any other sectori.
6. About 16 million farmers grow over 160 million hectares of GM crops in 29 different countries according to figures published in 2011, and over 90 per cent of these were resource-poor farmers. Future projections made by the agricultural biotechnology industry indicate that advances in GM technology will have particular relevance for areas where drought is a common occurrence and access to irrigation is limited. Commercialisation of drought tolerance technology, which allows crops to withstand periods of low soil moisture, is anticipated within 5 years.
7. From a global perspective, the combination of enhanced productivity and efficiency generated by GM technology already provides a major boost to farmer incomeii. Between 1996 and 2009 it was the equivalent of adding over 4 per cent to the value of global production of the four main crops of soybeans, corn, cotton and canola. In developing countries, such a benefit would have been proportionately greater.
8. Just under half of the land grown with GM varieties is in developing countries - an area equivalent to the surface area of Ghana, the Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso put togetheriii. In the African continent commercialised GM crops include maize, cotton, and soybeans, GFS 14
with the number and diversity of crops increasing all the time. Trials are currently in progress on sorghum, bananas and cassava, while other developing countries grow GM squash, papaya, tomato, sweet peppers, trees and oilseed rape. Resource-poor farmers report that the technology increases yields through greater pest and disease resistance, and this results in lower machinery and fuel costs. But it also has other benefits.
9. The amount of arable land available for agriculture worldwide is declining, especially in the developing world. Research from the UN estimates that more than 70 per cent of land available in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America suffers from severe soil and terrain constraints. With a growing population, there is little doubt that crop productivity has to increase. Unsurprisingly, the UN estimates that 80 per cent of the required food production increases between 2015 and 2030 will have to come from intensification in the form of yield increases and higher cropping intensities.
10. Productivity gains from the application of industrial biotechnology in agriculture have had a big impact on the ability of it to keep pace with global demand for commodities. If such crops had not been available to farmers in 2009, maintaining global production would have required additional plantings of nearly 3.8 million hectares of soybeans, nearly 6 million hectares of corn, nearly 3 million hectares of cotton and 0.3 million hectares of canolaiv. Between 1996 and 2009, 229 million tons of additional food, feed and fibre were produced thanks to the use of GM crops. Without this, it is estimated that an additional 75 million hectares of conventional crops would have been required to produce the same tonnagev. Some of these additional hectares could have required fragile marginal lands, which are not suitable for crop production, to be ploughed and for tropical forest, rich in biodiversity, to be felled.
11. Some of the benefits of seed technology uptake are tangible; others are aspirational. For example, for 80,000 farmers in Burkina Faso working an average of three hectares, the advent of GM cotton has meant a huge reduction in the existing use of insecticide. There has also been an immediate and substantial yield increase.
12. In other cases, such as the development of disease-tolerant bananas in Uganda, it remains a work in progress. In central Uganda, one of the main banana-growing regions, Banana Xanthomonas Wilt (BXW) hits up to 80 per cent of farms, sometimes wiping out entire fields. To get rid of BXW, it is necessary to dig up and burn the affected plants, disinfect all machinery and tools and allow the ground to lie fallow for six months before replanting. For small-scale farmers, leaving their gardens lying empty for this long is not an option and so they switch to other crops. The International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and the African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF) have been developing a GM solution to the problem of BXW, in conjunction with a Taiwanese biotechnology institute, Academia Sinica (AS). Initial trials are promising, with six out of eight strains showing 100 per cent resistance to BXW. Development of wilt-resistant bananas has now progressed to the confined field-crop testing stage and is showing promisevi.
13. Regional differences in the response to adoption of GM technologies require close scrutiny because the technology may not be the best solution in all situations. For example, in India where there has been wide experience of the use of GM cotton, higher yields have been GFS 14
particularly beneficial for women. Harvesting is primarily a female activity, therefore the women hired to pick the increased production have seen increases of 55 per cent in average income, equivalent to about 424 million additional days of employment for female earners across the whole Indian cropvii.
14. There have been complaints from some farmers in Maharashtra that the seeds have not improved yield or met expectations of resistance to pests and diseases. Some campaign groups have interpreted this as a cause of increased suicides among farmers who have found themselves sinking deeper into debt. Yet there have also been increases in the costs of fertiliser, pesticides and other farming supplies together with the effects of years of drought. Rigorous analysis of research is therefore essential to ensure that the technology is not being oversold and that it is being adopted in the right circumstances and environments.
15. Research on GM crops is currently thriving in Africa, with public-private partnerships looking at everything from disease-resistant bananas to drought-resistant sorghum. But for many crops, there is no obvious pay-back and an alternative business model is required; quite simply how do companies overcome the cost of developing a new product when there is little chance of recuperating costs?
16. If it is a commodity crop such as cotton, technology will have already been developed or partially developed for markets elsewhere in the world, with R&D costs recovered through increased seed prices. The costs of this are high; and the industry’s top 10 companies invest $2.25 billion, or 7.5 per cent of sales, in R&D and innovationviii. But the resultant GM seeds are priced appropriately for each market where they are sold. They may be more expensive than conventional seeds but the resulting savings and higher income potential make them a good investment for resource-poor farmers, through lower pesticide and herbicide costs and more reliable and higher yields.
17. In other cases, crop traits required for particular environmental, economic and political conditions may not be applicable on a global scale and therefore will not attract the same model of commercial investment. Such projects could not proceed without both investment and an understanding that the payback period might be extremely long. In effect it requires the establishment of public-private partnerships in which companies waive or limit their intellectual property rights to the use of specific genes and transformation techniques, allowing the benefits of this technology to be maximised.
18. GM is not a silver bullet, but should not be ignored as a tool for ensuring greater food security and reliability of agricultural supply.
December 2012 i Overseas Development Institute. Agricultural Productivity and Poverty in Developing Countries. ODI ii Brookes, G. and Barfoot, P. (2011). GM Crops: global socio-economic and environmental impacts 1996-2009. PG Economics Limited. 3 Stephen Morse, Richard Bennett & Yousouf Ismael (2004) Nature Biotechnology 22, 379-380 iii ISAAA Brief 43-2011 Global Status of Commercialized Biotech/GM Crops: 2011 http://www.isaaa.org/resources/publications/briefs/43/executivesummary/default.asp GFS 14
iv ISAAA Brief 43-2011 Global Status of Commercialized Biotech/GM Crops: 2011 http://www.isaaa.org/resources/publications/briefs/43/executivesummary/default.asp v ISAAA Brief 43-2011 Global Status of Commercialized Biotech/GM Crops: 2011 http://www.isaaa.org/resources/publications/briefs/43/executivesummary/default.asp vi http://www.sinica.edu.tw/manage/gatenews/showsingle.php?_op=?rid:4043%26isEnglish:1 vii GM crops and gender issues, Nature Biotechnology Vol.28, July 2010 http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/newsandevents/pressreleases/gm_crop_produces/ viii Crop Life http://www.croplife.org/intellectual_property GFS 15
Written evidence submitted by Friends of the Earth
Introduction
1. Friends of the Earth England, Wales and Northern Ireland is the UK’s most influential environmental campaigning organisation. We are a unique network of campaigning local groups working in over 200 communities throughout England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
2. We are a member of the Friends of the Earth International, the world's largest grassroots environmental network, uniting 74 national member groups.
3. Friends of the Earth welcomes the opportunity to contribute to the Commons Select Committee’s inquiry into global food security. Sustainable food production and consumption have been key campaigning issues for Friends of the Earth for more than 40 years.
Summary - a crisis of consumption, not a crisis of production
4. Fears of shortages, almost a billion hungry and sharply rising food prices for the third time in four years. You’d be forgiven for thinking that the world is running out of food. But the truth is we produce more than enough food to feed the world. The problem is ensuring a fair distribution of food supplies, resources and land to allow enough nutritional food for everyone without destroying the planet’s natural resources.
5. “We have the resources to guarantee food security for all, today and in four decades from now” FAO Director General José Graziano da Silva February 2012.
6. As the UN High Level Panel of Experts (HLPE) on food security and nutrition put it recently: “We don’t have a crisis of production. We have a crisis of consumption.”1
7. Friends of the Earth believes that it is the global industrialised nature of our food economy which lies at the heart of the problem. Countries around the world have been encouraged to rely on exported production largely to feed high levels of consumption in the industrialised countries at the expense of local food sufficiency, leaving them vulnerable to sudden changes in price. They have also been forced to open up their markets to cheap highly subsidised food from the EU and US. Many food and feed exporting countries are not benefiting from the current high prices because they are dependent on expensive imported food to feed their own population. Meanwhile, corporate control over the food system has risen with biotechnology and agribusinesses reporting record profits while millions are starving.2
8. Friends of the Earth advocates that: • It is crucial to address the role of more sustainable diets, starting with the high level of consumption of livestock products in industrialised countries. • We need policy incentives (for example from CAP reform) for more protein animal feed and mixed farming systems in the UK to replace the demand for overseas protein. • The diversion of land and water resources towards crop-based biofuels must be ended. • Public investment should be redirected away from industrial, high-input and intensive agriculture towards small-scale sustainable agriculture that stimulates rural development and local markets. • Speculation in commodity markets must be ended. • Land grabbing must be stopped and governments must provide the conducive climate to encourage farmers to invest, including secure tenure rights, fair trading systems and providing infrastructure and extension systems. • International food system governance must be strengthened, particularly the role of the UN Committee on World Food Security. • Agricultural techniques - such as agroecology - that renew, recycle and preserve natural resources, mitigating climate change and alleviating rural poverty must receive more support.
1 HLPE, Webinar: What's Causing Higher and More Volatile Food Prices Around the World? 12 September 2011 2 Grain, 2008. Making a killing from hunger - http://www.grain.org/articles/?id=39
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Sustainable diets
9. In assessing how to best make use of our food resources, it is crucial to address the role of diet, starting with the high level of consumption of livestock products in industrialised countries. This competes with crop production for land and is a key cause of increasing consumption of grain and oilseeds. The production and consumption of livestock products is a driving force behind deforestation and environmental instability in agriculture. What we eat and how it is produced are crucial factors in assessing our use of land and available soils.
10. Growing demand for meat - the FAO expects meat production to double by 20503 - is increasing demand for vegetable proteins and grain for animal feed, which is depriving humans of vital food supplies. A report for the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in 2009 calculated that reducing meat consumption in the industrialised world and balancing it worldwide to the 2000 level of 37.4 kg/capita in 2050 would free an estimated 400 million tons of cereal per year for human consumption – enough to cover the annual calorie need for 1.2 billion people.4
11. The expansion of land use to produce feeds and pasture is also causing significant greenhouse gas emissions and seriously damaging biodiversity and vital water and soil structures.5
12. Although availability of good agricultural land is limited, our recent study Eating the Planet finds that feeding the world in 2050 is possible without the most intensive forms of animal and crop production or a massive expansion of agricultural land if developed countries adopt healthier, lower-meat diets and food is distributed more equally. In addition, the report finds that sufficient food can be provided in 2050 without further deforestation, through robust policy intervention.6 A follow up report on diets found that adopting a lower meat diet in the UK could prevent 45,000 early deaths and save the NHS £1.2 billion each year.7
13. We also need to grow more feed in the UK to replace our demand for overseas protein and land which should be used to feed local people. Our recent report Pastures New 8 , outlines how we can directly replace 50 per cent of soy meal currently used for animal feed with home grown alternatives, if the right incentives were in place. The on-going reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is vital to get these incentives – incorporating crop rotations with legumes (proteins) into Pillar 1 of the CAP would provide a steady source of UK protein, lowering costs for
3 http://www.fao.org/ag/againfo/themes/en/meat/home.html 4 Nellemann, C. et al (Eds). February 2009. The environmental food crisis – The environment’s role in averting future food crises. A UNEP rapid response assessment. United Nations Environment Programme, GRID-Arendal http://www.grida.no/files/publications/FoodCrisis_lores.pdf 5 Friends of the Earth, 2008. What’s feeding our food? 6 Friends of the Earth & Compassion in World Farming, 2009. Eating the planet? 7 Healthy Planet Eating, Friends of the Earth 2010, http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/reports/healthy_planet_eating.pdf 8 http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/reports/pastures_new.pdf
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farmers and significantly reducing our global ‘land footprint’ and negative impact on food security.9
Food not Fuel
The drive to grow crops for biofuels means that less land is available for food, reducing supply and pushing up prices.10 Food and feed crops, such as maize, wheat and soy, are being used to create ethanol and biodiesel, ensuring direct competition between feeding people and fuelling cars.
14. Food prices are dependent on several interrelated factors that affect supply and demand, including: the weather, oil prices, national trade and export policies/bans, financial speculation, income growth, grain stock levels/inventories and biofuels.
15. There has been much debate and research on the role the increased uptake of biofuels is playing on food price rises and volatility. Although they vary in methodology, time scales, crops and geographical regions, the vast majority of studies conclude that biofuels are increasing food prices. As the UN Committee on World Food Security says, “After some initial debate, hardly anybody today contests the fact that biofuel production was a major factor in the recent food price increases”.11
16. Ten of the world’s biggest and most influential international institutions including the World Bank, OECD and the WTO have concluded that food prices are “substantially higher than they would be if no biofuels were produced”12 and that this impact is so damaging that governments should scrap biofuel targets and mandates:
“G20 governments [should] remove provisions of current national policies that subsidize (or mandate) biofuels production or consumption”
IFAD, IMF, OECD, UNCTAD, WFP, World Bank, WTO13
17. The expansion of land used for biofuel crops also causes deforestation, exacerbating climate change and vulnerability in agriculture. As many countries move to adopt even higher mandates for biofuel use - wrongly seen as a way of tackling climate change - this pressure on food supplies and prices will grow. In some cases,
9 Crop Rotations Benefiting farmers, the environment and the economy, Friends of the Earth et all., 2012 http://www.foeeurope.org/sites/default/files/briefing_crop_rotation_june2012.pdf 10 Food not fuel: agrofuels, food prices and hunger, Friends of the Earth International, 2012, http://www.foei.org/en/resources/publications/pdfs/2012/food-not-fuel-agrofuels-food-prices-and-hunger-1 11 Price volatility and food security, The High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition, July 2011 http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/user_upload/hlpe/hlpe_documents/HLPE-price-volatility-and-food-security- report-July-2011.pdf 12 Price Volatility in Food and Agricultural Markets: Policy Responses June 2011, FAO, IFAD, IMF,OECD, UNCTAD, WFP, the World Bank, the WTO, IFPRI and the UN HLTF http://www.oecd.org/trade/agriculturaltrade/48152638.pdf 13 Price Volatility in Food and Agricultural Markets: Policy Responses June 2011, FAO, IFAD, IMF,OECD, UNCTAD, WFP, the World Bank, the WTO, IFPRI and the UN HLTF http://www.oecd.org/trade/agriculturaltrade/48152638.pdf
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agricultural land in developing countries is being used to grow fuel for the West instead of food to feed the population locally.14
18. Friends of the Earth is calling for ending the use of food crops for biofuels and for the focus instead to be on doubling vehicle efficiency and reducing demand for fuel.
Speculation
19. Food prices have risen sharply for the third time in four years, with the price rises prompting the UN Food and Agriculture Agency to claim that the world may be on the brink of a major new food crisis caused by environmental disasters and rampant market speculators.
20. The sudden price hikes, which follow years of falling prices for agricultural produce, are a result of rising demand combined with falling supply of key crops and an increase since 2005 in speculation in commodity markets. US and European demand for crops for biofuels is competing with the demand for animal feed crops to produce meat for western consumption and increasing consumer demand in emerging economies. Poor harvests in countries hit by drought (possibly a result of climate change) have also affected supplies, while rising oil prices have pushed up fertiliser and transport costs.
21. These material factors are exacerbated by large speculative investments in commodity markets. These investments turn what are longer term trends into sudden and damaging price spikes, driving up prices for both farmers and consumers and creating economic and food insecurity. Olivier De Schutter, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, has recently stated that much of the recent increase in the price and volatility of food commodities is due to a "speculative bubble".15
22. The UK and EU must take immediate steps to end damaging speculation in commodity markets. The World Development Movement is calling for both parties to require all deals on food derivatives to go through a central, transparent clearing house and to impose tough limits on commodity speculation by banks and hedge funds who are not part of the real food economy.16
New technologies and agricultural investment
23. Tackling the food crisis means recognising that some of the solutions currently being put forward will not feed the world and will exacerbate hunger, poverty and climate change.
24. Investment in agriculture is urgently needed, but it must be investment in the right agricultural methods that help to feed the world sustainably.
14 Africa Up For Grabs, Friends of the Earth Europe, http://www.foeeurope.org/agrofuels/FoEE_Africa_up_for_grabs_2010.pdf 15 Olivier de Schutter, Food Commodities Speculation and Food Price Crises http://www.srfood.org/images/stories/pdf/otherdocuments/20102309_briefing_note_02_en.pdf 16 http://www.wdm.org.uk/food-speculation
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25. GM crops do not address hunger or poverty. Instead they risk diverting resources away from food for the hungriest and exacerbating the problems brought about by intensive agriculture.
26. The recent International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) report revealed that there was no conclusive evidence that GM crops have increased yields.17 Recent studies have shown that GM soya beans suffer from “yield drag”, resulting in a 5-10% reduction in yields.16 Contrary to claims by the biotech industry, no GM crops modified to increase yields or resist droughts are on, or even close to being on, the market.
27. Instead crops have been modified to be resistant to insect pests and tolerant to herbicides, resulting in a dramatic increase in the use of chemicals to deal with weeds that develop resistance to the chemicals over time.17 GM crops have been used for more intensive production methods by big companies, mainly to produce animal feed, at the expense of local farmers and the natural environment.
28. Often factory farming is posited as a solution to feeding the world as it supposedly produces more food for less money. However, factory farming has a high social and environmental cost that undermines these claims.
29. Most of the animal breeds used in factory farming are specifically bred to produce massive yields of meat and dairy. This is only possible with huge amounts of high protein feed, such as soy.18 The UK imports over 1 million tons of soy per year,19 with 40 per cent coming from South America. The demand for cheap high protein feed is fuelling both deforestation and the displacement of local communities,20 neither of which are figured into the final farm gate price.
30. As noted by the IAASTD, shifting to sustainable farming will mean investing in research and development to help farmers make the best use of farmland and water resources. This means modern farming will be used to enhance local traditional knowledge, while protecting people’s right to determine their own food production systems.
31. According to the IAASTD report: “systems are needed that enhance sustainability while maintaining productivity in ways that protect the natural resource base and ecological provisioning of agricultural systems.”21
32. This will require new research and investment at an international level to help the world’s poorest countries move away from the industrial farming methods that have been forced on them. International institutions such as the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) can play a role in this.
17 International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development, 2008. Agriculture at the crossroads
18 Compassion in World Farming, 2009. Beyond Factory Farming 19 Friends of the Earth, 2010. Pastures New 20 Friends of the Earth, 2010, From Forest to Fork 21 http://www.agassessment.org/docs/Global_Press_Release_final.doc
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Public funding currently directed towards large-scale industrial monoculture, via the World Bank and other international financial institutions, should be redirected towards small-scale sustainable agriculture that stimulates rural development and local markets. Priority should be given to producing for local consumption and regional trade, rather than export.
33. A more equitable and sustainable farming pattern must attach greater importance to protecting biodiversity and must recognise land rights, which have often been cast aside in the race towards industrial agriculture.
Land grabbing and access to land for small scale food producers
34. Access to land and security of tenure are essential to achieve the right to food and food security for the approximately 1 billion hungry people, the majority of whom are small scale food producers themselves. They are hungry not because their model of food production is not viable, but rather because the prices they receive for their produce are too low, decades of marginalisation in policy making and research and because for many years they have been encouraged to produce cash crops for export markets rather than food crops for local consumption. This is compounded by years of highly unequal land distribution which means many of the rural poor either farm on marginal, tiny plots or are landless. 22 Increasingly, vast areas of global farmland are providing for high consuming western populations and increasingly, elites in developing countries.
35. Since 2008, this existing inequality has been intensified by ‘land grabbing’ - where governments, private investors and corporations are taking control of vast areas of land from local communities and small scale food producers. There are many reasons for the rise in land grabbing – the largest number are for food exports and biofuels, but there are also land grabs to access water sources, for carbon storage projects and for financial speculation.23
36. Multiple studies and reports have exposed that shifts in control over land and its resources has resulted in severe food insecurity, loss of livelihoods and environmental damage from conversion of forests and low input systems to plantations and high input industrial agriculture.24 25
37. Some international institutions and governments believe that land deals, if conducted properly, can reduce hunger and poverty and provide much needed investment in agriculture. Yet this is completely contradicted by the evidence.
22 UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food – Access to Land http://www.srfood.org/images/stories/pdf/officialreports/20101021_access-to-land-report_en.pdf 23 GRAIN Seized: The 2008 landgrab for food and financial security www.grain.org/article/entries/93-seized- the-2008-landgrab-for-food-and-financial-security 24 Land Rights and the rush for land ILC http://www.landcoalition.org/sites/default/files/publication/1205/ILC%20GSR%20report_ENG.pdf 25 Land and Power: The growing scandal surrounding the new wave of investments in land OXFAM http://policy-practice.oxfam.org.uk/publications/land-and-power-the-growing-scandal-surrounding-the-new- wave-of-investments-in-l-142858
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38. Overwhelmingly investors are targeting poorer countries with weak land tenure security - largely poor countries in Africa. Sixty-six per cent of land acquired is from countries that have above average hunger combined with a high share of GDP from agriculture. But almost two thirds of the crops produced are for possible non-food use. This is not all. In many cases, export is the principal aim of the production, domestic markets are of marginal concern.
39. A clear and ugly picture emerges. Investors are looking for countries with cheap and easy access to land to give them high returns and export food. But these countries are the most at risk of hunger. The dependence of the poor in these countries on agriculture means few other jobs are available. The largest share of land acquired is from forested land – 24 per cent of all deals and 31 per cent of their total area.26
40. The narrative that foreign private investment in agriculture and land is necessary also needs to be examined. The latest State of Agriculture report from the FAO shows that farmers themselves are by far the largest investors in agriculture. Data from the report shows that farmers in low- and middle-income countries invest more than $170 billion a year in their farms. This is three times as much as all other sources of investment combined, four times more than contributions by the public sector, and more than 50 times more than official development assistance to these countries.27
41. Therefore it is clear that the most important type of investment to consider in addressing food security and agricultural growth is those by farmers themselves rather than those by other actors including agribusinesses and foreign investment funds. It is vital to ensure that governments can provide the most conducive climate to encourage farmers to invest. This includes secure tenure rights, fair trading systems and providing infrastructure and extension systems.
International food system governance
42. There are a multitude of bodies, initiatives and institutions which have attempted to address hunger and the food crisis – from the World Trade Organisation to the G8. Yet many of them have not been able to show real leadership or political will to make the changes necessary. Many of these are also fragmented, unaccountable and dominated by a few rich private or rich country interests.28 In this context the reform of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) establishes a space in which the causes of the failure of global food governance can be addressed by all actors concerned. The CFS is the central body for international collaboration on food security. The roles of CFS are:
• Coordination at global level initially and over time also at national and regional levels. • Policy convergence.
26 Transnational Land Deals for Agriculture in the Global South Analytical Report based on the Land Matrix Database http://landportal.info/landmatrix/media/img/analytical-report.pdf 27 The State of Food and Agriculture 2012 http://www.fao.org/publications/sofa/en/ 28 Global Governance for World Food Security: A Scorecard Four Years After the Eruption of the “Food Crisis” Heinrich-Böll Foundation http://acuns.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Global-Governance-for-World- Food-Security.pdf
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• Support and advice to countries and regions. • Over time to increasingly also promote accountability and share best practices at all levels by developing mechanisms to monitor progress toward objectives.
43. The CFS is a unique, democratic, multi-stakeholder and legitimate and democratic space for global governance of the world's food system. It includes a space for governments, civil society, the private sector and donors.29
Climate change, the environment and models of agriculture
44. Climate change and the energy crisis have shown that a food system based on the intensive use of petrol products and chemicals is not sustainable. But climate change is not the only problem. Industrial agriculture practises have resulted in a quarter of soils globally being degraded, a biodiversity crisis, severe water scarcity and a broken nitrogen cycle which is leading to massive climate emissions from fertilizer use, pollution from nitrogen overload in intensive systems and soil depletion. Therefore it is vital that we support agricultural techniques that renew, recycle and preserve natural resources rather than just maintain them.
45. Agro-ecological methods of production have the best chances of tackling the environmental and social challenges of food production, while increasing yields. According to the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, “Agroecology seeks ways to enhance agricultural systems by mimicking natural processes, thus creating beneficial biological interactions and synergies among the components of the agroecosystem. It provides the most favourable soil conditions for plant growth, particularly by managing organic matter and by raising soil biotic activity. The core principles of agroecology include recycling nutrients and energy on the farm, rather than introducing external inputs; integrating crops and livestock; diversifying species and genetic resources in agroecosystems over time and space; and focusing on interactions and productivity across the agricultural system, rather than focusing on individual species. Agroecology is highly knowledge-intensive, based on techniques that are not delivered top-down but developed on the basis of farmers’ knowledge and experimentation.” He also finds that, “Agroecology, if sufficiently supported, can double food production in entire regions within 10 years while mitigating climate change and alleviating rural poverty.” 30
46. Several reports from the UN have shown that agro-ecology can double yields and provide a sustainable way out of hunger and poverty for many.
47. Yet a recent analysis of major donors in agriculture including the UK Department for International Development revealed that it has provided hundreds of millions of
29 Committee on World Food Security, Reform of the Committee on World Food Security. CFS:2009/2 Rev.2. Rome: FAO, 2009, p2. www.fao.org/fileadmin/templates/cfs/Docs0910/ReformDoc/CFS_2009_2_Rev_2_E_K7197.pdf 30 OHCHR, Eco-farming can double food production in 10 years, says new UN report, www.srfood.org/images/stories/pdf/press_releases/20110308_agroecology-report-pr_en.pdf and Human Rights Council, Report submitted by the Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier De Schutter. A/HRC/16/49. UN, 2010, p6. http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G10/178/49/PDF/G1017849.pdf
9
pounds of funding to technology-led solutions to the food crisis such as advanced genetics and precious little funding for agro-ecology. 31
December 2012
31 A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing? An analysis of the ‘sustainable intensification’ of agriculture http://www.foei.org/en/resources/publications/pdfs/2012/a-wolf-in-sheep2019s-clothing-an-analysis-of-the- 2018sustainable-intensification2019-of-agriculture/view
10 GFS 16
Written evidence submitted by the UK Food Group
1 The UK Food Group welcomes the opportunity to make the following submission to the International Development Commons Select Committee’s (IDC) enquiry on ‘global food security’. The UK Food Group is the main network of NGOs in the UK working on global food, agriculture and hunger issues, including development, environment, farmer, consumer and academic groups.
2 This submission is structured according to the outline of issues given by the IDC, except that the specific topics listed in the final bullet are addressed as they arise within the other issues, rather than separately.
3 Key points we wish to highlight are:
• The world already produces enough food to be able to feed everybody. However large amounts of agricultural production are not currently used to feed people, but instead are either used for animal feed, agrofuels or are wasted. The focus for development needs to be improving access to food, in a sustainable manner that restores the environment.
• Small-scale agroecological production, developed in a framework of social equity and justice, has the best potential for achieving global food security.
• The UN Committee on World Food Security (CFS) is the central, legitimate and democratic centre for global governance of the world's food system. It has been agreed that it should guide the work of other international bodies on food security and it is important that other initiatives do not undermine or run counter to its work.
1) The success or otherwise of the global food system in guaranteeing food security and eliminating under-nutrition with particular reference to women, children and other vulnerable groups
4 There are currently around 870 million people in the world living with constant hunger1 – this is a measure of chronic under-nourishment, and does not include short term emergency situations or cyclical seasonal hunger. At the same time over 1.4 billion adults are overweight.2 The number of chronically hungry people has been decreasing overall,
1 FAO, The state of food insecurity in the world 2012. Rome: FAO, 2012, p8. www.fao.org/docrep/016/i3027e/i3027e00.htm 2 WHO, Obesity and overweight. Fact sheet no. 311. Geneva: WHO, 2012. www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs311/en/
although this has stalled recently and regionally the number of chronically hungry people has been increasing in Africa for decades. Despite the success of the overall decrease, this is not a food system that is working in delivering the right to food.
5 This failure is not due to any overall shortage of food. It is over a decade since the then UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Jean Ziegler, noted that the world already produced enough food to feed 12 billion people,3 and food production has increased since then.4 The problem is access to food and the means for its production, as a result of structural failures of the food system, which cause and are caused by poverty, marginalisation and injustice.
6 We currently have a dual food system in the world. On the one hand, a system of internationally traded, industrialised commodity production, controlled by a few major agri-businesses, that trades grain from the global North and high value products such as year-round fresh fruit and vegetables from the global South. This system feeds the world’s affluent population, largely in the global North. On the other hand is the food system that still feeds the majority of the world’s people,5 through a plethora of webs of local, small-scale food production. This system is often marginalised as backward, something that can become a self-fulfilling prophesy when policies neglect local food systems as a result. Since the World Development Report of 2008,6 support for small- scale farmers has become an orthodoxy, however there is still division as to whether the aim is to expand the industrial, global system to incorporate small-scale farmers, or to strengthen local food systems in their own right. For the UK Food Group, it is clear that it is the second that needs to be supported.
7 Increasing production will not alter levels of hunger, if those living in hunger continue to be unable to afford food. Reducing poverty is the most effective way to reduce hunger and, because many of the world’s poorest people are themselves small-scale farmers and other food producers, investing in agriculture is one of the best ways to do this. But as the current UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Olivier de Schutter notes: 8 “some types of investments are more effective than others in achieving that objective. The multiplier effects are significantly higher when growth is triggered
3 Commission on Human Rights, The right to food: report by the Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Mr. Jean Ziegler. E/CN.4/2001/53. Geneva: UN, 2001, p2. www.unhchr.ch/Huridocda/Huridoca.nsf/0/f45ea4df67ecca98c1256a0300340453/$FILE/G0111035.pdf 4 FAO, The state of food and agriculture 2010-11. Rome: FAO, p73. www.fao.org/docrep/013/i2050e/i2050e.pdf 5 ETC Group (2009), Who will feed us? Questions for the food and climate crises. Ottawa: ETC Group, p4-5 www.etcgroup.org/upload/publication/pdf_file/ETC_Who_Will_Feed_Us.pdf 6 World Bank, World development report 2008: agriculture for development. Washington DC: World Bank, 2007. siteresources.worldbank.org/INTWDR2008/Resources/WDR_00_book.pdf by higher incomes for smallholders, stimulating demand for goods and services from local sellers and service- providers. When large estates increase their revenue, most of it is spent on imported inputs and machinery, and much less trickles down to local traders. Only by supporting small producers can we help break the vicious cycle that leads from rural poverty to the expansion of urban slums, in which poverty breeds more poverty.”7
9 Agriculture faces many environmental problems – soil degradation and erosion, water pollution and excess demand, loss of biodiversity, loss of jobs and livelihoods and undermining of local and traditional knowledge of ecosystems. Industrial, largescale agriculture has contributed to these problems. In response to the environmental challenges, the groundbreaking International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) recommended that: 10 “An increase and strengthening of AKST [agricultural knowledge, science and technology] towards agroecological sciences will contribute to addressing environmental issues while maintaining and increasing productivity”8
11 Agroecology is explained by de Schutter as follows:
12 “Agroecology is both a science and a set of practices. It was created by the convergence of two scientific disciplines: agronomy and ecology. As a science, agroecology is the “application of ecological science to the study, design and
management of sustainable agroecosystems.” As a set of agricultural practices, agroecology seeks ways to enhance agricultural systems by mimicking natural processes, thus creating beneficial biological interactions and synergies among the components of the agroecosystem. It provides the most favourable soil conditions for plant growth, particularly by managing organic matter and by raising soil biotic activity. The core principles of agroecology include recycling nutrients and energy on the farm, rather than introducing external inputs; integrating crops and livestock; diversifying species and genetic resources in agroecosystems over time and space; and focusing on interactions and productivity across the agricultural system, rather than focusing on individual species. Agroecology is highly knowledge-intensive, based on techniques that are
7 Human Rights Council, Report submitted by the Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier De Schutter. A/HRC/16/49. Geneva: UN, 2010, p5. www.srfood.org/images/stories/pdf/officialreports/20110308_a-hrc-16- 49_agroecology_en.pdf 8 IAASTD, Global Summary for Decision Makers, Washington DC: Island Press, 2009, p6. www.agassessment.org/reports/IAASTD/EN/Agriculture at a Crossroads_Global Summary for Decision Makers (English).pdf not delivered top-down but developed on the basis of farmers’ knowledge and experimentation.”9
13 Investment and support in strengthening agroecological farming by small-scale food producers has the most potential for supporting livelihoods and rural communities, reducing poverty, enabling people to have a healthy diet and restoring the environment. The UK Food Group does not see GM technologies as forming any part of the solution for a sustainable and equitable food system.
14 A key part a successful agroecological approach is formed by policies and practices that will sustain agricultural biodiversity: the diversity of seeds, plants, livestock breeds and fish used for food and of the associated pollinators, pest predators and soil organisms. Agricultural biodiversity is the component of biodiversity that has been developed by and has co-evolved with people, and it underpins the food system and the wider economy, human health, the security of food supplies, and the viability of the biosphere. It is therefore essential to regulate, transform or prohibit any systems, methods, processes or technologies, which might damage agricultural biodiversity and related ecosystem functions or restrict access to them. In order to develop agricultural biodiversity priority should be given to on-farm conservation and development of domesticated species by small-scale food producers.10
15 In order to achieve a sustainable and equitable food system, policies need to be shaped by, and respond to, the needs of small-scale food producers and vulnerable consumers themselves. Their rights need to be recognised and their organisations need to have a decisive involvement in governance.
16 Global networks11 and social movements of small-scale food producers, including farmers, pastoralists, fisherfolk and indigenous people, have defined their own vision for the food system through the framework of food sovereignty:
17 “Food sovereignty is the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems. It puts the aspirations and
9 Human Rights Council, Report submitted by the Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier De Schutter. A/HRC/16/49. Geneva: UN, 2010, p6. www.srfood.org/images/stories/pdf/officialreports/20110308_a-hrc-16- 49_agroecology_en.pdf 10 For more on this see: UK Food Group, Securing future food: towards ecological food provision. London: UK Food Group, 2010. www.ukfg.org.uk/pdfs/Securing_future_food.pdf 11 La Vía Campesina, the international movement of peasants, small and medium scale farmers, has 150 member organizations in 70 countries from Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas, and altogether represents about 200 million farmers. needs of those who produce, distribute and consume food at the heart of food systems and policies rather than the demands of markets and corporations.”12
18 A series of guiding questions to help determine whether an agricultural system, small- scale or large-scale, contributes to sustainable livelihoods has been outlined by some leading academic thinkers, and is included as an appendix to this submission.
1.1) Women
19 Women make up an average of 43% of the agricultural labour force in developing countries but they have less access than men to productive resources and opportunities, such as land, livestock, education, extension services, financial services and technologies such as machines and tools. FAO considers that closing the gender gap in agriculture could increase yields and in turn reduce the number of hungry people in the world by 12–17%.13
20 In all countries, women still carry the main burden of household work and caring responsibilities for children and the sick. This creates a duel burden, on top of women’s work as food producers, that is not faced by men.
21 In some countries, particularly in Asia, entrenched gender discrimination is such that women and girl children are more vulnerable to hunger and malnutrition than men and boys, due to the way food is shared within the household.
22 There are sound economic rationales for improving the situation of women in order to improve food security, as the FAO report cited above indicates. However fundamentally it is an imperative of justice and equality.
2) The implications of demographic trends, rising income and climate change on the global food system and on key indicators of food security and good nutrition
2.1) Demography and income
23 The apparent contradiction between the calculation, quoted above, that the world already produces enough to feed 12 billion people, and the oft cited prediction that we
12 Declaration of Nyéléni, Sélingué, Mali, February 2007. www.nyeleni.org/IMG/pdf/DeclNyeleni-en.pdf 13 FAO, The state of food and agriculture 2010-11. Rome: FAO, 2011, pp5, 36. www.fao.org/docrep/013/i2050e/i2050e.pdf need to increase food production by 60% by 205014 is firstly that large amounts of agricultural production are not currently used to feed people, but instead are either used for animal feed, agrofuels or are wasted. Nearly half of global cereal production is currently used for animal feed, and even accounting for the energy value of the meat produced, the loss of calories that result from feeding cereals to animals instead of using cereals directly as human food represents the annual calorie need for more than 3.5 billion people.15 Estimates for food waste, including losses in the field, post-harvest losses, retail losses and consumer waste vary, but could be as much as a third.16 Losses in the field and post-harvest losses tend to be higher in developing countries, while retail and consumer waste are higher in developed countries.
24 Secondly this prediction assumes that current demand curves are fixed and cannot be changed – the original prediction was simply a modelling of what would happen with a ‘business as usual’ approach, and was not intended to be normative.17 There are strong health reasons for developed countries to be seeking to change the current dominant diet, high in meat and dairy, and the proposed decrease by developed countries would more than compensate for an increase in meat and dairy consumption in developing countries to healthy levels.
2.2) Climate
25 Agriculture, along with land use change, enjoys the double distinction of being both a driver and a victim of climate change. On one hand, the carbon emissions related to each stage of the industrial food system,18 from seed to plate, contribute to climate change, while on the other hand, the negative impacts of climate change are predicted to lead to crop damage, land degradation, and food insecurity. Broadly, there is need for changes in conventional, industrial agriculture in the global North to contribute to
14 OECD & FAO, OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2012-2021. www.oecd.org/site/oecd-faoagriculturaloutlook/ The prediction was originally for a 70% increase, but this has since been revised – see www.fao.org/fileadmin/user_upload/FAODG/docs/2012-02-08-DG_Economist_Conference-FINAL.pdf 15 UNEP, The environmental food crisis. 2009, p. 27. www.grida.no/files/publications/FoodCrisis_lores.pdf 16 Tristram Stuart, Waste. London: Penguin, 2009, pp190-191. 17 For more on this see: Tomlinson, “Doubling food production to feed the 9 billion: A critical perspective on a key discourse of food security in the UK” Journal of Rural Studies. 2011, www.fcrn.org.uk/sites/default/files/tomlinson...pdf.pdf 18 See High Level Panel of Experts, Food security and climate change. Rome: CFS, 2012, pp67-69. www.fao.org//fileadmin/user_upload/hlpe/hlpe_documents/HLPE_Reports/HLPE-Report-3- Food_security_and_climate_change-June_2012.pdf mitigation, but the most urgent food security issue, particularly in the global South is adaptation measures.
26 Climate change will increase the pressure on land and, even more critically, water. In this context it is inappropriate to increase intensive agriculture, with its high demand for water and degradation of soil quality.
27 Options for adaptation to climate change include:19
• adjusting to changes in long-term trends and weather patterns, by changing the prevalent crops grown and livestock breeds reared in a locality to suit the new conditions, including using more robust native varieties and breeds
• adjusting to increased weather variability, diversifying the varieties and crops used at any one time to hedge against the risk of failure of any one variety or crop
• changing irrigation to adapt to reduced availability of water – improving water conservation and making more use of rainwater
• reducing water loss from the ground through techniques such as cover crops, reduced tillage and incorporation of manures and composts
• preparing for more extreme weather events
• adapting pest, weed and disease strategies as the pests etc themselves react to climate change, and similarly anticipating disruption of pollinators
28 All of these options are suited to agroecological approaches, and do not need to be addressed through a high tech, high external input approach. Methodologies for adaptation need to be suited to the needs and resources of small-scale food producers.20
29 Agroecology contributes to climate change mitigation by delinking agricultural production from reliance on fossil fuels, both by reducing energy use and by changing practices away from use of pesticides, herbicides and artificial fertilisers derived from fossil fuels.
30 The World Bank’s proposal for ‘Climate-Smart Agriculture’ is problematic in particular because of its potential for promoting GM crops containing ‘climate-ready’ genes and
19 High Level Panel of Experts, op cit, pp55-56. www.fao.org//fileadmin/user_upload/hlpe/hlpe_documents/HLPE_Reports/HLPE-Report-3- Food_security_and_climate_change-June_2012.pdf 20 Practical Action, Biodiverse action for a changing climate. Rugby: Practical Action, 2009. www.practicalaction.org/advocacy/docs/advocacy/biodiverse-agriculture-for-a-changing-climate-full.pdf the inclusion of soil carbon markets. Soil carbon markets do not exist at present and are not the most appealing to investors because soil carbon sequestration can easily be reversed and the costs of running such schemes is high. The idea also has the flaw of all offset approaches to climate change mitigation: that they depend upon continued emissions to be offset, and as such undermine the fundamental obligations of rich countries to reduce emissions. If soil carbon markets were implemented, small-scale farmers would be unlikely to receive any financial benefit, partly because investors are likely to be attracted instead to larger, high quality land, and because revenues from the scheme would mainly be swallowed by the high running costs.
2.3) Agrofuels
31 Agrofuels, or industrial biofuels, were originally proposed as a major option for climate change mitigation. However the climate benefits have now been found to be doubtful,21 while the use of land and crops for energy damages food security.
32 Agrofuels have an impact on food prices because crops and land, including prime arable land, are diverted into agrofuel production and because they strengthen the link between food and oil prices. The extent of the impact has been hotly debated, but a consensus is gradually emerging that the effect is damaging food security. Last year FAO, IFAD, IMF,OECD, UNCTAD, WFP, the World Bank, the WTO, IFPRI and the UN HLTF recommended to the G20 that countries should remove policies that subsidise or mandate agrofuel production, because of the impact on food prices.22 As a result of the EU’s biofuels policies, by 2020 oilseed prices may increase by up to 20%, vegetable oil prices by as much as 36%, maize prices by up to 22% and wheat prices by as much as 13%.23
33 Agrofuels have also been a driver of the global land grab, in three ways:24
21 See for example: European Environment Agency Scientific Committee, Opinion of the EEA Scientific Committee on greenhouse gas accounting in relation to bioenergy. 2011, www.eea.europa.eu/about-us/governance/scientific- committee/sc-opinions/opinions-on-scientific-issues/sc-opinion-on-greenhouse-gas/view and David Laborde (IFPRI), Assessing the land use change consequences of European biofuel policies. EU, 2011. www.ifpri.org/sites/default/files/publications/biofuelsreportec2011.pdf 22 FAO, IFAD, IMF,OECD, UNCTAD, WFP, the World Bank, the WTO, IFPRI and the UN HLTF, Price volatility in food and agricultural markets: policy responses. 2011, pp 26-27. www.oecd.org/tad/agriculturaltrade/48152638.pdf 23 ActionAid, Biofuelling the global food crisis. p2. London: ActionAid, 2012 www.actionaid.org.uk/doc_lib/biofuelling_the_global_food_crisis.pdf 24 EuropAfrica, (Bio)fuelling injustice. Rome: Terra Nuova, 2011, pp 5-6. www.europafrica.info/file_download/13/europafrica_2011_report.pdf • land in developing countries has been acquired for agrofuel production
• land in developed countries that previously was used for food production has been switched to agrofuel production, meaning that more land elsewhere is needed to replace the food production
• land prices have been inflated by this, drawing interest from speculators in acquiring land as an investment
3) The impact of global and local food shocks and how different countries and/or regions cope with food crises and the role of democracy in increasing food security
3.1) Speculation
34 In recent years, financial markets have come to affect food prices. The agricultural futures markets were originally set up to enable farmers and commercial purchasers of agricultural produce to protect themselves from adverse fluctuations in the prices, but developments in recent years have seen more complex derivative contracts developed. Prices in the commodity derivative markets affect food prices through:
• influencing the expectations of buyers and sellers in the physical food markets;
• incorporation of derivative prices directly into food contracts;
• traders taking advantages of differences in price between the futures and physical markets.25
35 Strong evidence now shows that speculation can and does exacerbate food price volatility and spikes, rather than smoothing them out as originally intended, and distorting prices away from those that would be expected based on supply and demand conditions. For example, the UN and OECD’s Agricultural Outlook 2011-2020, while recognising the role played by fundamental factors, acknowledges
36 “Almost all researchers agree that non-commercial participation in futures markets may amplify price movements in the short term, even if they differ in their conclusions about other possible impacts.”26
25 Worthy, M., Broken markets: How financial market regulation can help prevent another global food crisis, 2011 www.wdm.org.uk/stop-bankers-betting-food/broken-markets-how-financial-regulation-can-prevent-food-crisis 26 UN and OECD, Agricultural Outlook 2011-2020, 2011 37 It is worth noting the spillover effects of price changes between commodities: in the 2007-08 spike, speculation-fuelled increases in wheat prices contributed to an increase in rice prices, even though rice itself is not subject to speculation. Similarly, the price of oil (itself subject of speculation) can have a knock-on impact on food prices. 27
38 When such artificial price inflation occurs and global prices changes are translated to local markets, this can undermine the food security of poor consumers, including small scale food producers who in many cases are net purchasers of food. Even if price changes are in a favourable direction, middlemen often capture much of the additional value with producers seeing little benefit, while increased volatility makes it more difficult for them to plan their production.28
39 These problems have emerged since deregulation in the 1990s up until 2000. Reregulation, including limits on financial participation in the commodity derivative markets, is currently being discussed in both the US and EU. We are disappointed that, to date, the UK government has championed ineffective self-regulatory position management approaches to the oversight of these markets, rather than an independently overseen system incorporating position limits on speculative transactions.
3.2) Trade
40 Abrupt and inequitable trade liberalisation in agriculture contributes to vulnerability to hunger. Liberalised markets are exposed to the much greater price volatility of the international commodity markets, without having the capacity to protect domestic producers and consumers from shocks.
41 Import surges and dumping of agricultural products at less than the cost of production drives local producers out of business. Import surges have been a frequent occurrence; a survey covering 102 developing countries over the period 1980-2003 documented 12,000 cases.29 The provisions in the WTO Agreement on Agriculture for responding to import surges are insufficient to allow countries to react in most cases and they are also particularly inappropriate for agricultural products, because they only allow reaction after the case rather than prevention.
27 Jones, T., The great hunger lottery: How banking speculation causes food crises, 2010, www.wdm.org.uk/food-speculation/great-hunger-lottery 28 Jones, T., The great hunger lottery: How banking speculation causes food crises, 2010, www.wdm.org.uk/food-speculation/great-hunger-lottery 29 FAO, Import surges: what is their frequency and which are the countries and commodities most affected? FAO Briefs on import surges – issues, no. 2. ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/009/j8675e/j8675e00.pdf 42 When international prices increase, developing countries that have come to depend upon imports for their food security face balance of payments problems.
3.3) Land grabs and agricultural investment
43 Land grabs or ‘large-scale land acquisitions’ reflect a grab for control of natural resources – land, water,30 minerals, forests, energy sources and biodiversity. Land grabbing emerged as a phenomenon following the 2008 food price shock, and has also been encouraged by policies supporting agrofuels (see above). Once it got underway, the effect on land value has also attracted purely speculative investment. Far too often the land grabs have displaced people, without genuine prior informed consent, through forced evictions and without adequate compensation.31
44 Land grabs are justified by their supporters as providing investment in agriculture that is needed. The World Bank led a process to propose set of guidelines32 to try and define how large-scale investment in land could be done in a way that was ‘responsible’. However large-scale external investment is not the most crucial, particularly compared to the investment of farmers themselves. The recent FAO State of Food & Agriculture report points out:
45 “..farmers in low- and middle-income countries invest more than four times as much in capital stock on their own farms each year as their governments invest in the agriculture sector. What’s more, farmers’ investment dwarfs expenditures on agriculture by international donors and private foreign investors. The overwhelming dominance of farmers’ own investment means that they must be central to any strategy aimed at increasing the quantity and effectiveness of agricultural investment.”33
46 A inclusive consultation on developing principles on responsible agricultural investment is now underway at the CFS, building upon the Voluntary Guidelines on land tenure.34
30 See: GRAIN, Squeezing Africa Dry: Behind every land grab is a water grab. Barcelona: GRAIN, 2012. www.grain.org/article/entries/4516-squeezing-africa-dry-behind-every-land-grab-is-a-water-grab.pdf 31 For example see: Aprodev, Stolen land stolen future. Brussels, Aprodev, 2011, www.aprodev.eu/files/Trade/landgrab_aprodev.pdf; Oxfam International, Our land, our lives. Oxfam, 2012, www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/bn-land-lives-freeze-041012-en_1.pdf; GRAIN, Brazilian megaproject in Mozambique set to displace millions of peasants. GRAIN, 2012, www.grain.org/e/4626 32 FAO, IFAD, UNCTAD and World Bank, Principles for responsible agricultural investment that respects rights, livelihoods and resources. 2010. http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTARD/214574- 1111138388661/22453321/Principles_Extended.pdf 33 FAO, The state of food and agriculture 2012. Rome: FAO, 2012, p xi. www.fao.org/docrep/017/i3028e/i3028e.pdf 34 CFS, Voluntary guidelines on the responsible governance of tenure of land, fisheries and forests in the context of national food security. Rome: CFS, 2012, www.fao.org/fileadmin/templates/cfs/Docs1112/VG/VG_Final_EN_May_2012.pdf 47 Bilateral investment treaties (BITs) and investment chapters in trade agreements often greatly restrict the scope for placing any social or environmental conditions on foreign investment in land.
3.4) Democratic control of food systems
48 One of the pillars of the food sovereignty framework, proposed by Southern networks small-scale food producers, is local and democratic control of food systems:
49 “Food sovereignty places control over territory, land, grazing, water, seeds, livestock and fish populations on local food providers and respects their rights. They can use and share them in socially and environmentally sustainable ways which conserve diversity; it recognizes that local territories often cross geopolitical borders and ensures the right of local communities to inhabit and use their territories; it promotes positive interaction between food providers in different regions and territories and from different sectors that helps resolve internal conflicts or conflicts with local and national authorities; and rejects the privatisation of natural resources through laws, commercial contracts and intellectual property rights regimes.”35
50 Corporate control of the industrial food system threatens democratic control. For instance:36
• four seed companies control over half the world’s commercial seed market
• ten pesticide corporations control 82% of the world pesticides market
• ten food processing corporations control 28% of the global food processing market
• fifteen supermarket companies account for over 30% of global food sales
51 DfID has long championed a model of agriculture based on corporate owned technology and greater private sector control over the production and distribution of food. Accordingly, much of DfID’s aid to agriculture has the effect of extending the power of agribusiness over the global food system.37 Instead we recommend that DfID should
35 Nyéléni 2007 – Forum for Food Sovereignty: synthesis report. Sélingué, Mali, February 2007. www.nyeleni.org/IMG/pdf/31Mar2007NyeleniSynthesisReport-en.pdf 36 UNEP, Towards a green economy. Nairobi: UNEP, p53. www.unep.org/greeneconomy/Portals/88/documents/ger/ger_final_dec_2011/Green%20EconomyReport_Final_Dec2011.pdf . See also Sophia Murphy, Concentrated market power and agricultural trade. EcoFair Trade Dialogue, 2006. www.iatp.org/files/451_2_89014.pdf 37 For more on this, see: War on Want, The hunger games. London: War on Want, 2012, www.waronwant.org/attachments/The%20Hunger%20Games%202012.pdf redirect its aid to support agroecological models and partner with networks of small- scale food producers.
4) The role of the international system, including food and agriculture organisations and the G8 and G20, and ways in which collaboration could be improved
52 The UN Committee on World Food Security (CFS) is the central body for international governance of food security. The CFS was renewed in 2009 at the initiative of governments following the 2008 food price shock in order to become the:
53 “foremost inclusive international and intergovernmental platform for a broad range of committed stakeholders to work together in a coordinated manner and in support of country-led processes towards the elimination of hunger and ensuring food security and nutrition for all human beings”38
54 The roles of CFS are:39
• coordination at global level initially and over time also at national and regional levels
• policy convergence
• support and advice to countries and regions
• over time to increasingly also promote accountability and share best practices at all levels by developing mechanisms to monitor progress toward objectives
55 This year the CFS has agreed a Global Strategic Framework for Food Security and Nutrition.40 Its purpose is to improve coordination and guide synchronized action by a wide range of stakeholders by providing an overarching framework and a single reference document with practical guidance on core recommendations. It is intended to be a living document that will be adapted in future to respond to emerging issues.
56 The CFS recognises that in policy discussions on food security it is particularly important that the voices of those most affected by food insecurity are part of the discussion,41
38 Committee on World Food Security, Reform of the Committee on World Food Security. CFS:2009/2 Rev.2. Rome: FAO, 2009, p2. www.fao.org/fileadmin/templates/cfs/Docs0910/ReformDoc/CFS_2009_2_Rev_2_E_K7197.pdf 39 Committee on World Food Security, op cit, pp2-3. www.fao.org/fileadmin/templates/cfs/Docs0910/ReformDoc/CFS_2009_2_Rev_2_E_K7197.pdf 40 Committee on World Food Security, Global strategic framework for food security and nutrition. CFS 2012/39/5 Add.1. Rome: CFS, 2012. www.fao.org/docrep/meeting/026/ME498E.pdf 41 Committee on World Food Security, Reform of the Committee on World Food Security. CFS:2009/2 Rev.2. Rome: FAO, 2009, p2. www.fao.org/fileadmin/templates/cfs/Docs0910/ReformDoc/CFS_2009_2_Rev_2_E_K7197.pdf and thus it also has formal participation for civil society, as well as for the private sector and private philanthropic foundations. The CFS is supported by a High Level Panel of Experts (HLPE) and its existing reports may be of interest to the IDC: www.fao.org/cfs/cfs- hlpe/en/
57 The CFS is the central, legitimate and democratic centre for global governance of the world's food system. It is inclusive of a range of stakeholders and is supported by independent expert advice. The political decisions and guidance of the CFS should guide the work of other international bodies on food security. It is important that initiatives of other bodies and groupings, particularly those made up mainly of countries that do not experience significant levels of hunger, do not undermine or run counter to the work of the CFS. Unfortunately currently too many initiatives do exactly that. The ‘New Alliance’ of the G8 is particularly worrying. It perpetuates the imposition of policies and conditions on African governments, is not in line with CFS guidance and opens the door to corporate control by global agribusiness rather than supporting the priorities and investments of small-scale food producers.42
5) The best strategies for reducing risk from short term shocks and long term structural factors and for building resilience among the most vulnerable
58 Agroecological approaches are the most comprehensive way of building environmental resilience to climate shocks. For instance:
59 “Following Hurricane Mitch in 1998, a large-scale study on 180 communities of smallholders from southern to northern Nicaragua demonstrated that farming plots cropped with simple agroecological methods (including rock bunds or dikes, green manure, crop rotation and the incorporation of stubble, ditches, terraces, barriers, mulch, legumes, trees, plowing parallel to the slope, no- burn, live fences, and zero-tillage) had on average 40 per cent more topsoil, higher field moisture, less erosion and lower economic losses than control plots on conventional farms. On average, agroecological plots lost 18 per cent less arable land to landslides than conventional plots and had 69 per cent less gully erosion compared to conventional farms.”43
42 Civil society intervention on ‘Global and regional coordination and linkages with CFS’, CFS 39 Session, Oct 2012. 43 Eric Holt-Giménez, “Measuring Farmers’ Agroecological Resistance After Hurricane Mitch in Nicaragua” Agriculture, Ecosystems and the Environment, 93:1-2, 2002, pp. 87-105, cited by Human Rights Council, Report submitted by the Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier De Schutter. A/HRC/16/49. Geneva: UN, 2010, p13. www.srfood.org/images/stories/pdf/officialreports/20110308_a-hrc-16-49_agroecology_en.pdf 60 Agroecology also contributes to drought resistance and to maintaining biodiversity. The more diverse range of foods grown as part of agroecological farming improve nutrition.44
61 Strengthening networks of small-scale food producers, and promoting their meaningful engagement in policy and decision-making is a central component of resilience to all kinds of shocks. One aspect of this is investing in knowledge through a bottom-up approach to agricultural research for development that is driven by networks of food producers own priorities and needs.
62 In the face of shocks, social protection instruments can provide an effective safety net. These may include social assistance, social insurance and efforts at social inclusion. There can be controversy over social protection due to bad experiences of weak schemes, but well designed social protection schemes can be good for growth and improve food security. The Brazilian ‘Zero hunger’ and ‘Bolsa Familia’ programmes, including conditional cash transfers are a well-known example that has helped to reduce the prevalence of undernourishment in Brazil from 9% to 6%, although challenges still remain.45 Social protection is a human right.
63 The CFS High Level Panel of Experts recently studied social protection for food security and recommended that all countries should strive to put in place comprehensive social protection systems contributing to food security, using a twin-track approach of providing essential assistance in the short-term and supporting livelihoods in the long- term. These systems should be underpinned by a human rights approach, including accountability mechanisms. They noted a need for better design of social protection programmes in terms of able to react quickly to shocks such as droughts, floods and food price spikes, and also highlighted that because a large proportion of the people most vulnerable to hunger make their living in agriculture, social protection programmes should support agricultural livelihoods directly.46
64 The UN Special Rapporteurs on the Right to Food and on Extreme Poverty & Human Rights recently proposed establishing a ‘Global Fund for Social Protection’.47 This would:
44 Human Rights Council, loc cit. www.srfood.org/images/stories/pdf/officialreports/20110308_a-hrc-16-49_agroecology_en.pdf 45 High Level Panel of Experts, Social protection for food security. Rome: CFS: 2012, pp 53-55. www.fao.org//fileadmin/user_upload/hlpe/hlpe_documents/HLPE_Reports/HLPE-Report-3-Food_security_and_climate_change-June_2012.pdf 46 High Level Panel of Experts, op cit, pp16-17. www.fao.org//fileadmin/user_upload/hlpe/hlpe_documents/HLPE_Reports/HLPE-Report-3- Food_security_and_climate_change-June_2012.pdf 47 Olivier de Schutter and Magdalena Sepúlveda, Underwrite the poor like we underwrote the banks” – UN experts propose Global Fund for Social Protection. 9 Oct 2012. www.srfood.org/index.php/en/component/content/article/1- • close the funding shortfall for putting in place a social protection floor in least developed countries (LDCs)
• help underwrite these schemes against the risks of excess demand triggered by major shocks by
advising LDCs on suitable private reinsurance options
subsidising premiums where necessary
acting as the reinsurer of last resort in cases where private schemes are not extensive or affordable enough
65 To address the recent high levels of food price volatility governments in both the North and South have recognised and strengthened the role of food reserves in providing vital relief in food emergencies. However, there is a growing recognition that food reserves can move beyond emergency response and play a vital role in reducing excessive volatility in agricultural commodity markets. Through predictable, accountable and coordinated management of stocks food reserves at the national and regional level can ease price volatility and pre-empt price spikes.48 At the same time food reserves can have significant developmental impacts by providing stable and more remunerative prices for producers, provide a market for small-scale farmers produce, and create supplies for food-based social protection schemes.49
2 latest-news/2513-underwrite-the-poor-like-we-underwrote-the-banks-un-experts-propose-global-fund-for-social- protection 48 IATP, Grain reserves and the food price crisis. Minneapolis: IATP, 2012. www.iatp.org/files/2012_07_13_IATP_GrainReservesReader.pdf 49 ActionAid International, No more food crises: the indispensable role of food reserves. Johannesburg: ActionAid International, 2009. www.actionaid.org/sites/files/actionaid/polcy_briefing_-_the_role_of_food_reserves.pdf 6) Appendix
From Koohafkan et al, 2011 “Green agriculture: Foundations for biodiverse, resilient and productive agricultural systems”50
A set of guiding questions to assess if proposed agricultural systems are contributing to sustainable livelihoods
1. Are they reducing poverty?
2. Are they based on rights and social equity?
3. Do they reduce social exclusion, particularly for women, minorities and indigenous people?
4. Do they protect access and rights to land, water and other natural resources?
5. Do they favour the redistribution (rather than the concentration) of productive resources?
6. Do they substantially increase food production and contribute to household food security and improved nutrition?
7. Do they enhance families’ water access and availability?
8. Do they regenerate and conserve soil, and increase (maintain) soil fertility?
9. Do they reduce soil loss/degradation and enhance soil regeneration and conservation?
10. Do practices maintain or enhance organic matter and the biological life and biodiversity of the soil?
11. Do they prevent pest and disease outbreaks?
12. Do they conserve and encourage agrobiodiversity?
13. Do they reduce greenhouse gas emissions?
14. Do they increase income opportunities and employment?
15. Do they reduce variation in agricultural production under climatic stress conditions?
16. Do they enhance farm diversification and resilience?
50 P Koohafkan, MA Altieri and EH Gimenez, “Green agriculture: Foundations for biodiverse, resilient and productive agricultural systems.” International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability 10 (1) 2012, pp61-75. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14735903.2011.610206 17. Do they reduce investment costs and farmers dependence on external inputs?
18. Do they increase the degree and effectiveness of farmer organizations?
19. Do they increase human capital formation?
20. Do they contribute to local/regional food sovereignty?
December 2012 GFS 16A
Supplementary written evidence submitted by Patrick Mulvany, Co-chair UK Food Group
First, I would like to thank the IDC for their questions and hope that the oral evidence provided pause for thought on the key issues related to ‘global food security’. I welcome the opportunity to submit additional written evidence that underscores the main points made in the oral evidence session and provides some of the extra information promised to members of the IDC.
Governance
There is a need for improved governance. Using the Committee on World Food Security (CFS), the UN body in charged with ensuring coherence of governance on food and agriculture and nutrition issues will improve the actions by the multiple actors which are unhelpfully claiming dominance in this area.
The G8, while representing significant economic interests, increased through its New Alliance with more than 40 major agribusinesses, should not assume powers to dictate what should be delivered in terms of food security and nutrition policy. Rather, the G8 should support what the majority of countries in the CFS decide and the processes they have agreed. Civil society organisations, in support of the majority of countries, provided the decisive input, at a conference in 2009 that effectively killed off the earlier G8’s Global Partnership for Food Security and Nutrition, in favour of the process which renewed the CFS. This meeting, RANSA 2009 (Reunión de Alta Nivel Sobre Alimentación para todos, January 2009), hosted by the Spanish government, was before the G8 L’Aquila meeting. The joint CSO declaration at RANSA 2009,, supported by a wide range of international NGOs including Oxfam and Action Aid, was presented by Henry Saragih Secretary General of La Via Campesina, The key CSO message in terms of governance, ‘One country, One vote, not One Dollar One Vote’, was strongly applauded by most governments present. See www.ukabc.org/CommonCSO-Declaration_RANSA2009.pdf.
Supporting small-scale food providers
Those who grow or harvest the food consumed by most of the world’s people require protection and support for their food regime which: 1) gives priority to (more biodiverse and ecologically-based) food provision for direct human consumption rather than commodity production for value chains controlled remotely; 2) provides social and environmental sustainability, with better use of soils, water and agricultural biodiversity, strengthened through their autonomous institutions; and 3) improves livelihoods through local value addition, retaining as much as possible of the final price paid by consumers.
These attributes of small-scale food provision are underscored in a wealth of documents produced by social movements and the food sovereignty movement, see Nyéléni 2007: forum for food sovereignty www.nyeleni.org; the IAASTD, cited in our written evidence, which found that “An increase and strengthening of AKST [agricultural knowledge, science and technology] towards agroecological sciences will contribute to addressing environmental issues while maintaining and increasing productivity” see www.iaastd.org ; and, indeed, our own briefing “Securing Future Food: Towards ecological food provision” www.ukfg.org.uk/securing_future_food_publication .
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Support for this type of food regime is the dominant demand by African farmers whose slogan is “Africa can feed itself”. The europAfrica campaign, an EU funded consortium of European NGOs supported by the UK Food Group through its member, Practical Action, works with the African Union recognised African farmers regional networks of West, Central and East Africa. These networks are ROPPA (Réseau des organisations paysannes et de producteurs de l’Afrique de l’Ouest), PROPAC (Plateforme Régionale des Organisations Paysannes d'Afrique Centrale) and EAFF (East Africa Farmers’ Federation). The Networks have prepared studies which present their priorities for agricultural investment. These are in support of their model of food production and consumption and local markets, which provides food for 80% of Africans. These studies build on their previous report completed in 2011, which has already been influential in the CFS and FAO processes on determining priorities for agricultural investment: “Agricultural Investment for strengthening family farming and sustainable food systems in Africa. Mfou, Yaoundé, Cameroon, 2011”. Available at: www.ukfg.org.uk/projects_campaigns/.
Artisanal Fisheries, Small-scale Aquaculture, local processing and trading
I promised to provide more information about these activities, which are vital for securing food and livelihoods, for example in West Africa1 The men and women of coastal and inland communities in the West African region have, for generations, derived their livelihood from fishing and related activities, providing an essential part of the diet of millions of people in the region. To secure this food supply and nutrition for West Africans, appropriate interventions that will support artisanal fish production and local small-scale aquaculture, as well as processing and trading of the products, are needed at both national and regional levels.
Globally, at least 90% of the world’s 30 million fishers2 work in small-scale fisheries, which provide about 60% (two thirds) of the world’s fisheries production used for direct human consumption; about 1 billion people rely on small-scale fisheries for their main source of animal protein, not only in coastal communities. There is a huge trade of marine fish within coastal countries and with neighbouring landlocked countries. If fisheries-associated livelihoods, such as marketing and processing are also included, an estimated 150 million people worldwide directly depend on small-scale fisheries and associated enterprises.
Traditionally, fish is an important part of the diet and the culture of the region, especially in coastal and riverine areas. While part of the fish is consumed fresh, another part is processed in diverse ways—salted, dried, fermented and smoked—and traded within and between countries of the region. Such trade continues to be important today, taking place largely at the informal level. People in landlocked countries like Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger consume fish from rivers, but they are also highly dependent on processed marine fish (frozen, smoked, dried) for their food. While no accurate figures are available, It has been estimated by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) that the number of persons working in fish processing and marketing in the region is about 1.8
1 Based on information provided to UK Food Group by Mamaodou Goïta, IRPAD, Mali and the International Collective in Support of Fishworkers (ICSF) icsf.net
2The 30 million figure is published by FAO, drawing from regional and national data, but it is likely to be a considerable underestimate as many countries do not compile statistics on small-scale fisheries and informal processing and trade www.fao.org/fishery/statistics/en and other sources. GFS 16A
million. Studies3 covering eight West African countries indicate that women constitute at least 60 per cent of all post-harvest workers.
River fishing provides an important source of food and income in the region. Mali has the largest catch of river fish in West Africa, taken from the Niger and Senegal rivers. This activity is dominated by artisanal fisheries from two main social groups: the “Bozos” and the “Somonos”. They are called the “people of the water” because of their attachment to the river. Artisanal river fishing, processing and trade is an important source of livelihood for families in Mali; it provides hundreds of thousands jobs to men, women and youth all across Mali.
Possibly because of a lack of information about artisanal fish production, processing and trade within the region, and its economic, social and environmental importance, little systematic effort has been made to deal with the problems of those engaged in it.
This perspective is hardened by the rise of industrial aquaculture production that captures fishery resources, water courses and farmland, displaces communities, and squeezes out local processing and markets. Aquaculture could make an important contribution to livelihoods and food sovereignty in many African countries, if developed appropriately at smaller-scales and integrated in the socially and environmentally sustainable family farming system. But the model being promoted is not the smallholder type of production common in Asia. Rather, it is an intensive, fishmeal-based, high input commercial model, designed to produce foreign exchange earnings rather than fish for local consumption. In Africa, aquaculture production increased by 56 percent in volume and more than 100 percent in value between 2003 and 2007. This growth was due to increasing prices for aquatic food products stimulating the emergence and spread of export-oriented small and medium enterprises, mostly owned by men. This resulted in a significant investment in cage culture, accompanied by the expansion of larger commercial ventures, producing high-value commodities for overseas markets.
The economic, social and cultural importance of small-scale and artisanal fish production, processing and trading are not peripheral activities but important in their own right. Given critical concerns about food provision in the region, encouraging intra-regional trade in cured fish products could play an extremely vital role, making fish available in remote regions at affordable prices. To achieve this will require greater recognition of the rights of these fishers, and especially women processors, and improved trading opportunities through reduced tariffs for cross-border exchanges.
Landgrabs and water grabs
With regard to landgrabs and water grabs, the IDC will have access to many sources of information provided by organisations and witnesses. Our membership is kept informed by several organisations, information from which is shared through our list serves, especially FIAN International and GRAIN. FIAN International provides a helpful watchdog role on where resource grabs are taking place and by whom, summarising these in a range of publications and alerts see www.fian.org/what-we-do/issues/land-grabbing/. GRAIN launched a website some 6 years ago, cited by many which provides current information on resource grabs, see www.farmlandgrab.org. It is estimated that at least 70 million hectares
3 Report of the Study on Problems and Prospects of Artisanal Fish Trade in West Africa. International Collective in Support of Fishworkers (ICSF, 2002) aquaticcommons.org/256/ GFS 16A
of agricultural land have been transferred in the last few years, A 2011 case study on Ethiopia is published at www.farmlandgrab.org/post/view/18255.
Speculation
The committee was posed a question by another witness on the panel about speculation, doubting the need for increased regulation and asking if “greater regulation at this point, now that investors and banks are involved in the markets, [is] the right thing to do?” Another member in the UK Food Group, World Development Movement, has provided our Members with useful analysis on this point, which is summarised as follows:
• Position limits were used effectively in the US for most of the twentieth century to prevent market manipulation and excessive speculation, and are used on markets in Australia, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, China and South Africa today. They are transparent and give traders legal certainty. • By contrast, the UK’s current self-regulatory approach has a track record of failure (most notable failing to prevent the near corner of the European cocoa market by hedge fund Armajaro in 2010) and creates conflicts of interest and a regulatory race- to-the-bottom. • On the issue of liquidity, WDM has drawn particularly on Better Markets’ analysis of the regulation of the US markets until the 1990s (see sections 4.6 and 7.2 of Broken Markets www.wdm.org.uk/stop-bankers-betting-food/broken-markets-how-financial- regulation-can-prevent-food-crisis). The argument that position limits, if set too low, could damage liquidity for hedgers is redundant when current levels of financial speculation are so far above historic norms. • There is evidence of excessive financial speculation increasing hedging costs (UNCTAD, 2009 – referenced in section 4.7 of WDM’s Broken Markets report,). • WDM also considers that an additional benefit of the introduction of position limits could be a reduction in the opportunity cost of excessive speculation, through the diversion of capital into genuine, productive investment (see p. 9 of WDM’s report on the issue, The great hunger lottery, www.wdm.org.uk/sites/default/files/hunger%20lottery%20report_6.10.pdf).
DFID and food and agriculture corporations
TH IDC requested some specific information about DFID’s engagement with transnational agribusinesses. As our member War on Want has summarised in its report Hunger Games http://waronwant.org/about-us/extra/extra/inform/17755-the-hunger- games DFID has a close relationship with several large multinational corporations in the food and agriculture sector: Unilever, Syngenta, Diageo and SAB Miller. Some of the work with these corporations is channelled through public-private partnerships such as the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), the Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania (SAGCOT), Grow Africa, the New Vision for Agriculture and, latterly, the G8’s New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition. These public-private partnerships include support for genetically modified (GM) food and seeds through DFID’s funding of initiatives such as the African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF) and, at least at research levels, HarvestPlus. This lurch towards supporting research in GM crops, through support for the BBSRC, CGIAR and others has been highlighted in a 2009 report of the GM Freeze, an alliance including many members of the UK Food Group. Blind Alley?: Is DFID’s policy on agriculture in danger of failing to deliver food and environmental security? www.gmfreeze.org/site_media/uploads/publications/blind_alley_final.pdf GFS 16A
It analyses how DFID has allocated agricultural research and development funding since 2000. The report also points to DFID’s failure to make any changes to their agricultural R&D programs in response to the key findings of the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) published in 2008. Projects cited in the report involve partnerships with biotech and agro-chemical corporations, including Monsanto and Bayer. The present danger that the IDC should be aware of is that such partnerships and focus on proprietary technologies could be central to the BIS AgriTech strategy, making it even more difficult for DFID to break loose from these arrangements.
Small-scale food providers require a very different approach to research that makes a radical shift away from the existing top-down and increasingly corporate-controlled agricultural research system to an approach which devolves more responsibility and decision-making power to farmers, indigenous peoples, food workers, consumers and citizens for the production of social and ecological knowledge. The whole process should lead to the democratisation of research, diverse forms of co-inquiry based on specialist and non-specialist knowledge, an expansion of horizontal networks for autonomous learning and action, and more transparent oversight4.
4 Michel Pimbert, Transforming knowledge and ways of knowing for food sovereignty. London: IIED, 2007. Available at: http://pubs.iied.org/pdfs/14535IIED.pdf GFS 16A
CFS and G8
In response to questions about which members of G8 are ‘less than helpful in CFS negotiations’ there is reasonable consensus among Members of the UK Food Group and their networks who participate in the CFS process that both the G8 members from North America can be ‘unhelpful. In one instance one of the countries applied severe Diplomatic pressure on to several dozen countries, later withdrawn, to get them to change their position to one which favoured the interests of the G8 member. Our Members also report that the UK is not visibly active in the processes, nor being particularly supportive of the process behind the scenes, something that the IDC might wish to explore when questioning the minister. Specific and long-term support to the Civil Society Mechanism, that brings together a wide range of civil society actors, especially the social movements of small-scale food providers, and support for CFS processes at national level e.g. on implementing the Voluntary Guidelines on land tenure5 Would be a notable and constructive commitment by DFID.
March 2013
5 Voluntary guidelines on the responsible governance of tenure of land, fisheries and forests in the context of national food security. Rome: CFS, 2012, www.fao.org/fileadmin/templates/cfs/Docs1112/VG/VG_Final_EN_May_2012.pdf GFS 17
Written evidence submitted by the Department for International Development
Summary Significant global concern about food security over the last decade has not translated into significant progress. An estimated 870 million people are still unable to get enough food to meet daily energy needs, the MDG 1 hunger target will only be achieved in 58/118 countries, and around one billion people suffer from micronutrient deficiency. Meanwhile global population growth, rising demand for meat and dairy products and climate change will increase the challenges ahead. Progress on food security and a more sustainable global food system depends on coordinated action along the whole food value chain and responsible private sector investment in agriculture. Developing more effective and efficient local, regional and global food markets is critical, as is raising sustainable agricultural productivity and a more joined-up approach to tackling undernutrition. Food security and nutrition are priorities for the UK Government. Between 2011 and 2015, the Department for International Development will reach 20 million children under the age of five with nutrition programmes; help more than 6 million of the world's poorest people to escape extreme poverty; and ensure another 4 million people have enough food throughout the year. The approach focuses in three areas: (a) Increased food availability: key interventions and investments focus on: agricultural research and innovation; improving smallholder famers’ access to inputs; improving regional transport corridors and promoting more predictable and supportive trade policies; promoting sustainable and resilient food production systems that impact less on diminishing resources; and stimulating agricultural production through responsible private sector investment. (b) Improved access to food: raising poor people’s income by creating rural jobs and improved market access for smallholder producers; raising productivity to encourage food prices to fall relative to incomes, and expanding social protection programmes to protect vulnerable households from food price inflation and shocks. The UK Government is also working internationally, particularly within the G20, to liberalise trade and reduce price volatility in global food markets. (c) Improved nutrition and food utilisation: focusing on the first 1000 days from the start of pregnancy to a child’s second birthday as during this period the long term consequences of undernutrition can still be reversed. DFID supports ‘nutrition– specific’ programmes that act on the immediate causes of undernutrition (e.g. vitamin supplementation, exclusive breastfeeding) as well as ‘nutrition-sensitive’ interventions, which address the underlying problems of lack of access to food, clean water and sanitation, as well as poverty and social inequality. DFID’s approach across all three areas is underpinned by the ‘Golden Thread’ of open economies and open societies, which support the increased transparency and accountability of food systems. In all its work, DFID aims to support women’s important role in agricultural production and improve women’s access to nutritious
GFS 17 food. Environmental sustainability and climate resilience are also important cross- cutting themes in all UK aid programmes. UK aid supports bilateral agriculture, food security and nutrition programmes in more than twenty developing countries; promotes partnerships with the private sector and with civil society organisations; provides core funding to global food agencies and research institutions to increase the UK Government’s reach and impact; and influences global food policy and institutions to create an enabling environment and effective governance for agriculture and food security. Tackling global hunger and undernutrition will continue to be a priority for the UK Government in 2013 and beyond. The Government will build on the 2012 Olympic Hunger Event – at which new commitments on reducing stunting in young children were made - with a further event on food and nutrition before the G8 Summit. The Government will also drive forward progress on the G8 New Alliance on Food Security and Nutrition, which was launched at the Camp David Summit in 2012.
The success or otherwise of the global food system in guaranteeing food security and eliminating under-nutrition with particular reference to women, children and other vulnerable groups 1. According to the latest estimates of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN, between 870 million and 1 billion people are undernourished and unable to get enough food to meet daily energy needs1. Only 58 out of 118 countries will achieve the MDG1 hunger target and 20 countries have made no progress at all. An estimated one billion people do not get an enough vitamins and minerals in their diet, which has an impact on long-term health, physical and cognitive development. 165 million children under the age of five are chronically undernourished (stunted) because of long-term exposure to a poor diet and repeated infections2; another 52 million children (8%) under the age of five are acutely undernourished. The proportion of children under the age of five who are underweight (MDG1) declined from 29 per cent in 1990 to 18 per cent in 2010 but progress is insufficient to meet the global target by 20153. 2. The global food system presently produces enough food for everyone. World agriculture produces 17% more calories per person today than it did 30 years ago, despite a 70% population increase4. Hunger today is as much a problem of distribution and access as it is of food availability. In many cases, poor people do not have sufficient income to purchase enough food5. Tackling undernutrition is more complex still. People can become undernourished because they do not get enough of the right food to eat and/or they are sick. Illness depresses the appetite and affects the absorption of nutrients that the body needs to recover and grow. The status of women, childcare practices, access to water, sanitation and basic health services also play a part6. 3. Persistent hunger and undernutrition is a major challenge to human and economic development and is passed from mother to child. Children who are undernourished when very young are at a much higher risk of infections and suffer higher mortality rates. Undernutrition in girls has also been shown to have a long-term effect on
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cognitive ability, family size and independent earning capacity7. At the macro level, it is estimated that loss of productivity due to impacts of poor nutrition can equate to GDP losses of 2-3%8.
The implications of demographic trends, rising income and climate change on the global food system and on key indicators of food security and good nutrition 4. Population growth and changes in consumption are increasing pressure on the resources available for sustainable food production. Population growth and increased per capita demand is projected to increase total food demand by 60-70% by 20509. Population growth is likely to be highest in low income countries, where agricultural productivity growth is often below population growth10. Rising incomes over the coming decades, particularly in middle income countries, is likely to affect diet preferences, in particular demand for meat. Some studies predict a significant increase in per capita annual meat consumption by 2050, impacting on resource use, raising global demand for animal feed, and driving up staple food prices11. Climate modelling makes it difficult to make predictions on future food production given some regions are likely to benefit while others are likely to be adversely affected and all projections are subject to large confidence intervals. Higher temperatures and changes in rainfall have been predicted to reduce global harvests by 7% by 2050, and in some part of the world by as much as 20% by 203012. Some studies suggest that, without action to reduce these impacts, climate change could increase significantly the number of malnourished children by 205013. 5. These trends could exacerbate resource competition leading to increased food price volatility. Food prices are likely to rise significantly over the next 40 years if demand outpaces growth in productivity, with a knock-on impact on food security. Global food supplies are already under pressure from rising energy prices and input costs. Half a billion people live in countries chronically short of water and by 2050 this could rise to more than four billion, with significant implications for agriculture14. In some parts of the developing world, population pressure and low productivity in agriculture is pushing farming into fragile ecological zones, contributing to the loss of forests and grazing lands and undermining long-term food security15.
The impact of global and local food shock 6. Evidence from the 2008/09 and 2010/11 global food price spikes suggests that such spikes tend to have a net negative impact on poverty, food security and nutrition. Rapid food price inflation hurts any group whose earnings do not keep up with rising prices. Higher staple food prices force households to reduce consumption and shift to less nutritious food or reduce spending on non-food items such as education and health16. For particular groups affected, such as families with young children, there can be long term consequences on nutrition, health, schooling and earnings of the children. Other long-term consequences stem from the need to sell assets, undermining recovery17. Food price increases also push up
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headline inflation and create fiscal problems, particularly for Low Income Countries that depend heavily on food imports. 7. The FAO estimated that the 2007-08 spike in food prices drove the number of undernourished people worldwide from 915 million to more than 1 billion, the highest number in more than 40 years.18 Such projections need to be treated with caution as the calculations tend to rest on many assumptions and weak data. It is also important to note that large relative price increases benefit net sellers of the food but hurt net buyers. Over time, higher prices may also lead to a supply response with positive spill-over effects for poor households, for example through increased demand for seasonal labour. Evidence from Southern and Eastern Africa suggests a majority of rural farming households are net buyers of key staples and are therefore likely to be hurt by higher prices. Better models and data are required to assess the net poverty impacts of price spikes19.
How different countries and/or regions cope with food crises and the role of democracy in increasing food security 8. Developing countries’ capacity to cope with food crises, whether caused by domestic crises or global price spikes, depends on a wide range of factors, including vulnerability to droughts and other climatic shocks, the general level of poverty and inequality, the country’s dependency on food imports, its fiscal position, existence of scalable social protection systems and many others20 21. 9. While export restrictions exacerbated the global price spike in 2007/08, individual countries sought to protect domestic consumers through various trade restrictions. Indonesia, for example, avoided domestic rice price inflation in 2007/08 through a mixture of export restrictions, price controls and relaxing import tariffs. However, such market interventions were much more difficult to implement and defend in poorer countries, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, due to limited fiscal space and porous borders. Large safety nets programmes, in Bangladesh, India, Brazil and Indonesia for example, also played an important role in safeguarding vulnerable people’s food security in the 2007/08 food crisis. 10. Although more recent research has tended to focus on the link between food crises and political upheaval22, evidence on food crises that have occurred over the last decades generally supports the argument advanced by Amartya Sen in the early Eighties23 and the ‘Golden Thread’ of open economies and open societies, that famines do not occur in functioning democracies (because famines are a failure of entitlement, not food availability, and elected leaders are responsive to their citizens’ demands). Democratic accountability, well-functioning markets and effective public safety nets that protect poor and vulnerable people’s entitlement to food provide the foundations for food security for all. As noted in the recent FAO report on global food security, government provision of key public goods and services within a system based on transparency, participation, accountability, rule of law and human rights is a requirement for rapid progress on hunger24. Conversely, there is recent evidence suggesting a close relationship between food crises and political unrest, including in the ‘Arab Spring’25.
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The best strategies for reducing risk from short term shocks and long term structural factors and for building resilience among the most vulnerable 11. DFID defines resilience as “the ability of countries, communities and households to manage change, by maintaining or transforming living standards in the face of shocks or stresses, while continuing to develop and without compromising their long-term prospects.”26 DFID is committed to building disaster resilience into all country programmes by 2015 and is developing a more holistic approach to risk assessment and early warning to be better prepared to respond to humanitarian needs, including food security crises27. DFID is also expanding the country coverage of social protection programmes from 9 countries in 2009 to 17 by 2014. 12. There is some evidence that investing in disaster resilience in vulnerable areas is better value for money than humanitarian response. A UK Government funded study found that in Kenya, over a 20-year period, every $1 spent on disaster resilience resulted in $2.9 saved28. Evidence of what works to reduce risk and build resilience specifically to food security shocks is limited. A small study of a DFID- funded project in Malawi found community members to be confident that they will be able to withstand future droughts without becoming food insecure, thanks to crop diversification, soil and water conservation, and drought resistant livestock29. 13. There is strong evidence that weather services and early warning systems help to mitigate the impacts of natural disasters. Benefits exceed the costs by a factor of ten or more30. Early warning systems for rapid onset natural disasters such as floods and cyclones are classic “no regrets” options. A recent study estimated that a weather prediction system for Cyclone Sidr would have reduced agricultural impacts (through early harvesting) and losses of agricultural equipment and livestock31. However, early warning systems must lead to early action when triggers are reached. There is a need to learn more about what helps to trigger early action. 14. The Chars Livelihoods Programme in Bangladesh is using community public works to raise more than 100,000 homesteads on the riverine chars above the 1998 record flood levels. It also provides women with productive assets to reduce income poverty and strengthen their resilience (55,000 by 2010). Plinths have a cost-benefit ratio of 4.3 to 1 and the assets 7.9 to 132. An independent controlled, longitudinal study in four chars villages33 confirmed that the improvements in the livelihoods of flood prone households continued over time. 15. In Ethiopia, DFID supports the Ethiopian Government’s Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP), which provides predictable cash or food payments to around 8 million people. The programme aims to remove these people from the relief caseload and provide them with transfers with a view to ‘graduating’ them to a point of food security. The programme also incorporates an innovative Risk Financing Mechanism that allows the PSNP to extend the duration of assistance or add new beneficiaries in response to a shock. 16. UK aid is strengthening the resilience of poor people in Asia and Africa to withstand and recover from future shocks. The Sahel and Horn in particular need major, long-term investment to build resilience to future food insecurity. This will
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include safety net programmes, initiatives to improve agricultural livelihoods, regional trade, and building stronger health and education systems. A key part of DFID’s approach to resilience is to ensure that our support through multilateral organisations is better co-ordinated and well-targeted.
The role of the international system, including food and agriculture organisations and the G8 and G20, and ways in which collaboration could be improved. 17. Global efforts to promote food security are delivered by a diverse set of institutions, processes and initiatives. Their efforts have led to a proliferation of initiatives with competing priorities and, at times, conflicting interests. Each agency now has a reform programme to improve focus and performance and increase efficiency. At a country level, the FAO and WFP are increasing their joint programming. Key institutions and processes include: • The Committee on World Food Security (CFS), an international and intergovernmental platform for global collaboration on food security and nutrition aims to promote better cooperation between member states, civil society, international organisations and the private sector to achieve food security and nutrition for all. • The three Rome-based UN agencies, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the World Food Programme (WFP) with distinct but complementary mandates. The UK is working closely together with other Member States to promote greater effectiveness and efficiency, particularly in the context of the UK Government’s Multilateral Aid Review. • The UN High Level Task Force (HLTF) set up by the UN Secretary General (UNSG) in 2008 in response to global food crisis. The HLTF includes UN and Bretton Woods institutions and has been playing a constructive role at country level in promoting partnerships and support for country-led processes. UK aid has provided financial and technical support. • L’Aquila Food Security Initiative (AFSI) was launched at the G8 Summit in L’Aquila, Italy, in 2009 by countries and international institutions committed to improving agriculture and food security through a comprehensive and coordinated approach. Collectively, donors committed to invest $22.4bn in agriculture and food security over a three year period. The UK Government has met its £1.1bn financial commitment in full. • G8: Since 2009, the G8 has played an important role overseeing and reporting progress of AFSI. In 2012, the G8 launched the New Alliance for Food Security and Initiative that aims to lift 50 million out of poverty in Africa by promoting economic growth centred on agriculture. • G20: The G20 has played a prominent role in global food security in response to the 2008/09 and 2010/11 food price spikes. In 2011, it launched a number of
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new initiatives aimed at reducing price volatility, in particular the Agricultural Markets Information System (AMIS) and the Rapid Response Forum (RRF). 18. There has been much focus on Rome agency collaboration to achieve more effective, coordinated international responses to food insecurity. Each agency now has a reform programme to improve focus and performance and increase efficiency. At country level, FAO and WFP are increasing their joint programming. A more coherent and coordinated position on the need for and focus of reform in each agency is required between member countries to drive change. There is also scope for better coordination between the G8 and G20’s work on food security. However, although there is obvious overlap in membership, both groups’ approach to food security is generally complementary, with the G8 focusing more on concrete action to tackle food insecurity in developing countries and the G20 focusing on global food markets.
The role of the following in increasing food security and the part that DFID should play in:
Competition for land use – including for biofuels, cash crops, livestock or agriculture and the impact of diet choices on food production capacity 19. Rising global demand for food, feed and energy is likely to contribute to increased competition for land and between different land uses in many parts of the world. This can impact on food security in two ways: firstly, through higher global food prices as a result of increased global demand for food. Secondly, large-scale land acquisitions could displace people who rely on their own production to achieve food security and reduce local food availability. A lack of reliable data and the secrecy of many land deals make it difficult to estimate the scale and significance of such deals with any accuracy. The UK Government believes that private sector investment in poor countries, and the growth of small and large commercial agriculture, are key to global food security. It is also vital that the rights and interests of the people living on the land are taken into account. 20. The UK Government believes that the production of biomass for bioenergy or other non-food cash crops should not adversely affect local people’s access to land and other natural resources and should not undermine food security. The UK must comply with the EU Renewable Energy Directive and Fuel Quality Directive, which contains a target for the UK to source 10% of energy used in transport from renewable sources by 2020. The UK Government has welcomed the successful negotiation of the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests, concluded in May 2012. DFID will push for the implementation of guidelines to help share best practice, and shape land laws, policies and programmes. 21. Environmental degradation can undermine long term food security. In some regions, population pressure is pushing farming into fragile ecological zones and contributing to the loss of forests, savannas and grazing lands34. In the case of forests, land acquisitions for the purpose of plantations (timber or other tree crops)
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risk displacing smallholder food production, unless such acquisitions are based on informed consent and farmers are adequately compensated. 22. Through its bilateral programme, the UK Government is promoting the ‘Golden Thread’ by working to improve the transparency of land administration systems and strengthen tenure security in a number of countries, including for example Rwanda and Mozambique. In Mozambique, DFID has also supported the government to develop their own biofuels regulatory policy. DFID also supports research and policy work to improve understanding of the relationship between food security and forests and how to secure the rights of forest-dependent people in the face of increasing competition for land. The Forestry Knowledge and tools Programme (KNOWFOR), for example, will support FAO to bring together the latest research to inform and influence global policy.
Smallholder agriculture and large scale farming 23. There is no necessary, long-term relationship between farm size and food security as households can meet food needs either through market purchases or their own production. In many parts of the world, smallholder agriculture produces a significant proportion of marketed food for rural and urban consumption35. A more important distinction for food security is the distinction between subsistence agriculture, on the one hand, and small or large commercial agriculture, on the other. Research in Eastern and Southern Africa suggests that less than a third of smallholder farmers account for most of the marketed surplus of key staples and that the remaining two-thirds are net-buyers of these staples36. 24. Strategies to promote food security need to be differentiated to respond to the evolving needs and potential of these different groups of smallholders. Commercial agriculture plays a vital role in food production, lowering food prices and generating income and employment for landless labourers and smallholders (whose farms fall below a minimum threshold of economic viability). Depending on existing farm size distribution and land availability, small and large farms can play complementary roles in a commercial agriculture sector. In the short to medium term, small farms are likely to retain a competitive advantage over large farms in the production of staple foods and traditional cash crops, particularly in poor economies37. The priority for both growth and food security is to invest in public goods, address market and coordination failures and create a stable and predictable policy environment. However, with economic development and for higher value crops with significant processing requirements, the advantage is likely to shift to larger farms with lower per unit transaction costs beyond the farm gate. Here public policy can promote food security by promoting business models that create jobs or sourcing opportunities for smallholder farms. In high potential but under-developed regions, a critical mass of investment by large agribusinesses may also help to reduce transaction risks and costs for smallholder agriculture and promote wider investment and growth. 25. DFID supports a wide range of agricultural and food security programmes in more than twenty countries. DFID bilateral support involves three broad approaches:
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• Investing in public goods such as infrastructure and agricultural research and promoting an enabling environment for small and large agricultural businesses. For example, in Rwanda, DFID is supporting land tenure reforms which will provide 4 million men and women with title to the land they farm by 2015. • Supporting safety nets, income diversification and more resilient production for smallholder subsistence farmers, with limited or uncertain commercial potential. For example, DFID provides more than £9 million to the Consortium of FARM- Africa and Self Help Africa, which is expected to significantly increase production and returns of 930,000 smallholders. • Supporting commercial-oriented agriculture to improve food security and promote poverty reduction, focusing on both smallholder farmers and larger agribusinesses with the potential to source from or employ smallholder farmers. For example, DFID is supporting the Beira Agricultural Growth Corridor in Mozambique which is enabling organised groups of smallholders to access credit and essential agricultural inputs and sell their produce on better terms.
The private sector 26. Agricultural production is predominantly a private sector activity and private investment in agriculture, by small and large farms and domestic and foreign investors, is critical to raising agricultural productivity. This in turn makes more food available at lower prices and increases the urban and rural poor’s access to food. 27. Investment in agriculture in developing countries is dominated by domestic farm investments and on-farm investment is estimated to exceed public investment by a factor of more than 3 to 138. Foreign Direct Investment in agricultural is therefore relatively small, accounting for less than 1% of total investment and for only 5% of the total FDI stock in Sub-Saharan Africa39. Estimates of the investment gap in agriculture required to achieve food security or a certain rate of growth vary significantly. Whatever the figure, it is clear that public funds, whether ODA or domestic public investment, need to be complemented by significant private sector investment if these target are to be met. 28. Developing country governments and international donors can play an important catalytic role, using funds to leverage private investment and supporting and incentivising investment that contributes to poverty reduction and food security. This requires an enabling environment for private sector investment based on the rule of law, sound property rights and a predictable policy environment. Public investment in public goods such as roads is also essential to reduce business costs and promote market development. Governments and donors can play a vital role in funding market coordination or facilitation, particularly in poor rural areas and in food staple markets, where high transaction costs and risks are likely to discourage private sector-led coordination and investment. Public funding can also play an important role de-risking private investment in markets or regions where social returns are likely to be high but economic returns may take time to materialise or are uncertain.
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29. DFID supports a number of flagship programmes to promote agricultural commercialisation and the sustainable inclusion of smallholders in agricultural value chains. These include the African Enterprise Challenge Fund (AECF), a USD 150m fund which provides competitive matching grants to companies with innovative business models. AECF is increasing agricultural trade in Africa by backing innovative commercial agribusiness initiatives. In its four years of operations, the Fund has provided loans and grants to 88 agribusiness companies in 17 countries in Africa. The companies supported by the Fund have provided jobs or contributed to an increase in the incomes of around three million poor rural Africans. The Food Retail Challenge Fund (FRICH) pilots partnerships between UK retailers and African farmers that promote African food exports to the UK and the Business Innovation Facility (BIF) provides technical assistance to agribusiness companies in-country who are committed to combine commercial returns with long- term development impact. In 2012, the UK Government also supported the launch of the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, a new G8 and African Union initiative (see details below).
New technologies, including irrigation, and the dissemination and distribution of these, with special reference to small farmers and women 30. A sustainable global food supply will depend on addressing future threats to existing productivity and on the sustainable intensification of agriculture, that is, increasing productivity at a rate significantly greater than has been achieved in the past two decades using progressively fewer resources. Technology has the capability to develop new crop varieties which are more productive and resilient to biotic and abiotic stress, farming systems which use resources more efficiently and which are more resilient in the face of climate change, and new evidence to support better agriculture policies and programming. 31. There is a comprehensive body of evidence demonstrating global impact of international agricultural research over four decades. For every $1 invested in international agriculture research at least an additional $9 worth of additional food is produced in developing countries [source]. More than 60% of modern plant varieties grown in developing countries have ancestry originating in the research centres which make up the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR)40 and 30% of yield growth between 1965 and 1998 in developing countries can be attributed to plant genetic improvement. According to recent analysis of the impact of CGIAR research published since 2000, CGIAR rice breeding is credited with reducing poverty in India and China by two million and one million people per year respectively whilst maize breeding in Africa has lifted 740,000 people per year above the poverty line. 32. In many developing countries, markets for agricultural inputs, services and outputs are either underdeveloped or non-existent, limiting private sector investment and slowing technological innovation. Publicly funded research and extension services cannot adequately compensate for the investment gap, yet private sector investment in developing country is low: of the $39.6 billion of investment in agricultural research in 2005, only 2% was private sector investment in low and
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middle income countries41. The benefits of agricultural research have also not been shared evenly with women, in particular disadvantaged women. Women make up the majority of the agricultural workforce in many developing countries yet yields on women’s plots are typically 20 per cent to 40 per cent less than men’s42. Rural adolescent girls especially have little or no direct control over assets, even if employed. 33. DFID is scaling up its work on agricultural innovation, particularly understanding what works in delivering new technologies and products and getting them into use. This includes support to programme activities which address relevant market failures and fully support the innovation cycle and which directly address a widely confirmed research finding - the slow pace of technological innovation in the agriculture sector in sub-Saharan Africa. There are four main elements of the DFID Agriculture Research Programme: a) Long term investments in advanced science: Joint projects with the UK Biotechnology and Biological Science Research Council (BBSRC) and southern research partners. These projects provide the basis for the development of new technology and diagnostics through the use of advanced bioscience (around 15% of funding); b) International agriculture public goods research: Developing the new technology (plant and livestock varieties and farming systems) and knowledge necessary for more productive, sustainable, resilient and profitable agriculture in the future. Support for the CGIAR, other international research centres and regional research in organisations in Africa and Asia (around 50% of funding); c) Supporting faster agricultural innovation and getting technology into the hands of farmers, in particular women: testing new institutional models; strengthening the evidence base and increasing the availability of new and innovative products relevant to smallholders; d) Supporting policy with better evidence: researching agriculture–health links (e.g. zoonotic disease, nutrition and aflatoxin); supporting agricultural policy- making in Africa (around 10% of funding). 34. Examples of agricultural research programmes funded by DFID include: funding to the G20 AgResults programme, an initiative launched in June 2012 to generate and test the use of results-based incentives designed to stimulate private sector investment and innovation in the development and delivery of agricultural technologies. DFID has funded GALVMed, a not-for-profit organisation which seeks to address widespread market failure in the development of livestock medicines and vaccines for use in developing countries. In 2009, Galvmed began commercial distribution of a vaccine against East Coast Fever, a tick-transmitted disease that kills one cow every 30 seconds. The vaccine was based on technology which had been developed 20 years previously but which had never been licensed for commercial application. GALVMed was able to use public funds to get the vaccine licensed for use. It could save the 11 African countries affected by the disease at least £175 million a year. In 2013, DFID also plans to support the development, application and evaluation of mobile phone based agriculture extension systems through partnerships with CABI and with GSMA. Rural women,
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who make up the majority of the agricultural workforce in South Asia, represent a large untapped market for mobile growth. Content will be tailored to meet the demands of the poor farmers in South Asia and Africa with a strong emphasis on women farmers.
Global policy measures, including monitoring, food stocks, financial shock facilities, food, nutrition and agriculture initiatives 35. Global policy measures can make an important contribution to food security by improving the functioning of global food markets, facilitating global trade and investment in agriculture and, ultimately, reducing food price volatility. Access to accurate and timely data on hunger and undernutrition is also essential to improved global action. In 2011, the G20 launched a new initiative to improve market transparency, through the availability of better market information (the Agricultural Markets Information System or AMIS), and encourage coordinated policy action in response to market uncertainty (the Rapid Response Forum). DEFRA leads for the UK Government on these initiatives. 36. DFID supports the Integrated Phase Food Security Classification system, a set of protocols for classifying the severity and causes of food insecurity based on available data and a process for building technical consensus among key stakeholders. The FAO/Gallup Household Survey of Hunger Experience is another, complementary approach which may provide a better global picture of who is hungry, where and why. 37. The UK Government believes that free trade and effective and efficient markets provide a greater level of food security than large-scale, public food stocks designed to manage price volatility at national or international level. Experience to date suggests such stocks are expensive to run, with implications for fiscal positions, and are likely to crowd out private sector stocking initiatives and would therefore not necessarily stabilise prices. DFID supports, in principle, proposals for regional emergency humanitarian food stocks in high risk regions such as the Sahel, to improve the speed and effectiveness of the response to humanitarian disasters. 38. The UK Government has met its financial commitments under the L’Aquila Food Security Initiative (AFSI) in full and will continue to provide broadly equivalent resources to those committed under AFSI for tackling food and nutritional security in the foreseeable future. 39. The Global Agriculture and Food Security Programme (GAFSP) is a multi-donor trust fund set up to help deliver on the funding and aid effectiveness commitments made at L’Aquila. It provides funds for technically robust, country-led agriculture and food security projects in low income countries. It has separate windows for public sector and private sector investments. In May 2012, the UK Government announced a £75m contribution to GAFSP. 40. The ‘New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition’ emphasises the important role played by the private sector in creating rural jobs and market opportunities that can benefit smallholder farmers, particularly women. In addition to its GAFSP
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contribution, DFID will provide £395m over the next three years, including through existing or planned programmes in Ethiopia, Tanzania, Ghana and Mozambique. 41. The UK Government recognises the Scaling up Nutrition movement (SUN) as the leading global mechanism for bringing all actors together to tackle under-nutrition, focused on the critical ‘1000 day window’. Twenty-seven countries have signed up to SUN, 20 of which are in Africa. DFID is actively supporting SUN in Ethiopia, Malawi Mozambique, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia (where DFID is the donor convenor) and Zimbabwe, and beyond Africa in Bangladesh and Nepal. DFID has also provided £1.9m to strengthen SUN coordination, accountability and results. 42. UK aid is also scaling up its own bilateral nutrition programmes in over 10 countries. For example, in Bangladesh, DFID is integrating the delivery of vitamins, minerals and other nutrition support into three existing programmes which tackle extreme poverty. These interventions will reach 243,000 adolescent girls, 103,500 pregnant women and 225,000 children under five years of age. In Zimbabwe, UK support to the Health Transition Fund will halve the prevalence of malnourished, underweight children under 5 years from 9.9% in 2009 to 5% in 2015. Food markets, trading, storage and distribution 43. Developing more open and efficient regional markets in agricultural inputs and outputs has the potential to leverage larger-scale private investment and create new opportunities for millions of farmers. It is also essential to achieve food security by improving market linkages between food deficit and surplus areas across Africa. Cross border trade helps to stabilise food prices and encourages farmers to invest in increasing their production. A well-functioning market will maintain prices between the import and export parity and help mitigate the price fluctuations caused by poor harvests, bumper harvests and other local variables. This enables farmers, traders and other market players to operate with less price risk and encourages their investment in the market. The World Bank has highlighted the failure to exploit regional trade in food staples to advance food security and economic growth and attribute this to regulatory barriers to trade and a lack of investment in staple food markets43. 44. Better on farm storage will also help stabilise prices and increase food security. In poor rural areas, farm storage systems are characterised by significant quantitative and qualitative losses, which encourages farmers to sell their harvest early and discourages the retention of stocks in rural areas between seasons44. Poor information exchange between farmers, traders, markets and governments means that high levels of uncertainty and risk is the norm in the food markets of the region. The market systems for inputs and services suffer from many of the same failures as the food product markets. Inconsistent agricultural and trade policies and inappropriate regulatory frameworks affect every part of the food staples market system and are a key constraint on their function45. Food staples are important to the political economy in many countries and their governments frequently intervene in these markets.
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45. The UK African Free Trade initiative (AFTi) was launched in 2011 to “oil the wheels of trade in Africa”. AFTi brings together regional trade initiatives from across DFID, BIS and the FCO to improve trading conditions in Africa. AFTi is working with the regional economic communities in East and Southern Africa to secure the free trade area that governments from Cairo to the Cape agreed to establish by 2014. In the short term, the AFTi is taking concrete steps to streamline cross border bureaucracy, modernise customs and revenue procedures and stamp out restrictive trade practices. DFID has set up www.tradebarriers.org which has registered 350 complaints about red tape and resolved 72% of them. 46. In the medium term, DFID is raising the public and private finance needed to improve the transport infrastructure on which businesses, small and large depend on to trade goods and services across the continent. DFID is providing seed financing that reduces commercial risk and encourages both private and development financing for ports, roads, bridges and railways.
The role of commodity funds and major global commodity companies 47. The UK Government recognises the damaging impact of high food prices on poor consumers in developing countries. Based on continued assessment of the evidence, the Government believes that changes in supply and demand, rather than speculation, are the main factors behind the recent spikes in global grain prices. 48. There is no compelling evidence to suggest that financial market speculation contributed significantly to price volatility, either in 2008 or now. The weight of evidence from investigations into commodity index investors is inconsistent with them being a significant causal factor in agricultural price bubbles.46 Furthermore, the operation of commodity derivative markets enables producers and consumers to hedge against the risk of future price changes and facilitates more effective price discovery.47 49. Tackling food price spikes is best done by making global markets work more effectively and preventing export restrictions that only make the problem worse. Carefully targeted social safety nets are also important to help poor consumers in developing countries cope with price inflation. The UK Government is working internationally, particularly with other members of the G20, to liberalise trade and make commodity markets function more efficiently. The Government is promoting greater sharing of information on existing stocks, and discouraging disruptive actions such as export bans, which limit supplies and drive up prices. 50. The private sector is vital to ensuring food security both now and in the future. We are not aware of evidence that the major global commodities companies represent a threat to food security.
December 2012
1 FAO (2012), “State of Food Insecurity in the World, 2012”, available at: http://www.fao.org/docrep/016/i3027e/i3027e.pdf
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2 UNICEF, WHO, The World Bank (2012), “UNICEF, WHO, World Bank Joint Child Malnutrition Estimates” UNICEF, New York; WHO, Geneva; The World Bank, Washington, DC, available at: http://www.who.int/nutgrowthdb/estimates/en/index.html 3 UNICEF (2012), “Millennium Development Goal Reports”, UNICEF, New York, available at: http://mdgs.un.org/unsd/mdg/Default.aspx 4 FAO, IFAD, WFP (2002), “Reducing Poverty and Hunger, the Critical Role of Financing for Food, Agriculture, and Rural Development”, available at http://www.fao.org/docrep/003/Y6265e/y6265e00.htm and with 2010 data also at http://www.fao.org/docrep/x0262e/x0262e05.htm 5 See, for example, a recent case study on chronic food insecurity in Tanzania, by the Chronic Poverty Research Centre (2011), “Hidden hunger in rural Tanzania: what can qualitative research tell us about what to do about chronic food insecurity?”, available at http://www.dfid.gov.uk/r4d/SearchResearchDatabase.asp?OutputID=187317 6 DFID (2009), “The Neglected Crisis of Undernutrition. Evidence for Action”, DFID London. 7 The Government Office for Science (2011), “Foresight Food and Farming 2011”, available at: http://www.bis.gov.uk/assets/bispartners/foresight/docs/food-and-farming/11-546-future-of-food-and-farming- report.pdf 8 DFID (2009), ibid. p37; Shekar, M and Lee, Y-K ( 2006) “Mainstreaming nutrition in poverty reduction strategy papers: what does it take, A review of the early evidence”, HNP discussion paper, Health Nutrition and Population, World Bank, Washington DC 9 Alexandratos, N (2006), “World Agriculture: towards 2030/50, interim report. An FAO perspective”, FAO, Rome, cited in The Government Office for Science (2011) 10 The Government Office for Science (2011) 11 For example, Bruinsma, J. (2009) “The resource outlook to 2050: by how much do land, water and crop yields need to increase by 2050? Expert Meeting on How to Feed the World in 2050”, FAO, Rome. Cited in The Government Office for Science (2011). 12 Knox, J.W., Hess, T.M., Daccache, A. and Perez Ortola, M. (2011) “What are the projected impacts of climate change on food crop productivity in Africa and S Asia? DFID Systematic Review, DFID, London. 13 IFPRI (2009), “Climate Change: Impact on Agriculture and Costs of Adaptation”. IFPRI, Washington DC 14 Evans, A, (2009), “The feeding of the nine billion: Global food security for the 21st century”, Chatham House, London, available at: http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/research/eedp/papers/view/-/id/694/ 15 The Government Office for Science (2011) 16 For example, Compton, J., Wiggins, S. and Keats, S (2010), “Impact of the global food crisis on the poor: what is the evidence?”, Overseas Development Institute, London. 17 See for example, chapters 1, 2, 6 and 15 in Dercon, S. (2005), “Insurance against Poverty”, Oxford University Press. 18 FAO (2008), “The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2008 – High Food Prices and Food Security – Threats and Opportunities”,FAO, Rome, available at http://www.fao.org/docrep/011/i0291e/i0291e00.htm 19 Barrett, C. and Bellemare, M.F. (2011), “Why Food Price Volatility Doesn’t Matter, in Foreign Affairs, available at http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/67981/christopher-b-barrett-and-marc-f-bellemare/why-food-price-volatility- doesnt-matter?page=show 20 African Development Bank (May 2011), “The Impact of the 2010-11 Surge in Food Prices on African Countries in Fragile Situations”, Chief Economist Complex, Africa Economic Brief - Vol. 2 Issue 4, available at http://www.afdb.org/.../AEB%20VOL%202%20Issue%204%20May%202011_AEB%20VOL%202%20Issue%204% 20May%202011.pdf 21 Bresinger, C., Ecker, O., Al-Riffai, P., Yu, B., (2012) “Beyond the Arab Awakening”, IFPRI Food Policy Report 22 Lagi, M., Bertran, K.Z. and Bar-Yam, Y. (2011), “The Food Crises and Political Instability in North Africa and the Middle East”, available via the Cornell University Library at http://arxiv.org/abs/1108.2455 23 Sen, A. (1981), “Poverty and famines: an essay on entitlement and famines”, Oxford: Clarendon Press 24 FAO, The State of Food Insecurity in the World. Accessible at: http://www.fao.org/publications/sofi/en/ 25 Maystadt, J.F., Trinh Tan, J.F., Breisinger, C. (2012), “Does Food Security Matter for Transition in Arab Countries?”, IFPRI Discussion Paper 01196, available at: http://www.ifpri.org/publication/does-food-security-matter- transition-arab-countries 26 DFID (2012) “Protecting Gains, Minimising Losses: Putting Resilience at the Heart of DFID’s Development Work”, internal discussion paper. Disaster resilience is defined broadly along the same lines; for details see DFID (2011), “Defining Disaster Resilience – A DFID Approach Paper”, available at http://www.dfid.gov.uk/Documents/publications1/Defining-Disaster-Resilience-DFID-Approach-Paper.pdf
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27 DFID (2011), “Humanitarian Emergency Response Review: UK Government Response”, available at http://www.dfid.gov.uk/Documents/publications1/hum-emer-resp-rev-uk-gvmt-resp.pdf 28 Courtenay Cabot Venton et al. (2012), “The Economics of Early Response and Disaster Resilience: Lessons from Kenya and Ethiopia”, DFID, London, available at http://www.dfid.gov.uk/Documents/publications1/Econ-Ear-Rec- Res-Full-Report%20.pdf 29 Tearfund (2010), “Investing in Communities; The benefits and costs of building resilience for food security in Malawi”, available at http://www.preventionweb.net/files/16866_16866investingincommunities1.pdf 30 Rogers, S and Tsirkunov, V (2011), “The Costs and benefits of Early Warning Systems- Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction”, available at www.preventionweb.net/english/hyogo/gar/2011/en/bgdocs/Rogers_&_Tsirkunov_2011.pdf 31 Teisberg, T J and Weiher, R F (2009), “Background Paper on the Benefits and Costs of Early Warning Systems for Major Natural Hazards”; GFDRR Paper, available at http://www.gfdrr.org/gfdrr/sites/gfdrr.org/files/New%2520Folder/Teisberg_EWS.pdf 32 DFID (2007), “Bangladesh - Reducing Extreme Poverty in the Riverine Areas of North-West Bangladesh: Options for the Chars Livelihoods Programme beyond 2010”, 33 Scott, L. D (2011) “Giving Assets - An effective approach for vulnerability and building livelihoods? The case of the Chars Livelihoods Programme”, PhD Thesis, Manchester University, available at http://www.bwpi.manchester.ac.uk/aboutus/externalassociates/Lucy_Scott_CV.pdf 34 The Government Office for Science (2011) 35 Quan, J. (2010) “A future for small-scale farming?”, Natural Resources Institute, University of Greenwich, Science review: SR25 for Foresight Project on Global Food and Farming Futures. 36 Barratt, C. (2008) “Smallholder market participation: Concepts and evidence from eastern and southern Africa”, Food Policy 33 (p299–317). 37 Hazell, P., Poulton, C., Wiggins, S. and Dorward, A. (2010), “The Future of Small Farms: Trajectories and Policy Priorities”, World Development Vol. 38, No. 10, pp. 1349–1361 38 Lowder, S., Carisma, B. & Skoet, J. (2012) “Who invests in agriculture and how much? An empirical review of the relative size of various investments in agriculture in low- and middle-income countries” (forthcoming), Agricultural Development Economics Division, Working Paper No. 12-XX, FAO, Rome. Cited in FAO (2012), “Trends and impacts of foreign investment in developing country agriculture: Evidence from case studies” FAO, Rome. 39 Global Platform for Rural Development (2011), “The Strategic Role of the Private Sector in Agriculture and Rural Development”, Global Platform for Rural Development, Bonn. 40 The CGIAR is a network of 15 research centres based across the globe. The CGIAR is funded by over 20 major donors including the UK. 41 Beintema and Elliot (2009), “ASTI private sector investment in research”, presentation to FAO 42 World Bank (2012), “2012 World Development Report on Gender Equality and Development”, World Bank, Washington DC. 43 World Bank (2012), “Africa Can Help Feed Africa: Removing barriers to regional trade in food staples”, World Bank, Washington DC. 44 Jayne, T.S., Mather, D. and. Mghenyi, E. (2010) “Principal Challenges Confronting Smallholder Agriculture in Sub- Saharan Africa.”, World Development 38:1384-1398. 45 World Bank (2012) 46 Irwin, S. (2012) “Does the Masters Hypothesis Explain Recent Food Price Spikes?”, International Association of Agricultural Economists Triennial Conference, 18-24 August 2012. 47 Interagency Policy Report (2011), “Price Volatility in Food and Agricultural Markets: Policy Responses”, Interagency Policy Report to the G20, by FAO, IFAD, IMF,OECD, UNCTAD, WFP, the World Bank, the WTO, IFPRI and the UN HLTF.
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Supplementary written evidence submitted by the Department for International Development
A number of questions were raised during the oral evidence session of the International Development Committee on the 18th April that the DFID Parliamentary Under Secretary of State was unable to answer immediately and for which agreement to answer subsequently was given.
Those questions and the answers provided from DFID officials specifically were:
Q 155: In DFID’s written evidence it states that there are bilateral nutrition programmes in over 10 countries. Can you tell us how many nutrition programmes precisely there are?
Answer: DFID has bilateral nutrition programmes in 16 countries. These are: India, Pakistan Nigeria Zambia Tanzania Ethiopia Yemen Bangladesh Nepal Malawi Uganda DRC Somalia Mozambique Kenya Zimbabwe
Q 156: It would also be useful to know if DFID plans to increase the number of bilateral nutrition programmes.
Answer: Future DFID plans on nutrition will be announced at the Nutrition for Growth: Beating hunger through business and science, Global Event on 8th June 2013.
Q 157: Ertharin Cousin of the World Food Programme said that 33 developing countries have committed themselves to nutrition programmes. Her starting point was that any programme DFID is operating that had made such a commitment, that DFID should surely have a bilateral programme to support that. I am not asking you to answer that question now, but I think it would be quite helpful if you could give us a response to it.
Answer: This is a reference the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) global movement. 34 developing countries have now committed to develop nutrition programmes as part of the SUN.
DFID is an active donor supporter of the SUN movement. It has provided financial support to the SUN secretariat; supports the SUN civil society coalitions in SUN countries. The UK is also co-chair of the SUN donor network and is the donor convenor (coordinating donor support) in Ethiopia, Nigeria, Yemen and Zambia.
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DFID does not have a presence in all the SUN countries, therefore it would not be appropriate to have bilateral programmes in all SUN countries.
Q178: I would be very interested if at some stage the Department could report back on how it is working with countries on this issue, (implement the UN’s voluntary guidelines on land tenure) both on the voluntary guidelines and with regard to perhaps extending the Rwandan project.
Answer: The UK government is pushing for the national implementation of the Voluntary Guidelines on Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests, to help share best practice, and shape land laws, policies and programmes. This agenda is also being addressed at the G8. The UK government supports developing countries’ efforts to improve land and property rights in 8 countries across Africa and Asia. Many of these programmes already address the principles included in the Guidelines. For example, in Mozambique, jointly with other donors, the UK is supporting the recognition of customary rights to land through participatory processes. In Nepal, the UK is supporting forestry and natural resource policies and governance. Building on the experience of the Land Tenure Reform programme in Rwanda, which will secure rights to land for over 4 million people by 2015, a new DFID programme is under design in Ethiopia. This programme will look at the broader benefit and impact of land registration. Commencement of the programme will be subject to the outcome of the design phase and ministerial approval. The UK government, jointly with other partners, is considering support to the government’s efforts to implement land certification to drive productive land use.
Q181: Could I ask, shall we say, since the start of this year, how many of the other G8 countries our Secretary of State has had a bilateral meeting with to explain the development goals we have for the G8? Can you give us a guarantee that before the conference she will have had a one to one with her opposite number in each of the other seven countries to seek commitments to the goals we are developing for our summit?
Answer: The Secretary of State and DFID ministers have met their G8 counterparts at a number of high level global meetings and bilateral visits and are in regular contact on a number of development issues. Interactions have included top level messaging on “getting our own house in order” under the Prime Minister’s tax, trade and transparency agenda for the G8. As noted during the IDC session, G8 sherpas undertake preparatory work for a G8 Summit. As we near the summit, it will become clearer in which areas Ministerial conversations will be required to achieve the Prime Minister’s goals.
Q189: I am keen to understand the link between research and policy. Could you give us perhaps a couple of examples where our investment in research has yielded policies that are working out in the field?
Answer: Since 2005 DFID has funded the Future Agricultures Consortium (FAC) in Africa. FAC undertakes research and provides advice and information to improve agricultural policy and practice in Africa. Examples of influence from this research have included:
FAC research into the demand for credit in the Kenyan Agriculture sector helped to uncover the scale of the gap between demand and supply (over ksh 100billion/year). After working with Kenyan government officials, FAC research was used to support the design of a risk-sharing scheme to incentivise private sector finance in the agriculture GFS 17A
sector. This was announced by the Kenyan Minister of Finance in the annual Budget Statement for 2011-12.
The findings of FAC research on Graduation of Households from the Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP) was presented to district and regional officials in Ethiopia in 2011 and 2012. These findings were then used by the Tigray Regional Bureau to improve their strategies for supporting the graduation of people out of safety net schemes.
FAC are currently being engaged by DFID to support the planning for and delivery on commitments to the New Alliance for Agriculture and Food Security and Nutrition. As part of this process, FAC research on the political economy of agriculture is being used by African countries to assist them in the development of their strategies to implement their commitments to the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme.
CGIAR Research - Micronutrient malnutrition, also known as ‘hidden hunger’, afflicts billions of people worldwide, leading to blindness, stunting, and impaired cognitive development in children, increased susceptibility to infectious diseases, and even premature death.
DFID is a majority funder of HarvestPlus, who breed staple crops consumed by the poor - and often malnourished - in Asia and Africa with higher levels of vitamin A, iron and zinc.
HarvestPlus has influenced government policies. In Uganda, the Ministry of Health included biofortified crops in its monitoring and evaluation plan for micronutrients. Their work also contributed to the local Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) framework and the Government’s new Nutrition Plan. More than 60 per cent of farmers in Uganda adopted orange sweet potato which provides more dietary vitamin A. As a result, total vitamin A intakes among children and women increased significantly in both countries. Notably, for children aged 6-35 months, orange sweet potato contributed to their total vitamin A intake to 53 per cent. Vitamin A cassava, iron beans and iron pearl millet have also been released in Nigeria, Rwanda and India respectively.
Q201: Where would you do that? (i.e. catalysing investment from the private sector with smallholder producers). Would it be a team at DFID headquarters who talk to the corporate boards at Nestlé, shall we say? Or would it be done at a country level?
Answer: In relation to how DFID facilitates contract farming agreements by providing finance inputs and guaranteed markets for smallholder produce there are several mechanisms that DFID supports that allows this:
DFID gives Programme Partnership Arrangement funding to Fairtrade International. Part of their model is to ensure farmers know the minimum price they will receive for their production. If the market price is higher, the farmers will receive the market price. Fairtrade is a globally successful voluntary standard.
The African Enterprise Challenge Fund is a $200m investment fund which provides grants and 0% loans to fund innovative agribusiness and renewable energy ideas which are commercially viable and have high development returns in the creation of jobs, increased incomes and improved inputs for small holder farmers. The companies with AECF supported out-grower schemes are working with small holder farmers to integrate them into their supply chains through helping to improve crop quality and buy harvested produce. Overall the company out grower schemes supported by the AECF are achieving impact quickly. In 2011, these companies benefitted 103,846 households GFS 17A with an average rise in income per household of $163. They employed 1,944 full time employees which represents a net additional creation of 641 jobs from 2010”.
Through the Food Retail Industry Challenge Fund (FRICH) DFID is providing £7.4 million to private enterprise to help increase routes to market for African food producers and benefit poor farm workers and smallholders. The nature of FRICH-supported companies and small holder farmers varies and, in large part, depends on the commodity in question.
• In coffee, tea and cocoa (and to some extent nuts) large companies are interested in security of supply. This tends to lead to the establishment long-term relationships with farmers based on fair market prices (rather than fixed prices or quotas). An example, of FRICH’s support includes support to Bettys and Taylors of Harrogate in Rwanda where we helped with the introduction of a business model that guarantees quality of supply and sustains it by sharing higher returns equitable amongst the tea producers, factory operators and Bettys and Taylors. • In other, more niche, products competitive pressures influence the nature of the ‘deal’ done with small holder farmers. For example, FRICH has supported Ndali (UK) and Ndali Estate Uganda to develop a range of high quality Ugandan sourced vanilla products. Ndali has strong links to 1,200 small farmers in Western Uganda, members of Mubuku Vanilla Farmers Association. With a fixed price arrangement in place, FRICH funds have helped Ndali expand their product range and grow their business increasing volumes for small holder producers. • In fresh produce, some volume guarantee arrangements are put in place. Prices are fixed against the market. For example, in the context of such arrangements, FRICH has worked with Waitrose to ensure that suppliers can meet Waitrose required standards.
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Written evidence submitted by Tearfund
• Food security is a major contributor to dignity, hope, poverty reduction, good health, better education, social inclusion, sustainable development, peace, democracy and national security.
• Agriculture is a major contributor to, and major maleficiary of, environmental degradation, including, but not limited to climate change. Climate change will increase the number of undernourished people from anywhere between 40 and 170 million. The amount of land suitable for agriculture is shrinking.
• Climate volatility is also increasingly contributing to shocks in global food prices, which hit the poorest (who spend up to 80% of their income on food) the hardest. It is hitting small scale farmers, on which nearly 2 billion people depend for food) hard.
• Food shocks have lasting disbenefits to the resilience of communities, and undernutrition can have permanent impacts on human development and national economies. Development interventions in agriculture are hugely more cost effective than humanitarian responses to food shortage, returning £24 for every £1 spent.
• A number of specific agricultural and nutritional commitments have been made that need to be seen through by governments and the international community. Aid can make a real difference, and the move to 0.75 GNI in the UK and, more importantly, beyond should continue. The UK should invest greater human diplomatic resources in the UN Committee on World Food Security.
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1. Tearfund is a Christian relief and development agency working in partnership with organisations in around fifty countries, often working alongside or through networks of local churches, as well as responding directly in response to significant disasters.
2. We have seen food insecurity first hand, working through partners and operational programmes that support smallholder farmers on a daily basis, tackling hunger, food crises and climate change in thirty-five priority countries and regions.
3. Through our policy and programmatic work, we have built up expertise on food security, climate change and Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) issues. This short submission will therefore focus on the links between food security and climate change, and food crises and resilience.
4. Tearfund believes that everyone should be able to grow or afford to buy enough nutritious food, according to their dietary preference, to lead an active life every day, whatever the weather or economic climate. This applies as much to those yet to be born as those alive now, who will take our population to 9bn by 2050. The world must produce enough food, and both produce and consume it in a more sustainable way.
5. Our vision is that rural farmers, herders and fisher folk, especially women, are empowered with better land tenure, access to seeds and water, information on market prices, reliable weather forecasts, extension services, decision making processes, education and health so that they are resilient to droughts, floods and erratic food prices and can sustainably produce enough to feed themselves and sell on the market or have income from alternative livelihoods.
6. This would give each adult a better chance of eating the at least 2200 calories needed to give them enough energy each day, and each child would have a varied, micro-nutrient rich diet which is sufficient for their brains and bodies to develop fully. It also bestows confidence that people can feed their families today and tomorrow, delivering dignity and hope.
7. To this end, our partner programming focuses on increasing knowledge and understanding of changing climate and techniques for meeting the challenges such as:
• Malawi: introducing drought resistant maize, quick maturing crops and new crops like potato and cassava; introducing camel, hens and goats instead of cows; harvesting rainwater.
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• Bangladesh: establishing floating gardens and kitchen gardens, raising the sides of ponds, putting houses on raised plinths, and re- and afforestation. • Nepal: introducing polytunnels, and solar water heaters and solar electricity. • Honduras: altering growing patterns
8. Food security is a major contributor to poverty reduction, good health, better education, social inclusion, sustainable development, peace, democracy and national security.1
9. Growth in agriculture needs to be sustainable, reducing pressures on natural resources and biodiversity. Agriculture is a major contributor to, and major maleficiary of, environmental degradation. The impact both ways warrants significant attention at the government level: as the Stockholm Institute has argued, the world is already exceeding or approaching sustainable thresholds in freshwater consumption, agricultural land use, biodiversity loss and nitrogen and phosphorus cycles.2
10. To address the failures of the global food system, Tearfund is calling for the following: • Strong political leadership from governments, donors and the UN to champion agriculture on the agenda nationally and globally and implementing their commitments: i. National governments should develop comprehensive and country led national food security strategies (guided by the Committee on World Food Security global strategic framework for action on food security), across Ministries that will ensure resilience in availability, access, and utilisation of food to climatic and economic shocks (as part of wider poverty reduction and climate change adaptation strategies). The focus should be on female smallholder farmers, landless labourers and pastoralists in rural areas. African governments should allocate 10% of their budgets to agriculture in line with the Maputo agreement in 2003. ii. Governments and donors should be held accountable for ensuring food security for all people today and in the future, having committed to reaching MDG Target 1c. iii. Donors should ensure that there is an agreed implementation plan that can track the disbursement of global pledges for food
1 http://www.fao.org/docrep/006/Y5061E/y5061e08.htm, http://www.agassessment.org/reports/IAASTD/EN/Agriculture%20at%20a%20Crossroads_Global%20Report%20( English).pdf, http://www.un.org/wcm/content/site/chronicle/home/archive/issues2012/thefuturewewant/hungeranationalsec uritythreat; 2 http://www.stockholmresilience.org/planetary-boundaries
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security, made at the G8 Summit in May 2012 and in L’Aquila in 2009, as additional aid to the most food insecure. • Investment in smallscale, sustainable agriculture (particularly women producers) in order to increase yields, reduce poverty and increase resilience to droughts and food price rises i. Investment in small-scale agriculture will increase the supply of food on local markets, improve incomes and food security, build resilience to shocks and drive rural development Smallscale farms are often the most productive (output per unit of land or energy) and rely less on environmentally- degrading agricultural inputs, or intensive use of water.3 Thus, they can be more efficient, ecological, sustainable and beneficial to the majority of poor people. It is beneficial to use techniques like conservation farming (reduced tillage) and using organic manure. ii. Investment should focus on women who produce a significant amount of the world’s food, and they are more likely to share economic gains with their family and community. This will include improving women’s access to assets, better land tenure, education, health status, and empowerment in farmers’ associations and decision making processes. Equalising women’s access to land, livestock, education, financial services, extension, technology and rural employment to that of men’s, would increase farm yields by 20-30% and lift 100-150m people out of hunger.4 It will also help to combat child malnutrition and slow population growth.
The implications of climate change on the global food system and on key indicators of food security and good nutrition;
11. The IPCC estimate that climate change will increase the number of undernourished people from anywhere between 40 and 170 million.5 This correlates with the trends seen by Tearfund’s partners. Smallholder farmers represent the part of the global food system which provides food for over two billion people,6 and their food security and nutrition is being impacted by the increased number and intensity of extreme weather events caused by climate change.
12. A Nepalese partner7 informs us of the scale of the problem they are facing: ‘There is a strong linkage between food security and weather patterns in
3 http://www.agassessment.org/reports/IAASTD/EN/Agriculture%20at%20a%20Crossroads_Global%20Report%20( English).pdf 4 http://www.fao.org/docrep/014/am719e/am719e00.pdf 5 The IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, 2007 6 http://www.ifad.org/pub/viewpoint/smallholder.pdf, Foreword 7 http://tilz.tearfund.org/webdocs/Tilz/Research/Dried%20Up%20Drowned%20Out%202012%20- %20full%20report.pdf
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Nepal. Agriculture makes up 30% of the national economy and 60% of the population [work in it]. Small alterations in weather patterns, especially rainfall, threaten the livelihood of almost half the population.’ In 2011, Mexican partners highlighted that some regions of the country had seen no rainfall for two years, seriously impacting people’s ability to feed themselves.8 It is estimated that some 3.4m tonnes of maize were lost to drought, with one region losing 70% of its crops. Approximately 40m cows died due to a lack of water, and the heat caused roads to subside, meaning that farmers can’t get the produce that survived to market. These factors have a devastating impact on the quantity and quality of food that households are able to either grow or purchase.
13. The amount of land suitable for agriculture is shrinking, as seasons change and the soil becomes less fertile. A Tearfund partner in Bangladesh spoke of a couple who used to have 11 acres of land, including a rice paddy which produced 2,000kg of rice. Cyclones and floods reduced their land to two acres, and they can no longer produce rice. Furthermore, for four months of the year, even those two acres are flooded – meaning they can grow nothing at all. It’s predicted that, in some countries, crop yields could be halved by the end of this decade, whilst crop revenue could be down by 90% by the end of the century.9
14. Silas Ndayisaba, a 52 year old Rwandan, has been a farmer since he was 16. He told us “when the weather is good, I have produce to sell…Things have changed in the last 20 years. Thirty years ago, we had good harvests and could predict the weather patterns. [But now] The weather is less predictable and the drought means that we have a lot less food…this year the harvest wasn’t good because of the flash floods.” Beans used to cost him 40 RWF (4p) but now they cost 450 RWF (47p). This is a more than tenfold increase in a country where the average income is about £320 per year. The impact on him is serious: “Twenty years ago, we could plan. Today we can’t. Prices have gone up. I buy less and I only eat twice a day.”
15. When climate change increases the severity and likelihood of extreme weather events, it can cause shocks in global food prices. For example, the prices of key crops on the global market, such as maize and soybeans, have been at record highs over the past few months. This price rise is largely due to severe droughts in the US, and poor and erratic rains in India and Russia.10 This has a knock on impact on local prices; for example the cost of sorghum increased by 220% in South Sudan between April and July 2012.11 People living in poverty spend up to 80% of their income on food. When prices rise
8 http://tilz.tearfund.org/webdocs/Tilz/Research/Dried%20Up%20Drowned%20Out%202012%20- %20full%20report.pdf 9 http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/publications/impacts.pdf 10 http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2d02b0ae-cce9-11e1-9960-00144feabdc0.html#axzz24APm4lgL, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d3dea69a-d030-11e1-99a8-00144feabdc0.html#axzz24APm4lgL 11 http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/2012/08/30/severe-droughts-drive-food-prices-higher-threatening-poor
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like this, they reduce both the quality and the quantity of their food, with devastating impacts (see next section).
The impact of global and local food shocks and how different countries and/or regions cope with food crises
16. Tearfund has documented the effects of a food shock on community food security and nutrition in Malawi,12 finding that three initial impacts (widespread crop failure, reduced access to water, and the emaciation/death of livestock) had the following consequences:
• Household assets were depleted, undermining people’s capacity to maintain livelihoods and food security following the drought • Households engaged in distress sales of livestock and other household assets at depressed market prices (sometimes as low as 10% of normal levels), meaning they were unable to purchase sufficient food • There was widespread malnutrition and oedema, particularly affecting men (who are expected to provide for their families first) the elderly and children, in some cases resulting in death • People were forced to rely on hardship foods such as weeds, maize husks and the roots of banana trees, which often cause vomiting and are of poor nutritional value
17. ‘Escaping the Hunger Cycle’13 (commissioned by Tearfund and others through the Sahel Working Group) notes the correlation between high prices and the number of children who suffer acute malnutrition. High prices result in households reducing the quality and quantity of their food. Even if this only happens for a short period, the impact can be permanent, for example the resultant stunting amongst under-twos causes irrevocable damage to their life chances.
The role of the international system, including food and agriculture organisations and the G8 and G20, and ways in which collaboration could be improved;
18. There remains a need for aid to support agriculture. Achieving a world free from hunger by 2025 through supporting agriculture and rural development is estimated to cost an additional $42.7 billion per year. Rich countries should follow the example of the UK and meet the 0.7% GNI pledge.
19. Adapting to climate change is one of the major issues faced by smallholder and large-scale farmers. The international community should therefore make swift progress on its pledge, made at the Copenhagen climate talks, to find $100bn a year in climate finance, in addition to aid, from 2020, with a
12 http://tilz.tearfund.org/webdocs/Tilz/Research/Investing%20in%20communities%20web.pdf 13http://tilz.tearfund.org/webdocs/Tilz/Research/Escaping%20the%20Hunger%20Cycle%20English.pdf
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significant scale up towards that point. Tearfund is joining others in recommending that this comes in part from a global emissions levy on the shipping industry, which will require international co-operation at the International Maritime Organisation and in other forums. Furthermore, the UK should use its seat on the board of the Global Climate Fund to push for 50% of climate finance to be used for adaption in the most vulnerable countries.
20. The Committee on World Food Security (CFS) is the only legitimate international forum for the discussion of food security issues. Tearfund attended the 39th Session of the CFS in October and were pleased with the consensus-brokering role played by the EU. However, conversations with the UK Representative suggested that additional human capacity to engage with the Rome Based Agencies would be extremely beneficial, and would enable the UK team to play a more active role in CFS conversations. At the moment they only appear able to monitor the conversations. Extra capacity would enable the UK to engage in the CFS reform and counter efforts by other Member States to derail this process.
21. The CFS mandate includes objectives of ‘coordinating a global approach to food security’ and ‘promoting policy convergence’.14 However, some member states tried to constrain the remit of the CFS, arguing against the CFS giving serious consideration to issues with a significant impact on food security such as trade, or climate change. Whilst the CFS must be careful not to duplicate negotiations taking part in other areas of the multilateral system (e.g. the UNFCCC), it cannot simply ignore the links between these issues. This attitude continued when considering the work of the CFS High Level Panel of Experts, with criticism being made of their inclusion of these issues. The role of the HLPE should be to give an objective assessment of an issue, including its crossover with other sectors. The CFS can then decide whether or not to take this on board, but should not be able to prevent them assessing all the evidence.
The best strategies for reducing risk from short term shocks and long term structural factors and for building resilience among the most vulnerable;
22. Investment in risk reduction is good value for money. In Malawi, Tearfund invested in agriculture and building the resilience of smallholder farmers to drought, implemented by a local church organisation. Subsequent research found returns of £24 for every £1 spent. This is not least because it is much more cost effective to invest in agriculture to increase resilience to drought than it is to provide emergency relief and make up the developmental losses.15 This research has been widely cited, for example by the previous Secretary of State at DFID at the launch of the HERR, and by the ODI.16
14 http://www.fao.org/cfs/cfs-home/cfs-about/en/ 15 Summary:
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23. Tearfund partners JEMED in Niger have worked with Tuareg pastoralists (one of the most vulnerable groups of people) to improve their resilience to shorter term shocks and longer term chronic food insecurity. The Tuareg realised they were in danger of losing their whole way of life, and decided to sacrifice some traditions now in order to preserve some aspects of their culture. JEMED has helped communities to establish 22 ‘fixation sites’. These don’t settle people permanently, but provide a base from which they can access wells, grain banks, health and training, whilst still keeping hold of traditional pastoral ways. In 2008, this also enabled communities to de-stock early, in response to early warning signs. Nomadic people had never sold their livestock before, but this time they kept only the best breeding stock and moved them to other areas, keeping them alive in the process. Consequently, people in fixation sites lost a third less livestock during the drought than others in neighbouring areas.17
24. This example illustrates what steps donors and governments of countries facing food shocks/insecurity could take to reduce risk and build resilience: • Integrate risk analyses and resilience-building activities into development planning and implementation • Invest a minimum of 10% of humanitarian aid budgets to support context-specific activities and increase people’s asset base, livelihood security and preparedness for drought • Promote strong linkages and coherence between climate change adaptation, DRR, poverty reduction and national sustainable development plans. Encourage systematic dialogue, information exchange and joint working relationships between institutions, focal points and experts working in these areas • Engage financial and technical support to strengthen local adaptive capacity in order to reduce the risk to the poorest and most vulnerable • Decentralise financial and human resources for appropriate administrative levels, so that agile responses to upcoming shocks can be implemented without having to submit requests to central government • Tackle political, economic and cultural policies, practices, institutions and processes that increase people’s vulnerability to climatic shocks and use appropriate tools when assessing how to adapt to climate change in specific contexts. • Set up drought contingency funds with pre-agreed triggers to preserve the livelihoods of farmers and pastoralists. Investing now will reduce the need to respond to future food crises
http://tilz.tearfund.org/webdocs/Tilz/Research/Investing%20in%20Communities%20poster%20web.pdf. Full report: http://tilz.tearfund.org/webdocs/Tilz/Research/Investing%20in%20communities%20web.pdf 16 ODI Citation: http://www.odihpn.org/humanitarian-exchange-magazine/issue-49/building-resilience-for-food- security-in-malawi-a-cost%E2%80%93benefit-analysis 17http://tilz.tearfund.org/webdocs/Tilz/Research/Escaping%20the%20Hunger%20Cycle%20English.pdf, p29
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• Build on existing approaches to minimize vulnerability to climatic shocks and build resilience of smallholders with diverse and flexible strategies e.g. diversify income sources through off-farm livelihood strategies, building and protecting key assets, access to credit, disaster risk reduction, and community disaster preparedness committees • Compare the effectiveness of natural fertilisers and chemical fertilisers in agricultural areas facing the twin threats of land degradation and climate change. Consider the implications of these findings for national agricultural policy, including subsidy programmes.
December 2012
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Written evidence submitted by The Planetary Boundaries Initiative (PBI)
1. The Planetary Boundaries Initiative (PBI) is a new NGO, formed to explore the implications for governance, law, and policy of recent scientific work identifying a set of nine “planetary boundaries”.
2. The planetary boundaries analysis has been put forward in various scientific papers, including the initial papers which had Johan Rockström as their lead author, and is now the subject of a major research programme based at the Stockholm Resilience Centre. This analysis provides a clear way of conceptualising and working towards quantifying the environmental limits which human activities should stay within. The 'planetary boundaries' concept responds to current scientific understanding of the functioning of the Earth System. Scientists now consider it possible to quantify the risk of crossing thresholds or tipping points which would lead to fundamental state changes with major implications for human societies.
For a summary of the “planetary boundaries” analysis, see:
http://www.nature.com/news/specials/planetaryboundaries/index.html
3. In this evidence, we will be concerned only with what can be seen as a single, although extremely important, aspect of the problem of food supply and security: the environmental context within which the production and consumption of food takes place. The Planetary Boundaries Initiative does not have an agreed view on the full range of questions raised by the subject of global food security, but we do have a view about the planetary boundaries which largely set the environmental context, which we believe it is vital to take into account when devising and recommending policies on food.
4. Any set of policies recommended by the Committee needs to take into account the “planetary boundaries” analysis. This is partly because it is becoming increasingly influential, and therefore is now something which some policy-makers and organisations will be using to assess any policy recommendations; and partly of course because the analysis reflects real constraints on what is possible. For example – an important example in the context of this inquiry - a set of policies for food and agriculture which ignores the problem of nitrogen pollution will come up against the barrier presented by limits to the overuse of nitrogen-based fertilisers. Such policies are therefore not viable.
5. The boundaries which are particularly relevant to food are: ocean acidification, freshwater use, biodiversity, nitrogen and phosphorus, land use, and climate change. This amounts to six of the nine boundaries (the others are ozone depletion, aerosol loading, and chemical pollution), including all three of the boundaries which are currently being exceeded (biodiversity, nitrogen and phosphorus, and climate change).
6. In general terms, the Planetary Boundaries Initiative advocates the need for policy-makers to take serious account of the nine planetary boundaries, and to reflect this in international legal agreements, national legislation, governance arrangements, economic and business arrangements, and the setting of objectives and indicators, such as those to be established as part of the process of setting Sustainable Development Goals and ‘post-MDGs’ for the world community. The recognition of planetary boundaries through these means would help to establish a context for policy-making on GFS 19
(amongst a very wide set of problems and issues) global food security. In this evidence, we will outline the main legal and policy issues we believe are raised by this idea.
PLANETARY BOUNDARY LAW
7. The ‘planetary boundaries’ concept is one that is helpful for establishing a new way of guiding international law for the better protection of the environment. In the spheres of human rights and trade law, we have clearly identified goals, such as human security and 'free trade'. However, there is no such overall goal for the protection of the environment leading to lack of effective integrated enforcement. Although there is the policy of sustainable development which is frequently taken as an overriding goal for environmental protection, the level of protection is often weakened by policy decisions that strive to find a balance between the economic, social and environment. This does not necessarily help to ensure that human activities do not go beyond the capacity of natural earth system thresholds.
8. Additionally, whilst there are a plethora of multi environmental agreements (MEAs) these can often compete to the disadvantage of one another as they have not been developed with synergies established between them (eg; climate change and biodiversity governance).
9. In the context of food security, where so many different environmental regimes are in play as noted here, such lack of integrated environmental measures leads to a kind of fragmentation of global governance outcomes, where it becomes impossible to achieve an international set of goals, such as those set out in the millennium development goals.
10. Moreover, whilst there is a core value system, such as the polluter pays, precautionary principle, sustainable development and common and differentiated responsibility, many argue these are weak and vague terms that simply provide a set of commitments by States.
11. The PBI considers that it is necessary to begin to look at global governance through the lens of planetary boundaries in order to find a concept that provides greater definition and certainty to the concept of sustainability whilst also reflecting the value humanity places on the preservation of the biophysical conditions upon which we all depend.
12. The planetary boundaries concept can provide such a definition when seen in terms of ecological integrity. Instead of the term 'ecological integrity' remaining vague and weakly defined, the concept of planetary boundaries provides a way in which 'integrity' can be measured and quantified. Scientists are used to establishing measures and indicators at a national scale. Now we should urge the international community to consider establishing thresholds at a planetary scale that are recognisable within a system of international law. The PBI Declaration established by the Planetary Boundaries at www.planetaryboundariesinitiative.org is one way in which this could be achieved.
13. Unless we define governance around such fundamental goals and principles we consider that there is unlikely to be little real progress around governance on the issue of food security.
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POLICY ISSUES
14. Thinking about food supply and security in relation to planetary boundaries shows in a particularly acute form the predicament the planet and its people are currently in. Many policies to increase food production would increase the degree to which the three currently exceeded boundaries will be exceeded in the future: for example, policies involving far more use of nitrogen- based fertilisers, far more extensive use of land for agriculture, or increased carbon emissions.
15. At the same time, many policies designed to ensure that human impacts on the environment stay within the boundaries would reduce food supply and make the food security situation worse. If humanity had either solely environmental or solely social problems to solve, the tasks ahead would be far more straightforward than they are. The difficulties we face arise from the need to address both sets of problems at the same time. This has been conceptualised as the need for humanity to operate within a space bounded on the one side by the planetary boundaries and on the other by a set of human needs, such as the need for adequate nutrition.
16. We envisage a two-fold set of policies and actions. One set would be based around devising and achieving an international agreement about human impacts in relation to each of the boundaries, or possibly in some cases a series of regional agreements. We already have the beginnings of such a regime in the case of climate change and biodiversity loss, and we can envisage parallel agreements on, for example, nitrogen use and ocean acidification. Each agreement might set a total “budget” for the relevant factor, such as total carbon emissions, or total nitrogen use, with such a global budget then being divided up between different countries.
17. In order for national governments to be able to deliver on such an agreement, this would then have to be complemented, principally at the national level but in some cases again through agreement internationally (e.g. in the case of EU policy on agriculture), by policies on food and agriculture (and of course also other policy areas outside the scope of the current inquiry) which will enable each country to stay within its allocated segment of the global budget. This would amount simply to reflecting biophysical reality in governance and policy arrangements. Although it may take many years to put such a framework in place, it seems very clear to us that this is what is required, in order to reconcile human needs with environmental limits.
LAND USE AND BIODIVERSITY
18. The land use and biodiversity boundaries are very closely connected, and both have an obvious relevance for food supply. However to some extent the implications of these two different boundaries point in different directions for policy. We can think of land use by analogy with geopolitical competition for territory among major powers. Instead of that form of rivalry, we can think about competition between agriculture, urban uses (such as industry, housing and transport), and biodiversity-rich biomes such as forest. Although the global situation is of course far more complex than this, we can say as an initial generalisation that biodiversity depends principally on ‘wild land’, and food supply principally on agriculture. To the extent that this is a valid generalisation, the implications of the need to keep within both these boundaries are in conflict with each other. GFS 19
19. In order to ‘complete the circle’, we will need forms of agriculture which retain biodiversity, uses of wild land which help to sustain food production, and urban design which provides space for biodiversity and enables efficient distribution of food supplies. Probably most significantly, we also need forms of food production which are efficient in their use of land, so that land remains available for biodiversity. That in turn needs to be reflected in diet and consumption patterns, agriculture subsidy expenditure, and relative prices for different foods. Overall this implies the need for a shift amongst relatively affluent consumers towards lower levels of consumption of meat.
NITROGEN AND PHOSPHORUS
20. Nitrogen and phosphorus are being released into the environment to a dangerous extent, currently exceeding the relevant boundary. Excess nitrogen and phosphorus are over fertilising lakes and seas, and acidifying soils. This is particularly a problem for food policy, because most of the excess nitrogen and phosphorus is derived from fertilisers, which have contributed enormously to the worldwide increase in food production over the past century or so. It is possible to argue that nitrogen- and phosphorus-based fertilisers are the principal reason why the pessimistic predictions made by Malthus concerning food production have so far proved false. In order to maintain this level of food output without increased environmental damage, fertilisers will need in future to be deployed in far more efficient ways.
21. According to the Global Partnership on Nutrient Management (GPNM), the excess use of nitrogen is leading to severe pollution of air, water, land and sea around the world, as well as contributing to climate change when emitted to air in the form of nitrous oxide. One of the most serious consequences of the excessive release of nitrogen to the environment is the eutrophication of freshwater and marine systems when it enters water in untreated sewage or run off from fertiliser use. This is currently having devastating impacts on mangroves and river deltas. Phosphorus is also contributing to eutrophication.
CLIMATE CHANGE AND OCEAN ACIDIFICATION
22. Climate change is a threat to food production, both through changing the distribution of climatic zones, and therefore the food that can be produced in different areas, and through extreme weather events, such as droughts. Both ocean acidification and climate change have the same principal cause: the emission of excessive quantities of carbon dioxide (along with nitrogen pollution in the form of nitrous oxide). Carbon dioxide in turn is produced partly through food production, and its processing, refrigeration, and distribution. Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are also tending to rise because agriculture is reducing the amount of land available for forests which absorb CO2.
23. A policy for food therefore has to be inseparable from a policy for climate change, even though much of the debate about climate change has focused on energy generation and other aspects, such as transport policy. As with biodiversity and land use, climate change and ocean acidification considerations imply the need for greater efficiency in the use of land for food production, along with changes in consumption patterns.
FRESHWATER GFS 19
24. Human appropriation of water supplies is now on a vast scale, not currently beyond the boundary of what the planet as a whole can sustain, but nevertheless causing serious problems regionally and seasonally. There are three main aspects to these negative impacts: shortage of drinking water for humans, loss of irrigation for agriculture, and climatic changes.
25. Water is essential for virtually all food supply, although it can in most cases be used more efficiently, but allowing sufficient water for food supply may imply a need to reduce water use for some manufacturing processes, the production of drinks, and non-food crops such as cotton; and a need for the more cautious design of dams and irrigation schemes.
CONCLUSION
26. The Planetary Boundaries Initiative is not in a position to put forward a full-scale policy for agriculture and global food security. However, when the Committee comes to devise its own recommendations, we urge it to give serious consideration to the global environmental context, and specifically to the way this context is represented through planetary boundaries analysis.
Deborah Tripley Director on behalf of Planetary Boundaries Initiative. 17.12.12 GFS 20
Written evidence from Christian Aid
Summary
Based on our experience, we believe that increasing, intensifying and diversifying food production in developing countries can play a very important role in eradicating hunger. This submission will substantiate this view by focusing on the following issues highlighted in the inquiry’s terms of reference: climate change, food crises, resilience, technology, smallholder farmers and markets. Specific recommendations include support for the following interventions:
- Farmer-led research to further develop climate-resilient food production technologies and approaches that are financially and environmentally sustainable to help food producers adapt to changing growing seasons, temperatures, and precipitation, such as non-patented indigenous drought tolerant seeds, soil and moisture conservation farming techniques, agro-ecological methods to fertilize soil, retain moisture, and repel plant and animal pests and disease, and water harvesting and drip irrigation techniques, - Wide dissemination of existing and new knowledge on sustainable climate-resilient food production methods though quality public extension services using participatory approaches such as farmer field schools, farmer to farmer extension and farmer innovation networks. - Developing and up-scaling of appropriate climate information services, including early warning systems, seasonal forecasts and longer-term climate scenarios to support both on-farm planning and research and complementary input services, such as seed development and supply and soil testing. - Infrastructure development that is climate proof, and financially and environmentally sustainable to help food producers store surplus, irrigate small plots efficiently, transport food surplus from remote rural areas, and process surplus for consumption and sale, including scaling up investments in rural feeder roads and decentralised renewable energy services - Productive safety net subsidies that help poor food consumers and producers to remain food secure in the face of weather or food price shocks - Advocating for and resourcing processes that allow for the full participation of vulnerable communities in identifying the risks they face and the solutions to address these risks
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1 Introduction
1.1 Christian Aid is a Christian development and humanitarian organisation that insists the world can and must be swiftly changed to one where everyone can live a full life, free from poverty. We work globally in 45 countries for profound change that eradicates the causes of poverty, striving to achieve equality, dignity and freedom for all, regardless of faith or nationality. We are part of a wider movement for social justice. We provide urgent, practical and effective assistance where need is great, tackling the effects of poverty as well as its root causes.
1.2 Christian Aid has been working on building food security and responding to food emergencies for a number of decades, and has learned valuable lessons as a result of this experience. We aim to analyse and address the root causes of chronic and acute hunger in all our food emergency responses, and integrate this understanding into our development programmes. This has led to our new corporate focus on building the resilience of communities to sudden shocks in the external environment. This approach is based on our understanding that the inability to bounce back from the impacts of environmental and price shocks has trapped hundreds of thousands of the most vulnerable households across the world into poverty and hunger.
1.3 Based on our experience, we believe that increasing, intensifying and diversifying food production in developing countries can play a very important role in eradicating hunger. However, this needs to be done in ways that are environmentally, economically and socially sustainable, and accompanied by a transformation in the power relations that govern the food system. Unless food producers, consumers and others who are excluded or marginalised from the existing food system gain knowledge, act collectively and exercise political agency to ensure their needs and interests are met by governments, corporations and development organisations, they will continue to face chronic and acute hunger.
1.4 This submission will substantiate this view by focusing on the questions on climate change, food crises, resilience, technology, smallholder farmers and markets posed by the International Development Committee’s enquiry into Global Food Security. It concludes by making a number of recommendations to DFID.
1.5 We welcome the opportunity to provide written evidence to the International Development Committee on global food security.
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2 Climate change and food security
‘Slow onset climate changes are expected to have potentially catastrophic effects on food production in many developing countries, particularly between 2050 and 2100’ FAO1
2.1 Climate change is already destabilizing weather patterns across the world, which is impacting on the production, processing, distribution and consumption of food. The greatest impact has been in low income countries where a disproportionate number of the world’s undernourished and food insecure population resides, and where food systems are most vulnerable. Even in the absence of weather shocks, subsistence households in many of the poorest countries experience seasonal hunger for a number of well-documented reasons, including the inability to produce sufficient amounts of food2. Insufficient local food production has resulted in import dependence in many low income countries especially in Africa, which increases the vulnerability of poor consumers, including smallholder producers in rural areas, to the huge fluctuations in international cereal commodity prices. Huge price spikes lead to acute undernourishment in poor households, which spend most of their household income on food. This was well documented across a number of countries during the 2008 international cereal commodity price spike. In the absence of reliable buyers, stable prices, and infrastructure3, farming households are less able to cope with the risks involved with investing more labour, credit or other assets in food production for the market. As a result, where surplus crops are produced, they often go to waste while potential food consumers in the same region or country go hungry.
2.2 Climate change is further destabilizing these already fragile local food systems. While specific impacts depend on the local agro-ecological and climate systems, growing evidence is showing impacts on the production, processing and distribution and consumption of food. Food production in many regions is already affected by increased duration and intensity of droughts, increased local flooding and other extreme weather events, and changes in seasonal variability – these weather patterns are increasingly being attributed to climate change. In Zimbabwe, for example, agro-ecological zones are shifting and semi-arid areas expanding – this means that land that used to be suitable for crop cultivation or livestock grazing can no longer be used for these purposes. Given the lock-in effect of past global greenhouse gas emissions, these slow- onset changes are now unavoidable.
2.3 In Africa, the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report predicts an increase of between 5 and 8 per cent in arid and semi-arid areas by 2080, a 50 per cent decrease in crop yield in some rain fed
1 Climate Change and Food Security in the Context of the Cancun Agreements, submission by the FAO to the 14th Session of the AWG-LCA, www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/54337/icode 2 Reasons include: Soil nutrient depletion, erosion, desertification, and deforestation, which will affect two thirds of Africa’s cropland by 2025, land tenure insecurity, inadequate advice on techniques to increase production, inadequate knowledge on soil fertility management, soil restoration, integrated pest management, inadequate access to good quality seed. 3 Infrastructure includes energy services, transport, marketing, storage, and irrigation GFS 20
areas within 10 years, shorter growing seasons, increased frequency of droughts, floods, cyclones, and the emergence of new animal and plant pests and diseases if global warming continues its upward trend. By 2020, up to 250m people in Africa could be exposed to increased water stress.4 A Stanford University study predicts that a further 1°C rise in average temperature will reduce yields across two thirds of Africa’s maize growing areas, even without a drought.5 This scenario is highly probable given that global temperatures are likely to increase beyond 2°C as a result of the failure to reach agreement on adequate internationally binding greenhouse gas emission reduction targets.
2.4 According to the World Food Programme, the number of climate-related natural disasters has doubled in the past 10 years. Extreme weather events such as severe and long-lasting droughts and flash floods, exacerbated by land degradation, have triggered major food crises across the Sahel and eastern Africa in the past two years alone.6 This year, a combination of violent conflict and flooding has caused a major food crisis in some of the most productive and fertile areas around the river Niger.
3 Food crises impacts and reactions
3.1 The poorest consumers and producers, including smallholder farmers living in already degraded land are also the most food insecure and are therefore most vulnerable to price and weather shocks. Even in thriving economies such as Ghana, poor urban households spend more than half of their income on food.7 The wellbeing of smallholder farmers across the world relies heavily on farm-gate prices of staple foods. These prices have become more unstable due to weather shocks and volatile international food commodity markets. The sudden fluctuations of food prices do not only deepen and widen poverty; they also increase the risk of conflict and threaten the reversal of decades of human development progress and economic growth.
3.2 The most effective responses to food crises are those that address the root causes, by combining the development of resilient and environmentally sustainable local food systems, sustainable national tax regimes and complementary social protection mechanisms. Examples of national-led efforts include the Ethiopian safety net programme, or the NREGA programme in India. Recent initiatives such as AGIR in the Sahel and SHARE in the Horn of Africa show how international actors can cooperate to address food shocks even in extremely fragile situations.
4 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Fourth Assessment Report: Climate Change 2007, Synthesis Report, Summary for Policy Makers, Section 3: www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/syr/en/sprms3.html 5 David S Battisi and Rosamond L Naylor, ‘Historical warnings of future food insecurity with unprecedented seasonal heat’, Science 323, pp 240- 242, January 2009 6 For more detail on the causes and impacts of these crises see Humanitarian Briefing Paper: Sahel Food Crisis February 2012, Christian Aid and Humanitarian Briefing Paper: East Africa Food Crisis, September 2011 7 UNDP (2012) Towards a food secure future: Africa Human development report http://mirror.undp.org/angola/LinkRtf/Afhdr_2012.pdf (consulted 26/12/2012) GFS 20
4 The best strategies for reducing risk and for building resilience
4.1 Christian Aid believes that a virtuous circle can be promoted, where people are supported to strengthen their food security and manage the risks that threaten them at the same time. Environmental sustainability is increasingly recognised as a fundamental basis to resilience in agriculture. We recognise that poor people live in a multi-risk environment. They face a number of different interlinked risks and changes on a short, medium and long-term basis – not only natural disasters and climate change but also resource degradation, conflict, disease, poor governance, inequality, lack of decent employment, unfair markets, price crashes, competition for scarce resources and more. These factors limit their ability to reduce vulnerability to widespread food emergencies. Therefore, at the core of resilience building is the capacity to manage both shocks and stresses.
4.2 To achieve positive and sustained change, Christian Aid supports an integrated approach that encompasses and integrates different priorities, disciplines, sectors and timeframes. Donors, policy makers and practitioners need to think and work across professional boundaries such as humanitarian, development, disaster risk reduction, climate change adaptation or market development. Rather than looking at issues in isolation, it is necessary to consider how different factors and timeframes interact. This approach encourages different organisations to work on different elements in a joined-up way – from local to national, and even international, levels.
4.3 At the local level, this will include practical interventions with and by vulnerable communities, together with advocacy, research and learning. The role of the community, and especially the most vulnerable, must be central in determining the risk-reducing priorities they face, the detailed risk scenario information they need, and the action planning required to address these scenarios, such as through the process of Participatory Vulnerability and Capacity Assessment (PVCA). A key part of this is increasing access to and use of climate forecasting information. Christian Aid’s work with partners in Kenya has demonstrated the value of seasonal forecasts to small-scale farmers, 96% of whom attributed increased production to forecast-informed decisions, two-thirds estimating the yield increase to be greater than 15%.8
4.4 As well as practical projects, solutions are likely to involve influencing policy and practice at local, national and/or international levels in favour of a more resilient food security system. An important factor in building the resilience and adaptive capacity of local food systems is to redress existing political and economic power imbalances. The voices of smallholder farmers, as well as their technical capacities, need to be strengthened to enable them to adjust rapidly to price changes and shocks. This may mean engaging directly with budget allocations or
8 See Strengthening Access to Climate Information, SALI Kenya (Evaluation, Oct 2012) GFS 20
provision of essential services; influencing market functioning, increasing traditional land tenure security and inheritance practices, or other non-governmental decisions; and/or advocacy aimed at national or international policy processes.
4.5 However, there is no ‘one size fits all’ as resilience is a function of the particular shock or risk. Responses must consider both the type of risk being addressed, how that risk interacts with other risks, and how a particular type of risk might affect the different individuals that make up households and sub-groups within a community (i.e. men, women, children, the elderly and the disabled, displaced persons, PLHIV) as no single intervention will build resilience in all vulnerable groups. Thus, interventions aimed at building resilience need to not only target improving adaptive capacity generally but specifically need to reduce the sensitivity of vulnerable groups.9
5 The role of technology, small-holder agriculture and markets in food security
5.1 Since the 1990s, a suite of new biotechnologies have been added to conventional breeding processes to enhance crop and livestock production possibilities for smallholder farmers. These include technologies such as marker assisted selection and tissue culture extraction. Modern biotechnologies, if used to develop seeds that are affordable and accessible to smallholder farmers, for indigenous and other locally adapted crops, can play an important role to reduce low crop yields caused by existing and new pests and diseases, reduced moisture availability, increased soil salinity, increased temperatures, and rotting.
5.2 Farmers should be involved in the technology development process, from determining the problem that needs to be addressed through on-farm trials and farmer-led participatory research. New biotechnology should only be approved with clear evidence from diagnostic studies demonstrating that the proposed technology seeks to address an expressed priority of small-scale producers. This will ensure that new biotechnologies are developed according to farmer priorities on production constraints and potential improvements needed, tested under on-farm conditions to reduce the uncertainty, cost and risk faced by farmers in adopting new technologies, and satisfy local food storage, consumption and taste preferences.
5.3 Biotechnologies should also enhance the ecosystem services of agricultural land, in view of the vulnerability of the natural resource base on which future food production depends.10 This implies a focus on biotechnologies that reduce the requirement for fossil-fuel based inputs, are suitable for use under integrated pest management practices, are designed for land management practices that reduce land degradation, increase the resilience of agricultural production to more frequent and severe droughts, floods, and increases in temperatures as a result of climate change, foster and encourage the conservation of agri-biodiversity, improve
9 For more detail on the PVCA approach, see Christian Aid Good Practice Guide: Participatory Vulnerability and Capacity Assessments, Christian Aid, 2012, and for Christian Aid’s approach to resilience, see Thriving, Resilient Livelihoods: Christian Aid’s Approach, October 2012 10 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment: Working Group Assessment Reports: Current States and Trends, 2005 www.millenniumassesssment.org GFS 20
the ratio of crop output to energy input, and increase the potential of farmers to generate their own seed and planting material for own use, exchange or through certification for local sale.11
5.4 Globally, small-scale farmers constitute 85 per cent of total farmers, farm 60 per cent of all arable land and produce more than half of the planet’s food supply. Global food security therefore depends to a large extent on the long-term sustainability of smallholder farmers, both to support future food production, but also to support the livelihoods and incomes necessary to buy food in some of the most food insecure countries. In Africa, for example, 70 per cent of working adults on average earn a living from agricultural activity, mostly in the smallholder sector.
5.5 In low income countries, active support for smallholder farmers, combined with the empowerment of women, has been shown to reduce malnutrition. In southern Mali, for example, Christian Aid has worked with a local partner organisation between 2007 and 2011 to help women in 35 villages increase and diversify their agricultural production by facilitating access to affordable inputs and extension services enabling them to grow vegetables on small plots, and assistance in forming cooperatives to process, store and market their rice production. This, together with health and nutritional education targeted at women, reduced malnutrition levels by about 25 per cent.12
5.6 Local staple food markets in many parts of Africa are failing and fragmented – surplus production does not reach deficit areas, and local staple food growers are unable to sell their produce at a fair price, which reduces their incentive to invest more to grow food for the market. The reasons for staple food market failures have been well documented, and include lack of adequate road networks, storage, farmer marketing and business skills, and finance. The dismantling of parastatal grain marketing boards, which have acted as buyers and sellers of last resort, in the 1980s and 1990s, has exacerbated this problem, especially in southern and eastern Africa. Although these boards were often marred by inefficiency and corruption, their food price stabilisation function remains vital and should continue in the form of an accountable and efficient price stabilisation mechanism.
6 How can DFID contribute to addressing food system challenges?
6.1 DFID should ensure that all aid to food and agriculture development through its bilateral programme, but also through the multilateral programmes receiving UK aid, aims to build the resilience of local food systems to the impacts of slow onset climate change, sudden onset
11 The International Assessment on Agricultural Science, Knowledge and Technology Development (IAASTD) report expressed particular concern about [intellectual property regimes] eventually inhibiting seed-saving, exchange, sale and access to proprietary materials necessary for the independent research community to conduct analyses and long-term experimentation on impacts’ 12 This project was funded by the EU and implemented by Christian Aid partner, the Association for Development and Community Support in the Kolondièba District, Sikasso, Southern Mali between February 2008 and December 2011
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weather shocks, and price shocks. It should develop a policy outlining how it will support smallholder farmers who are the majority of food producers, to access production technologies, extension services and markets, and outline how it will support the infrastructure necessary for the functioning of local food markets.
6.2 DFID support for food and agriculture development through existing climate funds, bilateral aid programmes, and multilateral food and agriculture programmes should therefore focus on:
- Farmer-led research to further develop climate-resilient food production technologies and approaches that are financially and environmentally sustainable to help food producers adapt to changing growing seasons, temperatures, and precipitation, such as non-patented indigenous drought tolerant seeds, soil and moisture conservation farming techniques, agro-ecological methods to fertilize soil, retain moisture, and repel plant and animal pests and disease, and water harvesting and drip irrigation techniques, - Wide dissemination of existing and new knowledge on sustainable climate-resilient food production methods though quality public extension services using participatory approaches such as farmer field schools, farmer to farmer extension and farmer innovation networks. - Developing and up-scaling of appropriate climate information services, including early warning systems, seasonal forecasts and longer-term climate scenarios to support both on-farm planning and research and complementary input services, such as seed development and supply and soil testing. - Infrastructure development that is climate proof, and financially and environmentally sustainable to help food producers store surplus, irrigate small plots efficiently, transport food surplus from remote rural areas, and process surplus for consumption and sale, including scaling up investments in rural feeder roads and decentralised renewable energy services - Productive safety net subsidies that help poor food consumers and producers to remain food secure in the face of weather or food price shocks - Advocating for and resourcing processes that allow for the full participation of vulnerable communities in identifying the risks they face and the solutions to address these risks
December 2012 GFS 21
Written evidence submitted by Professor Lawrence Haddad, Director, Institute of Development Studies (IDS)
An overview of IDS’ work on global food security
Food insecurity is a pressing global challenge. The causes of food insecurity are complex and the integrated approach required to effectively tackle the problem is often lacking. IDS’s research on food seeks to inform and shape current policy debates on developing a joined up response to delivering greater food security and justice for all.
IDS has recently led the production of the report Social Protection for Food Security (http://bit.ly/MWlLg0), which was commissioned by the High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition. IDS Director Lawrence Haddad is the UK representative on the UN Committee on World Food Security's High Level Panel of Experts. He was also one of the Lead Experts on the UK Government's Foresight Project on the Future of Food and Farming.
IDS also hosts the Future Agricultures Consortium (http://www.future-agricultures.org/) and the Adaptive Social Protection in the Context of Agriculture and Food Security programme (http://www.ids.ac.uk/project/adaptive-social-protection) and is a member of DFID funded nutrition research consortia Transform Nutrition (http://www.transformnutrition.org/) and Linking Agriculture and Nutrition in South Asia. The Institute is also undertaking work that explores the complex causes underlying the global problem of food insecurity including food price spikes, fair access to land and water and the impact of climate change.
IDS has also been exploring the role of the private sector in increasing the availability and access to food through investments in agriculture and working in partnership with GAIN and USAID (agriculture value chains for nutrition), Oxfam (Growing a Better Future) and Action Against Hunger (Aid for Nutrition) to produce new research on how to tackle global food insecurity and undernutrition.
Responses to issues highlighted by the inquiry
1. The success or otherwise of the global food system in guaranteeing food security and eliminating under-nutrition with particular reference to women, children and other vulnerable groups
The global food system has been relatively successful in meeting demand, but not good at generating demand or in promoting healthy diets. In a world of 7 billion people, about 1 billion are hungry, a further billion are not hungry but suffer from hidden hunger in the form of micronutrient deficiency and a further 1.5 billion are overweight or obese. So based on a very broad definition of being between hunger and overweight, 3.5 of the world's 7 billion are getting a healthy diet. The demand of the 5.5 billion who are neither hungry nor experience hidden hunger is well met by the global food system in the sense that food prices have stayed reasonably stable on a long term downward trend until recently.
2. The implications of demographic trends, rising income and climate change on the global food system and on key indicators of food security and good nutrition
One of the features of food is that it is demand and supply inelastic. When the price of food rises it is difficult to cut back on consumption and the quality is inevitably reduced. It is also difficult for small scale farmers to respond due to their limited access to finance and an inability to take price risk. Income growth and population growth are putting demand pressure on food prices. Climate change,
GFS 21
volatile energy prices and the intertwining of energy and food prices via biofuels are adding to volatility in food prices.
3. The impact of global and local food shocks and how different countries and/or regions cope with food crises and the role of democracy in increasing food security
The impact of food price volatility on people’s lives can be devastating, particularly during the first 1000 days of human development post conception. The harm caused by global and local food and price shocks in the first 1000 days of an infant’s life can be permanent if it is not reversed within the same time period. Livelihoods, lives and life courses will be permanently damaged.
Different countries have employed different coping mechanisms. Countries that can afford it invest in a wide range of food price stabilisation measures and social protection mechanisms. The recent IDS led report Social Protection for Food Security, commissioned by the High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (http://bit.ly/MWlLg0) recommended that every country should aim to establish a comprehensive and nationally owned social protection system that will help enable the realisation of the right to adequate food for all.
In a world where markets work perfectly, food is not politicised, food tastes are generic, and risks can be perfectly managed it does not matter where food is grown. It should be grown where technical and economic efficiencies are greatest. However, in the real world where none of these conditions hold we need to establish a more diverse global food system with many different sources of production in which risk is spread more equitably.
4. The role of the international system, including food and agriculture organisations and the G8 and G20, and ways in which collaboration could be improved
A much more integrated approach and set of policy responses to tackle global food insecurity is required and that incorporates climate, energy, trade, security and finance. The international system needs to finally establish a truly developmental trade round sorted after a decade of trying. There is also a role for some kind of virtual buffer stock. The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and US farm policies need to be reformed to reduce subsidies to rich country farmers giving them unfair competitive advantages. The UK has a critical role to play in providing political leadership on these issues, particularly as it assumes the G8 presidency in 2013 at the same time as Ireland takes up the EU presidency.
5. The best strategies for reducing risk from short term shocks and long term structural factors and for building resilience among the most vulnerable
Resilience is the ability to minimise falling, the ability to rebound, and the ability to rebound to a better place. At the strategic level, resilience is promoted by diversification of production in terms of location, crops and farm size and not single model solutions. Technology has a role to play in promoting the resistance of crops to various stresses such as pests and drought. At the policy level, a combination of Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR), Social Protection and Climate Change adaptation strategies offer the best approaches for increasing resilience. However, funding for DRR initiatives in particular is minuscule as outlined in the recent Global Humanitatian Assistance report produced by Development Initiatives (http://www.globalhumanitarianassistance.org/report/gha-report-2012).
The concept of resilience does encourage policy makers to take a more integrated approach to addressing resource scarcity and poverty reduction. However there is a danger that building resilience
GFS 21 becomes overly concerned with short term technical fixes that improve people’s short term coping strategies but fail to address the root causes of why they remain poor and hungry.
6. The role of the following in increasing food security and the part that DFID should play in
• Competition for land use – including for biofuels, cash crops, livestock or agriculture and the impact of diet choices on food production capacity;
The UK government has an important role to play in providing political leadership in driving the establishment of a more secure and equitable global food system, particularly as it assumes the G8 presidency in 2013. DfID, alongside other government departments including DEFRA, DECC and BIS need to develop a much more integrated approach to addressing global food security that draws on the thorough analyses of the issues set out in the 2011 Foresight Report and by the Global Food Security Programme.
• small holder agriculture and large scale farming
The debate on smallholder agriculture is stuck in an ideological battle and the ‘romantics’ versus’ the industrialists’ is one caricature of the extremes. This debate has not been resolved because the evidence on what is the best approach under different conditions has not been systematically assembled. It should be.
• external interventions — including land deals, corporate investment and donor interventions
The evidence, such as it is, is that the governance of all of these interventions is key. If they are designed with the poorest in mind, they stand a chance of delivering. If they are not, the chances are remote. Typically, they are not.
• The private sector
It is important to remember that smallholder farmers in Africa and Asia are part of the private sector. A big factor in their effectiveness is the enabling environment that includes roads, public research and development, extension agents and irrigation. Larger firms, especially those with multinational locations need to be incentivised to pay more taxes, disclose more information particularly when benefitting directly from public funds, and they need to be incentivised to sign up to the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative or an equivalent.
• New technologies, including irrigation, and the dissemination and distribution of these, with special reference to small farmers and women;
As has been said many times, women need to be central to the decision making at all levels including crop attributes, marketing associations, extension, access to inputs and access to finance etc. They have a more balanced view of what agriculture is intended to deliver i.e. food, income and nutrition and it makes no sense to under-invest in their half of the entrepreneurial talent pool. Perhaps the most worrying aspect of the future of farming is that it is not attractive to the next generation of entrepreneurs and this issue is being explored in more detail by the IDS based Future Agricultures Consortium. Public policy needs to provide some kind of demand floor to ensure that smallholder farming remains viable until other higher productivity activities can begin to thrive and generate higher paid jobs. There is overwhelming evidence
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that indicates that the agricultural intensification stage cannot be bypassed, although mobile technologies may be weakening this assumption.
• Global policy measures, including monitoring, food stocks, financial shock facilities, food, nutrition and agriculture initiatives;
There needs to be better processes put in place to monitor global food insecurity more effectively. We don’t have a detailed enough picture of where the hungry are located at a sub- national level or how this changes on a year to year basis. The contrast with the effort put into collecting economic data is stark. This data would begin mobilising wider society, enable citizens to more effectively hold their governments to account and provide a clearer guiding action to all.
• Food markets, trading, storage and distribution;
There is a lot of waste along the food value chain and a lot of scope for understanding how the governance of food value chains benefits smallholder producers and vulnerable consumers. We are working on these issues at IDS within the Partnering for Better Food Project (http://www.ids.ac.uk/idsproject/partnering-for-better-food) under the leadership of Spencer Henson and John Humphrey and in our Accelerating progress in reducing hunger and undernutrition programme (http://www.ids.ac.uk/idsresearch/accelerating-progress-in-reducing- hunger-and-undernutrition).
• The role of commodity funds and major global commodity companies.
The evidence on the role of commodity funds and major global commodity companies is not clear. There is a lot of liquidity looking for investment opportunities and there is a moral case to say that food commodity speculation has a much bigger impact on vulnerable groups than does price speculation in metals for example. I personally favour some kind of tax on food price speculation, perhaps linked to speed of flows rather than levels. This idea has been explored in more detail by former IDS fellow Neil McCulloch in his policy briefing Tackling instability in financial markets with a panic tax (http://www.ids.ac.uk/files/dmfile/IF14.pdf)
December 2012
GFS 21A
Written evidence submitted by Dr Dolf te Lintelo, Research Fellow, Institute of Development Studies
1. Globally, levels of hunger and undernutrition remain unacceptably high. Hunger affects about 870 million people (FAO 2012). That means one in eight people do not get enough food to be healthy and lead an active life. Undernutrition affects one in every four children under five years of age worldwide and a third of those living in developing countries. It contributes to 2.6 million deaths of children under five each year - one third of the global total. Progress towards reducing hunger and undernutrition has been highly variable across countries and regions. Many developing countries have benefited from substantial economic growth during the last two decades, but growth alone is not sufficient to rapidly accelerate the reduction of hunger and malnutrition. The poor need to benefit from this economic growth in order for them to improve the quantity and quality of their diets through additional income. Governments need to target additional resources at public goods such as health and sanitation services. Furthermore, strong and high level political commitment is essential to prioritise the fight against hunger and malnutrition (FAO, 2012).
2. Global hotspots of hunger and undernutrition in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa have witnessed substantial and sustained economic growth. Such growth, managed well, can widen tax and public investment bases, to offer clear potential for governments to address the two scourges of hunger and undernutrition. Internationally, we know what kind of public interventions work, and we also know that these investments are simply good economics. So, the resources available for action are bigger than ever and we know what interventions can best address these. We can therefore identify which governments are putting in place measures that can greatly reduce hunger and undernutrition.
3. The Hunger and Nutrition Commitment Index (HANCI) has been produced by the Institute of Development Studies’ (IDS) through funding by Irish Aid and as part of a Department for International Development (DfID) Accountable Grant. HANCI was officially launched in April 2013 and it will: • Rank governments on their political commitment to tackling hunger and undernutrition; • Provide greater transparency and public accountability by measuring what governments achieve and where they fail in addressing hunger and undernutrition • Highlight the success stories and also areas for improvement; • Support civil society in their efforts to ensure greater political commitment towards accelerating the reduction of hunger and undernutrition; • Assess whether improved levels of political commitment lead to an actual reduction in levels of hunger and undernutrition.
The following section of evidence sets out some of the key initial findings from the HANCI, that we hope will help inform the select committee’s work on this inquiry.
HANCI Initial Key Findings
4. Political commitment needs to be expressed through practical government action in order to make significant progress towards reducing hunger and undernutrition. A good example is Guatemala, which performs best in 2012 for both hunger and nutrition on the HANCI. While the hunger and undernutrition situation in Guatemala is ‘alarming’ and much remains to be done, the Government of Guatemala is undertaking the following key actions that are likely to accelerate improvements in hunger and undernutrition outcomes: • It has ensured a high level of access to drinking water (92% of the population)
1
GFS 21A
• It has ensured good levels of access to improved sanitation (78%); • It has promoted complementary feeding practices, and ensured that over nine out of ten pregnant women are visited by a skilled birth attendant at least once before delivery; • It has invested substantially in health, and has a separate nutrition budget line to make its spending accountable to all. • It has put in place a Zero Hunger Plan that aims to reduce chronic malnutrition in children under 5 years of age by 10% in 2016. • It has ensured that public policy is informed by robust and up-to-date evidence on nutrition statuses. • It has established a multi-sectoral and multi-stakeholder coordination mechanism that is regionally recognised as an example of good practice.
When committed government action is lacking, progress towards hunger and undernutrition reduction is likely to be severely limited. This is exemplified by the case of Guinea Bissau which scores lowest on the HANCI in terms of commitment to hunger and undernutrition reduction. As with Guatemala, the Global Hunger Index considers the situation in Guinea Bissau to be ‘alarming’. However the contrast between the two governments’ approaches is marked. Guinea Bissau has for instance: • not invested in agriculture, despite a commitment to invest 10% of its budgets in agriculture (as part of the African Union’s Maputo Declaration); • failed to set aside budgets for nutrition; • not sufficiently strengthened its nutrition policies by instituting coordination mechanisms and establishing time bound nutrition targets; • not sufficiently strengthened citizens’ rights to social security, and enhanced very weak economic rights for women.
5. Economic growth has not necessarily led to governments tackling hunger and undernutrition. Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia are global hotspots of hunger and undernutrition, despite many countries within these regions having achieved substantial and sustained economic growth over the last decade. So while governments have greater resources to address hunger and undernutrition, progress has been either too slow (e.g. South Asia) or stagnating (sub-Saharan Africa). Economic growth alone is not sufficient. Newly generated wealth needs to reinvested in the human capital necessary to sustain growth, notably in interventions that address hunger and undernutrition, and in the effective and accessible (public or private) provisioning of essential public goods such as health and sanitation services.
6. The political commitment levels of the global rising economic powers, including the BRICS nations, vary substantially. South Africa performs strongly on hunger commitment, and only averagely on nutrition commitment. Brazil and Indonesia perform well overall, and they have seen stunting rates decline by over 20% in the last two decades. China does well in terms of hunger commitment, though less strongly on nutrition commitment. India’s commitment ranking is lowest within the group of BRICS, even though its hunger and nutrition situation is the most serious. Within Sub-Saharan Africa, some of its smaller economic powers (Malawi and Madagascar) are now leading the charge against hunger and undernutrition, leaving traditional powerhouses (South Africa, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Kenya, Angola) in their wake.
7. Low wealth in a country does not necessarily imply low levels of political commitment. Our data shows that in cases where there are serious hunger and nutrition challenges, low aggregate and per capita wealth in a country does not mean that governments are simply unable to act on hunger and undernutrition. For instance, Angola and Malawi both have an ‘alarming’ and Guinea
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Bissau a ‘serious’ hunger status (IFPRI, 2012). Out of these three countries, Malawi has by far the lowest Gross National Income per capita ($870), as compared to Guinea Bissau ($1240) and Angola ($5230). Yet, Malawi ranks second on the HANCI, while Angola and Guinea Bissau languish at the bottom of the league table. Similarly, India’s child stunting rates are on a par with Guatemala. India’s has a higher GNI per head of $4390 in comparison to Guatemala’s $3590.
8. Countries’ commitment to hunger reduction does not tally with their commitment to improving nutrition. In fact, we found a low correlation between the two. This is demonstrated by the divergent performance of countries such as Nepal, South Africa and Mali on the two sub- indices. • Nepal ranks number three for nutrition commitment, but ranks only 34th (out of 45 countries) for hunger reduction commitment. • Peru ranks 2nd highest for hunger reduction commitment, 11th for nutrition commitment. • The Gambia ranks 24th for hunger commitment, 8th for nutrition commitment. • Mali ranks 5th on hunger commitment and 29th on nutrition commitment. • South Africa shows 2nd highest commitment levels for hunger reduction, though ranks 23rd for nutrition commitment.
April 2013
3
GFS 22 Written evidence submitted by War on Want
SUMMARY
• The global food system has clearly failed to guarantee food security to the peoples of the world. According to the latest figures from the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), published in October 2012, over 1.5 billion people do not have access to sufficient food to sustain a lifestyle of “normal activity”. The number of people chronically undernourished in Africa has risen from 175 million in 1990 to 239 million today. In the USA, food banks are struggling to cater for the 50 million people known to be living with food insecurity. In the UK – a country where the concept of food banks was unknown until recently – record numbers have been forced to turn to them for help during 2012.
• The scandal of hunger at these levels is not due to insufficient quantities of food being available. As shown by the pioneering research of Amartya Sen, those who do not have access to sufficient food in the modern era are denied access through poverty and unequal distribution, not through the unavailability of food. At the same time as record numbers of people go hungry, the multinational corporations that dominate the global food system have used their market power to make record profits.
• DFID is directing hundreds of millions of pounds from the UK aid budget towards agricultural programmes with the purpose of extending still further the power of multinational food corporations, especially in Africa. War on Want believes that DFID’s support for a new Green Revolution in Africa risks deepening vulnerability, poverty and hunger among rural populations, undermining any chance of sustainable food security in the long run.
• Positive alternatives already exist that hold out real hope for ending the scandal of global hunger once and for all. The UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Olivier De Schutter, has confirmed the importance of agroecology as a means of combating rural poverty, ecological degradation and climate change together. The framework of food sovereignty offers an even more comprehensive solution to the social, political and environmental failures of the current food system.
• The relatively low profile of the food sovereignty movement in the UK is due to the exclusion of small-scale farmers and rural communities from the debate. In this respect, the International Development Committee is strongly encouraged to take evidence from representatives of the international farmers’ movement La Via Campesina, which celebrates the 20th anniversary of its founding in 2013.
• War on Want believes there is a fundamental contradiction between the interests of multinational corporations and the needs of small-scale farmers, and that ultimately global food security requires a new framework to replace the failed model that has been dominant in recent years. The International Development Committee is encouraged to use this timely inquiry to examine the framework of food sovereignty as a strong source of food security for the world’s peoples in the long run. GFS 22
1. War on Want welcomes the opportunity to contribute to this inquiry by the House of Commons International Development Committee. War on Want has been actively engaged with issues of global food security for many years, through our longstanding partnerships with farmers’ movements in countries such as Mozambique, Brazil, Sri Lanka, Kenya, Malawi and South Africa; our publication of the comprehensive report Food Sovereignty: Reclaiming the global food system in October 2011; and our promotion of the food sovereignty framework in the British and European contexts. We have also taken public positions critical of the UK government’s controversial role in promoting the interests of multinational food corporations in the global food system, most recently through our report The Hunger Games: How DFID support for agribusiness is fuelling poverty in Africa, published in December 2012.1
A failing system
2. There can be no doubt that the globalised food system has failed to guarantee food security to the peoples of the world. The latest figures from the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), published in October 2012, record that 1.52 billion people do not have access to sufficient food to sustain a lifestyle of “normal activity”. It should be noted that this figure is considerably higher than the much quoted statistic of 868 million people who are chronically undernourished – a figure which is “a very conservative indicator of hunger”, according to the FAO, as it relates only to those who fail to secure the minimum intake of calories required to support a “sedentary” lifestyle.2
3. Certain regions of the world have seen significant increases in hunger levels over the past 20 years. The new FAO statistics reveal that the number of people chronically undernourished in Africa has risen from 175 million in 1990 to 239 million today. Undernourishment in the ‘developed’ regions of the world has also been on the rise in the past five years. In the USA, food banks are struggling to cater for the 50 million people known to be living with food insecurity. In the UK – a country where the concept of food banks was unknown until recently – record numbers have been forced to turn to them for help during 2012.
4. As the FAO and other authorities have repeatedly made clear, the continuing scandal of hunger at these levels is not due to insufficient quantities of food being available to meet the needs of the current world population – or, indeed, the needs of the nine billion people that are expected to be living on this planet by 2050. As shown by the pioneering research of Amartya Sen, those who do not have access to sufficient food in the modern era are denied access through poverty and unequal distribution, not through the unavailability of food. The primary cause of continuing hunger in the 21st century is a globalised system of food production, distribution and consumption that fails to cater equitably for the needs of the world’s peoples. Changing this system for the better is the focus of the food sovereignty movement, described below.
5. The dominant model of ‘food security’, by contrast, restricts itself to a narrow focus on consumption alone, and relegates the issue of hunger to a social welfare problem that can be solved through handing out aid. In the words of Michel Pimbert, “The mainstream definition of food security, endorsed at food summits and other high level conferences, talks about everybody having enough good food to eat each day. But it doesn’t talk about where the food comes from, who produced it, or the conditions under which it was grown. This allows the food exporters to argue that the best way for poor countries to achieve food security is to import cheap food from them or to receive it free as ‘food aid’, rather than trying to produce it themselves. This makes those countries more dependent on the international market, GFS 22 drives peasant farmers, pastoralists, fisherfolk and indigenous peoples who can’t compete with the subsidised imports off their land and into the cities, and ultimately worsens people’s food security.”3
6. The current regime of industrial agriculture has, however, benefited the small coterie of around 40 multinational corporations that effectively control the global food system from farm to fork.4 In 2010, the world’s four largest agrochemical companies (Bayer, Dow, Syngenta and Monsanto) and three largest grain traders (ADM, Bunge and Cargill) together made profits of US$20 billion. The fact that such profits come at a time when the world is experiencing record levels of hunger is no coincidence. As global agriculture becomes increasingly dominated by the power of agribusiness, small-scale peasant farmers and indigenous peoples become more vulnerable to hunger and poverty. Many have been forced off their lands as a result of expropriation by foreign investors backed by donors and government elites; many more have been locked into dependency on corporate seeds and chemical inputs, and find themselves trapped in an escalating spiral of debt and despair.
DFID support for agribusiness
7. The UK government’s Department for International Development (DFID) has played a significant role in promoting the model of industrial agriculture on the global stage. War on Want’s new report The Hunger Games: How DFID support for agribusiness is fuelling poverty in Africa, published in December 2012, reveals how DFID is directing hundreds of millions of pounds from the UK aid budget towards agricultural programmes with the express purpose of extending the power of multinational food corporations in Africa – a business opportunity identified by former Secretary of State for International Development, Andrew Mitchell, as “the next, maybe even the last, big market”.5
8. This includes DFID’s pledge of £395 million to the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, involving 45 of the largest agribusiness companies in programmes across Africa; DFID’s support for pro-corporate ‘agricultural growth corridors’ in Tanzania and Mozambique; DFID’s continued funding of pro-GM bodies such as the African Agricultural Technology Foundation and the HarvestPlus initiative; and DFID’s support of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), whose promotion of agro-dealer networks in countries such as Malawi, Tanzania and Kenya has given a vital boost to the fortunes of agribusiness corporations seeking to penetrate the new markets of the continent.6
9. The drive for a new Green Revolution in Africa fails to recognise the long-term social and ecological problems caused by the high-input, intensified agriculture of the initial Green Revolution in Latin America and Asia. Crop yields rose in the early years for those farmers who were able to buy the new, ‘improved’ packages of hybrid seeds, fertiliser and pesticides, but intensive monoculture farming gradually led to a decline in productivity growth rates as land was no longer permitted to lie fallow and regenerate, while the increased use of pesticides and fertilisers brought its own inevitable ecological consequences in the form of soil degradation, water pollution and increased emissions of nitrous oxide, one of the most potent greenhouse gases.7
10. The Green Revolution had an equally devastating impact on farmers themselves, many of whom soon found themselves driven into debt as a result of rising agrochemical prices, declining fertility and a need to apply ever more inputs to their fields. More and more rural households were forced to sell livestock and land to fend off bankruptcy, and over a quarter of a million farmers committed suicide in India alone between 1995 and 2010 as a result of desperation in the face of rising indebtedness.8 Those who were drawn into planting GFS 22 genetically modified seeds as part of the second wave of the Green Revolution soon discovered that the promises of the biotechnology corporations were as hollow as those of their predecessors, as they were forced to spend more and more on agrochemicals to fight off new pest attacks. In the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, where the government eventually banned Monsanto from operating as a result of its ineffectiveness, nine out of every ten farmers who committed suicide were found to have been growing genetically modified cotton.9
Positive alternatives (1): Agroecology
11. There already exist positive alternatives to the failed model of globalised industrial agriculture. The majority of the staple crops used to feed the planet’s population are grown not by multinational corporations but by small-scale farmers using traditional methods. These smallholdings are known to have higher yields than large, plantation-based farms, and they also have far greater potential for poverty reduction for the 2.6 billion people around the world who currently depend on farming for their livelihoods. According to the United Nations, for every 10 per cent rise in yields on small farms, there is a 7 per cent reduction in poverty in Africa, and over 5 per cent in Asia. Increased investment in such small-scale farming could create an estimated 47 million extra jobs over the next 40 years, in comparison with the status quo.10
12. There is significant potential for achieving higher yields through farming according to the principles of agroecology. In 2010, Olivier De Schutter, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, submitted the most authoritative report on agroecology to date.11 According to De Schutter, “The core principles of agroecology include recycling nutrients and energy on the farm, rather than introducing external inputs; integrating crops and livestock; diversifying species and genetic resources in agroecosystems over time and space; and focusing on interactions and productivity across the agricultural system, rather than focusing on individual species.” De Schutter examined scientific studies into the effectiveness of agroecology, including the study carried out by Jules Pretty and others, which compared the impacts of 286 projects in 57 developing countries.12 It found that productivity increased by 79 per cent on average under the agroecology system, while environmental services such as insect pollination, fish stocks, water supply and crop pollination also improved.
13. Agroecology also has startling potential with respect to global warming. The Rodale Institute in Pennsylvania carried out a 10-year study comparing organic agriculture with fields under standard tillage using chemical fertilisers. It found that the organically farmed fields could sequester (capture) up to 2,000lb of carbon per acre per year from the atmosphere. By contrast, fields relying on chemical fertilisers lost into the atmosphere almost 300lb of carbon per acre per year. If organic agriculture were practised on all 434 million acres of cropland in the USA, the study concluded, nearly 1.6 billion tons of carbon dioxide would be sequestered per year, mitigating close to one quarter of the country’s total fossil fuel emissions. At the global level, according to similar calculations by non- governmental organisation GRAIN, if traditional systems of mixed farming were adopted throughout the world, approximately two thirds of the excess carbon dioxide currently in the atmosphere would be captured within 50 years.13
14. As a result of these and other studies, De Schutter has confirmed that agroecology reduces rural poverty, improves nutrition, increases resilience to climate change and improves gender equality. He concluded his 2010 report to the United Nations by calling on all states to include agroecology in their plans to reduce poverty and to mitigate climate change. War on Want has worked closely with the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Agroecology to GFS 22 promote the concept in the UK context, and commends the work of that group to the International Development Committee as an important source of evidence in its current inquiry.14
Positive alternatives (2): Food sovereignty
15. The broader framework for the positive transformation of the global food system is the framework of food sovereignty. Food sovereignty was defined at the Forum for Food Sovereignty held in Nyéléni, Mali, in February 2007 as “the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems”.15 The international community echoed the definition when 58 governments meeting in Johannesburg in April 2008 approved the executive summary of the synthesis report of the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD), which defined food sovereignty as “the right of peoples and sovereign states to democratically determine their own agricultural and food policies”.16 In August 2011, the first ever European Forum for Food Sovereignty made explicit its connection to the Nyéléni declaration in its call to take back control of the food system and establish food sovereignty in Europe.17
16. While it embraces the principles of agroecology, food sovereignty involves far more than just sustainable methods of food production. Based on the inalienable right to food of all peoples, food sovereignty requires agrarian reform in favour of small-scale farmers and landless rural workers, granting peasant communities control over their land and over what they grow. At the macroeconomic level, it requires changes in global food trade so that domestic producers can be protected from competition from cheap food imports, and local food markets prioritised over the export of cash crops or biofuels. It also requires much greater controls over oligopolies in the global food chain, in order to prevent multinational food companies from abusing their market power.
17. The relatively low profile of the global food sovereignty movement in the UK context is due to the exclusion of small-scale farmers from the debate – a debate hitherto dominated by think tanks, academics and other ‘experts’. To counter this, War on Want brought representatives of farmers’ movements from Brazil, Cuba, Kenya, Mozambique and Sri Lanka to a full day of debate at the House of Commons in October 2011, at which they were able to share their experiences of pursuing positive alternatives to industrial farming with each other and with members of the food sovereignty movement in the UK. All who took part were in turn members of La Via Campesina, the umbrella movement that brings together organisations of peasant farmers, landless people, indigenous people and rural workers from across the world. Celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2013, La Via Campesina expounded the seven principles underpinning the food sovereignty framework at the FAO’s World Food Summit in 1996, and with its support peasant organisations are encouraging their members to turn their backs on chemical-intensive farming and to develop their own community-based, agroecological alternatives. War on Want strongly encourages the International Development Committee to take evidence in the course of the current inquiry from representatives of La Via Campesina, and stands ready to provide contact details as required.
18. War on Want believes there is a choice to be made between a global agricultural regime that has signally failed to guarantee food security to the world’s peoples, and a positive alternative that is socially progressive, ecologically sustainable and brought under the control of community-based farming. There is a fundamental contradiction between the GFS 22 profit motive of multinational corporations and the food needs of rural communities, and this contradiction cannot be wished away with the rhetoric of public-private partnership or corporate social responsibility. The International Development Committee is encouraged to take the opportunity of this timely inquiry to examine the framework of food sovereignty as a strong source of food security for the world’s peoples in the long run.
December 2012
1 Copies of both War on Want reports mentioned have been sent to the International Development Committee as background papers to the current submission; both are freely available from our website: waronwant.org 2 The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2012: Economic growth is necessary but not sufficient to accelerate reduction of hunger and malnutrition, FAO, 2012, especially Annex 2, and the accompanying technical note ‘FAO methodology to estimate the prevalence of undernourishment’, 9 October 2012 3 Michel Pimbert, Towards food sovereignty, International Institute for Environment and Development, November 2009; emphasis added 4 Emmanuel Dalle Mulle and Violette Ruppanner, Exploring the Global Food Supply Chain: Markets, Companies, Systems, 3D, 2010; Who Will Control the Green Economy? ETC Group, 2011 5 ‘Africa is open for business’, Andrew Mitchell, speech to London School of Business, 11 July 2011 6 In addition to War on Want’s report The Hunger Games: How DFID support for agribusiness is fuelling poverty in Africa, see also Helena Paul and Ricarda Steinbrecher, African Agricultural Growth Corridors: Who benefits, who loses? EcoNexus, December 2012; and also Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA): Laying the groundwork for the commercialisation of African Agriculture, African Centre for Biosafety, 2012. 7 Prabhu L. Pingali and Mark W. Rosengrant, Confronting the Environmental Consequences of the Green Revolution in Asia, Washington DC: International Food Policy Research Institute, 1994; ‘Fertilizer use responsible for increase in nitrous oxide in atmosphere’, University of California, Berkeley, 2 April 2012 8 P. Sainath, ‘In 16 years, farm suicides cross a quarter million’, The Hindu, 29 October 2011; Ritambhara Hebbar, ‘Framing the Development Debate: The Case of Farmers’ Suicide in India’, in Chandan Sengupta and Stuart Corbridge (eds), Democracy, Development and Decentralisation in India: Continuing Debates, New Delhi: Routledge, 2010, pp. 84-110 9 Raj Patel, Stuffed & Starved: Markets, Power and the Hidden Battle for the World Food System, London: Portobello Books, 2007; Sanjay Suri, ‘Environment: Indian farmers win battle against GM cotton’, Inter Press Service, 25 May 2005 10 Towards a Green Economy: Pathways to Sustainable Development and Poverty Eradication, United Nations Environment Programme, 2011, pp37-38 11 Report submitted by the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Olivier De Schutter, UN document A/HRC/16/49, 20 December 2010 12 Jules Pretty et al, ‘Resource-conserving agriculture increases yields in developing countries’, Environmental Science and Technology, 2006, 40(4), pp1114−1119; see also Peter Rosset et al, ‘The Campesino-to-Campesino agroecology movement of ANAP in Cuba: social process methodology in the construction of sustainable peasant agriculture and food sovereignty’, Journal of Peasant Studies, 2011, 38(1), pp161-191 13 Tim LaSalle and Paul Hepperly, Regenerative Organic Farming: A Solution to Global Warming, Rodale Institute, 2008; ‘Earth matters: tackling the climate crisis from the ground up’, Seedling, October 2009, pp9-16 14 More information – including the excellent infographic on Agroecology vs Industrial Agriculture – can be found at agroecologygroup.org.uk 15 The full definition is included within the Declaration of Nyéléni, available at www.nyeleni.org; for further elaboration, see Hannah Wittman et al, Food Sovereignty: Reconnecting Food, Nature and Community, Food First Books, 2010; Michael Windfuhr and Jennie Jonsén, Food Sovereignty: Towards Democracy in Localised Food Systems, Practical Action Publishing, 2005 16 Agriculture at a Crossroads, Washington DC: International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) Synthesis Report, 2009 17 ‘Food Sovereignty in Europe Now!’, Final declaration of the European Food Sovereignty Forum 2011, Krems, Austria, 21 August 2011 GFS 23
Written evidence submitted by Oxfam
There is enough food in the world to feed everyone. And yet one in eight women, men and children go to bed hungry every night. Though not a complete picture, this submission outlines some of the key factors in the broken food system and persistent food insecurity:
• Climate change: Oxfam programmes around the world bear out the research that climate change is affecting food production. Shifting seasons, slow onset changes to temperature and rainfall as well as an increase in extreme weather events are already having an impact on food production and food prices. Our food system cannot cope with unmitigated climate change. Reducing hunger means tackling emissions and fast. Climate finance is also essential to help vulnerable countries adapt to a warming world.
• Food prices and biofuels: High and increasingly volatile food prices are having a significant impact on poor families – who in some cases are already spending three-quarters of their income on food. Evidence of the contribution of biofuel policies to rising and increasingly volatile food prices on international markets is so compelling that it led ten international bodies—including the IMF, the World Bank, the FAO and UNCTAD—to recommend in 2011 that G20 governments abolish biofuel mandates and subsidies. DfID should push for the abolition of the EU’s distorting de facto biofuel mandate.
• Land rights: The increase in large scale land acquisitions, fuelled by rising food prices and demand for biofuels, is outpacing the ability of national, regional and global governance to keep up. Next years’ G8 summit and the hunger summit preceding it are key opportunities for the UK to move this agenda forward – possibly launching a new Land Partnership with developing country governments, businesses, and civil society, to improve transparency around land deals. DfID should also push for the global implementation of all relevant aspects of the UN Voluntary Guidelines on land tenure and push the World Bank Group (as a major financer of such investments) to review and change Bank policies to make sure they prevent land grabs.
• Agricultural investment (public): Whilst aid to agriculture has rebounded slightly since the 2008 food price crisis, it is still well below the amounts needed. Whilst DfID spending on agriculture is significant, it is impossible to know how much money is going to support small- scale producers, partly because most of this money is spent through multilateral agencies with little impact evaluation. As part of the budgeted increase to meet the 0.7 target, DfID should commit to spend at least an additional £425 million per year in sustainable small- scale agriculture as their fair share of the amount of investment in agriculture and rural development needed to achieve zero hunger by 2025.
• Agricultural investment (private): When private investment is done well, it can act as a catalyst for innovation and job creation, inclusive growth and the protection of our precious environmental resources. In order to benefit the poorest, business models should adhere to some key principles: focusing on staple food crops and diversified cropping; investing in local and regional markets; working with producer organisations; investing in processing; investing in access to services and focusing R&D on what is appropriate for small-scale producers; investing in sustainable agriculture; and empowering women. The G8 and other donor countries and developing country governments should prioritise leveraging investment in small-scale farming and small to medium enterprises.
December 2012 GFS 23A
Further written evidence submitted by Oxfam GB
Oxfam GB welcomes the opportunity to make a submission to the Committee’s inquiry on global food security. Oxfam works with partners around the world to find lasting solutions to poverty and injustice. As part of Oxfam International, a confederation of more than 17 Oxfam affiliates around the world we work in more than 90 countries and respond to an average of 30 emergency situations each year. Oxfam believes that people are entitled to five fundamental rights: a sustainable livelihood; basic social services; life and security; to be heard; and equity. We work to support people in realising these rights and fight poverty and suffering through campaigning, long-term development work, and emergency response.
Introduction
1. There is enough food in the world to feed everyone. And yet one in eight women, men and children go to bed hungry every night. Despite the fact that the 500 million small farms in the world currently feed a third of humanity, most of the people going hungry are small scale food producers themselves, and 60 to 80 percent of them are women (whose rights to land, credit, resources and political voice are often denied). As rising and volatile food prices compound the effects of the economic crisis, parents struggle to feed their children. And climate change means that their children’s futures are increasingly uncertain.
2. Faced with the challenge of hunger and a resource constrained world the international policy response has been inadequate, or in some cases directly harmful. Increased biofuel production is directly putting pressure on the resources needed to grow food as well as contributing to rising food prices. The level of investment in agriculture in the developing world has been inadequate and there has been a failure to govern satisfactorily private investment such as large scale land acquisitions or to bring transparency to global food markets.
3. Oxfam’s GROW campaign had built on our decades of experience working with poor families and communities in developing countries to address some of the root causes of food insecurity. In 2013 we are joining with other major development and aid agencies to launch a joint campaign on food and hunger. This submission outlines some of the key factors in food insecurity: The trends of climate change and rising, volatile food prices, and advocates the need to invest in smallholder agriculture, the need to protect land rights, and to address biofuels. This is in no way a complete picture of every aspect of the global food system that needs addressing – but where there are significant gabs we try to point to further Oxfam reading that may be useful.
Climate change1
1. As Oxfam has seen from our programmes around the world, the impacts of climate change are already starting to affect food production. Creeping, insidious changes in the seasons, such as longer, hotter dry periods, shorter growing seasons, and unpredictable rainfall patterns are making it harder for farmers to know when best to sow, cultivate, and harvest their crops. Slow onset changes like gradual temperature increases and changing rainfall patterns are expected to put downward pressure on yields.
1 See further Oxfam, 2011, Growing a Better Future: Food Justice in a Resource Constrained World, available at: http://www.oxfam.org/en/grow/reports/growing-better-future; and Oxfam, 2012, Extreme Weather, Extreme Prices, available at: http://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/20120905-ib- extreme-weather-extreme-prices-en.pdf GFS 23A
2. Climate change will also increase the frequency and severity of extreme weather events such as heatwaves, droughts and floods which can wipe out entire harvests at a stroke. In March 2012 a special report on extreme weather by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned of ‘unprecedented extreme weather and climate events’ in the future. The 2012 US drought, the most severe in over half a century, shows that weather-related shocks, especially in major crop exporting countries, can cause prices to shoot up. Such events can trigger political responses which cause prices to escalate further, like the Russian export ban in response to the 2010 drought.
3. Oxfam commissioned research estimates that average global prices for key staples could double by 2030, with up to half this increase caused by slow onset impacts of climate change.2 On top of this, recent Oxfam commissioned research suggests that one or more extreme events in a single year could bring about short-term price spikes of comparable magnitude to two decades of projected long-run price increases.3
4. Our food system cannot cope with unmitigated climate change. Reducing hunger means tackling emissions and fast. The UK meeting its domestic carbon budgets in line with the advice of the Climate Change Committee, pushing the EU to move to 30%, and continuing to take a leadership role internationally in pursuit of an ambitious global deal in 2015, are critical to food security and this should be consistent messaging from DfID within Whitehall.
5. Scaling up international climate finance to help developing countries adapt to the effects of climate change is also essential if we are to ensure food security in a warming world. The UK maintaining its commitment to provide £1.8billion in climate finance over the next two years is key. UK leadership to help secure global agreement on mobilizing new sources of climate finance, additional to aid, in particular carbon pricing of international transport which remains a promising new source will also be important.
Global and local food shocks4
6. High and increasingly volatile food prices are compounding the effects of the global economic crisis. Food prices are rising much quicker than wages all over the world. The poorest families spend as much as three quarters of their income on food, which means that even slight increases in the cost of food can affect families for generations. Assets, once sold off, take years to buy back. Working extra hours in second or third jobs, especially without enough to eat, leaves a legacy of exhaustion. Loans taken on to make up the gap between income and expenditure accumulate into crushing debt burdens. And missing meals, even for a relatively short period, can affect children for their entire lifetimes. Oxfam research shows that women in particular bear the brunt of higher prices. They often eat last and least, their assets are the first to be sold, and women often have to take on extra work in the precarious informal economy to support their families.5
2 The time period examined is 2010 to 2030, and average prices are determined based on extrapolations from 2004 prices in order to get the most comprehensive dataset available. See further, Willenbockel, 2011, Exploring Food Price Scenarios Towards 2030 with a Global Multi-Region Model, http://oxf.am/448 3 See further, Oxfam, 2012, Extreme weather, extreme prices: feeding a warming world. Available at: http://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/20120905-ib-extreme-weather-extreme-prices-en.pdf 4 See further, Oxfam, 2010, The Global Economic Crisis and Developing Countries. Available at: http://www.oxfam.org/en/policy/global-economic-crisis-and-developing-countries 5 See further Oxfam, 2011, Living on a Spike: How is the 2011 Food Crisis Affecting Poor People? Available at: http://www.oxfam.org/en/grow/policy/living-spike GFS 23A
7. Higher export prices for agricultural commodities should have benefitted millions of poor people who make their living from agriculture. But the commodity price spike was in the form of a shock, not a structural change in how our food is produced. Oxfam research shows that many farmers couldn’t wait until prices are high to sell their crop. These same farmers then need to buy food in lean periods, which drives prices up.6 Some vulnerable producers are so powerless that they are almost completely excluded from markets. Others participate in markets on poor terms – they lack negotiating power or options because of geographical isolation, they are price‐takers, or are engaged in monopolistic markets. Even for those producers who engage with markets on good terms, escalating input costs have often absorbed or even outstripped the increase in export prices.7
Impact of biofuels8
8. Evidence of the contribution of biofuel policies to rising and increasingly volatile food prices on international markets is so compelling that it led ten international bodies—including the IMF, the World Bank, the FAO and UNCTAD—to recommend in 2011 that G20 governments abolish biofuel mandates and subsidies. Not only do biofuel mandates put upward pressure on prices, they also increase volatility, contributing to sudden price spikes after bad harvests. Analysis by DEFRA suggests that suspending the EU biofuel mandate in 2018 could reduce global food price spikes by up to 35 percent.
9. The development of unsustainable land-based biofuels are undermining international food security, driving biodiversity loss and land grabs and risks making climate change worse. The recent European Commission proposal to cap the proportion of food-based biofuels that can count towards the 10 percent EU mandate for renewable energy in transport is not good enough: at the moment we use less than 5 percent biofuels in transport fuel, so not only would the proposal allow for an increase in the amount of food-based biofuels we use, but it would allow biofuels made from non-food crops to make up the difference - which use up our limited resources of land, water and soil.
10. To help reduce the pressure that biofuels policies are putting on food prices and increasingly scarce land and water resources, DfID should:
a. Push for the abolition of the EU’s distorting de facto biofuel mandate; b. Advocate within government for the scrapping of the UK’s own biofuels target, choosing to support only sustainable sources of renewable energy; and c. Contribute to the expected EC assessment of the social and environmental impact of the European biofuels mandate outside the EU, ensuring it recognises their impact on food security and land rights.
6 Oxfam, 2010, The Global Economic Crisis and Developing Countries. Available at: http://www.oxfam.org/en/policy/global-economic-crisis-and-developing-countries 7 See further Oxfam, 2012, Making Markets Empower the Poor: Programme perspectives on using markets to empower women and men living in poverty. Available at: http://policy- practice.oxfam.org.uk/publications/making-markets-empower-the-poor-programme-perspectives-on- using-markets-to-empo-188950 8 See further Oxfam, 2012, The Hunger Grains, available at: policy- practice.oxfam.org.uk/publications/the-hunger-grains-the-fight-is-on-time-to-scrap-eu-biofuel-mandates- 242997. GFS 23A
Competition for land use and global policy measures for greater transparency and accountability around land deals9
11. In the past decade global land deals have rapidly accelerated; in poor countries, foreign investors have been buying up an area of land the size of London every six days. Volatility of food prices has led richer countries that are dependent on food imports to acquire large amounts of land, and water, in developing countries in order to ensure a secure supply of food for their domestic needs. With food prices spiking again for the third time in four years, interest in land is likely to accelerate as rich countries try to secure their food supplies and investors see land as a good long-term bet.
12. Whilst positive investment in agriculture is to be welcomed, the scale of this fast-rising interest in land is outpacing the ability of national, regional and global governance to keep up. According to World Bank analysis, most land deals happen in countries with the weakest protection of rural land rights and promised benefits rarely materialise: large-scale land acquisitions and abuse of land rights go together all too often. Affected communities rarely have a say, and women are the least likely to be consulted even though they are often the most seriously affected.
13. Two-thirds of agricultural land deals by foreign investors are in countries with a serious hunger problem. And yet, perversely, much of this land is left idle. Of those who do intend to use the land they acquire, two-thirds intend to export everything they produce rather than make it available on local markets where it is desperately needed. The land acquired in the past decade has the potential to feed a billion people, equivalent to the number of people who go to bed hungry each night.
14. The UN Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land – agreed in May 2012 - pave the way for much-needed reforms to land governance, for example promoting equal rights for women in securing land title and encouraging states to ensure that poor people get legal help during land disputes. The key now is to ensure that governments now implement them in a process involving all relevant stakeholders, especially the most marginalised.
15. The World Bank Group is a key actor in this field as a standard setter for other investors, and as an investor itself. Oxfam is calling on the Bank to freeze its financing of land deals to provide the space to implement reforms and to send a clear signal to investors and governments that the risks associated with large-scale land deals are unacceptable.
16. It is encouraging to see land rights feature in the Prime Minister’s articulation of the foundations, or golden thread, of development. Next years’ G8 summit and the hunger summit preceding it are key opportunities for the UK to move this agenda forward.
17. To achieve governance and transparency of land deals, the UK needs to:
a. Put land grabbing on the agenda of the G8, promote G8 action to improve governance, transparency and accountability in land agreements, and press for G20 discussions on this issue.
9 See further, Oxfam, 2012, Our Land, Our Lives: Time Out on the Global Land Rush. Available at: http://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/bn-land-lives-freeze-041012-en_1.pdf; and Oxfam, 2011, Land and Power: The Growing Scandal Surrounding the New Wave of Investments in Land. Available at: http://policy-practice.oxfam.org.uk/publications/land-and-power-the-growing-scandal- surrounding-the-new-wave-of-investments-in-l-142858. GFS 23A
b. Push for implementation of all relevant aspects of the UN Voluntary Guidelines on land tenure. c. Push for the World Bank to review the impact of its funding of land acquisitions on communities and the environment, and change Bank policies to make sure they prevent land grabs. World Bank Lending involving large-scale land acquisitions should be frozen for six months to provide space to start this process. d. Use its G8 presidency to launch a under a new land partnership, in partnership with developing country governments, businesses, and civil society, to improve transparency around land deals, to strengthen community capacity to negotiate and monitor deals, and to support dispute resolution.
Small holder agriculture and large scale farming10
18. Growth in small-scale agriculture benefits poor people twice as much as growth in other sectors. Small farms provide food for a staggering one third of the human race. In the past, industrialized agriculture has provided large yield gains but yield growth has fallen to just over 1 percent per year, well below rising demand. In contrast, there is much room for yield improvement on smallholder plots if smallholders are given access to resources they currently do not have. For example, the System of Rice Intensification, developed to help smallholders increase yields, was associated with average yield increases of 47 percent and average reductions in water use of 40 percent.
19. Well-targeted public and private investment can provide women and men with the resources they need to use their land more productively, to help themselves out of poverty and to cope with unexpected shocks. Simply targeting investment towards women farmers to provide them with equal access to resources as men could reduce the number of hungry people by up to 150 million. Donors play a role in bolstering developing country governments’ budgets to support development of strong and effective regulatory frameworks and delivery of critical public goods for agriculture, which are particularly important for the food security and livelihoods of small- scale producers that are not yet market ready.
20. Aid to agriculture collapsed in recent decades, from 17 percent of all aid in 1980 to under 4 percent in 2006. While it has rebounded slightly since the 2008 food price crisis, it is still well below the amounts needed. An Oxfam review of the UK’s bilateral and multilateral spending showed that spending on agriculture is significant, but that impossible to know how much money is going to support small-scale producers, partly because most of this money is spent through multilateral agencies with little impact evaluation.
21. Therefore, the UK should do the following:
a. Fulfil existing commitments to spend 0.7 percent of gross national income on aid by 2013 and bring forward legislation in or before the 2013 Queen’s Speech. b. From within this increase, commit to spend at least an additional £425 million per year in sustainable small-scale agriculture as their fair share of the amount of investment in agriculture and rural development needed to achieve zero hunger by 2025. c. Work with other donors to improve effectiveness, commissioning a joint evaluation of support to small-scale food producers and evaluating support to small-scale food producers on an ongoing basis against poverty, food security, and nutrition goals. The
10 See further Oxfam, 2011, Growing a Better Future: Food Justice in a Resource Constrained World, available at: http://www.oxfam.org/en/grow/reports/growing-better-future GFS 23A
first step is for DFID to clearly define the objectives of its support to agriculture, including small-scale agriculture, and how it will achieve those goals.
22. Achieving a world free from hunger by 2025 through supporting agriculture and rural development is estimated to cost the public sector (donors and governments) an additional $42.7 bn per year. The UK Government should use its presidency of the G8, which has promised to support country agriculture investment plans, including The Comprehensive African Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) to achieve agreement to mobilise DAC donors towards funding their fair share of this. It is also important to ensure that private sector commitments are additional to public sector commitments, are transparent, and help to improve food security by supporting sustainable small-scale production.
The role of the private sector11
23. When private investment is done well, it can act as a catalyst for innovation and job creation, inclusive growth and the protection of our precious environmental resources. It is important to recognise that investment by farmers themselves is more than three times as large as other sources of agricultural investment combined. In order to benefit the poorest, business models should adhere to some key principles: focusing on staple food crops and diversified cropping; investing in local and regional markets; working with producer organisations; investing in processing; investing in access to services and focusing R&D on what is appropriate for small- scale producers; investing in sustainable agriculture; and empowering women.
24. Some commercial investments in agriculture are undesirable under any circumstances, for example if investments lead to large-scale clearances or make no contribution to domestic food security. A good regulatory environment is crucial: governments need to incentivise the right kinds of private investment to flow into agriculture, as well as regulate once the investments are made.
25. The G8’s New Alliance on Food and Nutrition Security, the World Economic Forum’s New Vision for Agriculture, and Grow Africa all recognise the important role that private sector investment plays in agriculture. However, there is a worrying lack of evidence supporting the growing trend of ‘blending’ ODA with private funds to leverage private finance for development purposes; a recent report by the World Bank’s Independent Evaluation Group pointed out that less than half of IFC’s projects successfully reached the poor.
a. The G8 and other donor countries and developing country governments should prioritise leveraging investment in small-scale farming and small to medium enterprises. b. Blended non-ODA funds should never be counted as a contribution towards existing aid commitments.
December 2012
11 See further, Oxfam, 2012, Private Investment in Agriculture: Why it’s essential and what’s needed. www.oxfam.org/en/grow/policy/private-investment-agriculture-why-essential-whats-needed GFS 24
Written evidence submitted by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Agriculture and Food for Development
1. The All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Agriculture and Food for Development welcomes this International Development Committee Inquiry into Global Food Security. The APPG calls for smallholder farmers (smallholders are generally farms less than 2 hectares, in developing countries, where farmers and their families work their own land) to be considered of paramount importance to addressing global hunger and eradicating poverty. Acknowledging that giving smallholder farmers’ rights and assistance to create viable businesses, is a key component of a coherent food system, and should be prioritised in policy making and in investment decisions. Addressing food insecurity means empowering smallholder farmers to move from subsistence farming, through public and private sector support - with strong information and technology transfer - to profitable small businesses. There is a broad spectrum of policy interventions needed to ensure the empowerment of smallholder farmers; however, once this intervention has been made, the opportunity for smallholder farmers to thrive without further overseas development assistance is expected. This requires reliable financing, strong public sector support and an enabling environment for private sector investment which will underpin the transformation from subsistence farmers (farming that provides for the basic needs of the farmer without surpluses for marketing) to successful small businesses. Donors, multilateral institutions, NGOs, private sector companies and countries themselves must consider the 450 million smallholder farmers worldwide as central agents to reducing global hunger and, given the right support, able to grow themselves out of poverty, for good.
Introduction
2. The APPG on Agriculture and Food for Development brings together Parliamentarians concerned with agriculture, nutrition and food security in the developing world. The Group promotes support for the developmental needs of the 450 million smallholder farmers who feed 2 billion people worldwide. It engenders progressive and informed debate within Westminster and beyond by bridging the gap between policy makers, agricultural development specialists and practitioners in the field.
3. The APPG was established in October 2008 in response to growing concerns over the heightened Food Crisis and a steady decline in the funding of agricultural development both by bilateral and multilateral organisations over nearly two decades. Chaired by Lord Cameron of Dillington, the GFS 24
APPG is a cross-party initiative drawing members from both Houses of the UK Parliament which brings together Parliamentarians concerned with both the technical, and social science, of agricultural development in poorer parts of the world. It uses its cross-party membership to raise the understanding of developmental needs of smallholder farmers and other stakeholders in developing countries and hence facilitates debate on the level of support given by the British Government and other major donors. In doing this, the APPG recognises the pivotal role that agricultural research outputs have in helping smallholder farmers to increase their productivity and in eliminating global poverty.
4. The promotion of efficient agriculture is one of the most effective tools to ensure economic, social and political well-being in Africa. Significantly, because most African farmers are female, agriculture can boost the economic and social status of women, empowering them to make decisions about their own lives and those of their families. Evidence shows that farmer parents who move from subsistence to surplus tend to spend any available cash on educating their children. Efficient agriculture can boos nutrition and specifically reduce the nutritional shortcomings of expectant and recent mothers whilst simultaneously boosting the physical health and cognitive well-being of their children. So agricultural investment returns not only a healthy citizen, capable of achieving their full potential and less likely to require healthcare interventions later in life, but also an important increase in national overall productivity. What’s more, good agricultural practice adds resilience to individual livelihoods and fosters environmental sustainability. By turning subsistence agriculture into a vibrant, profitable and sustainable rural sector, countries can make progress towards virtually all the Millennium Development Goals. Smallholder farmers in Africa represent the largest economically productive business sector in the developing world, yet produce just one-sixth of the output of their colleagues in Europe or North America. The latent potential of this sector is clear.
5. For sub-Saharan Africa and many other poor countries, agriculture and the economy are synonymous. Few countries have developed their economy without first developing their agriculture. So through catalytic funding that develops equitable, accessible markets that work for the poorest and most vulnerable, governments can reach millions of people in an effective manner. Such measures can also reach those too remote to benefit from traditional development partnerships. World Bank studies have demonstrated that growth in agriculture is at least twice as effective at reducing poverty as growth in any other sector of the economy, whilst a 1% growth in agriculture has been shown to generate approximately 1.5% growth in GFS 24
nonagricultural sectors. Smallholder agriculture provides wages, food and assets for the vast majority of Africans.
6. Smallholder farmers have often been thought of as inefficient when compared with larger estates, however, with the right support, that is not the case. When smallholder farmers have access to technical advice, inputs, and technologies, including high-yielding seeds, affordable fertilizer, and irrigation, they can be as efficient as much larger farms, sometimes more so.
Agriculture and Nutrition
7. The APPG are currently in the evidence gathering phase of a report (“Home Grown Nutrition”) into the role of agricultural interventions for smallholder farmers aimed at improved nutrition and health. This report will be published before the UK’s Presidency of the G8 held in Northern Ireland in June. Regarding linkages between agriculture and nutrition, a well-developed agriculture sector will deliver increased and diversified farm outputs (crops, livestock, non-food products) and this may enhance food and nutrition security directly through increased access to and consumption of diverse foods, or indirectly through greater profits to farmers and national wealth. The links also work in reverse in that better nutrition and health of farmers increases their agricultural and economic productivity. The APPG reports in more detail on this topic before the G8 but wishes to point out that using agriculture and the potential of smallholder farmers to grow more nutritious and varied crops, for their own consumption, can be a sustainable way to improve nutrition and health for even the smallest farmers, without an overreliance on nutritional supplement handouts.
Land Ownership
8. With regard to the ownership of land, particularly on the continent of Africa, this cannot be seen as an easy to fix problem for donors and external agencies. Land tenure is extremely complex and often rooted in cultural traditions and law. What is clear however, is that smallholder farmers need secure land tenure (whether through ownership or through rent of land) so that they can invest in the development of their farm, without fears that there land will be taken from them. 9. Regarding the acquisition of land by foreign investors, this can lead to beneficial impacts for smallholders when the investment is responsible, transparent and inclusive of all of the people GFS 24
affected by the purchase. Employing smallholder farmers as out growers to a large farm in the centre (‘hub and spokes’ or ‘nucleus’ model) can be one of the most risk free forms of farming (see FAO Report 2012). It is important to note that outside investment that does not respect local customs, without consultation or transparency does have a very detrimental impact on smallholders’ livelihoods and thus land investment must be carefully managed and monitored.
Agriculture and Water Management
10. Agriculture accounts for 70% of all global water usage. According to the UN World Water Development Report, “Few countries are conscious of how much water they use, for which purposes and how much they can withdraw without serious environmental consequences”. Yet without this measured approach, the risks to production could increase food price volatility and undermine private sector development gains made elsewhere. Fair recognition of water’s role in food production provides developing countries with an opportunity to develop fair prices for agricultural goods; prices which represent both the cost of production and its environmental impact. Establishing a basic minimum water right will ensure cooperation between farms of all sizes to achieve environmental sustainability.
The role of the Private Sector
11. There is a growing appreciation that the answer to long-term sustainable agricultural development including smallholder farmers lies, at least in part, in the private sector and the encouragement of more commercially oriented farmers. Farming is a commercial enterprise but the private sector has not always engaged well with smallholders. Governments, with assistance from donors, must act to create the conditions that attract pro-poor private sector investment to secure and sustain the livelihoods of smallholder farmers. This by its very nature needs to be a long-term venture. Government’s role in kick-starting a commercially-viable smallholder agriculture should include the building of infrastructure such as rural roads; the provision of inputs through subsidy schemes; the removal of barriers to an effective marketplace; and frameworks for coordination and cooperation of public sector partnerships with the private sector.
12. The African Enterprise Challenge Fund is a relatively new financial instrument which seems to indicate that private sector engagement with smallholders can have potentially game-changing GFS 24
impacts. Challenge Funds engage the private sector as key actors in development by awarding multi donor cost-shared grants. These deliver programmes, with both business and pro-poor agendas, in areas which business would not ordinarily be willing to engage. Innovation and additionality are key attributes that ensure added value in areas that would otherwise face high risk barriers of implementation and where commercial banks would not provide support. The Challenge Fund aims to unlock the longer-term potential for the business in terms of its profitability, sustainability and high developmental impacts.
13. Initiatives such as the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition as well as the Scaling-up Nutrition movement are instrumental in ensuring private sector companies are encouraged to invest responsibly and sustainably in Africa’s agriculture and nutrition demands. It is very much hoped that the UK’s presidency of the G8 Summit in June 2013 also has a focus on agriculture, food security and nutrition, to ensure that all actors are engaged in helping create a commercially viable, equitable and inclusive food system which puts smallholder farmers at the centre.
14. Public and private sector investments in small-scale farming require consistency. Some investments may only see returns in the medium to longer term and a long-term commitment (minimum of seven or eight years) is often required for smallholder farmers to lift themselves out of poverty. Although private enterprise will drive investment in the agricultural sector, governments have an important role to play as providers of public goods as well as targeted support and facilitating an enabling business environment. Any targets to ensure food security and create an equitable food system must involve the private sector – without which innovation, funds and market access will remain elusive for many smallholder farmers.
15. The private sector should be encouraged to invest in agriculture in a responsible and sustainable way, ensuring that smallholder farmers are included in any developments of their land. This can provide a mutually beneficial arrangement for the outside company and the smallholders as a reliance on each other forms over time. Jacqueline Novogratz from Acumen Fund gives the example of “Patient Capital” which makes markets work for the poor by balancing seemingly competing aims: it is an investing approach with long time horizons; it’s about building systems that encourage – indeed demand – real, sustained, and honest engagement with low income people as active participants; it uses markets not to maximise profits but as a listening device, because when someone has the choice to pay for a product (even at a subsidised price) she has GFS 24
the chance to have a say about what she desires, what she feels is worthwhile, what she does
and does not want.
16. In recent years, innovative partnerships between the public, commercial and voluntary sectors have helped to identify the critical policy, regulatory, coordination and investment actions needed from the public sector to develop productive, competitive, profitable and equitable agri- food systems in sub-Saharan Africa. These partnerships put smallholder farmers at the centre of their business strategy as they acknowledge the central role that smallholders play in contributing to the food system across the world. An example of this is the C:AVA (Cassava : Adding Value for Africa) project where, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, a partnership has been forged between smallholder farmers in Ghana, Tanzania, Uganda, Nigeria and Malawi. This is in partnership with public universities and research institutes in UK and Africa, and private sector processors and end users to develop value chains to manufacture and distribute high quality cassava flour.
Post-harvest Losses
17. Developing countries can suffer very significant post-harvest losses of food. Global demand for food is expected to rise by as much as 70% in the next 40 years, yet reduction of post-harvest losses could offset over half that additional need while increasing the incomes of smallholder farmers. Often only very basic interventions will prevent losses, which generally occur close to where the crops are grown and are the result of lack of expertise, incentive or the ability to adopt preventative measures. Levels of losses, and the preventative measures that may be adopted, range from the relatively stable commodities such as cereal grains, pulses and oil seeds, to more perishable items such as fruit, vegetables, fish and meat. For cereal grains, pulses and oil seeds, losses commonly occur due to grain scattering or as a result of bio-deterioration caused by various pest activity.
18. Cumulative losses of cereals grains in sub-Saharan Africa typically range from 14 to 17%, with a potential value of around US$4bn per annum. For roots and tubers such as cassava, yams, sweet potatoes, etc, post-harvest losses are of the same order of magnitude. For example, Africa-wide cassava losses in 2002 were estimated to be about 18% or 101 million tonnes. Here, poor handling, marketing and transport are a particular problem. There are few accurate loss figures available for fruit and vegetables. Unlike grains, there are no generally accepted methods for assessing losses of fresh produce. Individual case studies give losses ranging from 0% to 100%. GFS 24
Losses of the very perishable animal and fishery products can be very high, although surprisingly few reliable studies are available. Aggregated figures for Africa suggest that for fish, financial losses would be at least US$ 70 million for each percentage point of loss. Much more investment is needed into research on loss prevention measures and disseminating best practice for prevention.
Knowledge transfer and learning
19. Farmers throughout the globe realise the importance of knowledge and information. Nowhere is this truer than in developing countries, like sub-Saharan Africa, where the margins between success and failure are so small but the consequences so great.
20. Centuries of practice show that smallholders are determined and resilient. Although they usually have a desire to upgrade their technical knowledge, they tend to be risk averse. Currently, however, not only are small-scale poor farmers not receiving appropriate information on new or improved agriculture techniques, but in many cases they have also lost the traditional knowledge of a generation of farmers decimated by the AIDS epidemic. A means must be found to support new and innovative extension systems, farmer field schools and other methods of reaching diverse and spread-out populations. In this way, existing indigenous knowledge can be recorded, adapted and used in combination with new information and techniques. The increasing local capacity, augmented by partner organisations, can then transfer this knowledge to other farmers. This is particularly important if we are to achieve that important transition from subsistence to market orientated production.
21. Reliable, timely and accurate information allows farmers to mitigate some of the many risks faced in their day-to-day activities. Much of the knowledge required, such as that on improved seeds, production techniques and post-harvest storage already exists, although it usually needs adapting to local contexts. Yet there is a real problem in terms of the separation of research, teaching, extension and policymaking which permeates both the developing and developed world.
GFS 24
Conclusions
22. The greatest poverty in Africa remains that of information and knowledge. All countries must continue to invest in agricultural research, both on an international and local scale. The biggest problem to be overcome remains communicating the considerable progress being made in the research stations to the mostly-female farmers on the ground. What’s also required is an effective feed-back loop, allowing smallholders to be active agents in developing solutions to their problems. Local Governments must be encouraged to properly fund their agricultural extension services and to understand their importance. Use of new technology can help to provide solutions to this problem but needs reliable investment and capacity building.
23. There is no doubt that development of a varied and mixed-crop agriculture will help prevent the serious malnutrition that currently exists in some parts of the world and the APPG’s forthcoming report will look to explore these themes in much more detail.
24. The APPG firmly believes that by turning subsistence agriculture into a vibrant, profitable and sustainable rural sector, countries can make progress towards virtually all the Millennium Development Goals. If smallholder farmers can be supported and integrated into value chains and local markets, they have significant potential to stimulate the rural economies of the areas in which they operate. Reliable financing, strong public sector support and an enabling environment for private sector investment will underpin the transformation from subsistence farmers to successful small businesses. Thus smallholders can feed themselves and their families, be resilient to shocks and develop their capacity become responsible entrepreneurial farmers, integrated into local value-chains.
December 2012
GFS 25
Written evidence submitted by WaterAid
1. Summary
1.1. WaterAid an international organisation working to transform lives by improving access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) in the world’s poorest communities. We work with partners in 27 countries in Africa, Asia, Central America and the Pacific region, and influence decision-makers to maximise our impact.
1.2. This response focuses on the following issue: “The success or otherwise of the global food system in guaranteeing food security and eliminating under-nutrition with particular reference to women, children and other vulnerable groups”
2. Nutrition is not solely determined by food
2.1. The World Health Organisation (WHO) defines three aspects of food security: 2.1.1. Food availability: sufficient quantities of food available on a consistent basis. 2.1.2. Food access: having sufficient resources to obtain appropriate foods for a nutritious diet. 2.1.3. Food use: appropriate use based on knowledge of basic nutrition and care, as well as adequate water and sanitation.
3.1. Nutrition is dependent on all three, but food use is neglected in responses. In particular, clean water, adequate sanitation and good hygiene are vital to ensuring safe ‘use’ of food and therefore the delivery of nutritional outcome. The global food system alone cannot eradicate under-nutrition.
3.2. This neglect is partly because there is still limited evidence demonstrating these linkages (DFID’s own WASH portfolio review acknowledges this evidence gap). However, a lack of evidence does not mean that there is not a link, and the forthcoming DFID-funded systematic review of the links between WASH and nutrition will gather the existing evidence and identify knowledge gaps. Without pre-empting the review, based on emerging evidence, we would expect a clearer picture of the links and hope that DFID (and the wider development community) will respond to this accordingly by increasing the emphasis on water and sanitation in their food security and nutrition policies.
GFS 25
3.3. The forthcoming review will provide a more comprehensive and robust analysis of the evidence, but WaterAid has identified several indications of the links between WASH and nutrition.
3.4. Direct links between WASH and nutrition: The WHO estimates that 50% of malnutrition is associated with repeated diarrhoea or intestinal nematode infections as a result of unsafe water, inadequate sanitation or insufficient hygiene. 3.4.1. Diarrhoea, largely caused by lack of water, sanitation and hygiene, is the second leading disease cause of death in children under-five globally, and its constant presence in low-income settings contributes significantly to under-nutrition. 3.4.2. Nematode infections such as soil-transmitted helminthiases, caused by lack of sanitation and hygiene, affect around 2 billion people globally and can lead to diarrhoea, anaemia, protein loss and growth retardation. 3.4.3. Environmental (or tropical) enteropathy is a syndrome causing changes in the small intestine of individuals living in conditions lacking basic sanitary facilities and chronically exposed to faecal contamination. These changes to the intestine can lead to poor absorption of nutrients, stunting in children, and intestinal perforation.
3.5. Indirect links between WASH and nutrition: The time taken to fetch water, and the cost of water purchased from vendors when it is not readily available in the home, impact on the amounts and quality of water consumed as well as on hygiene practices, which in turn impact on nutrition. Additionally, time spent sick with water-borne diseases or collecting water impedes educational attainment, which has a significant impact on health, well-being and poverty over a lifetime and potentially over multiple generations.
December 2012
GFS 26 Written evidence submitted by ActionAid
About us
Founded as a British charity in 1972, ActionAid is an international NGO working in 45 countries worldwide, and our positions and recommendations reflect the experiences of our staff and partners in Africa, Asia, the Americas and Europe. Our vision is a world without poverty and injustice in which every person enjoys the right to a life with dignity. We work with poor and excluded people to eradicate poverty and injustice.
Drawing on ActionAid’s long experience of promoting food rights, this submission highlights in particular our concerns and recommendations on the impact of biofuels on global food security.
GFS 26
SUMMARY
ActionAid1 welcomes this inquiry. The global food system is failing to ensure the right to food for an estimated 2.56 billion people daily. Only deep reforms will ensure a resilient and sustainable food system capable of feeding 9.3 billion people by 2050.
Current policies – such as the introduction of mandates for the use of biofuels in transport fuels are adding to the problem. Forecasts suggest the EU‘s biofuel policies may increase food prices by up to 36% by 2020, reducing the food intake of the world’s poorest people.The period 2001-10 saw 203 million hectares of land around the world under consideration in large-scale land acquisitions. (See Section A)
Crops for possible biofuel use are estimated to account for 58% of global land acquisitions. Much of this land could produce food or had been previously. The UK must commit to ending the use of food for fuel by calling for the removal of land-based biofuels from EU mandates. It must also do more to persuade other Member States to follow suit. (See Section A)
This year represents an important opportunity for the UK to demonstrate effective global leadership by using forums such as the G8 in June 2013 and the preceding Hunger Summit to commit to take action. As the Government will play host to key global players, there can be no better time to make the case for effective and long-lasting reform.
Reforms must prioritise the eradication of gender discrimination as a key way to promote food security. Women farmers are not receiving enough support from governments and donors. In addition the waste of food – currently a third of produce – through the production of biofuels, animal feed and for use in industry must be addressed. (See Sections B & C)
Population and income growth, urbanisation, changing consumption patterns, stagnant yields, demand for land, feed and biofuels, as well as climate change, biodiversity loss and environmental degradation, are driving limited resources of food, energy, water and materials towards critical thresholds. (See Sections D & E)
Food demand will increase as incomes rise and diets switch towards more meat and dairy. Meanwhile, the effects of climate change could place 526 million people in the tropics at increased risk of hunger by 2050. (See Sections F & G)
GFS 26 In order to promote global food security, and demonstrate its commitment to ending hunger and ensuring the right to food for all, in our submission we propose the UK Government:
1. Scrap its target to have 5% biofuel in transport fuel 2. Push for zero crop-based biofuel to count towards the European Union’s 10% renewable energy in transport target and lobby for the EU to account for the true scale of carbon emissions by including “indirect land use change” in calculations 3. Use its financial and political influence, including in the G8 and G20, to improve governance, transparency and accountability around large-scale land acquisitions in developing countries, ensuring protection of human rights 4. Push for implementation of all relevant aspects of the UN Voluntary Guidelines on land tenure 5. Ensure renegotiation of the principles on responsible agricultural investment at the UN’s Committee on World Food Security reflect the fact that investment must work for poor communities 6. Work within the G20 and use its G8 leadership to strengthen the level and quality of development finance for agriculture through increased aid, the promotion of pro-poor investment and firm steps to tackle tax evasion 7. Use its influence to help ensure the UN Committee on World Food Security is supported as the foremost inter-governmental platform for coordinating global food security efforts and addressing the structural problems affecting the right to food 8. Support policies and programmes that tackle gender discrimination 9. Strengthen links between agriculture and climate change by increasing UK support, including finance, for national adaptation plans 10. Support, financially and politically, well governed national and regional food reserves 11. Back national and global efforts to support social protection as a vital tool to fight hunger 12. Ensure DFID programmes focus more support towards agro-ecology and women’s rights.
GFS 26 INQUIRY ISSUES
A. Land competition – the impact of biofuels on food security
A.1 Land competition in developing countries has intensified over the past decade, due partly to rising agricultural and land prices driven by population growth and rising demand for food, biofuels, raw materials and timber.2
A.2 Globally, in 2001-10, 203 million hectares of land were under consideration or negotiation in large-scale land acquisitions.3 Crops that could be used for biofuel are estimated to account for 58%of all global land acquisitions (with agriculture and livestock explicitly 18% of deals and forestry 13%). Two-thirds of land acquired for biofuels was in Africa.4 Land used to produce biofuels for consumption in the EU in 2008 was enough to feed 127 million people.5
A.3 Women are often the first victims of ‘land grabs’, especially when they do not have legal titles to the land they farm – often identified by governments and investors as ‘available’ for biofuel production.6
A.4 Biofuels have several effects on food security and nutrition. The impact of the EU‘s biofuel policies suggests that, by 2020, oilseed prices may increase by up to 20%, vegetable oil prices 36%, maize prices 22% and wheat prices 13%.7 Higher agricultural and food prices, such as maize, decrease food availability to the poorest people, who spend up to 75% of their income on food. Rising prices could affect the intake of vegetable oils and fats important for energy, essential fatty acids and vital nutrients.8
A.5 More volatile prices make it difficult for poor farmers to respond to the market because of increased uncertainty and risk. Evidence of biofuel policies’ contribution to rising and increasingly volatile food prices on international markets is so compelling that, in 2011, ten major international bodies recommended G20 governments abolish biofuel mandates and subsidies.9
A.6 Locally, biofuel projects have displaced small-scale producers from their land, as in Tanzania, Guatemala, Indonesia, Brazil and Colombia.10 Plantations take food land out of production and poor wages do not compensate for loss of livelihoods. In Tanzania food harvests fell 11% in 2008-11 as farmers left their land to work on plantations; many people told ActionAid they cannot afford three meals a day.11
A.7 Scarce water resources are also being diverted from other vital uses to biofuels production as in Mozambique and Kenya.12
GFS 26 The UK should Scrap its target to have 5% biofuel in transport fuel Push for zero crop-based biofuel to count towards the European Union’s 10% renewable energy in transport target and lobby for the EU to account for the true scale of carbon emissions by including “indirect land use change” in calculations Push for implementation of all relevant aspects of the UN Voluntary Guidelines on land tenure Use its influence, including in the G8 and G20, to improve governance, transparency and accountability around large-scale land acquisitions in developing countries, ensuring protection of human rights Ensure renegotiation of the principles on responsible agricultural investment at the UN’s Committee on World Food Security reflect the fact that investment must work for poor communities
GFS 26 B. Success/failure of global food system in guaranteeing food security and eliminating under-nutrition with reference to women, children and other vulnerable groups
B.1 The global food system currently fails to ensure the right to adequate food for an estimated 2.56 billion poor people daily. Reforms at multiple levels are needed to ensure a more equitable, resilient and sustainable food system capable of feeding 9.3 billion people by 2050.13
B.2 The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, based on a narrow definition of the minimum calorie intake necessary for a “sedentary lifestyle”, estimates 852 million people in developing countries are chronically undernourished. 14 Significantly, when FAO uses a more realistic definition of “normal activity” (involving a higher minimum calorie intake), the number of undernourished is 1.52 billion, rising to 2.56 billion in the case of “intense activity” or 44.7% of the developing world population.15
B.3 ActionAid’s village-level surveys indicate it is predominantly the poorest, powerless and most marginalised – such as the landless, female-headed households, smallholders, urban unemployed, children, minorities, the remote, disabled, low caste, tribal and indigenous groups – who are most vulnerable to hunger and malnutrition.16
B.4 Hunger stems from disempowerment, marginalisation and poverty. People are not hungry because too little food is produced but because they cannot afford or access available food, or lack the means to produce it. It is symptomatic that a third of food produced globally for human consumption is wasted17 and half of grain production is diverted to animal feed, industrial use and biofuels,18 while 1.4 billion people are overweight or obese.19
B.5 Under-recognised is the impact of gender discrimination on food security and nutrition. Most of world’s hungry are women and girls. Women represent the majority of small farmers who produce 90% of the world’s food and, in Africa, research shows women produce 20% more than men. Yet women’s vital role in food supply is under-supported by governments and donors.20
The UK should Support policies and programmes that tackle gender discrimination
GFS 26 C. Smallholder agriculture, women and new technologies
C1 As agriculture is a source of livelihoods for 86% of rural people, or an estimated 2.5 billion people, 21 DFID should uphold and build on its policy of prioritising smallholder agriculture as a route out of poverty and hunger,22 23including promotion of a stronger gender focus. Many smallholders and agricultural workers are women, who face discrimination and unequal access to land, public goods, services and resources compared to men.24
C.2 The UK government endorsed the groundbreaking findings of the five-year, multi-stakeholder IAASTD report, 25 which called for a paradigm shift towards adopting agro-ecology sciences in agriculture and rural development. But DFID’s portfolio shows few signs of promoting agro-ecology.
C.3 There is ample evidence that agro-ecology is highly productive and offers millions of smallholder farmers affordable, accessible, low-carbon and locally- adaptable models of agricultural development and resilience to meet multiple food security, climate change and environmental challenges.
C.4 Crop yields increased by an average 79% in a survey of 286 agro-ecology initiatives in 57 countries covering 37 million hectares on 12.6 million small farms. 26 UN agencies found yields increased by 116% in 114 agro-ecology projects across Africa, and by 128% in East Africa.27 A Foresight survey of 40 agro-ecology initiatives in 20 African countries on 12.8 million hectares found yields increased by a factor of 2.13 and, over a 3-10-year period, increased aggregate food production by 5.79 million tonnes annually, equivalent to 557 kg per farming household.28
The UK should Ensure DFID programmes focus on the needs of women small-holders and increase support for agro-ecology
GFS 26 D. Implications of demographic trends, rising income and climate change on global food system and key indicators of food security and good nutrition
D.1 Population and income growth, urbanisation, changing consumption patterns, stagnant yields, growing demand for land, feed and biofuels, as well as the impact of climate change, biodiversity loss and environmental degradation, are driving limited resources of food, energy, water and materials towards critical thresholds.29
D.2 A “nutrition transition” is underway as population growth and rising incomes in many developing countries increase food demand and diets switch towards eating more eggs, meat, fish and dairy.
D.3 Though annual population growth is set to slow to 0.4% by 2050, the UN projects 9.3 billion people by 2050 and 10 billion by 2083.30 Much of this rise is expected in high-fertility countries, 39 of these in Africa, nine in Asia, six in Oceania and four in Latin America. 31 Asia's population is expected to peak around 5.2 billion in 2052, while Africa’s may more than triple to 3.6 billion in 2100.32 Some 86% of population growth by 2020 will occur in mega-cities and large urban centres in developing countries.33
D.4 As food demand surges, climate change is expected to have far-reaching impacts on crop productivity, particularly in tropical areas. In sub-Saharan Africa, arid and semi-arid areas are projected to increase by 60 million to 90 million hectares,34 with yields from rain-fed agriculture in Southern Africa reduced by up to an estimated 50% by 2020.35 Yields in central and south Asia could decline by 30% by 2050.36 Such trends could place further upward pressure on food prices.
D.5 While farmers in some areas will gain (eg Black Sea region), CGIAR’s Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) programme estimates 526 million people face increased risk of hunger in the tropics by 2050 because of climate change.37
D.6 Scientists estimate global production of wheat and maize fell by 3.8% and 5.5% respectively over the last three decades as a result of climate change.38 CCAFS says unless farmers adapt by 2050, wheat yields in irrigated systems in developing countries will fall by around 13%, irrigated rice yields by 15%, and maize harvests in Africa by 10-20%.39
D.7 CCAFS has identified hunger hotspots potentially highly vulnerable to climate change by 2050, saying most of the tropics will experience changes in growing conditions that will require adaptation to current agricultural systems.40
D.8 CCAFS projects Southern Africa as having the largest area with multiple climate change threats.41 Next are northeast Brazil, Mexico, Guyana, Nicaragua, and areas in Tanzania, Ethiopia, DR Congo, Uganda, India, Pakistan and the Middle East.42
GFS 26 D.9 High-input agriculture is a key driver of climate change. Crop and livestock agriculture account for about 15% of total emissions, including direct greenhouse gas emissions (methane, nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide) and indirect emissions (from fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides). Land use change, much driven by expansion of agricultural area, adds another 15-17%.43
The UK should Strengthen links between agriculture and climate change by increasing UK support, including finance, for national adaptation plans
GFS 26 E. Impact of global/local food shocks, how countries/regions cope, the role of democracy in increasing food security
E.1 High and volatile food prices were devastating for millions in Asia, Africa and Latin America during the 2007-08 and 2010-11 food price crises, highlighting the fragility of a food system that, in the developing world, had also faced sharp declines in international aid for agriculture.44
E.2 The 2007-08 crisis reversed years of development gains with the number of people in extreme poverty rising by 130-155 million. 45 A further 115 million people were driven into hunger,46 leading to a global record of 1.02 billion.47
E.3 Poor families cut the quality and quantity of food, struggled to pay for healthcare and education, took on debt, were forced to sell productive assets, and some engaged in risky sexual behaviour. Kids dropped out of school, and in some communities, children and the elderly were abandoned. 48 The poorest, landless and female-headed households were hardest hit.49 Protests and food riots occurred in 31 countries.
E.4 In early 2011 the World Bank estimated an additional 44 million people had been driven into extreme poverty since mid-2010 as food prices continued to rise.50 ActionAid surveys in 20 countries showed many poor families were hit by high local prices; families ate less nutritious food, cut out milk, meat and vegetables and often had only one meal a day.51 Women’s unpaid care burden increased and, like girls, they tended to get less to eat.
E.5 Some countries were successful in preventing price transmission from global to domestic markets in 2007-08. The price of rice decreased in Indonesia in 2008, for example, while it escalated for neighbours. The country’s effective response involved a mix of easing trade policies (cutting import tariffs) and applying trade restrictions or regulations (export bans, price control, or anti-speculation measures).
E.6 Successful measures to limit price rises depended primarily on governments’ ability to control domestic availability and regulate markets, often using pre- existing public systems. The release of public stocks, often coupled with food subsidies, was a key response. Stock interventions occurred in 35 countries, from Burkina Faso to Pakistan.52 National food reserves, when governed well, provide flexible and effective tools, and regional systems could strengthen regional coordination and integration.53
E.7 Safety nets helped mitigate the effects of high food prices. In Bangladesh, India, Brazil and Indonesia large-scale food-based safety nets combined social protection and support for food production. However, the bulk of the response was borne by people themselves; remittances from abroad jumped to $340 billion in 2008, a 40% rise on 2007.54
GFS 26 E.8 With democratic approaches playing a vital role, countries such as Bangladesh, Brazil, Malawi, Mozambique and Peru have significantly reduced hunger and malnutrition, according to UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Olivier De Schutter, who cites six success factors55 56
• Countries adopting a multi-sectoral approach on hunger and malnutrition • Political impetus from the highest level of government • Civil society participation and empowerment • Use of multi-phased approaches within multi-year national strategies • Establishment of institutions to monitor progress, ensuring political pressure for progress • Continuity of financial investment
The UK should Support, financially and politically, well governed national and regional food reserves
GFS 26 F. Role of international system, including food and agriculture organisations, the G8 and G20, and how to improve collaboration
F.1 Donors, including the UK, have moved since the crisis to increase aid for agriculture. But this has fallen well short of covering the huge funding gap needed to address hunger.57
F.2 The world also needs ambitious policy action to address the structural problems that contributed to the food-price crisis and have gone largely unaddressed since 2008. Changes should discourage biofuels expansion, limit land grabs, regulate speculation, encourage use of buffer stocks, curb fossil fuel dependence, promote agro-ecology and reform global trade rules to support food security objectives.
F.3 Leading governments from the developed and developing world have made insufficient progress in addressing these issues. 58 The G20 has claimed de facto leadership and taken an increasingly prominent role on global food security. But its diverse country members have been unable to agree substantial policy changes, and this has stymied reform efforts elsewhere in the international system. 59 This includes the UN’s Committee on World Food Security (CFS), which is formally recognised by most institutions as the appropriate body to coordinate policy responses to the global food crisis, because of its mandate and inclusive multi-stakeholder structure.
F.4 The G8 has a major opportunity to set an example on the way forward at its June 2013 summit to be chaired by the UK. As well as increasing aid, the G8 could act to tackle tax evasion to increase sources of finance.60 The G8 could also promote measures to strengthen the level and quality of private sector investment. But the current thrust of its New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition appears more likely to benefit the interests of powerful agribusiness corporations at the expense of small farmers.61
The UK should: Work within the G20 and use its G8 leadership to strengthen the level and quality of development finance for agriculture through increased aid, the promotion of pro-poor investment and firm steps to tackle tax evasion Use its influence to help ensure the UN Committee on World Food Security is supported as the foremost inter-governmental platform for coordinating global food security efforts and addressing the structural problems affecting the right to food
GFS 26 G. Strategies for reducing risk from short-term shocks/long-term structural factors and building resilience among the vulnerable
G.1 Extending comprehensive social protection and building resilience and productive capacities through agro-ecology is the best strategy for reducing smallholder communities’ vulnerability to short-term shocks and longer-term threats.
G.2 Yet up to 80% of the world’s poor lack comprehensive social protection such as income support, child benefit, pensions or sickness, maternity and disability allowances. A social protection floor in each country could fight hunger and protect, promote and transform people’s livelihoods. 62 Long overdue is exploration of the proposed Global Fund for Social Protection to plug funding gaps and underwrite 48 Least Developed Countries’ plans to extend social protection.63
The UK should Back national and global efforts to support social protection as a vital tool to fight hunger
December 2012
1 ActionAid is an international NGO working with poor and excluded people to eradicate poverty and injustice in 45 countries. Our vision is a world without poverty and injustice in which every person enjoys the right to a life with dignity. Our positions reflect the experiences of our staff and partners in Africa, Asia, the Americas and Europe. 2 International Land Coalition, ‘Land Rights and the Rush for Land’, 2011, http://www.landcoalition.org/cpl/CPL-synthesis-report. 3 International Land Coalition, ‘Land Rights and the Rush for Land’, 2011, http://www.landcoalition.org/cpl/CPL-synthesis-report. 4 http://landportal.info/area/global; W.Anseeuw et al, ‘Land Rights and the Rush for Land: Findings of the Global Commercial Pressures on Land Research Project’, January 2012, p. 25, http://www.landcoalition.org/cpl/CPL-synthesis-report; ActionAid, Fuel for Thought: Addressing the social impacts of EU biofuels policies, April 2012, p.18 5 Oxfam, The Hunger Grains, September 2012, p.16 6 Action Aid, Fuelling Evictions: Community Cost of EU Biofuels Boom – Dakatcha Woodlands, Kenya, May 2011; W.Anseeuw et al, ‘Land Rights and the Rush for Land – Findings of the Global Commercial Pressures on Land Project’, January 2012 7 Action Aid (2012) Biofuelling the global food crisis: why the EU must act at the G20‘ Action Aid, http://www.actionaid.org.uk/doc_lib/biofuelling_the_global_food_crisis.pdf; based on B. Kretschmer, C. Bowyer, and A. Buckwell (2012) ‗EU biofuel use and agricultural commodity prices: A review of the evidence base‘, London: Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP), www.ieep.eu/assets/947/IEEP_Biofuels_and_food_prices_June_2012.pdf. 8 Action Aid (2012) Biofuelling the global food crisis: why the EU must act at the G20‘ Action Aid, http://www.actionaid.org.uk/doc_lib/biofuelling_the_global_food_crisis.pdf 9 FAO, et al, 2011. Price Volatility in Food and Agricultural Markets: Policy Responses. The international bodies included the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, FAO and UNCTAD. 10 ActionAid, Fuel for Thought: Addressing the social impacts of EU biofuels policies, April 2012; Oxfam, The Hunger Grains, September 2012; ActionAid, Meals Per Gallon: The impact of industrial biofuels on people and global hunger, January 2010 11 ActionAid, Fuel for Thought: Addressing the social impacts of EU biofuels policies, April 2012 12 ActionAid, Fuel for Thought: Addressing the social impacts of EU biofuels policies, April 2012 13 UN (2011) World population prospects: the 2010 revision, 3 May 2011, New York: United Nations 14 FAO (2012) The State of Food Insecurity in the World, Rome: FAO, p8
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15 FAO (2012) The State of Food Insecurity in the World, Rome: FAO, p55 16 ActionAid (2010) Who's really fighting hunger? Why the world is going backwards on the UN goal to halve hunger and what can be done, Johannesburg: ActionAid International; ActionAid (2009) Who's really fighting hunger? ActionAid's HungerFREE Scorecard investigates why a billion people are hungry, Johannesburg: ActionAid International 17 FAO (2011) Global food losses and food waste, Rome: FAO 18 FAO (2011) Food outlook, June, Rome: FAO 19 WHO fact sheet No. 311, ‘Obesity and overweight’, March 2011, Geneva: WHO 20 ActionAid (2010) Fertile Ground: how governments and donors can halve hunger by supporting small farmers 21 World Bank (2007) World Development Report 2008, Washington: World Bank 22 DFID (2005) Growth and poverty reduction: the role of agriculture Glasgow: UK 23 Wyeth J and Ashley S (2009) Agriculture and food security: pre-evaluation review of DFID Policy. Agriculture Sector Policy Review. London: UK 24 FAO (2011) The state of food and agriculture, Women in agriculture: Closing the gender gap for development, Rome: FAO 25 IAASTD is the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development 26 Pretty J et al (2006), Resource-conserving agriculture increases yields in developing countries, Environmental Science and Technology, 40:4, 2006, pp.1114-1119 27 United Nations Conference on Trade and Development/United Nations Environment Programme (2008) Organic agriculture and food security in Africa, Geneva/Nairobi: UNCTAD/UNEP 28 Pretty, J (2011) Foresight project on global food and farming futures, Synthesis report C9: Sustainable intensification in African agriculture – Analysis of cases and common lessons, London: UK Government Office for Science 29 Pretty, J (2011) Foresight Project on Global Food and Farming Futures, Synthesis report C9: Sustainable intensification in African agriculture – analysis of cases and common lessons, London: UK government, Office for Science 30 UN (2011) World population prospects: the 2010 revision, 3 May 2011, New York: United Nations 31 ‘World population to reach 10 billion by 2100 if fertility in all countries converges to replacement level’, UN press release, 3 May 2011, New York: United Nations 32 UN (2011) World population prospects: the 2010 revision, 3 May 2011, New York: United Nations, which states that by the end of the century, 10 of the 20 most populous countries will be in Africa (Nigeria, Tanzania, Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, Zambia, Niger, Malawi and Sudan). 33 OECD/FAO (2011) Agricultural outlook 2011-2020, Paris/Rome: OECD-FAO 34 UNDP (2007) Human development report 2007/2008, Fighting climate change: Human solidarity in a divided world, New York: UNDP 35 IPCC (2007) Climate change 2007: Climate Change Impacts, Adaption and Vulnerability. Working Group II Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, Chapter 9, p448 36 Lobell, D et al, ‘Prioritizing Climate Change Adaptation Needs for Food Security in 2030’, Science 1 February 2008 37 As stated in ActionAid (2011) On the Brink – Who’s best prepared for a climate and hunger crisis? reference 13, and CCAFS (2011) Mapping hotspots of climate change and food insecurity in the global tropics, CCAFS Report no.5, Copenhagen: CGIAR research programme on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS). CGIAR is the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research 38 Lobell, D et al, ‘Climate trends and global crop production since 1980,’ Science, 5 May 2011 39 CCAFS (2012) Recalibrating food production in the developing world: Global warming will change more than just the climate, Policy brief 6, Copenhagen: CCAFS, p5, p9 40 CCAFS (2011) Mapping hotspots of climate change and food insecurity in the global tropics, CCAFS Report no.5, Copenhagen. According to CCAFS, shorter growing periods may affect Mexico, northeast Brazil, the African Sahel, Morocco and parts of Southern Africa and India. Reliable crop growing days will drop to critical levels below which cropping might become too risky to pursue as a livelihood strategy in many areas, including West Africa, parts of East Africa, Southern Africa, the Indo-Gangetic Plains, and south India. 41 The countries affected include Namibia, Angola, Zambia, Botswana, Mozambique and South Africa 42 CCAFS (2011) Mapping hotspots of climate change and food insecurity in the global tropics, CCAFS Report no.5, Copenhagen: CCAFS 43 HLPE (2012) Food security and climate change, Rome: High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition, p13 44 Curtis, M (2008) The crisis in agricultural aid calculates that the level collapsed from 17% of international aid in 1980 to 3.4% by 2006, based on the OECD’s Creditor Reporting System (accessed 16 May 2008). 45 World Bank (2009) Global economic prospects. Commodities at the crossroads, Washington: World Bank
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46 FAO (2008) The state of food insecurity in the world 2008, Rome: FAO 47 FAO (2009) The state of food insecurity in the world 2009, Rome: FAO 48 Hossain, N, et al, (2009) Accounts of crisis: report on a study of the food, fuel and financial crisis in five countries, Institute of Development Studies, Brighton: IDS 49 FAO (2008) State of food insecurity in the world, Rome: FAO 50 World Bank (2011) Food price watch, February, Washington: World Bank, p5 51 ActionAid surveyed food security colleagues about the impact of rising local food prices in 20 countries, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, between mid January to mid February 2011, and again in May 2011. 52 Mousseau, F (2010) The high food price challenge A review of responses to combat hunger, Oakland Institute & the UK Hunger Alliance: Oakland, CA, & London, p1, p7 53 ActionAid (2011) No More Food Crises: the indispensable role of food reserves 54 Mousseau, F (2010) The high food price challenge A review of responses to combat hunger, Oakland Institute & the UK Hunger Alliance: Oakland, CA, & London 55 De Schutter O (2012) From charity to entitlement, Implementing the right to food in Southern and Eastern Africa, Briefing note 05, Geneva: United Nations, p2 56 De Schutter highlights the success of Brazil’s Zero Hunger strategy (which cut child malnutrition by 73% in six years), based on the right to food and human rights principles of participation, accountability, non- discrimination and the rule of law. See De Schutter O (2009) Mission to Brazil, Report of the Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Human Rights Council, 19 February 2009, Geneva: United Nations, p13 57 It has been calculated that an additional US$42.7 billion per year for agriculture and rural development is needed to achieve zero hunger by 2025. See Schmidhuber J and Bruinsma J (2011) “Investing towards a World Free from Hunger”, in Prakash A (ed) Safeguarding Food Security in Volatile Global Markets, Rome: FAO. If OECD and developing countries shared equally the cost of raising these resources (each providing US$21.35 billion), this would mean that the UK would need to increase its annual contribution as an OECD donor by US$661.7 million (£425 million). 58 IATP/GDAE (2012) Resolving the food crisis, Assessing global policy reforms since 2007, Massachusetts: Tufts University, p7 59 IATP/GDAE (2012) Resolving the food crisis, Assessing global policy reforms since 2007, Massachusetts: Tufts University, p7 60 See ActionAid’s written evidence of 20 August 2012 to the House of Commons international development committee inquiry on tax and development. The UK could help tackle tax evasion by supporting and promoting a legally binding global standard for the public registration of the beneficial ownership of companies and trusts. 61 IFSN (2012) Cobwebbed, International food price crisis and national food prices, Some experiences from Africa, IFSN, p35 62 ActionAid’s HungerFREE scorecard showed that well-designed social assistance programmes, such as public works employment, cash transfers, food rations, and free school meals, are an important hunger- fighting weapon. See ActionAid (2010) Who’s really fighting hunger: why the world is going backwards on the UN goal to halve hunger and what can be done about it 63 De Schutter O & Sepúlveda M (2012) Underwriting the poor, A global fund for social protection, Briefing note 07, Geneva: United Nations, p2
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Further written evidence submitted by ActionAid
About us
ActionAid is an international NGO working in 45 countries worldwide, and our positions and recommendations reflect the experiences of our staff and partners in Africa, Asia, the Americas and Europe. Drawing on ActionAid’s long experience of promoting food rights, this submission highlights in particular our concerns and recommendations on the impact of biofuels on global food security.
Biofuels links to Hunger
ActionAid UK is concerned about the impacts of EU and UK biofuels mandates on hunger. These past weeks the committee has received a lot of evidence to support these concerns:
• Biofuels production increases food prices: Recent modelling of the impact of the EU‘s biofuels targets on food prices suggests that, by 2020, it could increase oilseed prices by up to 20%, vegetable oil prices by as much as 36%, maize by as much as 22%, sugar by as much as 21% and wheat by as much as 13%.1 Indeed according to the World Bank, OECD, WTO, IFPRI, IMF and five other UN food agencies: “prices are substantially higher than they would be if no biofuels were produced.2” These effects on prices are particularly alarming for developing countries where people spend up to 80% of their income on food. • Biofuels production leads to land and resources grabs: ActionAid’s research of European biofuel activities in Africa between 2009-2013 documents 98 biofuel projects covering 6 million hectares of land.3 The biggest investors of biofuels in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are from the UK (30 projects), Italy (18) and Germany (8), and the average size of European investments is 68,000 hectares (ha). Many have the explicit aim to supply European markets. • Biofuels production leads to competition between crops for food and crops for fuel: Current annual UK consumption of food crops to produce fuel is enough to feed 10 million people for a year. The equivalent figure for the EU is 127 million people.4 If all countries in the world consumed 10% biofuels in all transport fuels by 2020, this would absorb 26% of global crop production.5 Some 65% of domestic EU vegetable oils (mainly rapeseed), 40% of US maize and 50% of Brazilian sugar cane now goes to biofuels.6
It is widely acknowledged that current biofuels policies in the UK and the EU are contributing to food insecurity globally yet as of 2013/2014, as much as 5% of road transport fuel in the UK will come from biofuels following the government’s implementation of the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation.7
The rationale for biofuels: does it still hold?
Biofuels policy mandates were adopted with the best of intentions - as a solution to combat climate change and secure Europe’s energy independence. Yet with new evidence a few years into their implementation, most leading organisations agree that their green potentials are now highly questionable and that they distort dramatically the food system. This evidence should encourage Members States to find solutions to abandon biofuels mandates obligations and work harder on alternatives. Indeed:
1 OECD-FAO, 2011, Agricultural Outlook 2011-2020. http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/user_upload/newsroom/docs/Outlookflyer.pdf 2 World Bank et al, 2011. Price Volatility in Food and Agricultural Markets: Policy Responses. http://www.oecd.org/agriculture/pricevolatilityinfoodandagriculturalmarketspolicyresponses.htm 3 Adding Fuel to the Flame, Actionaid, 2013, http://www.actionaid.org/eu/publications/adding-fuel-flame 4 Oxfam, The Hunger Grains, September 2012, p16. 5 HLPE, 2013. Op cit. Page 1 of Executive Summary 6 OECD-FAO, 2012. Agricultural Outlook 2012-2021. Page 90 7 https://www.gov.uk/renewable-transport-fuels-obligation GFS 26A
• Biofuels mandates harm the environment: There is growing evidence that biofuels are in fact not needed to meet many of the EU stated objectives on GHG emissions.8 It has also turned out that many types of biofuels currently in use are not actually better for the environment than the fossil fuels that they were meant to replace. The total net GHG emissions from biofuels could be as much as 56 million tonnes of extra CO2 per year, the equivalent of an extra 12 to 26 million cars on Europe’s roads by 2020.9 • First generation biofuels are not the only answer to energy security: o The UK should focus its research on biofuels that do not require any land for their production and do not have food price impacts, mainly those produced from wastes and residues. o Advanced biofuels are widely recognised as being the biofuels most likely to dominate markets after 2020. Specifically, the likes of advanced biofuels produced by amongst others sewage sludge, animal manure and the biomass fraction of municipal and industrial waste have an environmentally sustainable profile; they are worth further research and assessment for their social impacts, especially outside of the EU. o There are other alternatives too: some renewable technologies have less dubious environmental credentials, including solar, wind and hydro power. o EU countries should also focus on reducing energy demand through improved energy efficiency and increased use of electricity in road and rail transport.
Renewable energies: a future market
Concerns over the unsustainability of biofuels are shared with other organisations, including companies such as Unilever, Nestle and Carrefour. This was demonstrated at the G20 meeting in Mexico last year when the B20 called for the “removal of subsidies for first-generation biofuels. Biofuel mandates should be evaluated regarding their impact on global food security priorities.” 10
Furthermore, the unsustainability of biofuels policies will harm markets as biofuels producers will be forced to reduce their production. We already see today that the UK is reluctant to increase its own targets on biofuels due to serious environmental concerns. The UK should provide certainty to the renewable industry by already orienting it to sustainable type of energies that we need to develop. The UK could be at the forefront of alternatives to biofuels as well as the production of advanced biofuels that will dominate the bioenergy markets in the future.
What role has the UK played so far?
The government is hosting a Hunger Summit on 8 June as part of its G8 Presidency. The Prime Minister has this year pledged to tackle the root causes of hunger and poverty. Despite being a root cause of poverty, the government does not currently plan to acknowledge the impact that the use of food for fuel plays in creating hunger at its 8 June event. This would be an ideal moment to draw attention to this issue and the need for change.
The UK is a member of the EU Energy and Environment Councils where it can influence European policy on biofuels. In recent EU negotiations, the UK has taken a very progressive position on so- called ILUC factors – a carbon accounting methodology which would ensure that all greenhouse gas emissions from biofuels consumption are accounted for recognition of their real impact on the environment. The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change has also been very clear in the European Council that the EU got it wrong when drafting the Renewable Energy Directive back in 2008-2009.11
However the UK has chosen not to address the food versus food conflict in its positioning in EU negotiations. Nor does it seem to be pushing on developing alternatives to harmful biofuels.
8 ‘Sustainable alternatives to land based biofuels’, Greenpeace et al., http://www.greenpeace.org/eu- unit/en/Publications/2013/CE-Delft-Report/ 9 ‘Driving to Destruction’, http://www.actionaid.org/sites/files/actionaid/driving_to_destruction_nov_2010.pdf 10 ‘B20 Task Force Recommendations on Food Security,’ released in early 2012 ahead of the G20 meeting in Mexico. 11 Ministers hostile to biofuels limit, European Voice 21 March 2013, http://www.europeanvoice.com/article/2013/march/ministers-hostile-to-biofuel-limit/76749.aspx GFS 26A
The European Commission had proposed a 5% cap on food based biofuels across the EU as a recognition that there is a conflict between food and fuel, creating some upper limit to how much damage biofuels would be allowed to cause global food security. But the lack of intervention from the UK here has played down the conflict between food and fuel – while ultimately the UK and DFID in particular should be championing this issue. EU meetings in early June are critical to future policy on biofuels. The UK government must take a vocal leadership role in these meeting to ensure that the Commission’s 5% cap is accepted by Member States as part of a trajectory towards no food being used as fuel in the EU.
Final recommendations
We welcome the committee’s concerns over the impacts of biofuels mandates on hunger, and its interests in practical recommendations for the government. While we acknowledge the need to develop solutions to combat climate change and new types of energy, we also remain convinced that energy choices are a political decision. It is possible to reach our environmental and energy independence goals through sustainable means. Proper investment in truly renewable sources of energy in the UK combined with improved energy efficiency and subsequent reductions in energy demand, could lead the UK to comfortably end its use of food and land based biofuels.
We recommend that the committee should:
• Urge the UK government to champion this issue at the Hunger Summit and the G8 it will host in June, encouraging other countries to recognise and address the impact of biofuels on hunger • Urge DFID to push for the UK and the EU to end the use of food as fuel and DFID to ensure that the UK government support a cap no higher than 5% of food based fuel at European Council negotiations – particularly the forthcoming EU Energy Council meeting on 6 June • Urge the UK government to maintain its current call for binding ILUC factors and proactively encourage other countries in the EU to do the same • Urge the UK government to invest more heavily in renewable energy sources that do not cause food insecurity or land grabs
16 April 2013
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Further written evidence submitted by ActionAid
About us
ActionAid is an international NGO working in 45 countries worldwide, and our positions and recommendations reflect the experiences of our staff and partners in Africa, Asia, the Americas and Europe. Drawing on ActionAid’s long experience of promoting food rights, this submission highlights in particular our concerns and recommendations on the impact of biofuels on global food security.
Biofuels links to Hunger
ActionAid UK is concerned about the impacts of EU and UK biofuels mandates on hunger. These past weeks the committee has received a lot of evidence to support these concerns:
• Biofuels production increases food prices: Recent modelling of the impact of the EU‘s biofuels targets on food prices suggests that, by 2020, it could increase oilseed prices by up to 20%, vegetable oil prices by as much as 36%, maize by as much as 22%, sugar by as much as 21% and wheat by as much as 13%.1 Indeed according to the World Bank, OECD, WTO, IFPRI, IMF and five other UN food agencies: “prices are substantially higher than they would be if no biofuels were produced.2” These effects on prices are particularly alarming for developing countries where people spend up to 80% of their income on food. • Biofuels production leads to land and resources grabs: ActionAid’s research of European biofuel activities in Africa between 2009-2013 documents 98 biofuel projects covering 6 million hectares of land.3 The biggest investors of biofuels in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are from the UK (30 projects), Italy (18) and Germany (8), and the average size of European investments is 68,000 hectares (ha). Many have the explicit aim to supply European markets. • Biofuels production leads to competition between crops for food and crops for fuel: Current annual UK consumption of food crops to produce fuel is enough to feed 10 million people for a year. The equivalent figure for the EU is 127 million people.4 If all countries in the world consumed 10% biofuels in all transport fuels by 2020, this would absorb 26% of global crop production.5 Some 65% of domestic EU vegetable oils (mainly rapeseed), 40% of US maize and 50% of Brazilian sugar cane now goes to biofuels.6
It is widely acknowledged that current biofuels policies in the UK and the EU are contributing to food insecurity globally yet as of 2013/2014, as much as 5% of road transport fuel in the UK will come from biofuels following the government’s implementation of the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation.7
The rationale for biofuels: does it still hold?
Biofuels policy mandates were adopted with the best of intentions - as a solution to combat climate change and secure Europe’s energy independence. Yet with new evidence a few years into their implementation, most leading organisations agree that their green potentials are now highly questionable and that they distort dramatically the food system. This evidence should encourage Members States to find solutions to abandon biofuels mandates obligations and work harder on alternatives. Indeed:
1 OECD-FAO, 2011, Agricultural Outlook 2011-2020. http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/user_upload/newsroom/docs/Outlookflyer.pdf 2 World Bank et al, 2011. Price Volatility in Food and Agricultural Markets: Policy Responses. http://www.oecd.org/agriculture/pricevolatilityinfoodandagriculturalmarketspolicyresponses.htm 3 Adding Fuel to the Flame, Actionaid, 2013, http://www.actionaid.org/eu/publications/adding-fuel-flame 4 Oxfam, The Hunger Grains, September 2012, p16. 5 HLPE, 2013. Op cit. Page 1 of Executive Summary 6 OECD-FAO, 2012. Agricultural Outlook 2012-2021. Page 90 7 https://www.gov.uk/renewable-transport-fuels-obligation GFS 26B
• Biofuels mandates harm the environment: There is growing evidence that biofuels are in fact not needed to meet many of the EU stated objectives on GHG emissions.8 It has also turned out that many types of biofuels currently in use are not actually better for the environment than the fossil fuels that they were meant to replace. The total net GHG emissions from biofuels could be as much as 56 million tonnes of extra CO2 per year, the equivalent of an extra 12 to 26 million cars on Europe’s roads by 2020.9 • First generation biofuels are not the only answer to energy security: o The UK should focus its research on biofuels that do not require any land for their production and do not have food price impacts, mainly those produced from wastes and residues. o Advanced biofuels are widely recognised as being the biofuels most likely to dominate markets after 2020. Specifically, the likes of advanced biofuels produced by amongst others sewage sludge, animal manure and the biomass fraction of municipal and industrial waste have an environmentally sustainable profile; they are worth further research and assessment for their social impacts, especially outside of the EU. o There are other alternatives too: some renewable technologies have less dubious environmental credentials, including solar, wind and hydro power. o EU countries should also focus on reducing energy demand through improved energy efficiency and increased use of electricity in road and rail transport.
Renewable energies: a future market
Concerns over the unsustainability of biofuels are shared with other organisations, including companies such as Unilever, Nestle and Carrefour. This was demonstrated at the G20 meeting in Mexico last year when the B20 called for the “removal of subsidies for first-generation biofuels. Biofuel mandates should be evaluated regarding their impact on global food security priorities.” 10
Furthermore, the unsustainability of biofuels policies will harm markets as biofuels producers will be forced to reduce their production. We already see today that the UK is reluctant to increase its own targets on biofuels due to serious environmental concerns. The UK should provide certainty to the renewable industry by already orienting it to sustainable type of energies that we need to develop. The UK could be at the forefront of alternatives to biofuels as well as the production of advanced biofuels that will dominate the bioenergy markets in the future.
What role has the UK played so far?
The government is hosting a Hunger Summit on 8 June as part of its G8 Presidency. The Prime Minister has this year pledged to tackle the root causes of hunger and poverty. Despite being a root cause of poverty, the government does not currently plan to acknowledge the impact that the use of food for fuel plays in creating hunger at its 8 June event. This would be an ideal moment to draw attention to this issue and the need for change.
The UK is a member of the EU Energy and Environment Councils where it can influence European policy on biofuels. In recent EU negotiations, the UK has taken a very progressive position on so- called ILUC factors – a carbon accounting methodology which would ensure that all greenhouse gas emissions from biofuels consumption are accounted for recognition of their real impact on the environment. The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change has also been very clear in the European Council that the EU got it wrong when drafting the Renewable Energy Directive back in 2008-2009.11
However the UK has chosen not to address the food versus food conflict in its positioning in EU negotiations. Nor does it seem to be pushing on developing alternatives to harmful biofuels.
8 ‘Sustainable alternatives to land based biofuels’, Greenpeace et al., http://www.greenpeace.org/eu- unit/en/Publications/2013/CE-Delft-Report/ 9 ‘Driving to Destruction’, http://www.actionaid.org/sites/files/actionaid/driving_to_destruction_nov_2010.pdf 10 ‘B20 Task Force Recommendations on Food Security,’ released in early 2012 ahead of the G20 meeting in Mexico. 11 Ministers hostile to biofuels limit, European Voice 21 March 2013, http://www.europeanvoice.com/article/2013/march/ministers-hostile-to-biofuel-limit/76749.aspx GFS 26B
The European Commission had proposed a 5% cap on food based biofuels across the EU as a recognition that there is a conflict between food and fuel, creating some upper limit to how much damage biofuels would be allowed to cause global food security. But the lack of intervention from the UK here has played down the conflict between food and fuel – while ultimately the UK and DFID in particular should be championing this issue. EU meetings in early June are critical to future policy on biofuels. The UK government must take a vocal leadership role in these meeting to ensure that the Commission’s 5% cap is accepted by Member States as part of a trajectory towards no food being used as fuel in the EU.
Final recommendations
We welcome the committee’s concerns over the impacts of biofuels mandates on hunger, and its interests in practical recommendations for the government. While we acknowledge the need to develop solutions to combat climate change and new types of energy, we also remain convinced that energy choices are a political decision. It is possible to reach our environmental and energy independence goals through sustainable means. Proper investment in truly renewable sources of energy in the UK combined with improved energy efficiency and subsequent reductions in energy demand, could lead the UK to comfortably end its use of food and land based biofuels.
We recommend that the committee should:
• Urge the UK government to champion this issue at the Hunger Summit and the G8 it will host in June, encouraging other countries to recognise and address the impact of biofuels on hunger • Urge DFID to push for the UK and the EU to end the use of food as fuel and DFID to ensure that the UK government support a cap no higher than 5% of food based fuel at European Council negotiations – particularly the forthcoming EU Energy Council meeting on 6 June • Urge the UK government to maintain its current call for binding ILUC factors and proactively encourage other countries in the EU to do the same • Urge the UK government to invest more heavily in renewable energy sources that do not cause food insecurity or land grabs
Tuesday, 16 April 2013
GFS 27
Written evidence submitted by Mercy Corps Summary: Mercy Corps is an international development organisation with extensive experience in food security, nutrition, agriculture and rural livelihoods programming, operating in forty four countries globally including many fragile and conflict-affected states. In response to the IDC Inquiry Mercy Corps is presenting evidence under the topics as summarised below:
The best strategies for reducing risk from short term shocks and long term structural factors and for building resilience among the most vulnerable • DFID should adopt a livelihoods approach to resilience to ensure that communities bounce back better from shocks. • DFID should adopt the following principles for resilience programming – - It is essential to address structural causes of poverty and marginalisation. - Asset creation should be prioritised as a means of providing a safety net. -Work at local, regional, national and international level. -Continuous learning and review -Build Trust and Cohesion among Stakeholders. -Identify Natural Boundaries for interventions. • The integration of conflict management into resilience programming is essential to promoting food security in fragile and conflict affected states. • Mercy Corps programme experience provides evidence of conflict management interventions increasing drought resilience among pastoralists in Southern Ethiopia. • DFID should work to improve the linkage between humanitarian programmes, and development aid programmes, and support efforts to address this gap with multilateral aid donor.
The role of the following in increasing food security and the part that DFID should play in: Small holder agriculture and large scale farming • Securing land tenure for small-holder farmers should be prioritised in food security programming and policies, with conflict resolution measures incorporated. When small holder farmers have secure land tenure, they are more likely to invest in their land, which increases yields and provides a variety of other social benefits. • Mercy Corps’ Red Tierras programme in Guatemala and Colombia demonstrates the benefit of integration of conflict mitigation and agricultural development approaches. New technologies • Mercy Corps is supportive of cash based programming as a means to achieve value for money in food security programmes. • Electronic money transfer can be more efficient, secure and transparent than physical cash, and link poor people to financial services. • DFID should seek opportunities to promote the affordable provision of essential extension, market information and financial services to smallholders through mobile technology. • Mercy Corps’ Agri-Fin Mobile programme provides evidence of bundled mobile services for smallholders that integrate extension services, market price information and financial services in Uganda, Zimbabwe and Indonesia.
Introduction Mercy Corps greatly appreciates the leadership that Britain is showing on global hunger issues. The Prime Minister’s Hunger Summit this past summer, UK leadership within recent G8 meetings, and the present Parliamentary inquiry all underscore the depth of the UK’s commitment to this issue.
Mercy Corps is a global relief and development organisation with annual revenues of approximately £180 million ($293 million), operations in forty-four countries and dual headquarters in the UK (Edinburgh) and US (Portland, Oregon). We design and manage programmes that foster secure, productive, and just communities in countries experiencing and emerging from conflict, drought, and other major shocks. We have extensive programmes related to food security, nutrition, and agriculture, and we will draw on these experiences to highlight several areas where we believe UK hunger policy could make innovative progress.
At present, DFID policy towards hunger alleviation has many strong points, including growing investment in resilience to food shocks and support for agricultural growth that emphasises particular support for smallholder farmers. DFID also supports cash transfer programming in emergency responses, which we have found can rapidly and cost- effectively improve access to food.
We also welcome the Government’s international commitments to improve food security by supporting and contributing to several global initiatives1. As the G8 Summit, which will be hosted by the UK in 2013 will focus on food security, we hope that DFID will use this opportunity to take a strong leadership role at international level to improve global policies and secure the mobilisation of adequate funding2 for resilience, nutrition, and sustainable small-scale agriculture, building on and going beyond the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition.
Mercy Corps’ Submission Mercy Corps wishes to submit the following evidence under three of the inquiry topics relating to resilience, land, and new technology:
The best strategies for reducing risk from short term shocks and long term structural factors and for building resilience among the most vulnerable
1) Resilience is not new in the field of international development. But a number of recent events3 and trends have brought it to the forefront of development thinking. As
1From the 2008 Comprehensive Framework for Action, the L’Aquila Food Security Initiative, the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, and the post-Olympic hunger event. 2 The UK and other donors should make significant progress towards mobilising their fair share of $21.3 billion to fill the agriculture funding gap and to reach the $5 billion needed from donors to fund direct nutrition interventions.
practitioners we are being challenged to apply a more complex, forward-thinking systems approach to the problems faced by the communities where we work -taking into account the complex social, economic, political and environmental factors affecting most vulnerable populations. Therefore Mercy Corps welcomes DFID’s Defining Disaster Resilience Approach Paper, and DFID’s contribution to moving the forward the discussion around resilience in the international development community. However we think that the commitment to embed resilience in all DFID country programmes by 2015 will require further development of the resilience programming policy. We welcome the importance ascribed in the Approach Paper, to retention of assets and, as part of this, the role of economic assets in resilience promotion, and propose that DFID should adopt a livelihoods approach to resilience, so that communities are supported not only to absorb shocks and disturbances, but to also have the opportunity to develop and thrive – in DFID’s terms, to bounce back better - gaining increased prosperity and resilience as a result.
2) Drawing on Mercy Corps’ extensive experience in the humanitarian and development sector around the world, and particularly in countries in transition, we recommend that DFID resilience programming policy integrates the following key principles: -Addressing structural causes. Vulnerability is a defining characteristic of being poor. Resilience requires going beyond coping and adaptation strategies to help transform the structural causes of poverty and marginalisation. -Prioritising Asset Creation. We know that resilient households and communities need to draw on a sustainable base of financial, physical, political, human, social and natural resources. Thus asset creation and protection for the poor and vulnerable is critical for building resilience within complex systems. -Working at Multiple Levels or Scales. As climate, political, social, economic and cultural systems are complex and interact at many levels; transformational resilience requires action at the local, regional, national and international level. -Systematising Learning and Acting. The knowledge guiding a project must come from internal and external actors and include both scientific and normative information, linking top down and bottom up learning, we believe it is necessary to engage in continuous analysis, learning and redesign to improve the approach and programmes. -Building Trust and Cohesion among Stakeholders. Transformational change requires trust, as well as cohesion and ownership, between communities, government and the private sector. -Identifying Natural Boundaries. Many challenges and many communities defy political borders. Climate change and pastoral societies in Africa are just two examples. The natural borders of a community or system may determine the perimeters and parameters of a project, not just administrative or legal boundaries. Thinking and operating beyond traditional governance boundaries will be challenging, frustrating and complex with new stakeholders, yet absolutely necessary.
3) Mercy Corps welcomes DFID’s commitment to integrate resilience into their conflict prevention work. The integration of conflict management into resilience programming is essential to promoting food security in fragile and conflict affected states. In mid-2011, Mercy Corps undertook a study to examine if and how its peace-building programme for pastoralists in Ethiopia has affected key factors associated with drought resilience. This study shows that effective peace-building interventions can contribute to creating conditions that foster greater drought resilience among pastoralists in Southern Ethiopia. Such efforts can further the objectives of disaster risk reduction projects, and mitigate the need for large scale humanitarian relief during periods of severe drought. In regions where chronic, violent conflict is present, activities to promote peace appear to be a pre-requisite for strengthening resilience since livelihoods diversification, market integration, and other forms of risk reduction and adaptation are directly dependent on security and freedom of movement. To have an impact on these factors, conflict management programmes need to take an integrated approach, which strengthens the local governance structures and social cohesion that underpin communities’ resilience to disasters, conflict, and other shocks.
4) In addition, this study points toward a number of recommendations for programming intended to strengthen resilience among pastoralist communities in the Horn of Africa: • Interventions that increase access to pasture and water should be prioritised when designing programmes that aim to support pastoralist communities afflicted by drought. This will reduce the likelihood that households will engage in distressful coping mechanisms while refraining from fostering aid dependency. • Peace-building activities that improve security and increase access to natural resources must be a core component of any programme that aims to strengthen pastoral livelihoods and drought resilience in conflict- affected environments. • Mercy Corps’ experience highlights the importance and benefits of working on peace-building and disaster risk reduction simultaneously in order to harness peace-building activities to reduce vulnerabilities to external shocks.
5) Many bilateral and multilateral donors have aid systems that aim to address acute humanitarian need through emergency aid (short term shocks), and also support development aid addressing chronic need (long term structural factors), but without adequate provision for supporting the transition from relief to recovery. The Approach Paper outlines the principle of "bringing together development and humanitarian efforts”, but more work may be needed to purposefully close the gap. Mercy Corps believes that resilience requires a developmental component and, like food security more generally, needs to be addressed through both short and long term interventions. DFID should continue to review ways to bridge the gap between humanitarian and development interventions. DFID should also continue to support multilateral aid reform, including through the Good Humanitarian Donorship Initiative, the current second phase of the Multilateral Aid Review, and the planned 2013 Hunger Summit
prior to the G8 Meeting, and should support a similar process among key donors to address the humanitarian/development division.
In particular DFID should support efforts to examine this as part of the design of the EU Multi-annual Financial Framework as it relates to the revision of the EU Thematic Instrument for Food Security, under the DCI, and strengthening of support for Linking Relief to Recovery and Development (LRRD) through developing a specific Action Plan with concrete deliverables.
The role of the following in increasing food security and the part that DFID should play in: • Small holder agriculture and large scale farming
6) To promote food security, DFID should adopt an approach that encompasses issues of land access and land conflict. Securing land tenure for small-holder farmers should be prioritised in food security programming and policies with conflict resolution measures incorporated to generate further peace-building and governance gains. Food security is closely linked to secure land tenure for small holder farmers and if DFID and the international community want systemic change, land rights must be prioritised. When small holder farmers have secure land tenure, they are more likely to invest in their land, which increases yields and provides a variety of other social benefits to families. Mercy Corps’ extensive work in Latin America to secure land titles for vulnerable small holder farmers via alternative dispute resolution has not only decreased conflict over land and improved agricultural inputs, but also linked communities to local governments.
Besides ensuring programmes are sensitive to the need of small holders to gain legal access to land, DFID can play an important role by promoting policies with developing countries’ governments that promote fair land registration practices, prevent land grabs and secure the rights of small holder farmers. Mercy Corps has sought to address these issues through the Red Tierras programme developed initially in Guatemala then expanded to Colombia, which seeks to promote participatory decision making and land conflict resolution. The programme approach incorporates a four-way integration of agricultural development activities, land and natural resource conflict resolution, land policy advocacy and community training on Alternative Dispute Resolution. The programme has resolved 314 land conflicts securing land tenure for over 105,000 marginalised indigenous people; establishing 6 municipal mediation centres ensuring sustainability and local ownership of the mediation process. 11 Municipal Land Commissions and 3 Departmental/ Regional Land Advocacy Networks have been established to promote key land legislation.
• New technologies, including irrigation, and the dissemination and distribution of these, with special reference to small farmers and women.
7) Mercy Corps is supportive of DFID’s emphasis on cash transfers as a means of supporting food security and retention or replacement of lost assets. An effective humanitarian response to a food security crisis is underpinned by a balance between commodity and cash based interventions that reflect market conditions and the assessed need. Mercy Corps has found that when properly managed this can rapidly and efficiently improve access to food when market conditions allow. Cash transfer programming can be implemented rapidly based on snapshot market analysis and determination of needs. Cash transfer to victims of ethnic unrest in Kyrgyzstan in 2010 were provided in less than a month, far quicker than most food assistance programmes, and led to an increase in families with household food stocks from 64 to 87%. As well as strengthening local markets, which need to be monitored for distortion, cash programming can help achieve Value for Money in avoiding costs associated with commodity procurement, storage and distribution.
8) Mercy Corps is a member of the Better than Cash Alliance which makes the case that use of electronic transfer is an effective way of expanding financial inclusion by linking people (via mobile phones or other appropriate technology when this is possible), to banking services. There is evidence that electronic transfer is cheaper, more secure, and more transparent and a potentially faster way of providing assistance, with the benefit of facilitating linkage of people to financial services in the future.
9) DFID should seek opportunities to promote the affordable provision of essential extension, market information and financial services to smallholders through mobile technology. With support from Swiss Development Cooperation Mercy Corps is implementing Agri-Fin Mobile, a food security programme using a new methodology which seeks to address the problems of smallholder farmers’ lack of access to essential information and financial services, through providing agricultural advice, market information and financial services over mobile phone in an affordable “bundled” package. Access to mobile phones is growing dramatically in rural areas in developing countries, and mobile phones are increasingly becoming the most effective medium to reach millions in remote areas. Providing access to rural advisory and financial services through mobile phones has a high potential to improve smallholders’ productivity, stabilise their incomes, and thereby contribute to increased food security. This programme, recently recognised by the Clinton Global Foundation aims to improve incomes of 180,000 smallholders in Indonesia, Uganda and Zimbabwe.
The Agri-Fin Mobile programme approach works with partners in each country to build sustainable business models, where farm and crop management tools and financial services are "bundled" in affordable, mobile phone services, and the sustainable provision of these services is promoted on a commercial basis. The programme targets partners with existing financial, and agricultural technical service mobile platforms or applications, or demonstrated interest in developing and investing in them, and
facilitates development of a business model whereby the bundling process provides an increased value proposition for each partner, such as, increased fee income, greater outreach or reduced risks. The food security impact of the programme is monitored in terms of smallholder incomes, production and livelihoods, and improvements in the rural market system. Although the programme is in its infancy there are lessons learned around partner selection at the national level: • While partners with the highest market share are desirable in terms of reach, the need to be agile and innovative may recommend smaller partners when larger competitors lack these characteristics; • The channel to small holder farmers is a key priority, so it is important to look for opportunities to integrate multiple channels to increase distribution of advisory information and services to farmers to drive adoption; • Seek partners that are umbrella organisations for producers, buyers or input suppliers in order to reach a higher number of beneficiaries with minimal resources. Umbrella organisations can also help influence members, aggregate impact as well as ensure that the programme is not providing unfair advantage or discouraging competition among industries; • Transaction volumes are critical, look out for areas to start with which drive transactions and therefore usage, hence working with produce buyers at the tail end of production and input suppliers at the beginning of production, as well as working in value chains that have on-going or multiple harvest periods per year, such as horticulture or dairy.
December 2012
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Written evidence submitted by SABMiller
Executive summary
The global food system is facing an unprecedented confluence of pressures, with agriculture and farmers at the centre. Enhancing the productivity of smallholder farmers in Africa and elsewhere is an important part of the food security equation, as it will increase food production and incomes for many of the most food insecure people. However, it must also be recognised that commercial farmers are a crucial part of the global food system and therefore of any food security solution.
As a brewer, both smallholder and commercial farmers are crucial to our supply chain, and we therefore have the opportunity –within our value chains - to influence agricultural production and productivity. We seek to develop commercially sustainable business models that raise productivity, optimise resource efficiency and boost the incomes of local farmers, while providing us with better quality, cost- competitive raw materials.
We have made great progress in incorporating smallholder farmers into our value chain, giving them access to new markets, and helping them drive improvements in productivity and efficiency. We pioneered this approach with the launch of Eagle Lager in Uganda in 2002, which uses locally grown sorghum instead of more expensive imported barley. We have also worked with smallholders in Mozambique to create the world’s first commercially-produced cassava beer. Both of these projects have created new sources of income for thousands of smallholders farmers.
SABMiller also believes that larger commercial farms have an important role to play in promoting food security. We are supportive of multilateral and national initiatives to strengthen this sector in both developed and emerging economies, and we have also been directly contributing ourselves, for example through our development of the commercial barley sector in Zambia, and our work directly with farmers in South Africa and Northern Europe.
We believe that it is essential for governments and international organisations to look at agricultural development holistically, and to follow strategies that balance support to large-scale, commercial smallholder and smallholder farmers in order to increase food production and food access, drive economic growth and social development, and alleviate poverty. DfID is well placed to support this process, and should continue to support public private partnerships that help integrate smallholder farmers into agricultural value chains.
To promote the development of robust agricultural sectors, governments in food insecure countries need to continue to improve the enabling environment for business, especially in relation to infrastructure and legal and governance frameworks.
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1. Introduction and overview
1.1. SABMiller welcomes the opportunity to make a submission to the Committee to aid its inquiry into how the global food system can ensure an end to hunger. As a major global brewer, we have many years of experience working with farmers and suppliers in a range of lower and middle-income countries, notably in Africa, India and Latin America. Agriculture is at the core of our brewing supply chain, and our operations support agricultural supply chains and therefore farmers’ incomes in many parts of the world.
1.2. Policy debates around global food security are therefore of interest to us, as our business growth depends on healthy, growing agricultural sectors in the countries where we operate. We also have the opportunity to help improve food security at the local level through our agricultural supply chains, which are a critical part of our value chain.
1.3. Given our expertise and experience, our submission focuses on the important role of the private sector in promoting food security, in particular the following areas:
• The need for productive, resource-efficient global, regional and local agricultural systems to meet growing global demand for food
• The need for more productive farming and more effective, affordable local and regional food markets in Africa, where many of the world’s hungry live
• The need for smallholder farmers to improve productivity to feed themselves and to generate income through participating more fully in local and regional markets
• The role of governments, donors, the private sector and civil society in supporting these processes
2. The global context
2.1. The global food system is experiencing an unprecedented confluence of pressures, including growing and increasingly wealthy populations, climate change, growing demand for fresh water supplies and energy, and increasing competition for valuable agricultural land including for biofuels production.
2.2. These pressures are asking some demanding questions of the global food system: in particular, how to provide sufficient quantities of affordable, nutritious food in a way that protects biodiversity, conserves energy and does not exacerbate water scarcity, while also alleviating poverty.
2.3. In November 2012, the World Bank warned that high and volatile global food prices have become the “new norm”, creating increased risk for supplies at a time when GFS 28
12% of the global population remains chronically undernourished. This means that the global food system is failing to rise to the challenges it faces, and the symptoms of these failures are currently being felt by some of the world’s most vulnerable and poorest people, particularly in Africa and parts of Asia.
2.4. At the centre of the food security challenge are farmers, whether they are smallholders in Africa and India, who are typically the “faces” of the food security issue, or large-scale commercial farmers in the developed world. Enhancing smallholder productivity in developing economies (particularly in Africa) is one part of the equation, as this will both increase food supplies and also raise incomes (and therefore ability to purchase food) for many of the world’s most food insecure people. Achieving this will call for a number of complementary strategies: creating effective links to markets, promoting appropriate mixes of crops, facilitating the transfer of technology and skills, and increasing access to finance for investment in inputs.
2.5. But smallholder farmers in developing countries are only one part of the wider food system that is required to meet rising global demand for food. The other part of the answer therefore must lie in the food production of commercial farmers in the developed and developing world.
2.6. As a brewer, both smallholder and larger commercial farmers are crucial to our supply chain, and we can influence the farmers with whom we work.
2.7. We have embraced this responsibility in the way that we engage with farmers. We have established programmes to support farmers from whom we source to improve their productivity and the efficiency with which they use inputs such as water and fertilizer. This not only provides us with better value raw materials, but helps increase farmers’ overall production of both brewing and food crops, and their incomes. This impact on food production is particularly important in the case of smallholder farmers in developing markets, where the combination of increased food production and increased income can mean food security for them and their families.
3. The importance of smallholder farmers for food security
3.1. Africa in particular holds the power to transform agriculture and food security. It has abundant land and natural resources and contains around 60% of the world’s uncultivated land. The 2008 World Development Report notes that in sub-Saharan Africa 470 million people are located in rural areas, agriculture employs 65 percent of the labour force and the sector drives 32 percent of GDP growth. African governments, international donors, civil society organisations and businesses have all recognised the fundamental importance of agriculture and smallholder farming for food security, and SABMiller itself has been working with smallholder farmers in Africa for many years.
3.2. We believe that smallholder farmers will only sustainably raise their incomes if they are able to increase their production of staple foods and diversify into other food and non-food crops, thereby participating meaningfully in local and regional agricultural GFS 28
markets. This increase in agricultural production and trade will contribute to the food security both of the individual farmers, and at a broader local and regional level.
3.3. Achieving this calls for more than just a focus on the smallholder crop mix and farming practice. Factors such as, infrastructure, microfinance and access to markets are critical, and there is a need for private sector and government engagement to create effective markets, build smallholder capacity to become part of a value chain, and ensure that the necessary infrastructure is in place to allow value chains to function effectively.
3.4. Recognising the crucial role of the private sector, SABMiller has been pioneering new models to help this happen to the benefit of both local farmers and our business.
4. How the private sector can empower smallholder farmers
4.1. “SABMiller, for example, is working with small-holder farmers in South Sudan to use cassava in the production of beer. By sourcing ingredients locally it will improve market opportunities for around 2,000 poor farmers. This is not altruism. The result for the company – a healthy profit and a whole new market. The result for Africa – employment, growth and consumer choice.”
-Andrew Mitchell, UK Secretary of State for International Development, 2010 to 2012
4.2. Sourcing agricultural raw materials locally has always been an important part of SABMiller’s business model, and is becoming even more so. We work to build value chains that secure long-term supply, mitigate commodity price volatility, and reduce transport costs – all sound commercial reasons. But there is a bigger picture. By building local value chains, we drive local economic growth and stimulate social development, delivering a win for local communities as well as for our business.
4.3. Sourcing material locally means that we can control our costs better, for example in Africa, by removing the need to import barley from Europe. By guaranteeing markets for crops and paying a pre-negotiated and jointly agreed price, we offer farmers security and help create jobs, incomes and prosperity, thereby directly impacting on food security. We also help farmers to improve agricultural productivity and expertise, and we would expect farmers to grow a variety of crops that are matched to stable markets. This means farmers are not reliant on a single customer and have a sustainable business model.
4.4. Our engagement with smallholder farmers is not corporate philanthropy – it makes good business sense. It benefits local communities in the form of new income streams, while benefitting SABMiller in the form of security of supply, cost stability and sometimes lower costs. It is therefore a sustainable way of driving local economic growth and improving food security.
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5. The importance of cash crops for food security
5.1. SABMiller pioneered its smallholder sourcing approach with the launch of Eagle Lager in Uganda in 2002. This product uses locally grown sorghum instead of more expensive imported barley, and now accounts for over 30% of the market in Uganda and supports around 7,000 smallholder farmers . This approach radically altered the agri-business model by enabling smallholder farmers to enter into a profitable cash crop market, increasing the incomes of many thousands of smallholder farmers.
5.2. We have built on this approach with our work in Mozambique, where we have worked with smallholder farmers to produce the world’s first commercially-produced cassava beer, Impala. Cassava is a very important source of calorie intake in Africa, where it is widely grown as a subsistence crop. However, it has very low levels of commercialisation because its roots deteriorate quickly once harvested. As a result, farmers are generally unable to profit from any surplus.
5.3. In order to address this problem, we partnered with DADTCO (Dutch Agricultural Development and Trading Company) to develop a mobile processing unit that could process cassava at a village level, close to the farm, to then be brewed as Impala beer. The production of Impala in Mozambique is expected to use about 40,000 tonnes of raw cassava every year, creating a new market and additional income for initially 1500 smallholder farmers. We have started to work with cassava farmers in South Sudan on a similar approach, supported by AECF funding, and now have plans to expand this model to several other markets in Africa.
5.4. SABMiller India has been working since 2005 with barley farmers in Jaipur and Sikar. From an initial catchment area of about 3,300 acres spread over 3 centres, the project has now increased to 15 farmer centres, nearly 6,500 farmers and barley cultivation of about 30,000 acres. The project not only optimises land use, improves farmer yield and income but also improves their overall standard of living.
6. Addressing food security concerns around cash crops
6.1. Some have observed that the production of cash crops can undermine food security by reducing household food production and reducing the overall amount of land available for food production. Such concerns need to be taken seriously, and SABMiller has taken them into consideration when designing its partnerships with farmers in developing countries.
6.2. For instance, our intention in our cassava work in Mozambique and elsewhere is to support farmers to significantly increase productivity through better varieties and better farming practice. This means that they can continue to produce ample cassava for consumption, while producing a surplus for sale to us. We hope to develop this value chain to bring in other purchasers of cassava, for example local food processors.
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6.3. We recognise that cassava alone will not address all of the farmers’ nutritional requirements and are looking at two strategies to address this. Firstly, selling cassava generates an income that farmers can use to purchase additional foodstuffs. Secondly, as part of working with cassava farmers to improve farming practice and access to finance and inputs, there is a significant opportunity to promote cultivation of other food crops for consumption and sale. We are currently working on how to ensure that the investment in the cassava value chain delivers benefits in both income and food production to support poverty reduction, food security and nutrition. Separately, we are working as part of an EU-funded initiative with Hanoi University of Science and Technology to take by-products of cassava processing and dramatically increase their value.
7. Commercial farming and smallholder farming
7.1. We believe that a sole focus on smallholder farmers as the solution to agricultural development, poverty reduction and food security is too limited. In reality, agricultural development needs to encompass all farming systems to meet increases in demand for food that resulting from population increases in Africa, and growing demand from increasingly wealthy emerging economies.
7.2. Larger commercial farms can rapidly scale up food production by leveraging their economies of scale and frequently superior productivity. Commercial farms are a cornerstone of economic growth and job creation – particularly for the young and low-skilled. No country has been able to sustain a rapid transition out of poverty without raising productivity in its agricultural sector (with the exception of Hong Kong and Singapore, which had no sector to start with1).
7.3. Unfortunately, the commercial agricultural sector in much of Africa remains under- developed. In July 2012, Mthuli Ncube, Chief Economist and Vice President of the African Development Bank (AfDB) discussed the need for African economies to diversify away from oil extraction and raw materials in order to correct the ‘jobless’ economic growth currently being experienced by the continent. Dr Ncube identified efficient commercial farming in particular as a powerful driver for job creation, but described it as a "missed opportunity" in Africa where, despite an abundance of fertile land, complex social and political issues of land ownership and title are still hampering farming development.2
7.4. A number of African countries have recently identified commercial farming as a key sector in their national economic growth strategies. The governments of Nigeria, Ethiopia, Ghana and Mozambique , for example, have recently announced plans aimed at facilitating the growth of commercial farming of both food and cash crops.
1 Professor C. Peter Timmer. ‘A World without Agriculture: The Structural Transformation in Historical Perspective’ (AEI Press, 2009).
2 http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/07/31/uk-africa-food-prices-idUKBRE86U0J920120731 GFS 28
7.5. A new body aimed at promoting private sector investment in African agriculture, Grow Africa, was initiated at the World Economic Forum in 2011, with seven of the ‘first wave’ countries convening a ministerial meeting in Dar es Salaam in March 2012. Involvement of the private sector in agricultural development has also become an important component of NEPAD’s CAADP, upon which Grow Africa is building.
7.6. SABMiller supports NEPAD’s focus on building the capacity of small and medium- sized farms, and welcomes these new pro-private sector initiatives, as it is our experience that genuine impact on agricultural productivity can only be achieved through a partnership of government, the private sector, large and small farmers.
7.7. We are also strongly supportive of African government ambitions to scale-up commercial farming, and this has formed a key plank of our strategy in several countries.
7.8. For example, our Zambian business Zambia Breweries (ZB) has been working to establish barley as a new crop for commercial farmers, to obviate the need to import expensive barley from Europe and the US. This has created a new agricultural sector in Zambia.
8. Recommendations
8.1. We believe that it is essential for governments and international organisations to look at agricultural development holistically, and to follow strategies that balance support to large-scale, commercial smallholder and subsistence farmers in order to increase food production and food access, drive economic growth and social development, and alleviate poverty. As our work in Africa, India, Latin America and elsewhere shows, private sector investment in the agricultural sector – particularly smallholders – can be a part of the answer to poverty reduction and food security.
8.2. However, to create thriving, productive agricultural sectors, strong governance on the part of government is critical. Private investors need a hospitable business environment, including good infrastructure and robust legal and corporate governance frameworks, which provide a stable and predictable environment for businesses to invest with confidence.
8.3. We recommend that DfID supports existing multi-stakeholder initiatives such as the World Economic Forum’s New Vision for Agriculture, and Grow Africa, which seeks to accelerate investments and transformative change in African agriculture based on national agricultural priorities.
8.4. We would recommend that DfID funding for agriculture and smallholder farmers should focus on overall agricultural policy, governance, smallholder capacity and supporting the development of effective value chains, with a focus on working through public-private partnerships. This would help ensure markets for smallholder outputs, develop the capacity of smallholders to deliver to those markets, and a hospitable environment for agricultural trade – which together would play a significant GFS 28
role in enhancing food security. We would particularly call for funding to support fledgling, innovative companies involved in the value chain between farmer and ultimate buyer. Innovative financing instruments like the Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund (ACEF) also have a key role to play and DfID is to be commended for its global leadership in this area
January 2012 GFS 29
Written evidence submitted by The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN)
Executive Summary
There has been a radical shift in the understanding of the significance of malnutrition to global development since 2008. In the public imagination, hunger and malnutrition are often treated as being synonymous. Hunger is the most direct and visible expression of a food system in crisis, but more people are affected by malnutrition which is caused by an insufficiently diverse diet containing the right nutrients, vitamins and minerals for normal and healthy growth. Just producing more food, while essential, will not on its own tackle global malnutrition and its consequent problems of lower growth, a high disease burden and high levels of child and maternal mortality. Solutions are needed to produce more food, but also better, cheaper and more nutritious foods, especially for women and children.
This new understanding was given prominence in the Olympic Hunger Event hosted by the Prime Minister in summer 2012 and forms a central part of the thinking around the post MDG goals. Identifying these linked challenges is essential to effective policy response and to creating food and nutrition security. In particular, this is vitally important in developing effective strategies for tackling stunting, a global scourge which affects hundreds of millions of children, and which cannot be addressed simply by providing more food: it is fundamentally about delivering a more diverse diet.
The 2008 Lancet series on Maternal and Child Undernutrition1 showed that poor nutrition in the first 1000 days following conception damages and limits lifelong development and is the anchor point of the new global focus on child and maternal nutrition as key to survival and development. Recent scientific consensus has thus underlined that hunger and undernutrition are distinct aspects of a global food system in crisis, requiring linked but separate strategies.
Severe food and nutrition insecurity continues to dominate the lives of a third of people in the world, and is the pressing development issue of our time. There has been minimal progress in global malnutrition for decades, and the consequences to health, equity, capacity development and economic growth have been devastating. The challenge of food and nutrition security will loom larger as the global population increases, and will underpin the viability of all other development goals.
To achieve and sustain global food and nutrition security, stakeholders along the entire food value chain must be engaged and better linkages and collaboration between sectors is needed to deliver sustainable impact at a scale that no single organization can achieve alone. Particular focus is needed in catalysing those who actually produce and distribute the foods consumed by the poor. Most actors in the sector are from the private sector: farmers, finance, logistics, energy, natural resources, food companies, and more, but private investment lies far behind its potential in most developing countries. Innovative financing tools can help make investments in agriculture value chains and nutrition more attractive, and reduce the high level of risks
1 Maternal and Child Undernutrition. The Lancet 2008 http://www.thelancet.com/series/maternal-and-child-undernutrition GFS 29
associated with such investments. In addition to public funding to address food security, agricultural development requires high levels of private investments.
International systems are central to driving agendas, priorities, standards, thought leadership, and both political and resource commitments to address the global challenge of food and nutrition security.
How DFID could make a difference
• Engage the G8 and other donors in strategies to mobilise more public and private investment in tackling malnutrition. • Invest in policy and program measures to improve nutrition outcomes of agriculture programmes from production to consumption, including adding nutrition and dietary diversity indicators. • Invest in agriculture research and technology development to improve quantity and nutritional quality of yield (e.g. biofortification), reduce post-harvest loss of nutrient-dense foods, and reduce the cost of nutritious foods including horticultural crops, animal-sourced foods, small nutritious grains and pulses. • Support innovative financing mechanisms to make investments in agriculture value chains and nutrition more attractive, and to reduce the high level of risks associated with such investments • Support innovative and efficient market mechanisms to improve access to affordable nutritious foods for base of the pyramid population, including efficient mechanisms for nutritious food production, trade and distribution, and aggregation of small farmers to produce and market nutritious foods locally. • Ramp up support for direct interventions which tackle stunting, tackle vitamin and mineral deficiencies for women of child gearing age, and pregame and lactating women.
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The success or otherwise of the global food system in guaranteeing food security and eliminating under-nutrition with particular reference to women, children and other vulnerable groups, and the implications of demographic trends
1. The world faces an unprecedented challenge in malnutrition, one that will loom larger as the global population increases to 9 billion by 2050, and which underpins the viability of all other development goals. There has been minimal progress in global malnutrition for years: levels of malnutrition have fallen by only 10% in the past two decades, or about half a percentage point each year.
2. The consequences of underinvestment have been devastating. Today there is a crisis: we live in a world where almost 1 billion people are hungry,2 some 171 million children are chronically malnourished, resulting in stunting3 and an estimated 1.4 billion are overweight and obese.4 Severe food and nutrition insecurity continues to dominate the lives of a third of humanity, and will become even more difficult to address due to the growing complexity of global challenges, such as population growth, increasing consumer demand from the growing middle class in developing countries, high and volatile food prices, energy scarcity, urbanization, the new competition between food and fuel, and climate change.
3. Food and nutrition security is inextricably linked to health, equity, capacity development and economic growth. Poor and maternal and infant nutrition in particular irreversibly damages not only the lifelong mental and physical capacities of individuals, but also the growth of communities and the economic performance of entire countries. Without adequate nutrition, a child’s growth is stunted, and her health and education potential diminished, leading to the systematic compromise of the physical and cognitive capacity, lifelong productivity, and a loss of two to three percent Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of whole nations as a result of iron, iodine and zinc deficiencies.
4. There is increasing international consensus that improving nutrition – particularly during the 1000-day period from conception to a child’s second birthday when the impact is greatest – is the pressing development issue of our time. A broader, holistic approach is needed to global food and nutrition security, as malnutrition is the ultimate expression of systemic and cultural challenges in our global food and health systems. While a health systems focus has allowed us to make significant gains, particularly in reductions in some of the most severe consequences of malnutrition, it is too narrow a mechanism to get us to significant reductions in malnutrition overall. Stakeholders along the entire food value chain must be engaged in the effort to achieve and sustain global food and nutrition security.
2 State of Food Insecurity in the World, FAO, 2012. 3 M de Onis, M Blossne and E Borghi (2011) ‘Prevalence of stunting among pre-school children 1990-2020’, Growth Assessment and Surveillance Unit, Public Health Nutrition 2011, Jul 14:1-7. 4 Obesity and Overweight Fact Sheet, WHO, 2012. GFS 29
The role of the international system, including food and agriculture organisations and the G8 and G20, and ways in which collaboration could be improved
5. International systems are central to agenda setting, priority setting, standard setting, and both the G8 and G20 have a specific role in global thought leadership, and in driving both political and resource commitment to meaningfully address the global challenge of food and nutrition security, preventing malnutrition and its consequences. It is no longer just about quantity of food, but also the quality (nutritional value) of that food, and in strengthening systems to ensure that food is affordable and accessible to the poorest people, on a sustainable basis. The international systems can support mechanisms that ensure the meaningful integration of nutrition into food security, explicitly including nutrition considerations in the design of all agriculture and food security initiatives.
6. Technological innovations such as biotechnology, information and communication innovations, and bio-fortification, are crucial to increasing agricultural productivity, building resilience to weather-related shocks, enhancing the nutritional value of food crops, and ensuring food safety.
7. Addressing these challenges will also require better linkages to other sectors at the planning and community levels, supported by international evidence-based technical guidance, and support for improved country capacities. It will require smarter policy decisions in how we approach and finance these priorities, and how we leverage markets to work better for the poor. This means addressing systemic and structural challenges: expanding beyond traditional mechanisms to engage all sectors, and facilitating collaboration through mechanisms like public private partnerships to achieve the investment and sustainable reach needed to make global food and nutrition security a reality. International systems can lead on driving this collective action to scale up nutrition and achieve global food and nutrition security.
8. Mobilizing a diverse set of partners on the ground is critical – partners who work all along the food value chain and understand the needs of the community, who are embedded within the local or regional culture, and who can leverage public and market-based channels for investment to ensure access to, and consumption of, affordable and nutritionally adequate food. These efforts have the potential to foster change on the ground, spurring innovation and entrepreneurship, and create self-sustaining cycles of growth.
9. For example, in response to the need to better integrate sectors in addressing malnutrition at the international and national levels, the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement, a country- led, global effort to advance health and development through improved nutrition, convened a diverse range of public and private partners to drive the effort to reduce stunting and chronic undernutrition. Innovative, country-led collaborations between governments, the private sector, international organizations (including the United Nations), academia and civil society GFS 29
are integral to the ‘Collective Impact’ approach to fighting hunger and malnutrition that delivers sustainable impact at a scale that no single organization can achieve alone.5
The role of the private sector in increasing food security
10. Past decades have shown that no one sector has the resources, capacity and reach to singlehandedly address the global challenge of food and nutrition security: all stakeholders need to be involved. The private sector includes farmers, finance, logistics, energy, natural resources, food companies, and the many more who take part in producing and distributing virtually all the food which poor people consume. Their engagement is a key lever to success, and any development approach that excludes market-based approaches significantly limits access by the poor to adequate nutrition. In order to empower the poor to have and make better nutrition choices for themselves and their children, it is essential to engage with those who actually produce and distribute foods.
The role of smallholder agriculture and large-scale farming in increasing food security
11. Farmers are part of the private sector and need market support, not only for improved income and livelihood, but also for expanding the basket of available diverse and nutritious foods.
The role of external interventions (land deals, corporate investment and donor interventions) in increasing food security
12. In addition to public funding to address food security, agricultural development requires high levels of private investments, as most actors in the sector are from the private sector. Most of the ground research indicates that private investment lies far behind its potential in most developing countries (and particularly in Africa), because investors and banks show little interest for a sector associated with high climatic, price and counterpart risks, and market failures. Moreover, there are a number of market failures and supply chain inefficiencies, which impede the private sector to receive the right market signals, due in particular to lack of information, infrastructure and efficient regulation.
13. A number of innovative financing tools can be identified to make investments in agriculture value chains and nutrition more attractive, and to reduce the high level of risks associated with such investments. These tools complement traditional financing mechanisms. While traditional resources are necessary to improve the public good required for nutrition and agricultural development, innovative financing and related delivery mechanisms are essential to bridge the investment gap and to catalyse private investment. Based on a review of available experiences and existing literature, few of the more promising mechanisms are the following:
14. Risk management tools to reduce the risk on bank credit and investments in agricultural activities, such as index based weather insurance;
5 Hanleybrown, Kania, Kramer. (2012) ‘Channeling Change: Making Collective Impact Work’, Stanford Social Innovation Review, 2012, Jan 26. GFS 29
15. Innovative credit mechanisms providing the lender with improved collateral guarantees, and thus facilitating the financing of agricultural value chains, especially for nutritious food crops and products;
16. Targeted sector-focused private equity and debt funds to provide additional finance and sector expertise to SMEs and progressive smallholder farmer cooperatives producing nutritious foods along the agriculture value chain.
Potential roles for DFID
17. DFID could make a difference in the following ways:
a. Engage the G8 and other donors in strategies to mobilise more public and private investment in tackling malnutrition. b. Invest in policy and program measures to improve the nutrition outcomes of agriculture programmes from production to consumption. c. Encourage country agriculture plans that prioritise nutrition, including adding nutrition and dietary diversity indicators. d. Invest in research and technology development to improve yield and reduce the cost of nutritious foods including horticultural crops, animal-sourced foods, small nutritious grains and pulses. e. Invest in reducing post-harvest loss of nutrient-dense foods. f. Support new agricultural technologies that focus on improved nutritional quality, e.g. biofortification. g. Support aggregation of small farmers to produce and market nutritious foods, with an emphasis on local production. h. Support efficient mechanisms that provide markets for nutritious food production, trade and distribution. i. Support innovative market mechanisms to improve access to affordable nutritious foods for base of the pyramid populations. j. Support innovative financing mechanisms to make investments in agriculture value chains and nutrition more attractive, and to reduce the high level of risks associated with such investments.
February 2013
The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) www.gainhealth.org
The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) is a global foundation, which currently assists nearly 670m people facing malnutrition in over 30 countries. Created in 2002 at a Special Session of the UN General Assembly on Children, and with the status of international organization, GAIN supports public-private partnerships to increase access to the missing nutrients in diets necessary for people, communities and economies to be stronger and healthier. GFS 30
Written evidence submitted by Professor Tim Benton, University of Leeds
Summary • The world is changing fast: population size, age-structure, urbanisation and climate change. The importance of climate change on developing world food insecurity is not yet well articulated, even though the signals of increasing extreme weather frequency are well noted • The food system is increasingly a global one, and is shaped by crucial interactions with water, climate, society and local and international trade; in addition, recognition is growing that essential ecosystem service provision requires interventions within agricultural landscapes. Thus, the food system is an interdisciplinary system cutting across scales. Furthermore, in the globalised system, many issues are in common between developed and developing world knowledge needs. • There are many areas where our knowledge needs are large, and so research must play a crucial role in delivering food security for the world’s poorest. However, this work needs to be multidisciplinary (covering production, environment and social systems) and preferably interdisciplinary. • There is a considerable need to find better ways of working together internationally to make research more efficient; however, there is a poor understanding of how best to do this as the mapping of international activities, interests and expertise is patchy • DFID plays a key role in delivering research for development
Introductory comment 1. I am writing this in my personal capacity as an academic. I am also the “Champion” of the UK’s Global Food Security (GFS) programme1, which is a partnership, across the main public funders of research in disciplines relating to the provision and use of food: including nutrition and health, farming, environment, international development. The role of GFS is to help coordinate research in this area and act as a conduit between research and stakeholders. As the Department for International Development is a partner within GFS, the partnership did not respond to this enquiry as it requests comment upon DFID activity. However, in response to being asked to submit written evidence in my personal capacity, I agreed: hence the views expressed are not those of the GFS partnership but those as an academic with experience in this field.
2. In the paragraphs below, I address the questions as posed by the Call for Evidence (I highlight these in bold), which is framed around ending hunger. Whilst hunger is traditionally seen as a developing world phenomenon and over-consumption as a developed world phenomenon, this will increasingly become blurred. As food prices continue to rise, the poor in all societies are at increasing risk from hunger; and malnutrition can impact on those who have enough calories not to be hungry but whose diet maybe constrained by issues of price and availability.
1 See www.foodsecurity.ac.uk
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The implications of demographic trends, rising income and climate change on the global food system and on key indicators of food security and good nutrition;
3. These are all important drivers. Firstly, with demography, much of the developing world has experienced rapid population growth which, with some large exceptions in Sub Saharan Africa (SSA), is projected to reduce as we progress through the next decades. Many areas of the developing world therefore have a population pyramid, heavy at the base with many young people and each age group declining in size. However, as birth rate declines, this population pyramid changes shape, reflecting fewer children, more adults and then fewer old people (the “coffin shape” of a mature population). In much of the developing world, therefore, the proportion of young people will decline over time2. This is unlikely to be the case in SSA, where, for the foreseeable future, population growth rates will continue at 2% or more. 4. The second demographic driver is the transition from rural to urban, with much of population growth being in the urban environment. Both these issues provide challenges for food production: an aging workforce and a smaller rural workforce. In addition, the growth of megacities provides great logistical challenges for adequate food provision (transport, storage, contamination, access to an adequate range of nutrients etc), especially in low income countries where infrastructure is under-developed. 5. Rising income, and the significant growth of the global middle class and its global distribution3, is making significant changes in international supply chains. The expected growth of wealth in Asia, coupled with the nutritional transition to a more highly consumptive diet, suggests that demand for a range of food products, and the ability to buy them, will increase flows of food imports to the newly wealthy countries, with some potential for less wealthy countries to have less access to the international food market. 6. However, my opinion is that potentially the most important driver of food insecurity is climate change, especially the impact of extreme weather. Weather is important in its ability to provide sudden and severe shocks to the food system. This is currently being underestimated in our thinking. The evidential basis of the importance of increasing severe weather was recently gathered together in the appendix to a report for the GCSA-chaired Food Research Partnership4. Food production systems are extremely prone to perturbations due to the weather and there is significant evidence that variability in weather is increasing (in frequency, severity and spatial scale of impact). At the current time, our emissions profile is putting us on course for a 4-6 degree increase in average temperatures by the end of the century5. As the variability in the weather is currently increasing about twice as fast as the average is moving, this implies that a hot summer at the end of the century could be 10 degrees hotter than a hot summer now. As extreme
2 UNPD 2010 revision predicts that in Asia, the numbers of people under 20 will decline from 1.4bn to 1.2bn from now until 2050, whereas the numbers of people over 50 will increase from 0.8 to 1.9bn. The figures for Africa are 0.6 – 0.9bn for the under 20s and 0.1 to 0.4 bn for the over 50s. 3 The US NIC report “Global Trends 2030”, using OECD data, indicates that the global middle class in 2000 was about 60% EU+ North America and 20% Asian, and by 2050 will be about 12% EU + North America and 68% Asian 4 FRP report on UK food system resilience, appendix on severe weather available at http://www.foodsecurity.ac.uk/assets/pdfs/frp-severe-weather-uk-food-chain-resilience.pdf 5 Peters, G. P., R. M. Andrew, T. Boden, J. G. Canadell, P. Ciais, C. Le Quere, G. Marland, M. R. Raupach, and C. Wilson. 2013. The challenge to keep global warming below 2 [deg]C. Nature Clim. Change 3:4-6.
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heat creates significant stress for livestock and arable systems, reducing yield and increasing mortality, it is highly possible that extreme weather, significantly impacting on agricultural production, will become sufficiently common in many areas that local food security will be threatened. There is some recent evidence, for example, that drought frequency in China will increase significantly6, even over the next 2 decades, to significantly impact on rice production; creating a greater reliance on imports. 7. Thus, the weather may be a significantly greater constraint on local production systems and this, coupled with more complex international supply chains and a significantly greater amount perhaps being diverted to the richer Asian countries, may be a significant threat for the food security of the poorest countries. In addition, the aging and more urbanised population may interact with weather leading to even more difficulty for local food production.
The impact of global and local food shocks and how different countries and/or regions cope with food crises and the role of democracy in increasing food security;
8. Clearly, there is significant geographic variation in terms of the likelihood of experiencing damaging food production shocks (from flooding to extreme heat and drought); and as there are physiological limits on, for example, plant growth associated with temperature, hotter, drier, countries are on average going to be more vulnerable to such shocks. Furthermore, recent research has indicated that there is a correlation between vulnerability to weather-related shocks and systems of governance, with middle-income countries being more vulnerable to droughts and with full democracies being less vulnerable7. Countries’ adaptive capacities will also vary with factors such as labour available, infrastructure and investment in agriculture8 9. There is also an international dimension for the majority of country’s food security, and it depends on the international trade (or aid) in food. Especially looking a long time ahead, there is a risk that some/many countries will be severely challenged by weather and will increasingly require trade/aid to meet local requirements. This includes large and rich countries (China, for example) as well as many tropical countries. In a paper in Science in 20099, the authors suggested that by the end of the century almost every summer across much of SSA will be hotter than any so far recorded. The recent empirical data on the speed with which weather extremes are evolving indicates a need for concern10.
6 Forster, P et al (2012) Food Security: near future projections of the impact of drought in Asia. Working Paper from the Centre for Low Carbon Futures. Available at http://www.lowcarbonfutures.org/ 7 Simelton, E., E. D. G. Fraser, M. Termansen, T. G. Benton, S. N. Gosling, A. South, N. W. Arnell, A. J. Challinor, A. J. Dougill, and P. M. Forster. 2012. The socioeconomics of food crop production and climate change vulnerability: a global scale quantitative analysis of how grain crops are sensitive to drought. Food Security:1-17. 8 Forster, P et al (2012) op cit 9 Battisti, D. S. and R. L. Naylor. 2009. Historical Warnings of Future Food Insecurity with Unprecedented Seasonal Heat. Science 323:240-244. 10 Hansen, J et al (2012) “Perception of climate change” PNAS www.pnas.orc/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1205276109
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The role of the international system, including food and agriculture organisations and the G8 and G20, and ways in which collaboration could be improved;
10. Food security concerns a whole host of issues: production, sustainability, logistics, access, availability, choice, waste, nutrition, international trade etc etc. This calls for approaches recognising the food system as a system, and that many aspects of the food system are international. In the past there has been too much a tendency to break the systems into silos: thinking about food or water or environment, demand or supply, developed or developing worlds. Understanding the food system, and how it responds to shocks, explicitly requires interdisciplinary and cross-scale thinking. The UK’s Global Food Security programme is an exemplar of trying to encourage collaboration and inter-disciplinarity, and we need more of this at an international level. The CGIAR, receiving significant UK funding from DFID, is a mechanism for international collaboration, but its links to higher research organisations are often not as well developed as they should be to solve some of the issues. 11. The G8 and G20 are potential mechanisms for aligning international research agendas and increasing collaboration, as evidenced by the G8 open data initiative, encouraging international sharing of agriculturally relevant data11. This, one hopes, will be a spring board to potential exploitation of such data. In addition to working together, in a world of constrained research budgets, understanding who is doing what, who is not doing what, and who is most capable of doing something are necessary issues to maximise the collective efficiency of spending; and the G8 and G20 are potential ways to deliver these landscaping tools. There are many other scales of engagement promoting international collaboration (e.g. bipartite funding relationships, international collectives – such as the Belmont Forum, the Wheat Consortium, the Worldwide Universities Network, the EU, the UN bodies), but understanding the landscape is highly complex, and therefore we potentially miss opportunities to make progress.
The best strategies for reducing risk from short term shocks and long term structural factors and for building resilience among the most vulnerable;
12. The principle risks for the most vulnerable are generally climatic extremes (such as drought, or flood), and input shocks. One can build resilience to the extremes by planning – e.g. training in good farming practice, providing advice, or infrastructure like water harvesting and storage, by stimulating a diverse portfolio of products (such that if one fails, not everything is lost), by ensuring a safe supply of inputs (e.g. the Malawi subsidised fertiliser regime12), and by providing micro-economic schemes like insurance. However, when the climate fails, for some parts of the world, food aid will always be a necessary safety net. 13. A key area which can increasingly help is via developing new forecasting tools. These include better seasonal and longer term weather forecasting, more accurate downscaled local forecasting of weather, developing new tools to map and predict pest outbreaks, and also using a range of remote sensing tools to map and understand landuse change, including local degradation of soil. One of the key issues emerging is the need to ensure agricultural landscapes retain ecosystem-service delivery. For example, fragments of rainforest can provide food, forage, fuel, fibre and pollination, and even more importantly, can affect local
11 https://sites.google.com/site/g8opendataconference/ 12 http://www.oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/?p=4187
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climate and stimulate rainfall. However, if the forests are seen as being an ungoverned commons, or simply free resource to exploit, they get degraded and the ability to grow food in the locality gets impaired due to local collapse of ecosystem services. Better understanding of how to use land to deliver the food and the necessary range of services is required.
The role of the following in increasing food security and the part that DFID should play in:
14. Whilst DFID is responsible for International Development and DEFRA for UK/EU issues, many of the same issues apply equally to both the developed and the developing world. This calls for close alignment between DEFRA and DFID. The focus of international development is also often very immediate (as in the most vulnerable countries there is always the urgency of today’s problem) but unless significant effort is also spent about thinking about the mid- to-long-term future there is potential for promoting indirect negative impacts. Hence, as a general comment, there is a greater need to future-proof development actions than is sometimes acknowledged.
o Competition for land use – including for biofuels, cash crops, livestock or agriculture and the impact of diet choices on food production capacity;
15. Competition for land and water is perhaps the biggest long term issue determining local food security, alongside climate change. In contrast to the research investment in understanding climate, or in biotechnology and crop improvement, the research investment to optimise conflicts for resources is insignificant. If each parcel of land is treated independently, the consequence is the tragedy of the commons at the landscape scale (see para 13). Understanding how to optimise land use (from the farm scale via landscape to regional and international scales) to deliver equity for all societal needs (food, water, energy, environment), and the social and governance situations under which this can be brought about is crucial and largely unstudied. DFID (and DEFRA and RCUK) can all play an important role in filling this evidence gap.
o small holder agriculture and large scale farming;
16. There is a consensus in the development literature is that small-holder farming is the current key development pathway; however, the issue is then how to stimulate production growth in such a way to scale-up production to stimulate market growth. Part of this is through co-ordination of smallholders to “upscale”. However, at some stage, this suggests a transition from small plot farming to collective larger farming to take advantages of scale efficiencies and machinery, especially if the rural population density declines. Thus, the future must surely contain both small holder and larger-scale farming. Transition to larger scale farming then also raises the issue of landscape planning (para 13, 15) and social equity and gender issues. All these factors are under-researched in terms of how best to upscale in the way to provide the most benefit and in a sustainable way.
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o The private sector;
17. The private sector is probably integral to many issues around sustainably increasing local food security in the face of the constraints. This includes the agricultural business for supply of inputs (including seeds), and even agricultural training and advice, and the local food chain (buyers, processors, transporters) as well as co-ops and so on. Many international companies provide important support underpinning local economies (both for issues of CSR, but also because a happier workforce is a better and more loyal one). Producing food for international markets, however, is often predicated upon suppliers being relatively large scale, and not, therefore taking produces from small-holders or local co-ops (para 16). Encouraging both engagement of existing business, but also an innovation approach, is an important part of development, and DFID’s engagement in the UK’s Agri-Tech strategy development is welcomed.
o New technologies, including irrigation, and the dissemination and distribution of these, with special reference to small farmers and women;
18. The development of innovative ways of (sustainably) producing local food, as well as storing, transporting and preparing food is urgently needed. As with the UK’s recognition of the “valley of death” between upstream research and innovation and on-farm deployment, this is often doubly the case in development, especially with the extra problems of remote communities, poor infrastructure and the gender issues around access to women. It is to be welcomed that DFID is investing, in association with BBSRC, NERC and ESRC, significant monies for research to understand production, environmental and social issues in the developing world. However, engineering solutions for agriculture, perhaps especially in the developing world, have been under-resourced in recent years13.
o Global policy measures, including monitoring, food stocks, financial shock facilities, food, nutrition and agriculture initiatives;
19. As the world gets more variable and demand supply imbalances drive the potential for increased volatility in markets, the global food system will need greater strategic management and monitoring. Clearly, at local scales, we need to encourage sustainable yield growth on existing agricultural land, and discourage de novo land conversion for agriculture. However, on a global scale we could be considerably better at monitoring in real-time agricultural production, land use, economics and the feedback to the agricultural cycle. This could involve remote-sensing to estimate yields, coupled with new approaches to modelling that were more informative and took greater cognisance of predictive technologies. At the moment, we don’t even have a good understanding of how food prices, in terms of the FAO index, relate to food prices and local access in the developing world. Nor do we have a predictive understanding of how food prices drive local land use decisions and crop-choices by farmers. Modelling the system better would be the first step to mitigating price spikes caused by shocks.
February 2013
13 http://www.iagre.org/sites/iagre.org/files/repository/IAgrEGlobal_Food_Security_WEB.pdf
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Written evidence submitted by Benny Dembitzer
THE PERFECT STORM OF WORLD STARVATION
The challenge of massive starvation is creeping up silently on us, remaining largely unnoticed by the rich world whose inhabitants are unaffected. There is an illusion in the North, in the rich world, that the occasional report one reads that there is famine in East Africa (off the screens at the moment), in Pakistan (last year’s news), in Haiti (the year before) or in mid-2012 in Niger and the rest of the Sahel, are only minor blips on an otherwise reasonably calm, controlled global scene. Far from it. The 40 million people who were in some way or other threatened by famine in the Horn of Africa in 2011 have had a decent rainfall and thus are off the news. But they are not out of danger. It would take only another poor rainy season to bring them back onto the front of the rich world’s papers, providing more appalling pictures – to which most people have become so accustomed.
A serious error of analysis A recent study by Chatham House states that many parts of the world are now one or two harvest away from disasteri. Global food stocks are dangerously low and prices keep on rising. That, in everyday parlance, translates into increasing starvation for the poorest people on earth. The World Bank estimates that there are around 1.4 billion people who live in perpetual poverty – below the magic number of $1.15 per day. According to FAO, there are at least 1 billion people who live in “hidden hunger”, a situation of permanent ill-nourishment. In the first 1000 days of life a child needs a range of vitamins, micronutrients and minerals, to grow a healthy body and a healthy brain. Without that, they will grow stunted –the situation that afflicts 51% of the children of both Ethiopia and Rwandaii.
The logical question that arises from such facts should be very simple; from the point of view of the poorest, the system as it is now has failed. How can we improve it so that it does not fail in the future?
The answer is not that we can tamper a bit here with climate change reduction or a bit there by improving food production in the North and giving more of it to the South. The damage caused by Hurricane Sandy on some of the most prosperous parts of the world indicates how little can be done to prevent or anticipate the very serious climatic changes that are taking place.
There are a number of major independent forces that lead to an uncontrollable threat to global food security. They include;
Population, which has increased by over 130 % since 1946, from just under 3 billion to 7.1 billion people now, with prediction of 9.3 billion by 2050, mostly in poorest countriesiii. Climate Change affects not just food production through changes in rainfall, temperature, incidence of extreme weather, but also upon food storage and distribution. More food is used as animal feed for people who are becoming better off. Loss of arable land due urbanisation, growth of industries and commercial activity is causing significant loss of arable land. Diversion of land use for biofuel production causes vast reduction in food and displacement of people. If biofuel production continues its present pattern, the number of
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additional people at risk of hunger in Africa alone will be somewhere between 25 million and 135 million by 2030iv. Speculation and Market Exploitation; huge volumes of capital from speculative funds (and from Quantitative Easing) have moved into purchasing commodities and land. The historical rise in the cost of oil means an increasing cost of fertilizers, making them too expensive for the poorer farmers and further reducing self-sufficiency. It also increases the costs of transport and distribution of food. All of the above has led to a massive land grab; countries, large companies and speculative investment funds to invest into acquiring land in some of the poorest countries in Africa and Asia. According to OXFAM in the last 10 years an amount of land equivalent to 8 times the total surface of the UK has been acquired by outsidersv. That means that several millions of the most vulnerable and poorest people on earth have been dispossessed.
International aid has not fundamentally tackled the issue; there has been too little of it. We hear almost weekly appeals by the World Food Programme for money to buy more food for more disasters, from Syria to Mali – appeals that are not being met. Aid had not been used a tool for long term development. Between 1986 and 2006, the amount of ODA that went into agricultural development fell each year from 20% to 3%, thus reducing food self-sufficiency in the countries most in need.
Unpredictable interaction The various interactions between these forces are producing consequences that are unpredictable and uncontrollable. In late 2010, for example, Russia banned all exports of wheat because of the danger that the country would run out of food after the disastrous fires of that summer. Egypt had been for some years the main buyer of Russia’s wheat. In early 2011, Egypt was forced to turn to international markets to purchase the wheat it needed for its people, at a time when the global price of wheat had climbed to its highest level ever. The sudden rise in the price of wheat for ordinary people on the streets of Cairo was one of the key reasons for the popular uprising that overthrew President Mubarak in January/February 2011.
We need to move substantially away from the present framework within which the discussions on global development are held. To take but one example; Rwanda is a major exporter of coffee. Kenya is a major exporter of flowers. The International Financial Institutions are urging both of them to export more and concentrate on niche produce. But both countries are chronically short of food. The World Bank and WTO are executing their respective mandate vigorously by supporting the trade; who is the advocate for the smallholder? Certainly not their governments, which accept the strategy of the MNCs and have no choice but to follow the diktats of the World Bank.
More aid is not the solution. Increasing food production in the North to give to the South is not the solution. More food is being produced today than at any other stage in the world’s history. Yet, more people than ever are starving for lack of food. The problem is that it is not reaching the hungry for the simple reason that they do not have the money to buy (or are not able to produce enough surplus of anything to exchange for) the food they need. A decision needs to be made as to whether to back exports as opposed to enabling local people to feed themselves. Purchases of land in countries that have spare space are not the solution when that additional production is then exported. But there are alternatives; Brazil for years has substantially reduced poverty and famine by introducing coupons to needy families through the Bolsa Familia. These have to be spent on local purchases of food and other items. It has created
GFS 31 markets for very small local farmers. Thanks to the Gates Foundation, the WFP already makes guaranteed purchases of food over agreed time- scales from local producers in a range of countries in the South. It claims that it purchased more than 80 percent of all its food from developing countriesvi, including Ethiopia, Vietnam, and Guatemala, and helped people affected by the epic flooding in Pakistan, the earthquake in Haiti, and the drought in the Sahel. In 2010 it purchased $1.25 billion of food commodities from 96 nations. As an intermediate step over, say, a three- to five-year period, expansion of the operation could be underwritten by international donors in order to build up the guaranteed level of purchases and widen the catchment area. In this way, a very serious input of pump-priming funds into local communities would be generated.
A new agenda For effective action to be enabled, cultures, not just systems need to change. We need to start from accepting that, if rich and poor compete for scarce, finite resources, the market will inevitably prioritise our feed, fodder and fuel over poor people's hunger. Thus there needs to be an alternative to market allocation, at least for staples.
There is now a desperate need for clear action and leadership on the specific issue of hunger yet it is difficult to see where these will come from despite attempts from some NGOs to inform the public. The issue surely is development effectiveness not aid effectiveness. Governments in the South need to be reminded of the fundamental obligation they have to protect their own people in achieving the most basic rights of all, the right to life and the right to food. The 51 countries of Africa signed the Maputo Declaration in 2003, under which they committed themselves to devote 10% of their annual budgets to agriculture by 2008vii. By 2011 only 5 had actually reached that budget. International aid and investment cannot be a substitute for lack of political will and commitment by even the poorest nationsviii.
The action required will have to include a combination of changes that engage with the problem from all angles - better farming techniques and better support for farmers, more education of women and better harnessing of the diminishing amount of rainfall available, alternative energy sources and so on. There certainly needs to be more technology appropriate to local situations and answering to the local levels of skills, as well as new financial services. But, given the methodology to which the world of development has hitherto been wedded, all these would require that target countries start with a combination of supportive governments, functioning bureaucracies, favourable physical and non-physical environments, an honest business class, engaged academe, and people who are committed but also able to think independently. It will take a very long time indeed for this enabling environment to arise.
A role for non-state actors There is now a clear leadership role that could be fulfilled by non-governmental bodies, in both re-focusing their appeals and re-directing their not inconsiderable strength towards the clear target of more food production. The voluntary agencies from various OECD countries form the bulk of the people in the North who have any serious understanding of the problems, and are in closest touch with the reality of the challenges.
A system that combines the public concern of the voluntary development agencies with the single-mindedness – and therefore efficiency - of private business operations could become the core of a new, mixed, voluntary/private model of development. This combination of actors could cut loose from the official bodies and operate a new, clear agenda. Voluntary organisations should take the bold step of offering to commercial organisations investing in the
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South – both foreign and domestic – the opportunity of working to fair agreements within new structures, enabling commercial entities to concentrate on limited goals – for example, of growing cereals in the most effective way - whilst the voluntary bodies offer and discharge a wider development function, and maintain the human bounds of the whole operation. I elaborate these ideas in the following pages.
Commercial enterprises in the North have provided its citizens with decent food, clothing and housing. They have been improving the standards of living of most people of the North for generations. This has been possible because their activities have occurred within a framework of social standards that were separately established over a period of time by regulation introduced through governmental legislation.
NGOs operating in the South, given the necessary degree of legal control over areas of land leased to them, could provide in microcosm, and for specific periods of time, that framework of checks and balances which the state may be either unable or unwilling to provide, perhaps until such time as it can provide them. Within such a framework, commercial entities could in many areas of activity provide the drive and innovation that neither the voluntary movement nor state initiatives can, together with the precision and independence of action that the latter cannot offer. In the modern world, given the complex environment within which both private money and aid money operate, what is required is an updated system of relationship between the types of funding that would make it possible for private investment to remain attractive to its owners whilst servicing the aims of local economic growth and self-sustainability.
Because the best arable land everywhere will have already been taken, and new land to be brought into use will need far greater inputs and deliver returns only over a longer period of time, it will not be feasible to improve food production without massive investment. The right environment for such investment can only be created through well-defined long-term allocation of land to investors, be they external or local. DFID has been helping FARM AFRICA undertake some pilot work in land tenure in Tanzania. It has provided £40 million for a comprehensive land tenure system in Rwanda, which could be a model to be repeated elsewhere.
There has to be a move in this direction because, as sovereign and private overseas buyers accumulate more land to solve worsening food shortages in their own countries, a new and increasingly tight market in land will exclude the present users and poorest tillers. This market must be defused before it matures into a fully-fledged time-bomb. The new bodies proposed here, initiated and operated by non-state actors, could help break the constriction of the market while introducing an ethically-driven backdrop to at least part of it. Perhaps most importantly, they could provide arenas in which goals can be redefined as elaborated below to make local food and economic sustainability a realistic objective.
We need a far more radical approach and joined-up thinking.
Short-term measures
In the short term there must be more food reserves built in the countries that are at greatest risk.The highly influential IFPRI has, for years, suggested that strategic food reserves should be situated across various countries of the South to cope with emergencies and, backed by a fund, be used to stabilise prices in volatile markets.
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This is the obvious short-term solution. The biggest food buyer in the world, the WFP, should be put in charge of such stockpiles through a network of local agencies. The WFP suffers from many problems, not the least of which is that it is American-dominated in its thinking, which means that it is not self-critical, will broach no criticism from any outside source and loves quantifiable targets. More importantly, it has only recently started to understand that donating food from the rich world is not pro-developmentix, but it has gradually become more capable and effective, and it is the best organisation available. It has not yet been given a mandate to be proactive and is only able to react to shortages. The silos that it would need to build, the agreements that would have to be reached with different governments, the maintenance programmes and the training for the staff would be an immediate contribution to the improvement of agriculture needed across many countries of the South.
Medium-term measures
There should be initiatives aimed at revitalising bodies such as the Commonwealth Development Corporation whose task was to work to encourage and improve small-scale out- growers to produce more. This sort of body – as it functioned originally – could potentially be one of the most effective models of how to help the South develop agriculture in the long term. Such institutions would primarily fulfil the functions of a long-term management group. They could be the catalysts in securing land tenure agreements on behalf of local communities and individual families. The head lease-holding institutions would also be in a position to subcontract local, national and international NGOs to bring education and health facilities into the areas they have leased to supplement what is being done by host governments.
Long-term measures
On the ground local communities must be encouraged and supported to develop along paths to suit their individual priorities need. Food security must be given top priority. There are ten building blocks necessary for the creation of food sovereignty. They should be the core of the next Millennium Development Goals.
1st Define ownership of land 2nd Improve the productivity of the farmers 3rd Improve the status of women 4th Generating local jobs The number of people working in vulnerable jobs in the world rose by over 100 million in 2009, thus exacerbating global povertyx. Coupons provided by the state or donors, and designated for purchasing food locally, could be more widely introduced so that local people can buy food from local farmers. There are already sufficient examples in various parts of the South for those implementing such schemes to be aware of the main benefits and pitfalls. 5th Mass primary education and upgrading skills 6th Make the school building the centre of the community Experience shows that the school can become the key transformational tool of the entire community. 7th Mobilising local financial resources for local investment Microfinance institutions and Village Savings and Loan Associations have spread across various parts of Africa and Latin America and they are becoming successful
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in recruiting large numbers of members both as savers and borrowers, attracting up to 3,000 in some villages in Kenya, for examplexi. 8th: Developing small- and medium- scale enterprises More jobs and more sophisticated enterprises, starting with SMEs, need to be created in rural areas by up-scaling micro projects. They can most easily and naturally develop from the processing of agricultural produce: processing plants to make fruit juices, or mills to grind grains, or workshops to saw wood and make simple furniture. 9th Backing local social structures Until a few years ago, the mantra was ‘If you feed a man a fish, he will eat for a day. If you teach the man to fish, he will be able to fish for the rest of his life.’ But even that has now changed, given the environmental changes that have occurred and the running down of fish stocks. The mantra now is more likely to be; ‘If you give me a fish, you have fed me for a day. If you teach me to fish, then you have fed me until the river is contaminated or the shoreline seized for development. But if you teach me to organise, then whatever the challenge I can join together with my peers and we will fashion our own solutionsxii.’ 10th Encouraging joined-up thinking in the donor community There are too many statutory and voluntary organisation trying to do the same thing and in the process causing shortages of skills and diverting the local efforts from self-development to donor dependence.
February 2013
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i The hard truth is that many of the fundamental conditions that gave rise to the tight markets in the past ten years remain. In the case of food, the world remains only one or two bad harvests away from another global crisis. Lower prices in the meantime may simply trigger another bout of resource binge, especially in the large and growing developing countries (Chatham House report; Resources Future, December 2012).
ii UNICEF Nutrition Statistics, 2010 iii UN Office of Population, 4 May 2011
iv Vermeulen, S., Sulle, E. and Fauveaud, S. Biofuels in Africa: growing small-scale opportunities. London: IIED, November 2009 v OXFAM, Our land, our lives, October 2012 vi WFP Press release, March 2011 vii (Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Programme, Policy brief, June 2009 viii Between six and ten countries have either reached or surpassed the 10% GDP allocation to the agriculture sector, although many more have increased their budgetary allocations and the average for Africa remains at 6%. On agricultural growth, the average for Africa in the period of 2003–2009 has been 4.5%. (official paper of the African Union, November 2012) ix The Observer, Food Monthly Supplement. May 2009 x ILO Global Employment Trends, 2010 xi Lauren Hendricks and Sybil Chidiac; Village savings and loans: A pathway to financial inclusion for Africa’s poorest households, Enterprise development and microfinance, Practical Action, UK June 2011 xii Richardo Levins Morales, Northland Poster Collective, 1977-2009
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Written evidence submitted by the Food Ethics Council
Summary
1. The central priority for successful efforts to reduce hunger and improve food security must be to tackle the social injustice that pervades all aspects of the food system.
2. The governance of agricultural research needs to be revised to ensure that small-scale producers have a fair say in decisions on priorities that will shape their opportunities for years to come.
3. There is a sufficient body of evidence on the relationship between food price volatility and speculation on food commodities to warrant further regulation of that speculation.
Introduction – The Food Ethics Council 4. The Food Ethics Council is a charity that provides independent advice on the ethics of food and farming. Our aim is to create a food system that is fair and healthy for people and the environment. In pursuit of this aim we:
• Research and analyse ethical issues • Mediate between stakeholders • Develop tools for ethical decision-making • Act as honest brokers in policy and public debate
5. The 13 members of the Food Ethics Council are all leaders in their relevant fields, and appointed as individuals. They bring a broad range of expertise to our work, from academic research through to practical knowledge of farming, business and policy.
Social justice and global food security 6. The Food Ethics Council’s core response to the issues raised by this inquiry is that success of the global food system in securing long-term food security is fundamentally dependent upon addressing the severe social injustice that pervades all aspects of the food system. In elaborating upon this underlying assessment, our submission draws heavily on the findings of our Food and Fairness Inquiry, a two-year investigation into social injustice in the domestic and global food system.1 The inquiry was conducted by a committee representing all perspectives within the food sectors – senior food industry figures, academics, public officials and civil society campaigners.
7. The world currently produces more than enough food to feed the population, but around a billion people are still living in hunger. This doesn’t mean that measures to increase food production and productivity have no place in addressing global food insecurity – they clearly do – but it does mean that the central priority for successful efforts to reduce hunger and improve food security must be to tackle inequality. One important point about the relationship between production levels and social justice is that measures to increase supply (and thereby make food
1 Food Ethics Council, Food Justice: The Report of the Food and Fairness Inquiry, 2010
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more affordable for poor people) can actually have the opposite of the desired effect – in fact pushing new people into poverty. By and large, the rapid increase in production has come from industrialisation in agriculture, based on capital-intensive inputs such as high-yielding varieties of seed, fertilisers, pesticides and irrigation systems. Since it is only larger producers who can afford the necessary investments or have access to sufficient credit, this trend leaves small-scale farmers at a disadvantage. As the majority of poor people in poor countries depend on small- holder agriculture – the poorest two billion people depend on 500 million smallholders – this can jeopardise rural incomes and increase vulnerability to hunger.
8. When hunger exists in the midst of highly productive commodity agriculture, it provides a stark illustration of this problem. The commodities in question are not only food crops but also, increasingly, biofuels and animal feed. Our Food and Fairness Inquiry considered evidence showing how meat consumption in rich countries is contributing to an expanding soy industry in Paraguay, with severe adverse consequences for local food security, farmers’ livelihoods and the environment. Land and food that had been used for direct human consumption is instead turned to food and fuel for consumption by wealthier economies.
9. These inequalities of outcome – including hunger – are underpinned and compounded by inequalities of opportunity. When we published the report of the Food and Fairness Inquiry in 2010, there were 1.3 billion small-scale farmers globally, most of whom were poor. Evidence submitted to the inquiry showed that the livelihoods of these poor farmers are threatened by constraints on the opportunity to produce, in the form of restricted or unequal access to the resources need to farm, and to markets for their products. We heard then how ‘land grabbing’ was already exacerbating this inequality of access – a problem which has of course escalated in the last two or three years.
10. Regarding access to markets, for many small-scale producers, domestic and regional markets will be the most realistic and important destination, so measures to improve the functioning of these markets and to address issues around terms of trade assume a high priority. Improving the functioning of markets would have the significant added advantage of helping to reduce post-harvest food waste, which is another crucial element in progress towards global food security. The Government’s Foresight Report on Global Food and Farming Futures showed that grain losses vary from 10-25% in Asian, African and South American countries; while losses from perishable crops are typically in the range of 30-40%. The use of information and communication technology to ‘improve market information and allow producers to make better decisions about timely supply to markets to achieve best prices, avoiding or at least reducing gluts and produce waste’ is one of the report’s recommendations for reducing levels of post- harvest waste.2 Other recommendations, such as financial support for smallholders to enable them to store produce rather than selling when prices are lowest, would have similar dual- benefits in terms of waste reduction and improved food security.
2 Government Office for Science, Foresight Report on Global Food and Farming Futures: Challenges and Choices for Global Sustainability, 2011; pp. 92-96.
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11. Production for export is also an important option, however, and there are significant constraints on small producers’ access to global markets. In effect, food markets globally make increasing demands on producers to operate at a large scale. Supermarkets require their suppliers to provide large volumes of produce at a low price, with the flexibility required for just-in-time delivery, and in line with a wide range of quality standards. Meeting these standards requires sophisticated systems for implementation and control, and entails costly documentation and certification processes. These are requirements that, to a great extent, large organisations are best placed to satisfy, though retailers do provide some support to help smaller producers overcome the obstacles they face in meeting these standards. The overall effect is that price and standard pressures have pushed smaller-scale producers and processors out of the market across all sectors: meat and dairy; horticulture and fruit.
12. Our more recent Beyond Business As Usual report (published in January 2013) – which explored how government and business can work more effectively together in pursuit of a sustainable food system – also considered the potential for companies to promote fairness and environmental sustainability through their supply chain relationships.3 By working to develop long-term relationships with their suppliers, retailers can help to secure suppliers’ economic sustainability, and can also give suppliers the assurance and confidence to invest in more sustainable production practices, and in training and developing their workforce. Also, the recognition that sustainable supply chains need to be founded on sustainable communities means that businesses are recognising the need to invest in the wider social and environmental well-being of the communities from which they source, rather than just in the well-being of their workforce. Despite the important progress that has been made in developing these long-term relationships, however, the fact remains that some players are able to make excessive margins thanks both to their disproportionate power, and the lack of transparency about respective margins along the supply chain. Among other things, greater transparency about respective profit margins would enable people to promote social justice for poor country producers by making more informed purchasing decisions. The approach pioneered by French organisation Alter Eco – which gives a breakdown of profit distribution along their products’ supply chains on the product packaging – provides a possible model for how this can be done.
13. The third social justice perspective that we considered in the Food and Fairness Inquiry – in addition to equality of outcomes and of opportunities – was ‘autonomy and voice’: that is, the ability of people and communities to influence the decisions and policies that matter to them. Again we found significant problems with direct implications for food security. Smallholders and peasants in poor countries have very limited influence on decisions about the regulation of food and farming systems. Small-scale farmers are comparatively neglected and marginalised in policy-making processes, not least because they have little or no access to resources for political lobbying.
Agricultural research 14. In addition to these general points about the relationship between social justice and food security, our recent work has considered a number of more specific issues that fall within the remit of this Inquiry. One of these is agricultural research, which is an area of policy and
3 Food Ethics Council, Beyond Business As Usual: Towards a Sustainable Food System, 2013.
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decision-making that has significant potential to alleviate the resource constraints facing small- scale producers and to promote food security. It can increase productivity by marginal producers, facilitate sustainable farming and help people gain secure livelihoods. The challenge of feeding a growing population means that there is currently an unprecedented need for coordinated and effective agricultural research. It is crucial to food security that small-scale producers have a fair say in decisions on priorities for agricultural research that will shape their opportunities for years to come.
15. However, the balance of agricultural research spending at the global level has been shifting from the public to the private sector, constraining opportunities for small-scale producers to participate in decision-making. Public spending on agricultural research has declined in recent times, including in research and development around productivity. Private sector agricultural research spending is focused on the most lucrative markets, which generally means farmers with capital or credit and access to markets, not smallholders on the margins of the global food system. This has led to the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) – the most comprehensive review to date of the challenges and opportunities in improving food security globally – to conclude there is ‘a gap in research and technology that is relevant to the poorest’.4
16. Correcting this is not simply a matter of increased public spending on agricultural research. In order to ensure that publicly funded research serves the public good, decision-making processes must be accountable. This includes promoting participatory research and rural development (specifically by making the participation of small-scale producers a condition for most new public investment in research to promote food security).
Price spikes and volatility, and food price speculation 17. Several of the causal factors behind the recent food price spikes are uncontested: bad harvests; high oil prices; growing international demand for meat and dairy products; export bans; and a policy-driven demand for biofuels. The contribution of speculation in commodity markets to both price spikes and wider price volatility is more contentious, although there is a substantial body of opinion that claims that speculation has indeed been a significant contributory factor – including, for example, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier De Schutter. The Food Ethics Council’s approach to this issue takes as its starting point the view that, due to the many complex factors that can affect both food prices and financial markets, it is unlikely that there will ever be a definite answer to the question about the relationship between commodity speculation and food price volatility.
18. This uncertainty does not, however, lead to an impasse as to whether to place restrictions on ‘food speculation’. Given that there is a strong possibility that speculation impacts upon price volatility, and given that this volatility has significant adverse implications for the food security of large numbers of vulnerable people, then that constitutes a strong argument for increased regulation on food speculation. On the basis of this ‘precautionary principle’, then, regulation
4 International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development, Agriculture at a crossroads, 2009; pp. 16-17.
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should be introduced in case there is a causal relationship between speculation and price volatility.
19. It is also important to recognise that while food price volatility is likely to increase over the coming years, it also seems certain that there will be an overall upward trend in prices. This assessment is based on a number of factors, including: the rising costs of inputs, global population growth, changes in diets in major emerging economies, depletion of finite resources, and the various effects of climate change. It is, of course, the world’s poorest people who are most vulnerable to the effects of this ongoing rise in the price of food.
Food consumption in rich countries 20. We noted above how demand for meat in rich countries has a dramatic effect on land use in poor countries, with severe adverse consequences for local food security, farmers’ livelihoods and the environment. Measures to address domestic (UK) demand for meat and dairy products therefore have a significant role to play in promoting global food security – both by allowing farmers to use the land to produce food for local consumption and for export, and by reducing the environmental impact of our consumption of livestock products.
21. The Food Ethics Council has been working with WWF-UK to try and find ways of making the evident need to reduce meat and dairy consumption in high meat-consuming countries like the UK politically acceptable – given the wholly legitimate concerns of domestic producers and processors about the impact of a crude ‘eat less meat’ message. In our recent joint report, Prime cuts: Valuing the meat we eat, we make a series of recommendations about how a ‘less but better’ message could provide a way of squaring this circle, and support a transition to less but better meat consumption and production.
22. Another relevant aspect of food consumption in the UK, and other rich countries, is the level of waste. The most recent figures from the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) show that UK households waste about 20% of the food and drink they buy.5 This represents an important reduction in the level of household food waste over the last few years. However, in the context of global food security, there is clear obligation to achieve further, significant reductions. This is partly an ethical issue about the unacceptability of wasting food when so many of the world’s population are starving; but there is also practical element – reducing food waste will reduce the environmental impact of our food consumption, and thereby contribute to achieving long-term global food security.
March 2013
5 http://www.wrap.org.uk/content/new-estimates-household-food-and-drink-waste-uk
GFS 33 Written evidence submitted by The Fairtrade Foundation
1 Thank you for the opportunity to contribute to this important enquiry. We would like to offer some key points which we hope are of assistance, especially with regard to the IDC’s questions on:
• The role of the international system, including food and agriculture organisations and the G8 and G20, and ways in which collaboration could be improved; • The best strategies for reducing risk from short term shocks and long term structural factors and for building resilience among the most vulnerable;
2. Background on Fairtrade
2.1 The Fairtrade Foundation is the independent non-profit organisation that licenses use of the Fairtrade mark on products in the UK in accordance with internationally agreed Fairtrade standards.
2.2 Fairtrade producers are for the most part selling cash crops such as coffee or sugar, though many will also grow staple crops as well. Many of the concerns of cash-crop producers are similar those of smallholders growing staple crops (for instance price volatility, challenges in accessing credit, and environmental degradation).
2.3 There are 1.24 million farmers and workers in the Fairtrade system, across 66 countries. 60% of all farmers and workers are in Africa.
2.4 The UK is the biggest retail market for Fairtrade. In 2012 retail sales grew by 19% to £1.57 billion. The growth in sales reflects a partnership between UK consumers, campaigners, and businesses with the farmers and workers in the developing world who grow our food for over 20 years.
2.5 We believe that the growth in Fairtrade sales over this time reflects a high level of interest from the public in the provenance of their food, and the wellbeing of those who produce it. It also reflects an awareness on the part of business that there is a good business case for social investment and fair treatment of producers.
2.6 Regional markets are much smaller, but growing fast, with South Africa trebling retail sales to EURO 7.2 million from 2010 to 2011.
2.7 In close collaboration with Fairtrade International, other members of the Fairtrade movement, and the academic community, a growing body of research and impact monitoring is helping to understand the contribution (and boundaries) of Fairtrade with respect to poverty reduction, improved livelihoods and sustainable, inclusive growth.
3 Fairtrade and Food Security
3.1 Fair prices for producers
3.11 Price volatility is a serious disincentive to investment by cash-crop producers in their farms, with a similar dynamic to that seen in recent years in staple crop prices. Coffee, for example, takes five years from nursery to first crop, while international prices vary considerably from year to year (see graph).
3.12 Fairtrade’s model seeks to address the critical problems facing small farmers in international supply of low returns and price volatility by giving growers of most commodities a guaranteed, minimum price for their produce. The minimum price is intended to ensure that farmers can earn enough to cover at least the basic costs of sustainable production. GFS 33 3.13 A review of literature on the impact of Fairtrade Standards and interventions across products conducted by the University of Greenwich found that 29 out of 33 impact studies showed Fairtrade producers’ income benefitting from guaranteed minimum prices and 27 showing benefits in terms of improved economic stability. The study also showed that Fairtrade producers had more stable incomes and that Fairtrade could act as a buffer against the effects of price volatility in global markets. Indeed, in some areas where Fairtrade is practised, it can be the main motor for economic development in the community.i
3.14 The destructive effect of price volatility, and the uncertainty as to whether prices received will cover production costs are experienced across the agricultural sector in the developing world, with serious consequences for livelihoods, poverty reduction and growth. Measures to address volatility and encourage sustainable pricing should take high prority in any package of policy responses to food security.
3.2 A focus on smallholders
3.21 In its 2012 State of Food and Agriculture (SOFA) report, the FAO revealed that despite increased agricultural aid budgets, farmers themselves are by far the largest source of investment in agriculture. This fact alone suggests that solutions for smallholders are less about development assistance (though well-targeted aid plays a vital role) but about the importance of a supportive policy and trading environment.
3.22 The SOFA also stated that governments also have a special responsibility to help smallholders overcome the constraints they face in expanding their productive assets and to ensure that large-scale investments in agriculture are socially beneficial and environmentally sustainable.
3.3 Helping farmers receive a fair share of value, and to move up the value chain
3.31 Much agricultural policy in the past two decades has sought to link smallholders into export markets by integrating them into supply chains. However, there remain too many international supply chains in which companies have little or no traceability back to primary producers, and few significant programmes to invest in strengthening producer capacity. The norm is that smallholders still sell to middlemen, with no knowledge of where their crop may end up. Cash crop farmers still receive only a small fraction of the final sale price of commodities such as coffee or cocoa. GFS 33 3.32 The Fairtrade Foundation believes that governments and business need to explore ways to ensure greater transparency and a fairer distribution of value across the supply chain, helping smallholders to secure a sustainable price for their produce.
3.33 Intrinsic to Fairtrade is that small farmers gain more than in conventional value chains. The minimum price (where applicable), social premium, access to pre-financing and strengthening of producer organisations all offer larger benefits than to small farmers in non-Fairtrade supply chains.
3.34 The Fairtrade Foundation’s own research into how to make international supply chains work better for small farmers indicates how, with better business trading relationships that firmly put people and fairness at their heart, producers can be better empowered to contribute to the development of their own communities. It highlights areas of good practice that the Fairtrade Foundation is calling on business engaging with smallholder organisations to adopt.
3.35 These include:
• Building strong and long-term relationships with farmer organisations so that farmers will be economically more secure to plan for the future. • Timely cash payments throughout the year, rather than a one-off payment during harvest season, so households are not left without any income for the rest of year. • Provide farmers with information on the entire value chain of their products, as well as with other useful information on for example commodity prices and global markets. • See the Fairtrade relationship between farmers and consumers as an asset that can be used to add value to products, for example with producer stories on packaging.ii
3.4 Investment of Fairtrade Premium income in supporting local food security
3.41 In additional to the minimum price or market price (whichever is higher) Fairtrade producers receive an additional sum of money called the Fairtrade Premium that they receive from the sale of their Fairtrade products. This is used by producers for investment in social, environmental and economic development projects, decided upon democratically by a committee of producers within the organisation or of workers on a plantation.
3.42 Evidence from our impact research shows that many Fairtrade communities have chosen to invest their Premium income in community projects that directly contribute to making them more food secure. For instance, in Malawi, one of the world’ poorest countries, many farmers are now more food secure as Premium income earned from the sale of their sugar and tea has provided for maize supplements in the lean months.
3.43 The Fairtrade Premium is also frequently used to invest in farms, to improve productivity, add value, or similar.
3.5 Enhancing farmers’ and farmer organisations’ access to credit
3.51 Timely and affordable access to credit is a key concern for smallholders. Without it, they are unable to buy inputs or technology, or diversify into new crop varieties. Innovations are needed to encourage more financial institutions to extend their services to smallholders. Businesses themselves must look closely at their own practice when offering credit to ensure timeliness, scale, and ease of access.
3.52 Fairtrade helps to address this through its pre-financing support for farmers (whereby producer organisations in most Fairtrade commodities are also able to request up to 60 per cent of the purchase price of their produce as pre- finance). A number of impact studies show that Fairtrade producers are more credit-worthy and enjoy greater access to credit than their non-Fairtrade counterparts, for example to cover harvest expenses and other costs. GFS 33 3.53 The premium received by Fairtrade growers can be used to establishing a fund for community finance. Smallholders can also use Fairtrade contracts as collateral when taking out loans from financial institutions. This can allow smallholders to access lines of credit otherwise unavailable to them. Fairtrade’s role in forming and developing cooperatives also enables small farmers to increase their access to credit though community-based finance organisations and group loan guarantees.
3.54 The Fairtrade system is also working on enhancing farmers’ access to credit. Fairtrade International in partnership with Incofin Investment Management and the Grameen Foundation has recently launched the Fairtrade Access Fund, a unique investment fund that will provide farmers’ cooperatives and associations with long-term loans to build their businesses. Organisations such as Shared Interest and Oikocredit also play a useful role in this regard.
3.6 Building stronger farmers’ organisations
3.61 A core characteristic of Fairtrade is building and strengthening producer organisations in terms of their democratic functioning, transparency and participation of small-scale producers. It results in organisational strengthening principally through enabling producer organisations to achieve greater influence nationally and locally, by improved democracy in decision making and levels of participation, and a greater higher ability to attract other sources of funding. Fairtrade principally results in improved individual empowerment in terms of producer self- confidence, improved market and export knowledge and greater access to training. Fairtrade’s experience of working to empower of individual producers and organisations holds lessons for broader policies to increase farmers’ participation in decisions that affect them. Features of the Fairtrade model are bottom-up, participatory consultation, with producer organisations themselves democratically deciding where to invest the social premiums.
3.62 The democratic and independent organisation of small producers is a key element of Fairtrade – firstly to ensure fair and transparent distribution of the Fairtrade premium, and more generally to facilitate long-term processes of sustainable development and empowerment. Fairtrade Standards follow ILO Recommendation R193 on the promotion of co-operatives as a proven model that contributes to the socio-economic development of farming communities. Fairtrade farmer organisations – co-operatives, associations or others – must incorporate co-operative principles including voluntary membership, democratic control, economic participation of members, autonomy and independence, and concern for the community.
3.63 Joining together in co-operatives enables farmers to pool resources, benefit from economies of scale and strengthen their position in the market. By working closer with their buyers, Fairtrade co-operatives can learn about quality requirements and consumer needs. They can invest additional income in processing and warehouse facilities to increase their share of the export price, in technical assistance to improve yields, in training cuppers to improve quality, and in skills training and better business methods to improve the efficiency of their co-operatives. All of this investment enables co-ops to negotiate higher prices for their members, allowing them to lift themselves out of poverty through trade.
4 The role of the private sector in building food security
4.1 Current international supply chains for most commodities are dominated by transnational corporations, who usually take the lion’s share of value, while small farmers tend to be marginalised and receive low returns for their produce. Governments and business must explore ways to ensure ‘fair competition’ in international supply chains to avoid excessive corporate power undermining small farmers.
4.2 DFID and other international donors are increasingly placing emphasis on the potential of the private sector to support pro-poor growth and investment, and we welcome this, while keen to ensure that the benefits for poverty reduction are clear. At the same time, businesses are increasingly aware of the need to satisfy consumer GFS 33 expectations of ethical and environmentally sustainable products, and the need to incorporate social and environmental considerations into supply chain management beyond that traditionally covered by corporate sustainability policies. This is partly driven by security of supply concerns – that the medium to long term interests of business are not well served by business models which secure cheap prices in the short term but risk leaving cash crop livelihoods unviable. By contrast, social investment through fair pricing and supportive business partnerships has the scope to boost productivity, create attractive livelihoods and communities for smallholders, and encourage sustainable access to produce. 4.3 It is hard to underestimate the role of private business in rural development. Buyers, the first point of sale for smallholder farmers, are key actors in development. Food retailer and trader buying practices impact the lives of smallholder farmers from whom they source produce; some buying practices can facilitate a farming communities’ development while others can undermine poverty alleviation initiatives and trap farmers in poverty. 4.4 The Fairtrade Foundation is in an influential position, at the interface between smallholder famers, businesses, consumers and donors, to explore how the major actors in the supply chain including buyers, can have a greater impact on development on the ground. Its value added is being able to bring the business perspective to the development debate and vice versa.
4.5 Fairtrade’s standards present a framework that businesses comply with when sourcing from smallholder farmers, combined with the brand strength and consumer recognition levels of 78%1 in the UK market, motivates businesses to deepen engagement and help farmers move up the value chain.
4.6 When good practice is undertaken, businesses build long term relationships with producer organisations to build food security in their communities. At scale this effect can be substantially amplified. Responsible business partnerships with smallholder farmers through Fairtrade can dramatically increase productivity (as demonstrated by Tate and Lyle’s partnership with the Belize Sugar Cane Farmers Association) build sustainable grower communities, add value addition at origin in projects such as the Marks and Spencer / FRICH funded product with Iria-ini tea growers and build producer organisations themselves, for example Cafedirect’s support for the establishment of the CECAQ – 11 cooperative in Sao Tome.
5. Focus in donor spending
5.1 Earlier in this submission we noted that farmers themselves are the dominant investors in their own farms, and that therefore solutions are less about aid and more about the policy and trading environment. At the same time, well targeted aid is crucial, and investment in agriculture is currently far too low.
5.2 The Fairtrade Foundation is a member of the Enough...If campaign, and supports the Enough If analysis on financing for agriculture. This identifies a US$ 42.7 billion funding gap, of which Enough...If is calling on G8 member states to commit US$21.3bn.
5.3 We are concerned that many donor initiatives risk focusing on overly-technical solutions, without paying sufficient attention to the “quick wins”. Agricultural extension services, for example, are very poorly supported, despite being essential for the adoption of improved farming methods, or business expertise. It has been estimated for example that less than 2% of Nigerian farmers have access to extension services.
5.4 Women farmers need to be specifically targeted in extension services, subsidy programmes, credit schemes and agricultural research. It has been estimated that if women had the same access to productive resources such as land and inputs as men, they could increase yields on farms by 25-30%.
5.5 Alongside investment in increasing farm productivity, capacity building in marketing, food safety or integrated crop management are also essential.
1 Globescan GFS 33 5.6 While welcoming many of the commitments made as part of the New Alliance for Food and Nutrition Security (such as the measures aimed at smallholders including crop insurance) we are concerned that the initiative may risk falling into the trap of underinvestment in low tech but high return elements. We would also welcome greater transparency around the engagement of the various business participants of the New Alliance, and the use to which their contributions to the initiative will be put. We also note that the funding allocated appears very low by comparison with the scale of the challenge as assessed by the FAO.
6 Summary of key messages:
6.1 The Fairtrade Foundation believes that the following five points are key to improving the livelihoods and food security of smallholders. The background to these points is explained further in our recent report “Powering Up Smallholder Farmers to Make Food Fair”iii (Fairtrade Foundation, February 2013)
6.2 Farmers first: Increase smallholders’ voice, influence and organisation –where smallholders are organised, they are better able to influence policy, negotiate for better deals, and pool resources to boost productivity and market access.
6.3 Fair share of value: Ensure farmers are empowered in value chains and receive fair prices – enabling farmers to move up the value chain trade their way out of poverty.
6.4 Fair access to finance: Ensure access to timely and affordable credit – crucial for farmers who wish to invest in their farms and businesses, but are prevented from doing so by poor access to credit.
6.5 Future proofed farming: Prioritise environmentally sustainable agriculture and climate resilience – helping farmers adapt to pressure on natural resources and a changing climate.
6.6 Focus in government funding: increase and target national and donor government spending on agriculture – sufficient investment, targeted towards the real priority needs of smallholder farmers
6.7 In view of the opportunity presented by the forthcoming G8 summit in the UK in June 2013, and the Event on Food and Hunger which will take place alongside the G8, we are also asking the G8 to adopt the above 5 point agenda within future commitments on food and agriculture.
March 2013
i Valerie Nelson and Barry Pound, The Last Ten Years: A comprehensive review of the literature on the impact of Fairtrade, Natural Resources Institute, University of Greenwich, September 2009, pp. 6-7 ii ‘Business must understand how to better work with smallholder farmer to ensure global food security’, 12 May 2012, http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/press_office/press_releases_and_statements/may_2012/new_research_for_world_fair_trade_on_ how_to_best_work_with_small_farmers.aspx
iii http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/includes/documents/cm_docs/2013/F/FT_smallholder%20report_2013_lo-res.pdf
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Written evidence submitted by OECD
Factual information.
This submission draws on a wide range of OECD analysis, including that undertaken with other international organisations, in particular for the G20. The focus is on key priorities for the attainment of global food security, and on actions that OECD countries can take both individually and in the context of multilateral initiatives.
Main points:
1. The challenge of ensuring global food security is first and foremost one of raising the incomes of the poor so that they can afford the food they need to lead healthy lives. A majority of the world’s poor lives in rural areas, where farming – predominantly by smallholders – is the most important economic activity. Agricultural development, and smallholder development in particular, thus have a key role to play in raising incomes. But that role cannot be seen in isolation. Economic development will lead to large numbers of subsistence farmers leaving the sector. Broad-based development is needed to ensure that they are pulled, rather than pushed, out of farming.
2. Large increases in agricultural investment will be needed both to raise incomes and increase the supply of food sustainably. Most of the investment will need to come from the private sector, but governments have an important role in establishing the framework conditions. Public investment, supported by development aid, can also complement and attract private investment. Policies that support agriculture’s enabling environment, but do not distort incentives or crowd out the private sector, are likely to be more effective in the long term than specific subsidies to the agricultural sector. Priority areas for public spending include research, innovation and rural infrastructure, together with social protection and backstopping to ensure improved nutrition.
3. Trade will have an increasingly important role to play in ensuring global food security. Countries need to avoid policies that distort world markets and make them a less reliable source of food supplies. There have been significant changes to agricultural policies in many OECD countries over the past decade, with reforms in the past five years facilitated by high international food prices. As a consequence, the international spill-over effects of support and protection in OECD countries have diminished. Remaining trade distortions could be eliminated with few immediate consequences for farmers’ incomes, so now would be a good time put in place more efficient alternatives, including social safety nets and tools to help farmers manage risk. This would lock in the benefits of reform and address charges that OECD countries’ farm policies are not coherent with their aid and development policies.
4. In the context of high food prices, new issues have emerged with potential implications for food security. They include export restrictions, the use of biofuel mandates, and the opportunities and threats presented by increased foreign investment in agriculture. On these issues, as well as in terms of conventional support mechanisms, policies in emerging economies (in particular the BRIICS) are increasingly important. Multilateral action is needed to ensure that national policies in OECD and emerging economies do not generate a new range of spill-overs that compromise food security in poor countries.
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The challenge of eliminating global hunger is more about raising the incomes of the poor than an issue of food prices
5. Eliminating hunger and malnutrition, and achieving global food security more widely, requires first and foremost raising the incomes of the poor. According to FAO figures, there are approximately 850 million undernourished people in the world – this population is mostly a subset of the 1.3 billion people that the World Bank estimates to be living on less than USD 1.25 per day.
6. Higher food prices have made the challenge more difficult, but price levels are not the fundamental problem. High prices impose undeniable hardship on the poorest consumers, including many subsistence farmers whose production is insufficient to meet their consumption needs. Yet the persistence of global hunger – the chief manifestation of food insecurity – is a chronic problem that pre-dates the current period of higher food prices. Indeed there were as many hungry people in the world in the early 2000s, when international food prices were at all-time lows, as there are today. Similarly, high food prices have made little difference to the overall downward trend in the proportion of undernourished (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Undernourishment and World Food Prices, 1990 to 2012.
FAO food price index, 2002/04=100 Prevalence of undernourishment, % of global population 250 20.0
18.0 Undernourishment 200 16.0
14.0
150 12.0
10.0
Food price 100 8.0
6.0
50 4.0
2.0
0 .0 1990-92 1995-97 2000-02 2005-07 2010-12
Source: FAO (2012b) for the prevalence of undernourishment and FAOSTAT for the food price index.
Agricultural development has a key role to play in ensuring food security
7. Agricultural development has a key role to play in generating the incomes needed to ensure food security, especially in the poorest economies. For the best part of 30 years, agriculture has been effectively discriminated against by developing country policymakers and neglected by donors. One reason was low rates of perceived success, compared with investments in areas such as health and education. Another was the combination of falling real agricultural prices and, in successfully developing economies, a declining share of agriculture in GDP and employment. These changes were misinterpreted as “declines”, when in fact they were signs of development success, with productivity growth bringing prices down and permitting labour and other resources to be allocated to other sectors. In recent years, thinking has come GFS 34 full circle, and the importance of investing in agricultural development is now widely recognised. But, in re-emphasising agricultural development, it is crucial that policymakers and donors do not go to the other extreme of prioritising agriculture exclusively, at the expense of balanced economic development.
8. Approximately two-thirds of the world’s poor live in rural areas, where agriculture is the dominant sector. Most of the farming is done by smallholders (predominantly women), so raising their incomes is a priority. There are better opportunities for those smallholders to develop commercially viable operations than there have been for many years. Yet, the realisation of those opportunities by some will result in others moving out of agriculture into new, ultimately more remunerative, activities. Indeed, it is important to recognise that – as all OECD countries have experienced – the majority of future generations will have better opportunities outside agriculture than within it. Moreover, there is no single efficient farm structure: global food security will need to be underpinned by a mix of small, medium and large farms.
There is a need for increased investment in rural areas, which offer higher returns than agricultural subsidies
9. The connected challenges of raising agricultural and rural incomes, and boosting supply sustainably, call for large increases in agricultural investment. FAO estimates total investment needs at over USD 80 billion per year over the next four decades, which is about 50% higher than current levels. Most of this investment will have to come from the private sector, but strategic public investments can help attract private investment – both foreign and domestic. Many developing countries have a dearth of domestic resources, and their agricultural sectors have suffered from decades of under-investment. Rising levels of foreign investment, prompted by higher food prices, can help redress this neglect. However, there are legitimate concerns about the nature of some of these investments and who will benefit. Hence, it is important that governments provide appropriate framework conditions for investment in agriculture, and that there are commitments to responsible business conduct on the part of both investors and recipients. OECD has developed a policy framework for sustainable investment in agriculture, which is designed as a practical tool to help policy makers create an attractive business climate for agricultural investment. Development aid can be a catalyst, complementing the primary role of private sector investment.
10. There is a strong case for increasing the share of public spending in support of agriculture, and redressing urban bias in the allocation of resources. There are high returns to investments in agricultural research, technology transfer, and farm extension and advisory services. These investments help farmers directly; indirectly they benefit consumers by increasing overall food supply, thereby containing upward pressure on food prices and dampening the price volatility associated with tight markets.
11. In the case of low-income countries, it has been suggested that – because of weak institutions and market failures – some market interventions may be warranted. For example, some price stabilisation has been proposed as a way of providing a more predictable investment climate and containing the impact of large international price swings. Similarly input subsidies for seed and fertiliser have been suggested as a way of redressing failings such as the under-development of infrastructure, missing markets for credit and inputs, and a lack of knowledge of the benefits of improved technologies. These arguments need to be balanced against multiple drawbacks. For example, price stabilisation thwarts the development of private risk management and can export instability onto world markets. Similarly, the provision of input subsidies can impede the development of functioning private markets. Moreover, such measures often become a target for special interests, imposing a severe drain on national budgets at the expense of essential public investments. If they are to be used, they should be time-bound with a clear exist strategy and they should not crowd out essential investments which tackle the market and institutional failures they are designed to offset. GFS 34
Sustainable agricultural productivity growth is central to ensuring that adequate supplies of food will continue to be available in the future
12. There is more scope for raising agricultural productivity than there is for mobilising more land and water resources. While it is likely to become increasingly difficult to push yield frontiers at a constant percentage rate of growth (i.e. exponentially), there is great scope for developing countries to close the yield gaps with developed countries. For example, cereal yields in Central and West Africa are just 1- 2 MT/ha, compared with 7-9 MT/ha in Western Europe. The key to realising these gains is innovation in the wider sense, combining adapted technologies with improved farm management practices. There is evidence of high rates of return to research and development accompanied with extension, albeit with long time lags.
13. There is important scope for sustainable intensification, and investments in infrastructure can help limit producer losses, which account for around one-third of all production in low income countries. Yet current production patterns may not always be compatible with sustainable resource use, implying trade-offs between sustainability and immediate food security outcomes. In many countries and regions, there is no effective pricing of natural resources, with the result that production is too intensive or occurs in areas where ultimately it should not. Pricing of resources could improve the sustainability of production but raise farmers’ costs and, in some circumstances, put upward pressure on food prices. Likewise, agriculture is a major contributor to anthropogenic climate change, but taxing farmers’ greenhouse gas emissions could lower their incomes and raise food prices. These trade-offs underscore the primary importance of income growth: Only if incomes grow sufficiently can food security and sustainable resource use be fully compatible.
Trade has an important role to play in ensuring global food security
14. Open markets have a crucial role to play in raising production and incomes. Trade enables production to be located in areas where resources are used most efficiently and has an essential role in getting product from surplus to deficit areas. Trade also raises overall incomes through the benefits to exporters (in the form of higher prices than would be received in the absence of trade) and importers (through lower prices than would otherwise be paid), while contributing to faster economic growth and rising per capita incomes. Trade will also be essential in order for supply increases to be achieved sustainably. It enables production to locate in areas where natural resources, notably land and water, are relatively abundant, and where systems are more resilient to the effects of climate change. Looking ahead, the areas of the world with sustainable productive potential are not the same as the areas experiencing rapid population growth.
15. However, reforming countries may need to put in place parallel measures to maximise the benefits and minimise the costs. In order for existing and potential exporters to reap the full benefits from reform, there may be a need for complementary supply-side investments. Conversely, the needs of those who stand to lose from the removal of trade may require a combination of adjustment assistance and social safety nets. For mitigating the adverse impacts of international price volatility, targeted social programmes (including cash transfers) are a preferable option, while agricultural investments and the development of risk management tools can improve farmers’ resilience to risk.
16. At the macro level, self-sufficiency is likely to be an expensive way for food importing countries to limit their exposure to periodically higher food import bills. Hedging on international markets is an alternative option, while the international community has several financing mechanisms that could enable developing country governments to overcome rare but potentially severe surges, such as that experienced in 2007-08. The best way of coping with problems related to the unreliability of world markets is for countries to desist collectively from adopting beggar-thy-neighbour policies. These policies cause bilateral GFS 34 and regional trades to break down, and generate wider negative spill-overs when applied by countries with a larger presence on world food markets. Many of the responses to the 2007-08 food price spike were ineffective because of the collective impact of other countries applying similar measures. Multilateral coordination can help avoid such contagion in future. The creation of the Agricultural Market Information System (AMIS) and the associated Rapid Response Forum (RRF) at the beginning of 2012 responds to the demand for improved transparency on markets, stocks and policy developments. AMIS is housed at the FAO, with a secretariat that includes representatives of other international organisations, including OECD.
Now is an opportune moment to lock in fundamental reforms to agricultural policies in OECD countries
17. An important contribution that OECD countries can make, immediately, is to accelerate the reform of policies that create negative international spill-overs. Historically, the concern has been with high levels of support and protection that have the potential to undercut farmers’ livelihoods in developing countries. Tariffs on agricultural products remain several times higher than those levied on industrial goods, which restricts market access for developing country farmers with export potential. Higher prices have historically led to the accumulation of surpluses, which have been disposed of with the use of export subsidies. These depress international prices, making conditions more difficult for competitors on international markets and for import-competing producers on domestic markets. Policies to support farmers have also often been counter-cyclical, which stabilises domestic markets but exports instability onto world markets.
18. There have been important reforms, with the result that the marginal impacts of support on developing countries are now much lower. Across the OECD area, annual support to farmers, in the form of higher prices than those prevailing on world markets or direct payments financed by taxpayers, increased from USD 239 billion in 1986-88 to USD 248 billion in 2009-11. This represents a decline in real terms and as a proportion of farmers’ incomes, with the share of farmers’ gross receipts coming from consumer and taxpayer support falling from 37% to 20% (Figure 2). There are now only three countries (Japan, Norway and Switzerland) where government support accounts for a half or more of farm revenues.
19. The reduction in the degree of support provided has been accompanied by a shift in the ways in which support is provided – support has become less production and trade-distorting (Figure 2). Whereas in 1986-88 90% of farm support was linked to output or input use (predominantly higher prices for the former, lower for the latter), by 2009-11 that share was down to 58%. However, reform has been uneven. For example, the share of support in the European Union linked to output or input use fell from 96% to 33%, whereas the corresponding change in Japan was from 97% to 87%, and the change in the United States was from 64% to 46%. In recent years, there has been little use of export subsidies. GFS 34
Figure 2. OECD composition of Producer Support Estimate, 1986-2011
Percentage share of gross farm receipts
% Support based on commodity output Payments based on input use Other payments
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
The Producer Support Estimate (PSE) captures transfers to farmers from consumers (in the form of higher prices) and taxpayers (in the form of budgetary payments).
Source: OECD, PSE/CSE database, 2012.
20. Reforms in recent years have been facilitated by strong market conditions, which have reduced the gaps between domestic prices and world market prices. Moreover, as price gaps have narrowed, so the counter-cyclical element of domestic support programmes has declined. At the same time, some OECD countries have instituted supports for biofuel production, which have the reverse tendency of making international food prices higher than they would otherwise be, while (in the case of mandates) adding to price volatility by creating a demand that is less responsive to prices. In addition, a number of tariff peaks and cases of tariff escalation remain.
21. Given high food prices, now would be a good time to remove all trade-distorting instruments and put in their place more efficient alternatives, including social safety nets and tools to help farmers manage risk.
Continued efforts are needed to improve the functioning of world food markets
22. Getting world food markets to function more smoothly will also require wider efforts at the multilateral level. G20 governments have sought to tackle two immediate dimensions of the food security question: how to combat price volatility and improve the functioning of world markets, and how to achieve sustainable agricultural productivity growth (and bridge the gap for smallholders). The OECD, along with other international organisations, has provided analytical support to those initiatives. GFS 34
23. In the context of high food prices, new issues have emerged with potential implications for food security. They include export restrictions, the use of biofuel mandates, and the opportunities and threats presented by the involvement of new actors investing in agriculture. On these issues, as well as in terms of conventional support mechanisms, policies in emerging economies (in particular the BRIICS) are increasingly important.
24. Export restrictions are only weakly constrained by WTO rules, and were used by several emerging economies during the 2007-08 food price spike. Export restrictions add to upward pressure on international food prices, and transfer price risk to the international market. Recent evidence suggests that the aggregate result of exporting countries imposing export restrictions, and importers temporarily reducing tariffs, has been equivalent to spectators standing up in a stadium in order to see better. The first movers may have had some advantage, but in the end there has been little benefit to adopters of those policies, while non-adopters have suffered and more countries have lost than have gained.
25. With respect to biofuel policies, there is a potential trade-off between the use of agricultural products as a source of renewable energy, and the resulting diversion of land to biofuel production adding to upward pressure on food prices. There are huge uncertainties over the scale of impact that biofuels will have on overall land use. Technological developments in biofuels, the cost and availability of fossil fuels and the policy environment are hazardous to predict. The removal of policies that subsidise or mandate the production and consumption of biofuels that compete with food would ensure that these technologies come on-stream when and where they make economic sense, and in the meantime do not jeopardise food security unnecessarily. Indeed, biofuels could provide significant economic opportunities for some developing country farmers.
26. While increased private investment in agriculture by agro-food industries and institutional investors can enhance productivity, drive job creation and income growth, there are legitimate concerns regarding the terms of the deals and their implications for existing rights and livelihoods. Several OECD and emerging economies see such investments as a way of meeting their food energy demand, and overcoming fears of reliance on international trade. In this context, well-designed laws, regulations and policies promoting responsible business conduct, supported by effective enforcement mechanisms, can help ensure that investments do bring benefits to both investors and host countries. To support this objective, the Committee on World Food Security is undertaking an inclusive consultation process to develop principles for responsible agricultural investment (rai). The OECD aims to contribute to this process by developing, in conjunction with FAO, a practical guide to help private companies avoid infringing existing internationally recognised principles and standards of responsible business conduct when investing in agricultural supply chains. Improved functioning of the world trading system would also deter investments that are based on geo-political reasoning as opposed to commercial logic.
27. OECD is heavily focused on the positive actions that its member countries can take, and on areas where action is needed at the global level. But, at all levels of development, national governments themselves have the responsibility for putting in place the conditions that will enable them to achieve food security for all their citizens.
March 2013
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Further Reading
OECD (2013), forthcoming, Global Food Security: Challenges for the Food and Agriculture System, Paris.
OECD (2012). Agricultural Policies for Poverty Reduction, Paris.
OECD (2012), Policy Framework for Investment in Agriculture, OECD Publishing, Paris.
Brooks J. (2012), Policy Coherence and Food Security: The Effects of OECD Countries’ Agricultural Policies. Paper presented to OECD Global Forum on Agriculture, November 2012, Paris. GFS 35
Written Evidence submitted by John Beddington CMG FRS, Government Chief Scientific Adviser
Introduction
The Government Office for Science Foresight Report ‘The Future of Food and Farming: Challenges and Choices for Global Sustainability’ published in January 2011, made a compelling case for urgent action to redesign the global food system to meet the challenge of feeding the world equitably and sustainably over the next 40 years. In the wake of the 2007/8 food price spikes, the Foresight Project commissioned over 100 peer-reviewed evidence papers, involving around 400 leading experts and stakeholders from 35 countries. This research highlighted the overwhelming evidence that whilst the global food system currently delivers for many, it is currently failing on two fronts: it is consuming the world’s natural resources at an unsustainable rate and failing the world’s poorest, with almost one billion still suffering from hunger (Foresight, 2011).
Politically, global food security and sustainable agriculture has risen up the high-level political agenda. International conferences and summits, including the L’Aquila Summit, G20 Summits, World Food Summit and Rio 20+, have all generated high level statements on the need to tackle food security now. Many of these international events have resulted in joint commitments by various national Governments as countries agree on the need for improved agricultural policies, and call for better international coordination to promote food security and sustainable agricultural production. For example, the G8 and African leaders have launched a New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition to increase responsible domestic and foreign private investments in African agriculture, take innovations that can enhance agricultural productivity to scale, and reduce the risk borne by vulnerable economies and communities.
However, with commitments made at previous summits yet to be realised including the promise of l’Aquila Summit in 2009, real change or action on the ground has been limited and not on the scale needed to meet the existing and ever more imminent challenges in the food system. World's leaders need to be even more ambitious, and to transform agriculture and build thriving economies in developing countries.
Creating a secure and sustainable food system is not simply a question of producing more food, but drawing links between different policy areas and creating agreement on multidisciplinary issues, including the role of agriculture in climate change, the dependency of food production on ecosystem services, the role of agriculture in delivering a green economy, as well as a reduction in poverty and hunger. Any one of these pressures (‘drivers of change’) would present substantial challenges to food security; but together they constitute a major threat that requires a strategic reappraisal of how the world is fed. Addressing these in a pragmatic way that promotes resilience to shocks and future uncertainties will be vital if major stresses to the food system are to be anticipated and managed. The five key challenges identified by Foresight for policy makers, researchers and industry to respond to are:
• Balancing future demand and supply sustainably • Ensuring that there is adequate stability in food prices • Achieving global access to food and ending hunger • Managing the contribution of the food system to the mitigation of climate change • Maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem services while feeding the world
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These five key challenges provide a framework against which to consider where progress has been made and what can be done to turn increasing political attention into truly ‘decisive’ action to secure a sustainable and secure global food system.
Balancing future demand and supply sustainably
Meeting the challenges posed by land and water scarcity, climate change, and declining crop yields will need substantial progress in agricultural innovation, which in turn will require more effective agricultural research investments (CCAFS, 2010). Global warming could occur faster than expected and add to water shortages, hitting irrigated agriculture with lower yields and increasing risks in rainfed agriculture (World Bank 2008).
Three quarters of the world’s one billion extremely poor people live in rural areas and are dependent on agriculture and its related activities for their livelihoods. They face a series of interconnected natural resource management challenges, and are in the front line of climate change impacts. There is growing concern over inappropriate approaches to food production that drive excessive use of fertilizers and pesticides, pollution of waterways and aquifers, build-up of salt in the soil, water scarcity in major river basins, declining levels of groundwater and loss of crop biodiversity. Greater recognition is required of the need to invest in a long term sustainable –environment and natural resources management, but too often the focus is on the shorter term shocks and volatility issues.
Projected increases in the demand for food, coupled with increased threats and pressures to the underpinning natural environment means a new approach to food production is required. A key solution for addressing these competing challenges will be the sustainable intensification of agriculture, raising yields without using more land, while adapting to climate change, reducing emissions, and maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem services. A global shared understanding is needed of the importance of sustainable intensification and how to balance crop/livestock, fisheries and agro-forestry systems, so that surplus inputs are avoided and soil fertility and ecosystem services are not compromised, while production and income are increased (Foresight 2011).
As much as 30% of all food grown worldwide is estimated to be lost or wasted. In middle- and low-income countries, where infrastructure for storage and supply is often inadequate, losses are greatest in post-harvest storage and the food supply chain. In high-income countries, the greatest losses are incurred by the food services industry and the consumer. A more efficient food chain through waste reduction measures would make a substantial contribution to producing more food with less resources, in particular water and energy, and lowering greenhouse gas emissions. A strategic target to reduce waste in the global food system would be more easily achieved through high-level international political support and an international body acting as champion to tackle the highly variable levels of waste that occur in the food supply chain in different parts of the world.
There will be benefits, 1% gain in GDP originating in agriculture generates a 6% increase in overall expenditure of poorest 10% of populations, while the equivalent figure for GDP growth in non-agricultural sectors is zero (World Bank, 2008). Growth in agriculture through supportive policies, robust investment and infrastructure development usually generates the greatest improvements for the poorest people (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005), at
GFS 35 least twice as much poverty reduction than any other sector (Farming First), making food more accessible to the hungry.
Ensuring that there is adequate stability in food prices
In 2007/8, food price rises shocked many policymakers from the belief that stable or declining food prices and assured supplies could be taken for granted. Before the price spike, poverty meant that 800 million people were hungry. Following the price spike, this number increased to a little over 1 billion people (a rise that significantly set back progress towards the UN Millennium Development Goal to halve the proportion of people suffering hunger between 1990 and 2015).
The future of global crop harvests is uncertain, for example in 2010, a period of drought coupled with extensive wild fires in Russia damaged 20 percent of Russia’s arable land (10 million hectares) with wheat production 27% lower than normal, and exports of the cereal harvests were banned. In 2012, the worst ever United States drought in over 50 years, blighted 78% of the 96 million acres of corn (the biggest area in 75 years), and half of all U.S. counties were declared disaster areas. In response, the international prices of maize and soybeans rose past 2007-08 peaks, when at the same time, food riots erupted in African and Middle Eastern countries. These events have drawn increased attention to the fact that a significant proportion of humanity remains chronically undernourished, even during periods of relatively normal prices and low volatility of food prices.
Policies to limit the harmful effects of fluctuations in food prices may therefore require both improved mechanisms for social protection and farm policies at national level and a degree of international institutional reform (ODI, 2010). This will require more product-related and institutional innovation, and for a stronger public sector role – both national governments and multinational agencies – in helping to launch new programmes, develop infrastructure and establish appropriate delivery mechanisms (Foresight, 2011b).
The Foresight report argued protection of the most vulnerable groups from the worst effects of food price volatility has to be a priority, especially those in low-income countries where market and insurance institutions are weak. This can be done indirectly through intervention to try to influence market prices, but is likely to be more effective through the provision of safety nets for poor consumers or producers that are designed to stabilise real incomes, and improve food safety and quality. Global strategies may be necessary to address agricultural price volatility (Foresight 2011b), develop food stock management, effective market intelligence and early warning, monitoring and distribution systems.
The G20 activity on food price volatility has begun to respond to these calls for action. In June 2011 the meeting of G20 Agriculture ministers agreed to an Action Plan on Food Price Volatility and Agriculture, which was subsequently welcomed by Leaders during G20 summit in Cannes in November 2011. While several elements of the action plan build on ongoing initiatives, some specific new activities to target food price volatility where launched, including Agricultural Market Information System (AMIS) initiative, Global Agricultural Geo- monitoring Initiative (GEOGLAM) and the Platform for Agricultural Risk Management (PARM). Perhaps the most helpful of the commitments agreed by the G20 leaders was the agreement to remove food export restrictions or extraordinary taxes for food purchased for non-commercial humanitarian purposes by the World Food Program and agree not to impose them in the future.
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The 2012 G20 Summit, in Los Cabos, Mexico on June 18-19, prioritized improving food security, decreasing food price volatility, and increasing sustainable agricultural productivity. In the 2012 interagency report for the Mexico G20 presidency, the UN agencies reiterated the need for continued support to increase agricultural productivity growth in a sustainable manner. While these commitments and initiatives demonstrate helpful progress, G20 nations now need to focus on delivery and maintain a long-term commitment to make significant changes in the mechanisms and institutions that support agricultural development. There is also a clear role for governments to help the agricultural sector educate and improve awareness of the options available for better risk management, and to explore options for the development of, and access to, futures and options markets.
Achieving global access to food and ending hunger
Hunger remains widespread globally, with approximately 1 billion people lacking access to sufficient of the major macronutrients (carbohydrates, fats and protein); and another billion suffering from ‘hidden hunger’, in which important micronutrients (such as vitamins and minerals) are missing from their diet, with consequent risks of physical and mental impairment. For example, a diet high in rice with few vegetables renders people susceptible to vitamin A deficiency, prevalent in 100 to 140 million children worldwide. An estimated 250,000 to 500,000 vitamin A-deficient children become blind every year, half of them dying within 12 months of losing their sight (WHO, 2006). In contrast, a billion people are substantially over-consuming, spawning a new public health epidemic involving chronic conditions such as type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.
Foresight argued that efforts to end hunger internationally are already stalling, and the scale of the threats are such that no single class of intervention – increasing supply, moderating demand, improving the efficiency of the food system – alone is likely to be sufficient. The links between agriculture and nutrition are complex. A well-developed agriculture sector may enhance food and nutrition security directly through consumption or indirectly through incomes. In turn, better nutrition and health of farmers increases their agricultural and economic productivity. Agriculture can also carry risks to nutrition and health outcomes, through agriculture-related diseases. Policy-makers will need to pursue a portfolio of measures involving all aspects of the food system, to maximise the potential benefits of agriculture for nutrition, whilst reducing the risks.
Increasing the nutritional quality of crops is known as biofortification and is an important strategy for improving the health of poor people, particularly in low-income countries. Where there is genetic variation for nutritional quality, biofortification can proceed through traditional or marker-assisted breeding. Quality Protein Maize (QPM) has 90% the nutritional value of skimmed milk, and yields 10% more grain with nearly twice as much usable protein than traditional varieties of maize, grown in the tropics. Babies and adults consuming QPM are healthier and at lower risk of malnutrition disorders. Pigs fed QPM rapidly gain weight and are ready for market sooner or can provide an additional quality protein source for small farm families (CIMMYT, 2000). Efforts are also under way to breed maize and sweet potatoes rich in beta-carotene, a precursor to vitamin A, millet and beans with high iron levels, and rice and wheat high in zinc.
Where no genetic variation for a desirable trait is available, there is much interest in using biotechnology to produce more nutritious crops. As the prime beneficiaries are people in
GFS 35 low-income countries these efforts are often financed by charitable foundations and involve public-private partnerships. The GM nutritionally-enhanced crop variety “Golden Rice”1 has been genetically altered to produce beta-carotene, a precursor to vitamin A. The first transgenic lines were created in 1999 but work to optimise the level of beta-carotene expressed and address regulatory concerns meant that Golden Rice will only reach market in 2013 (Potrykus, 2010). Other programmes include modifying rice to enrich its iron content.
Eighty percent of the plant food consumed in the global human diet is provided by just twelve species of plants - the cereals barley, maize, millet, rice, rye, sorghum, sugar cane, and wheat, and tubers - cassava, potato, sweet potato and yam (Grivetti and Ogle, 2000). However, there are at least 7000 edible and partly domesticated plants (Williams and Haq, 2002), and an estimated 30 000–75 000 edible wild species of plants on around the world (Myers, 1997; Hopper, 2010). More attention is needed to consider these underutilised crops and the opportunities they offer for alternative cropping systems. A prospective grower embarking on an alternative crop enterprise will need to consider access to markets, implications for crop rotations, especially weed, disease and pest problems; suitability of the soil and climate; and level of risk. With novel crops, there are often fewer pesticide products and there can be fewer opportunities to apply them at the most effective time (Foresight, 2011).
Reducing the number of hungry people rarely receives political priority, since the poorest section of society exercises little leverage, nationally or globally. Agriculture gets even less attention than hunger reduction. Agriculture in the developing world can become highly productive, even for smallholders. There is a need for a bold and global consensus for tackling hunger and ensuring investment in pro-poor, anti-hunger agricultural growth. Strong levels of political courage and leadership in countries from low- to high-income status are essential to carry this agenda through. A stronger constituency for hunger reduction needs to be built (Foresight, 2011).
Policymakers need to strengthen the culture of monitoring, impact and learning in agriculture – to allow farmers and consumers to give feedback on what is working and not working in hunger reduction efforts (Foresight, 2011). Cost-effective food aid is required which purchases food in or near recipient countries (Worldwatch Institute, 2011). Markets/other mechanisms should be used to regulate and generate rewards for agro/environmental services including: incentives to promote integrated pest management, environmentally resilient germplasm, payments to farmers and local communities for ecosystem services, facilitating and providing incentives for alternative markets such as green products, certification for sustainable forest and fisheries practices and organic agriculture and strengthening of local markets (IAASTD, 2009).
Managing the contribution of the food system to the mitigation of climate change
Concentrations of Carbon Dioxide and other Greenhouse Gases (GHG) have risen substantially over recent decades. As a result of lags in the global climate system, the world is already committed to Climate Change, whatever mitigation measures are taken in the next few decades. Failures to curb GHG emissions will lead, with high probability, to rates of
1 www.goldenrice.org
GFS 35 warming by the end of the century that will be highly detrimental to many aspects of human existence, including the provision of food.
Agricultural production is likely to decline in most of the developing world as a result of climate change through reduced water availability, increased temperatures, uncertain or shorter growing seasons, less arable land and new pest and disease patterns. In addition to assisting rural households to adapt to climate change in an environment characterized by deteriorating natural resources, there is also a need to moderate the impact of disasters from more frequent extreme weather events. Every year, weather events (drought, floods, fires) significantly impact agricultural production and commodity markets. Climate change is making these weather events more frequent and severe. Better preparedness, early warning and appropriate response mechanisms are all part of a broader approach to disaster risk management. The insurance industry estimates total economic losses in 2011 caused by natural hazards range from $350 to $380 billion US - the most expensive year in history.
Agriculture also plays a vital role in mitigating climate change. Agriculture is a major source of CO2 emissions and contributes a disproportionate amount of other GHGs with high impact on warming (approximately 47% and 58% of total CH4 and N2O emissions, respectively (IFPRI ). 34% of global land area is used for food production (INRA, CIRAD, 2011) and this ties up a vast amount of carbon: changes in agricultural practices that affect this store could have a very significant effect on global warming (IFAD, 2011). The major challenge is to incentivize and spread best practice. For example, a variety of methods are available to increase the nitrogen efficiency of crop and livestock production, or to reduce methane emissions from livestock or wetland rice. Much more carbon could be sequestered in farmland, both in soils and agroforestry (combining trees and shrubs with crops and/or livestock). Novel approaches are needed to reward farmers who produce these global goods.
There are a number of global initiatives and partnership starting to draw these links together (International Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change, FAO/WB partnership on Climate Smart Agriculture). Yet there is still no agreement on a sustainable agriculture work programme under UNFCCC. It is clear that the role of agriculture in climate change is yet to be fully embraced. Policies to mitigate climate change can incentive the delivery of multiple public goods (Foresight, 2011). These will help to develop agricultural technologies and methods that are more robust and resilient to the range of future climatic uncertainties.
Maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem services while feeding the world
Some of the most threatened and diverse habitats exist in very low-income countries, which also face the greatest challenges in achieving the MDGs. Often, actions to slow ecosystem degradation do not address indirect drivers: population change (growth and migration), change in economic activity (economic growth, disparities in wealth, and trade patterns), socio-political factors (presence of conflict to public participation in decision-making), cultural factors, and technological change. Conversion of forest to agriculture can significantly change the frequency and magnitude of floods, although the nature of the impacts depends on the characteristics of the local ecosystem and the type of land cover change. Changes in biodiversity can influence the capacity of ecosystems to adjust to changing environments (medium certainty) influencing risk of crop failure in a variable environment and altering the
GFS 35 potential impacts of pests and pathogens (medium to high certainty) (Millennium Ecosystem Assesment, 2005).
Improved understanding is needed in agro-ecosystems properties, such as complex cropping rotations, integrated crop and livestock production, functioning of mosaics of crop production areas and natural habitats, enhancing biodiversity conservation and use at both field and landscape scales, and enhanced reliance on ecological processes to manage pests, weeds, and diseases (National Academy of Sciences, 2010). Interventions are needed to ensure that biodiversity is considered in planning at the national and landscape levels to make farming more wildlife friendly, fishing less damaging, or to set land, marine and freshwater protected areas aside as reserves. Also, interventions need to recognise the importance of ‘wild food’ in low-income countries to help protect the livelihoods of very poorest people. Further work into the economic assessment and evaluation of ecosystem services and biodiversity will need to build upon initiatives such as The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity and World Bank programme on Global Partnership for Ecosystems Services and Ecosystems Services Evaluation and Wealth Accounting (Foresight, 2011).
More recognition is needed at global and international levels that food security and environmental protection are interdependent. International policy needs to ensure that countries obtain benefits from providing global goods, especially when costs are borne by low-income countries; policies are avoided that have negative environmental impacts in other countries; and the protection of biodiversity is coordinated across administrative or national borders. Whatever strategies are adopted, human impacts need to be understood and quantified as there are strong ethical arguments against imposing the costs of protecting biodiversity on those least able to pay them. There are both economic and non-economic arguments for why ecosystem services and biodiversity should be integral parts of decision- making in the global food system (Foresight, 2011).
Where action is needed and by whom?
Today’s global food system is complex and dynamic, perhaps more so than at any time in human history. Continuing open and transparent dialogue, and increased collaboration between governments, the private sector and civil society, with commitments to robust standards of action and performance, will be essential to achieving future sustainability in the global food supply chain (Foresight, 2011).
Research, knowledge transfer and extension - In the face of long-term climate and environmental challenges, today’s knowledge and technologies will no longer be reliable and suitable. A toolkit of integrated multiple-benefit approaches is needed (often overlapping) including: balanced-input agriculture, sustainable land management, landscape approaches, integrated pest management, integrated plant nutrient management, watershed management, rangeland management and, more broadly, integrated food energy systems. Investment in research (both public and private sector) is critical to increasing agricultural productivity sustainably. Promising technologies require promotion, piloting and scaling up; and knowledge integration needs promoting across communities of practice, including through South-South exchanges and farmer-to-farmer learning. There is also a need for more multidisciplinary research and greater integrated analysis of the relationship between food, agriculture, natural resources and climate change, as well as greater co-ordination globally between existing research initiatives. Farming is knowledge-intensive, requiring information about crop characteristics, weather, microclimate, soil types, fertility, pests and
GFS 35 disease threats, field rotation schemes, livestock / crop interactions, market demand, and many other factors (Worldwatch Institute, 2011). Critically the end game must be to increase producers’ knowledge about best practice and bring innovation to more poor farmers in developing countries, faster.
Governance of innovation for agriculture needs to maximise opportunities for increasing production, while at the same time protecting societies, economies and the environment from negative side effects. Regulatory systems need to improve their assessment of benefits (Royal Society, 2009). Intellectual property systems need to be reviewed to ensure that patenting or varietal protection of new seed varieties does not work against poverty alleviation, farmer led innovation or publicly funded research efforts (Royal Society, 2009). EU partner countries should work together over the next five to ten years to develop a system of regulation for new agricultural processes and products, based on shared principles (Royal Society, 2009). Carbon taxes should be applied to both energy and land-use change to incentivize intensification of crop production on a more limited land areas, protection of forests and grasslands (World Bank, 2010).
Governance of the food system - Weak governance, inadequate policies, low levels of investment in agriculture, weak rural infrastructure and changing consumption patterns lie at the heart of environmental degradation by the global food system. Poor rural people, including smallholders, are often disempowered and thus unable to sustainably manage natural resources; a lack of clear land access and tenure rights removes incentives to maintain natural assets; distorting trade policies and fossil-fuel and other subsidies are key drivers; and the global population is growing rapidly. Success has often been accompanied by strong local ownership and participation, often with decentralised government structures (World Bank, 2010). The global food system needs reform - not only to increase internal coherence, but also to be more coherent with other sector or thematic objectives and governance structures – including vitally the role of the private sector which controls most of our global food resource. The solution is not just to produce more food, or change diets, or eliminate waste. The potential threats are so great that they cannot be met by making changes piecemeal to parts of the food system. It is essential that policy-makers address all areas at the same time (e.g. water, energy, land use, ecosystem services). Joined up government and cooperative research programs at all levels are necessary for facilitating interaction between policies and sectors (IFAD, 2011). Research needs to focus on the key questions policy makers face now – what are the big decisions, issues and opportunities in this agenda where our knowledge and understanding needs to be at its best. Research must be aimed at the key questions policy and decision makers are grappling with today. Another high level call for action will simply not have an impact or create the change that is needed on the global food system.
Global Metrics/Indicators - Despite a raft of indicators and data on agriculture and food, there is still a need for better metrics and indicators to evaluate the global food system and monitor and evaluate policies, including the role of wider factors (e.g. ecosystem services, climate change) on the food system. For example, the lack of baselines and benchmarking of environmental impacts has contributed to poor understanding of the poverty /environment nexus, including associated risks and opportunities. The health of natural assets such as biodiversity or soil fertility can be difficult or costly to measure. However, the use of baseline studies, indicators, resource accounting studies and impact measurement of natural assets, together with innovative partnerships with data and information providers (e.g. satellite
GFS 35 companies), could help support governments and communities alike in investing in environment and natural resources management and building resilience to risks and shocks.
Private Sector / Industry / Business - Agribusinesses and food industry are concerned about long-term sustainability of their sources of supply, as well as about responding to consumers’ and governments’ demand for social and environmental corporate responsibility (Worldwatch Institute, 2011). The Foresight report outlined a number of key actions for the private sector around increasing collaboration with the public, NGO and research sectors. In particular, the private sector must work closely with policy makers, NGOs and other groups to assemble food and resource data and to simplify and make transparent standards for sustainable and equitable food production. The contribution of funders to research from the public, private and third-sector organisations needs better coordination. Investment in infrastructure and capacity is needed at a scale which will be realised only by innovative new partnerships between governments, multilateral bodies and the private sector. Where incentives do not currently exist for investment in research that provides public goods, new models of delivery are needed to mobilise the considerable strengths of private sector research and scientific entrepreneurship (Warham et al. 2012). The private sector must increase food literacy amongst consumers, enabling individuals to make informed decisions on the health, environmental and pro-poor consequences of the food they purchase, and work with community organisations and the private sector, locally to internationally, to simplify and make transparent standards for sustainable and equitable food production. Finally it is critical for the private sector to collaborate in research and development in food sector climate change mitigation and adaptation, ecosystem services and biodiversity support, contributing to public goods and shared interest private returns.
March 2013
References
CCAFS (2010) (for The Hague Conference) - Agriculture, Food Security and Climate Change: Outlook for Knowledge,Tools and Action.
CIMMYT (2000) Maize Research Highlights 1999-2000. (http://apps.cimmyt.org/Research/Maize/results/mzhigh99-00/mrhigh99-00_qual.pdf
FAO (2010) (for The Hague Conference) - “Climate-Smart” Agriculture: Policies, Practices and Financing for Food Security, Adaptation and Mitigation.
Foresight (2011) The Future of Food and Farming: Challenges and Choices for Global Sustainability. London: Government Office for Science, p. 211.
Foresight (2011b). Foresight Project on Global Food and Farming Futures. Synthesis Report C10: Volatility in Food Prices.
Grivetti, L. E. and Ogle, B. M. (2000). Value of traditional foods in meeting macro- and micronutrient needs: the wild plant connection. Nutrition Research Reviews, 13, 31-46.
Hopper, S. D. (2010). Sir John Crawford Memorial Address – Plant Diversity at the Turning Point. “Biodiversity And World Food Security: Nourishing The Planet And Its People” conference conducted by the Crawford Fund for International Agricultural Research,
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Parliament House, Canberra, Australia, 30 August – 1 September, 2010 http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/bitstream/125259/2/Hopper2010.pdf
International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD). (2009). Agriculture at a Crossroads: A synthesis of the global and sub-global IAASTD reports, eds. B.D. McIntyre, H.R. Herren, J. Wakhungu, and R.T. Watson. Washington, D.C. Island Press.
International Food Policy Research Institute. (2009). Climate Change: Impact on Agriculture and Costs of Adaptation and Food Security, Farming, and Climate Change to 2050. Washington: IFPRI, p. 30.
INRA/CIRAD. (2010). Agrimonde: Scenarios and Challenges for Feeding the World in 2050. Versailles: Editions Quae, p. 295.
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Myers, N. (ed.) (1997). Biodiversity’s genetic library, Washington, DC: Island Press.
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Potrykus, I. (2010). Regulation must be revolutionized. Nature, 466, 561-561.
Royal Society (2009) Reaping the benefits: Science and the sustainable intensification of global agriculture. London: The Royal Society, p. 72.
Warham, E.J., Fisher-Lamb, R. and Beddington, J. (2012). How Can the Environment Become Part of the Solution to Feeding a Growing Population. The European Journal of Agricultural Development. Volume 25 (1):21-27.
Williams, J.T. and Haq, N. (2002). Global Research on Underutilized Crops: An Assessment of Current Activities and Proposals for Enhanced Cooperation. Southampton, UK: International Centre for Underutilized Crops.
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Worldwatch Institute. (2011). State of the World: Innovations that Nourish the Planet. New York, NY USA: W.W. Norton and Company.
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Farming First - Agriculture for a Green Economy.
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Written evidence submitted by the World Food Programme
Executive Summary
I. Introduction
II. Global Trends in Food Access
a. Access to Food in Low Income Developing Countries
b. The Impact of Conflict and Natural Disasters on Food Access
c. The Changing Demographics of Hunger
d. The Impact of High Food Prices on Food Access
III. Investing in Access to Food
a. Emergency Food Assistance
b. Safety Nets
c. Access to Nutritious Food
d. Resilience Building and Livelihoods
IV. UK Support for Access to Food
The Zero Hunger Challenge: Ensuring Access to Food
Executive Summary
The United Nations Secretary-General’s Zero Hunger Challenge made the elimination of hunger a top priority for global governance. The World Food Programme (WFP) has embraced this challenge. As the United Nations frontline agency on access to food, WFP provides food assistance to about 90 million people in more than 70 countries every year. WFP implements projects across the spectrum of food and nutrition security interventions, ranging from emergency relief to resilience building and safety net programmes, with the objective of ensuring that vulnerable populations have access to food.
Food and nutrition security interventions are among the most cost-effective of development interventions, with potential to support economic growth and long- term poverty reduction. Considerable progress has been made in the fight against world hunger in recent decades. The number of people affected by hunger, however, remains unacceptably high. Approximately 870 million people are undernourished and 165 million children suffer from chronic malnutrition. In order to meet the objective of the Zero Hunger Challenge, it is essential to ensure access to food for the hundreds of millions of people who do not possess adequate means for meeting their daily dietary needs.
Meeting the food access needs of undernourished populations will require the concerted effort of the international community and, most importantly, governments in countries where the extent and severity of hunger is greatest. Innovative food access solutions must be developed and taken to scale. Approaches to ensuring food access must also consider emerging global trends related to hunger and economic development, the relationship between food insecurity and natural and man-made disasters, the evolving geography of global poverty, and the impact of rising food prices. Given the scale of global food access needs, WFP is focusing its investments in three key areas: facilitating direct access to food for the most vulnerable; catalysing inclusive food and nutrition access systems; and strengthening the enabling environment for hunger and nutrition investments.
WFP encourages the UK to continue its leading role, including among the G8, in the fight against world hunger. The UK has been a world leader in promoting market- based solutions to hunger, resilience building and disaster risk reduction, and the prevention of undernutrition. The UK is a strong and long-standing partner of WFP, providing a total of GBP 500 million over the past 5 years. The flexible, multi-year funding approach of the UK is a model for Good Humanitarian Donorship.
The Zero Hunger Challenge: Ensuring Access to Food
I. Introduction
1. With the announcement of the Zero Hunger Challenge at the 2012 UN Conference on Sustainable Development in Brazil, the United Nations Secretary-General made the elimination of hunger a top priority for global governance. The World Food Programme (WFP) has embraced this challenge. As the United Nations frontline agency on access to food, with GBP 2.9 billion in expenditures in 20121, WFP provides food assistance to about 90 million2 people in more than 70 countries every year. WFP implements projects across the spectrum of food and nutrition security interventions, ranging from emergency relief to resilience building and safety net programmes, with the objective of ensuring that vulnerable populations have access to food.3
2. Considerable progress has been made in the fight against world hunger in recent decades. Over the past twenty years, the absolute number of undernourished 4 has declined by 132 million, while the proportion of undernourished has declined from 18.6 per cent to 12.5 per cent of the world’s population.5 The number of people affected by hunger, however, remains unacceptably high, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, where the absolute number of undernourished people has increased over the past five years.6 An estimated 870 million people are undernourished worldwide and more than 165 million children under five will suffer the long-term effects of chronic malnutrition.
3. With the global population expected to increase from seven to more than nine billion people by 2050, meeting the global food and nutrition security needs of an additional two billion will require concerted international action. Global economic growth means that a greater proportion of consumers will shift their dietary preferences toward resource-intensive products, and an increasing share of agricultural production will be dedicated to non-food uses. Global food production must increase by approximately 60 percent over the next 40 years to meet global demand.7 In order to meet higher levels of demand, ensuring sustainable increases in agricultural productivity will be critical to global food security in the years ahead.
1 Provisional figure based on WFP 2012 Statement of Financial Performance. 2 Over the last five years, WFP reached between 80 and 110 million beneficiaries per year. 3 To ensure food access, a household must have sufficient physical and economic resources to acquire an adequate amount of nutritious food required for meeting daily dietary needs. Access to food is determined by household ability to meet dietary requirements through production, purchase, barter, and gifts. 4Undernourishment refers to the proportion of the population in a country with dietary energy consumption that is lower than dietary energy requirements. 5 State of Food Insecurity in the World 2012. FAO, WFP, and IFAD. 2012. 6 State of Food Insecurity in the World 2012. FAO, WFP, and IFAD. 2012. 7 OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2012-2021. OECD/FAO. 2012.
4. At the same time, it is essential to ensure access to food for the hundreds of millions of people who do not possess adequate means for meeting their daily dietary needs. Meeting these needs will require focused leadership from governments and the international community, particularly in those countries where the proportion of global hunger is most highly concentrated. WFP and its partners engaged in the fight against hunger must develop innovative access solutions that can be adopted by governments and taken to scale.
5. Food and nutrition insecurity is a significant constraint on economic growth, which is the key to sustaining development gains and lifting people out of poverty. A recent study indicates that the economic cost of hunger can amount to as much as 11 percent of GDP.8 Increasing access to food and nutrition is among the most cost-effective of development interventions. A panel of eminent economists convened to review the cost-effectiveness of development interventions for the 2012 Copenhagen Consensus ranked food and nutrition interventions, particularly those that improve access to micronutrients, as the most cost-effective investments for the advancement of global welfare. Based on evidence from several low-income countries, every pound invested in the prevention of chronic undernutrition generates a return on investment of between 15 and 139 pounds.9
6. In recognition of the Zero Hunger Challenge, the Rome-based Agencies of the United Nations - the Food and Agriculture Organization, the International Fund for Agricultural Development and the World Food Programme – are redoubling efforts to enhance partnerships and leverage comparative advantages that help food insecure communities become more resilient and support government initiatives that address the food and nutrition security needs of their populations. The Rome-based Agencies continue to build on existing partnerships to increase the alignment of policy and planning frameworks. The Rome-based Agencies have developed a five year strategic framework with UN Women to promote the economic empowerment of rural women in developing countries. WFP is also strengthening strategic partnerships with UNICEF, the International Food Policy Research Institute, the World Bank, private sector actors and, most critically, national governments.
7. This paper looks at: 1) global trends in food access; 2) investing in access to food; and 3) UK support for access to food.
II. Global trends in food access
8. In order to place the effort to eliminate global hunger in perspective, there is a need to consider emerging trends related to hunger and economic
8 Martinez et al. The Cost of Hunger: Social and Economic Impact of Child Undernutrition in Central America and the Dominican Republic. ECLAC. 2008. 9 Hoddinott et al., Hunger and Malnutrition, Copenhagen Consensus 2012.
development, the relationship between food insecurity and natural and man- made disasters, the evolving geography of global poverty, and the impact of rising food prices.
Access to food in Low Income Developing Countries
9. Until recently, the international community has concentrated on hunger in low- income countries, particularly low-income food deficit countries (LIFDC).10 According the 2012 Global Hunger Index, twenty countries around the world have ‘extremely alarming’ or ‘alarming levels’ of food insecurity and nearly forty countries have ‘serious’ levels of food insecurity. The majority of these are LIFDCs. For the most vulnerable households, who may spend as much as 80 percent of their income on food, the effects of a sudden shock, such as sudden price increases or crop failure, may have a dramatic impact. Three out of five people in developing countries, including more than three quarters of households in sub-Saharan Africa, do not have access to any form of social protection.11
10. The importance of food security and nutrition in long-term economic development has been well established.12 Food security and economic growth are mutually reinforcing. Food security is dependent on improvements in governance, public service delivery, infrastructure, human capital development and economic performance. At the same time access to decent food has a significant impact on human productivity and, as a consequence, rates of economic growth.13 Improving access to food for women, including through increased access to productive agricultural inputs and credit, has the potential to be a significant driver of economic productivity gains at the national level. Breaking the cycle of hunger and malnutrition is critical to unlocking the development potential of low-income developing countries.
The impact of conflict and natural disasters on food access
11. Humanitarian assistance is increasingly concentrated in conflict-affected states14, where the ability of governments to provide basic services is often limited and where access to food is affected by displacement and disruptions to markets and livelihoods. Food insecurity is both a cause and a consequence of conflict, particularly in fragile states.15 Promoting access to food through price stabilization, safety nets and livelihood support is critical for mitigating the risk
10 LIFDCs are countries with Gross National Income (GNI) per capita that is less than USD 1,025 with negative net food trade balances. 11 World Bank Social Protection and Labour Strategy 2012-2022. World Bank. 2012. 12 Timmer, P. ‘Food Security and Economic Growth: An Asian Perspective’. Center for Global Development. 2004. 13 Kwadwo, A. et al. ‘Interactions between Health and Farm Labor Productivity’. IFPRI. 2011. 14Global Humanitarian Assistance Report 2011. Global Humanitarian Assistance. 2011. 15 There is no standard definition for fragile states. For the purposes of this paper fragile states refers to the OECD definition, “states unable to meet the expectations of their populations or manage changes in expectation and capacity through a political process.”
of conflict and political instability.16 A recent OECD analysis found that people living in fragile states are more than twice as likely to be undernourished as those in other developing countries.17 According to recent estimates, nearly 50 per cent of the global poor live in fragile settings. Ensuring access to food for populations in states affected by conflict or the potential for conflict will continue to be a priority on the global food security agenda.
12. Since 2000, the number of people affected by disasters has remained at or above 200 million every year.18 In spite of improvements in prediction and preparedness, sudden onset natural disasters in developing countries that result in large-scale needs and require immediate humanitarian response, such as the Haiti earthquake and Pakistan floods of 2010, are likely to continue to require significant levels of support from the international community. The impact of natural disasters on food access is likely to increase in the context of climate change.
13. Current estimates indicate that more than two-thirds of natural disaster events are now related to climate change.19 The majority of vulnerable and food insecure farmers reside on marginal and degraded land, cultivating crops that are sensitive to increasing temperatures and volatile weather patterns. In many arid and semi-arid regions of the world, such as the Sahel and the Horn of Africa, climate change is already having an impact on food security. In the years to come, the potential for reductions in agricultural yields, soil degradation and increasing water scarcity will pose an increasing threat to food security and livelihoods.
The changing demographics of hunger
14. As income levels in India, Indonesia, Nigeria and other countries have risen, three quarters of the global poor and the majority of food insecure people are now found in countries officially classified as “middle-income countries”.20, 21 The proportion of food insecure people living in middle-income countries is likely to increase as more countries attain middle-income status, including in sub-Saharan Africa.
16 Brenkman, H. and Hendrix, C. ‘Food Insecurity and Violent Conflict: Causes, Consequences, and Addressing the Challenges’. WFP Occasional Paper. 2011. 17 OECD-DAC International Network on Conflict and Fragility (INCAF) “Ensuring Fragile States are Not Left Behind”. 2011. 18 Guha-Sapir et al. Annual Disaster Statistical Review 2011- The Numbers and Trends. WHO Collaborating Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters. 2011. 19 Climate Change: Coping with the Humanitarian Impact. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. 2011. 20 The World Bank classifies countries with GNI per capita between USD 1,026 and USD 12,475 as middle- income countries. Middle income countries are classified under two additional categories, low middle-income countries, with GNI per capita between USD 1,026 and USD 4,035, and upper middle-income countries with GNI per capita between 4,036 and USD 12,475. 21Summer, A. “Global Poverty and the New Bottom Billion: What if Three-Quarters of the World’s Poor Live in Middle-Income Countries?” Institute of Development Studies, September 2010.
15. Rapid urbanization is also changing the geography of hunger within countries. The number of people living in urban areas is expected to reach five billion by 2030.22 Population growth in developing countries will be concentrated in urban areas. The proportion of poor people in developing countries living in urban areas is projected to reach 50 percent by 2030.23
16. At the same time, economic growth increases the potential for governments to take the lead in addressing domestic food security concerns. This has implications for the type of support demanded by government partners. WFP is responding by prioritizing the provision of technical assistance to government- led initiatives, strengthening institutional capacity and developing market- based instruments for addressing hunger. Increasing levels of poverty and food insecurity in urban settings will require enhanced partnerships with government at the municipal level, the development of new tools for targeting vulnerable groups in urban environments, and the scaling up of new modalities for food assistance transfers, such as cash and voucher systems.
The impact of high food prices on food access
17. High prices remain important because access to food is a key determinant of food security – perhaps the most important determinant for many of the world’s hungry. High prices have the greatest effect on the food security status of the very poor, who allocate a greater share of their incomes to the purchase of food. Global price shocks are more likely to translate into hunger and increased potential for social instability in countries having large numbers of people with significant levels of underlying vulnerability and limited capacity for addressing increasing needs through existing safety net programmes. The disproportionate impact of price increases on urban populations, who rely to a greater extent on markets for food access, has the potential increase political instability at the national level.
18. In 2008, increased food and fuel prices and reductions in the level of remittances from developed countries resulted in an increase24 in the number of undernourished people globally. While the effects of this shock on global undernourishment were relatively temporary, with rates slowly returning to pre-shock levels, the relationship between global economic volatility and hunger were clearly demonstrated.
22 Baker, J. Urban Poverty: A Global View. Urban Sector Board, The World Bank Group. 2008. 23 Ravallion, M., et al. New Evidence on the Urbanization of Global Poverty.World Bank Policy Research Working Paper Series. 2007. 24 According to FAO, the increase in undernourishment during 2007–10, the period characterized by food price and economic crises, was less severe than previously estimated. State of Food Insecurity in the World 2012. FAO, WFP and IFAD. 2012
19. A number of variables determine the extent to which global market dynamics influence domestic food security. Countries with low economic growth rates, low domestic production, low international currency reserves, high rates of inflation and budgetary constraints related to high levels of debt servicing are less capable of mitigating the effects of rising food prices. While the effects of food price volatility on short-term hunger have received considerable attention in food security policy circles in recent years, many medium to long-term projections suggest the potential for a structural shift towards higher food prices over the coming decade.25 The underlying causes of increased food prices include the increasing demand for non-food crops, changing dietary preferences in emerging economies, population growth, and the limited availability of productive land and water resources for expanding agricultural production in many countries.
III. Investing in access to food
20. WFP is adapting to an operating environment that is increasingly crisis-prone, politically complex and crowded in terms of the number of state and non-state actors it must work and partner with globally. Given the scale of food access needs, WFP focuses its investment in three areas: facilitating direct access to food for the most vulnerable (e.g. direct food assistance, nutrition programmes, safety nets); programmes that help reduce global hunger by catalysing inclusive food and nutrition access systems (e.g. resilience building, livelihoods support, market development); and strengthening the enabling environment for hunger and nutrition investments (e.g. the integration of capacity building and knowledge management across all areas of investment).
A. Emergency food assistance
21. Ensuring access to food in emergencies is critical for maintaining the health and nutrition status and protecting the household assets and livelihoods of affected populations. Meeting the food access needs of vulnerable populations during a crisis contributes to longer-term resilience and other food and nutrition security objectives. In Ethiopia, for example, evidence suggests that children born during a disaster are more than three times as likely to suffer from undernutrition.26 Household asset depletion, such as distress sales of livestock during drought, delays household recovery and affects access to food over the long-term.
22. Direct transfers that ensure access to food for populations affected by crises, particularly support for internally displaced persons and refugees, are essential for limiting the potential for increased mortality and morbidity. Recent
25 OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2012-2021. OECD/FAO. 2012. 26 Fuentes, R. and Seck, P. The Short and Long-Term Human Development Effects of Climate-related Shocks: Some Empirical Evidence. Human Development Report Office, UNDP. 2007.
estimates indicate there are an estimated 15 million refugees globally, while more than 26 million people are internally displaced by conflict and an additional 15 million people are displaced by natural disasters.27 Under the auspices of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS), the Rome-based agencies of the United Nations are leading an initiative to improve approaches to food security in protracted crises. The CFS initiative explores opportunities for promoting the resilience of populations affected by crises through efforts to complement food access transfers with investments in agriculture, the strengthening of national and sub-national institutions affected by prolonged periods of conflict, and the prioritization of market-based solutions to food insecurity.
23. As mechanisms for meeting food security needs evolve to include new food assistance approaches, agencies are developing innovative tools for ensuring access to food. Cash and voucher transfers are becoming an increasingly important means for addressing food insecurity in crises. In contexts where food is readily available and households are well connected to markets, addressing food access through the instrument of cash and vouchers presents several distinct advantages.
24. Food that is available locally is more likely to meet the dietary preferences of affected populations, the introduction of effective demand through cash and vouchers supports linkages between local and national markets to expedite economic recovery, and the provision of assistance from local sources has the potential to reduce the cost and supply concerns associated with in-kind food aid. Cash and vouchers also have the potential to reduce undernutrition by increasing dietary diversity, as populations are able to access foods that are not included in traditional food aid baskets, such as animal products and fresh fruits and vegetables. WFP is significantly scaling up the use of cash and voucher transfers, with the total value of these transfers increasing from GBP 27 million in 2009 to GBP 134 million in 2011.
25. Approaching emergency food security through disaster risk reduction frameworks moves the focus from reactive approaches to emergency response towards preparation and mitigation. Limiting the exposure of populations to shocks and increasing capacity for early warning and response has the potential to both save lives in emergencies and improve the efficiency of humanitarian response.28 Food security plays a role in promoting stability and social cohesion, reducing the likelihood of civil unrest, rioting, and political violence.29 Empirical data shows that, between 1990 and 2011, food price
27 World Disaster Report 2012. International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. 2012. 28 Venton, C., et al. ‘The Economics of Early Response and Disaster Resilience: Lessons from Kenya and Ethiopia.’ Department for International Development. 2012. 29 Brinkman, Genk-Jan and Hendrix, Cullen s, Food insecurity and violent conflict: causes, consequences, and Addressing the challenges, WFP occasional Paper no. 24, (2011).
increases have been a significant risk factor for political unrest.30 As many analysts have noted, high food prices and unemployment were contributing factors to the unrest that has unfolded across much of North Africa and the Middle East in recent years.31
26. The Humanitarian Emergency Response Review, for example, estimates that every pound spent in crisis prevention saves four pounds in emergency response.32 Efforts undertaken to improve the quality and credibility of early warning tools following the 2011 Horn of Africa crisis helped to galvanize international efforts to mitigate the impact of drought in the Sahel through the expansion of safety nets, resilience, and preventive nutrition programmes. Several regional organizations, such as Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the African Union, have established mechanisms for improving emergency preparedness and response capacity at the national level. Employing innovative uses of technology, including remote sensing and geographic information systems, also contributes to increased accuracy in the predictive modelling of natural disasters.
27. In line with efforts to improve efficiency and reduce lead times for emergency response, WFP’s Forward Purchase Facility (FPF) represents a more strategic approach to the procurement and delivery of commodities to meet food access needs in emergencies. The FPF aggregates global demand to allow purchases to be made at lower costs, incorporates forward planning to anticipate demand at regional levels and reduces transport timelines by procuring commodities closer to final destinations. The FPF has contributed to more effective response and efficient use of funding for emergencies by reducing the lead times for the delivery of commodities by approximately 70 percent.
B. Safety nets
28. Safety nets that provide vulnerable populations with transfers of cash, food or vouchers are one of the most effective tools for ensuring access to food. Safety nets can be part of an emergency response or part of wider social protection provision. When functioning safety net systems exist, countries can more rapidly, effectively and efficiently support food access in times of crisis, such as food price increases and crop failure. The G20 Development Working Group and the Busan Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation have recently emphasized the critical importance of embedding food security and nutrition within national safety net policies.
30 Bellemare, M. “Rising food prices, food price volatility, and political unrest” June 2011 31 OECD-DAC International Network on Conflict and Fragility (INCAF) “Ensuring Fragile States are Not Left Behind” 2011 report on resource flows in fragile states 32 Humanitarian Emergency Response Review. 2011.
29. Since the food price crisis of 2008, many developing countries have significantly scaled up investments in safety nets. Nearly 80 per cent of developing nations currently have plans to establish or strengthen safety nets.33 More than 20 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia have recently established safety net policies. 34 Brazil’s Fome Zero initiative established innovative safety nets that have been crucial to reducing food insecurity, while India’s extensive social protection system supports an estimated 500 million people annually.35
30. School feeding, a key feature of Brazil’s safety net programme, both improves educational outcomes and ensures access to food for the most vulnerable. The WFP Centre of Excellence Against Hunger, which is supported by the Brazilian government, facilitates policy dialogue, south-south learning and technical assistance in school feeding. Working with the centre, Rwanda has developed plans for national school feeding that link support for vulnerable schoolchildren to production from smallholder farmers. In Ecuador and El Salvador, school feeding programmes started with external support are now entirely financed and managed by the state.
31. Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP), which was established following a widespread food security crisis in 2003, provides cash and food transfers to approximately 7 million food insecure people. The multi-annual approach of the PSNP allows for more predictable and harmonized planning, permitting the government and partner agencies to expand population coverage in response to crises. PSNP has effectively contributed to the stabilization of food consumption at the household level and led to the rehabilitation of rural infrastructure. The approach of PSNP, which combines national ownership and resourcing with the technical and financial contributions of international aid agencies, such as WFP, acknowledges the potential for reducing reliance on external support as institutional capacity and domestic resources increase over time.
C. Access to nutritious food
32. An estimated 165 million children under five suffer from chronic undernutrition. Recent research indicates that inadequate nutrition during the first 1,000 days of a child’s life – the period between conception and two years of age – leads to irreversible impairment of physical and cognitive development. The prevention of undernutrition, including severe and moderate acute malnutrition, is significantly more cost-effective than treatment. In the case of chronic undernutrition, the damage caused during the early stages of a
33 World Bank Social Protection and Labour Strategy 2012-2022. World Bank. 2012. 34 Safety Nets Work: During Crisis and Prosperity. Development Committee of International Monetary Fund and World Bank. 2012. 35 The 2011 Atlas of Social Protection: Indicators of Resilience and Equity. World Bank. 2011.
child’s life is irreversible. The prevention of chronic undernutrition during the first 1000 days also significantly reduces the risk of acute malnutrition. Ensuring that young children and pregnant and lactating mothers have access to nutritious foods is critical to the prevention of undernutrition. Improved access to nutritious foods can be achieved through policy initiatives at the national level and through direct support to populations at risk. This support includes micronutrient fortification, interventions that improve community- based care and nutrition education, and cash and food-based transfers, particularly of fortified supplementary foods.
33. Several international initiatives have emerged that present unique opportunities for ensuring access to nutritious food. Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) is a multi-stakeholder movement that has mobilized unprecedented political commitment to improving nutrition during the critical 1,000 days. SUN brings together representatives from government, the private sector, academia, civil society and the UN system in a collective effort to mobilize resources and promote innovative approaches. More than 30 developing countries have committed to the SUN movement. The Renewed Efforts to Address Child Hunger and Undernutrition (REACH) initiative builds on existing national programmes and enhanced coordination between relevant stakeholders to strengthen national capacity. REACH brings together UN agencies, NGOs and governments – including finance, health, agriculture, and education departments – to align programmes at the national level.
34. Improving the capacity for the local manufacturing of nutritious products used for the prevention and treatment of undernutrition, such as fortified blended foods and ready-to-use supplementary foods, is critical for increasing national ownership of nutrition programs. In Pakistan, WFP is collaborating with local manufacturers to produce two specialized nutritious food products using locally grown chick-peas. Private sector partners, including DSM and PATH36, are working with WFP on a large-scale rice fortification initiative. The fortification of staple grains is a cost-effective opportunity for improving access to micronutrients through daily food consumption. Under the “Building the Future for Children under Two - the Right Foods at the Right Time Initiative”, the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF) is working with WFP to develop a model for private sector support to child nutrition.
D. Resilience building and livelihoods
35. Resilience-based approaches to ensuring food access recognize that transitions between relief, recovery and development are not linear. Natural disasters and climate change, particularly in drought-prone environments, have the potential to reverse development gains and lead to increasing levels of risk for
36 Royal DSM is a global science-based company active in health and nutrition; PATH is an international nonprofit organization promoting innovation in global health.
households and communities. In sub-Saharan Africa, 650 million people are dependent on rain-fed agriculture in areas that are facing water scarcity, land degradation, and erratic weather. The 2011 Somalia famine, which resulted in mass population movements, high levels of morbidity and mortality and social dislocation, demonstrated how shocks interact with underlying vulnerability to push people into severe food insecurity.
36. There is an emerging consensus on the need to overcome the dichotomy between humanitarian and development paradigms to enhance resilience to shocks at the household and community level. By approaching vulnerability and food security through resilience frameworks, relief and recovery support to populations in crisis is embedded within longer-term investments in community-level infrastructure, health and nutrition services, and livelihood diversification. As national policies and development plans incorporate efforts to build community and household resilience, the need for large-scale expenditures on relief assistance can be reduced over time.37 In addition, short- term interventions in response to a shock can be directed through existing food security and livelihood programmes. Moving beyond reactive approaches to crisis management and towards more predictable resilience building approaches provides significant advantages for ensuring access to food.
37. International initiatives have highlighted the potential for resilience-based approaches to food security. The Global Alliance for Action for Drought Resilience and Growth is a partnership between African governments and international donors that is dedicated to resilience building in the Horn of Africa and the Sahel. In response to the 2011 Horn of Africa crisis, governments in the region came together under the Inter-Governmental Authority for Development (IGAD) Regional Disaster Resilience and Sustainability Platform to mobilize resources for development in arid and semi-arid lands and to develop strategies for enhancing resilience to drought within national planning frameworks.
38. Working with the Somali government, WFP, FAO and UNICEF have established a joint resilience strategy that builds on the comparative advantage of each agency. The joint strategy seeks to increase household income through: livelihood diversification and community asset creation; human capital investments and improved access to basic services; and the establishment of predictable safety nets. The aim of the initiative is to adapt programmes to the livelihood systems and level of institutional capacity in different parts of the country. This resilience-based approach represents a paradigm shift in the way that aid agencies have approached vulnerability in Somalia. The components within this strategy have also been embraced by relevant line ministries in the
37 Venton, C., et al. ‘The Economics of Early Response and Disaster Resilience: Lessons from Kenya and Ethiopia.’ Department for International Development. 2012.
newly elected government, providing the building blocks for plans to expand and strengthen public services at the community level.
IV. UK support for access to food
39. WFP encourages the UK to continue its leading role, including among the G8, in the fight against world hunger. We would particularly recommend continued and increasing UK involvement in nutrition. UK support in this area -in large part owing to the contributions of UK-based organisations, including The Lancet, the Institute for Development Studies, the Overseas Development Institute, Imperial College, Save the Children, Oxfam and the Department for International Development - has helped to establish the evidence base for what is needed to tackle undernutrition at scale, especially among children and mothers.
40. The UK has also been particularly instrumental in advancing resilience-based approaches to food security and has made significant progress in de-linking funding for resilience programmes from the conventional humanitarian and development assistance portfolios. The UK has been actively involved in promoting innovative, market-based solutions to food insecurity, advancing the use of both cash and vouchers in emergencies and value chain approaches to increasing smallholder productivity.
41. The UK is a strong and long-standing partner of WFP, providing a total of GBP 500 million over the past 5 years. With contributions of GBP 126 million in 2012, the UK is WFP’s the 4th largest donor. UK support to WFP is a model of the Principles and Good Practices of Humanitarian Donorship. The UK’s multi- year and multi-lateral funding approach allows WFP to determine the location and timing of commodity procurement. It also allows WFP to prioritize the allocation of funding in order to meet the most critical food access needs around the world.
March 2013
GFS 36A
Supplementary written evidence submitted by the UN World Food Programme
DFID support to the World Food Programme
1. The United Kingdom is consistently one of WFP’s top donors, providing nearly £500 million (US$798 million) to WFP over the last five years. In 2012, the UK was the 4th largest donor to WFP, providing over £126 million (US $200 million).
2. The Department for International Development (DFID) contributes to the work of the World Food Programme (WFP) through the following channels:
a. Directed contributions to specific operations; b. Multilateral contributions; c. As member of WFP’s Executive Board; d. Exchange of experience and knowledge at technical level.
Directed contributions
3. In 2012 some 84% of DFID contributions were directed to WFP’s field operations (Table 1). These contributions supported delivery of food and nutrition assistance (primarily in relief situations) including use of vouchers/cash; the Purchase for Progress (P4P) programme (helping smallholder farmers access markets); and special operations such as the UN Humanitarian Air Service (UNHAS). DFID sometimes makes in-kind donations to specific operations such as reinforced four-wheel drive cars currently in Syria, or logistics support during the Haiti earthquake response.
4. DFID has recently been providing multiyear directed funding to specific operations. Multiyear funding gives WFP the opportunity to better plan our operations. It also has positive spin-off effects, such as Purchase for Progress (P4P) in Ethiopia where WFP was able to sign forward delivery contracts worth US$12.3 million with 16 cooperative unions– having a total membership of half a million people. The WFP contracts enabled farmers’ unions to access loans from commercial banks in Ethiopia (this was previously restricted to exporters only), which in turn enabled the cooperatives to purchase food from their members, bringing smallholder farmers into the market mainstream.
Multilateral contributions
5. WFP is 100 per cent voluntarily funded: it does not receive assessed (core) contributions. In order to enhance operational efficiency and value for money WFP has called on donors to provide more flexible, predictable funding so that WFP can direct the funds to where needs and funding shortfalls are greatest.
GFS 36A
6. In 2011 DFID and WFP signed a 4-year £100 million agreement bringing UK into the small group of donors (including Australia, Canada, Netherlands and Norway) who provide multiyear, multilateral support to WFP. Of the £100million at least £83million is for operations – this is allocated by WFP’s Strategic Resource Allocation Committee based on a quantitative and qualitative analysis of where the funds are most needed. Multilateral funding allows WFP to prioritize funds for maximum impact. For example, using multilateral funds WFP was able to preposition 90,000 tonnes of food in South Sudan ahead of the rainy season during which many parts of the country are cut-off. Not only did this translate into lives saved, it also meant cost-savings. It is much less expensive to deliver food by road than through air-drops – the only option after the onset of rains.
7. The remaining £17million is for organisational strengthening – building WFP capacity for innovation and better corporate performance. The aim of this support is to improve WFP’s performance in order to impact all of WFP’s work, not just that supported by DFID. Areas supported include strengthening Emergency Preparedness and Response, implementation of WFP’s new Monitoring and Evaluation Strategy, and strengthening efficiency and effectiveness in Resource Management.
Board membership
8. The UK is an active and effectively permanent member of WFP’s governing body, the Executive Board. UK has chaired the grouping of traditional donor countries in the Board (“List D”) during several periods over the last decade and held the board Presidency 2011-2012.
Exchange of experience
9. DFID and WFP often exchange information and experience at technical level at country and headquarters levels. DFID advisers have attended technical meetings convened by WFP on, for example, resilience, cash and vouchers and regional food stocks. We have good working relations with DFID humanitarian advisers in the field, for example in Ethiopia and Syria.
Conclusion
10. DFID is a substantial donor to WFP both in absolute monetary terms and in the manner in which contributions are made, with increasing emphasis on multiyear funding. We highly value the capacity building support and technical exchanges. Thus, the United Kingdom is not just a donor but an active and engaged partner.
GFS 36A
Table 1 – Directed contributions
March 2013 GFS 37
Written evidence submitted by Dr Shenggen Fan, Director General, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)
Summary
Significant progress has been made to reduce food insecurity over the last several decades but developing countries continue to be plagued by hunger, undernutrition, and, increasingly, obesity. A growing world population with a rising demand for food is placing progressively more pressure on global agriculture and natural resources, particularly water, land, and energy—a situation made even more precarious by climate change. In response, the international development community has made a series of commitments to strengthen its support toward global food security. While these initiatives should be applauded, now is the time for these commitments to move from rhetoric to concrete actions. Going forward, the focus of food security efforts should be on: • Improving smallholder productivity through the promotion of productive social safety nets; increased access to financial services; greater investments in smallholder-focused agricultural research and infrastructure; and, increased support for vertical and horizontal coordination. • Adopting an integrated (“nexus”) approach that recognizes the complex and interlinked relationship that food production has with natural resources and nutrition. A nexus approach can help to ensure that benefits in one area do not come at the expense of another. • Exploiting the potential of agriculture for mitigating and adapting to climate change while increasing agricultural productivity. • Enhancing global cooperation through mutual learning between traditional and emerging actors and through the elimination of distortionary and destabilizing trade policies, such as export restrictions and bans. • Fulfilling past commitments on food security fully and in a timely manner. The post-2015 development agenda needs to focus on the complete elimination of hunger through country-driven strategies. Funding to strengthen food security efforts must be stable and sustainable, and should not fluctuate with changing governments and initiatives.
1. The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), established in 1975, provides evidence- based policy solutions to sustainably end hunger and malnutrition and reduce poverty. The Institute conducts research, communicates results, optimizes partnerships, and builds capacity to ensure sustainable food production, promote healthy food systems, improve markets and trade, transform agriculture, build resilience, and strengthen institutions and governance. Gender is considered in all of the Institute’s work. IFPRI collaborates with partners around the world, including development implementers, public institutions, the private sector, and farmers’ organizations, to ensure that local, national, regional, and global food policies are based on evidence. Introduction 2. Many significant strides have been made in advancing global food and nutrition security in recent decades but much remains to be done as the global food and nutrition situation is under increasing stress. Roughly one in eight individuals do not have access to enough food, and an interwoven set of emerging challenges threaten to aggravate this situation even further. Future strategies to combat food insecurity need to incorporate solutions to these challenges, taking into account that no single solution or set of solutions will be appropriate everywhere and for everyone. The United Kingdom has an important role to play in global food security efforts, as a major donor, development partner, and the current president of the G8. This paper will outline the current food security situation and challenges facing future food security, followed by a series of recommendations. Hunger and malnutrition—New numbers, same problem 3. Global hunger continues to be a major problem throughout the developing world. Recent efforts by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) to overhaul the way in which it measures hunger only paint a slightly more optimistic picture of the food security situation. According to the new estimates, nearly 870 million individuals worldwide suffer from hunger currently—nearly one out of every eight people. 1 The overwhelming majority of the undernourished (850 million) live in developing countries, primarily in South Asia and Africa south of the Sahara. Although the world as a whole is much closer than previously thought to meeting the first Millennium Development Goal to halve hunger—thanks to a significant reduction in East Asia and Latin America—progress in Africa, South Asia, and Western Asia has lagged behind. 4. The food security problem in the developing world extends beyond an insufficient intake of calories. An estimated 2 billion people suffer from deficiencies in essential vitamins and minerals such as vitamin A, iron, and iodine—referred to as “hidden hunger” because the effects are often not visible in the short-term. These micronutrient deficiencies have the potential both to weaken the mental and physical development of children and lower the work capacity and incomes of adults. The economic cost of micronutrient deficiencies has been estimated to be between 2.4 and 10 percent of GDP in many developing countries.2 5. On the other side of the nutrition spectrum, a rise in obesity rates in a number of developing countries has been linked to recent shifts toward higher incomes, labor-saving technologies, and processed foods. In fact, recent estimates indicate that 35 million of the world’s 42 million overweight children under the age of five live in developing countries.3 Furthermore, childhood overweight and obesity in developing countries increased by 65 percent between 1990 and 2010,
1 FAO. 2012. State of food insecurity in the world 2012. Rome: FAO. http://www.fao.org/docrep/016/i3027e/i3027e00.htm. 2 For summary of studies, see A. Stein and M. Qaim. 2007. The human and economic cost of hidden hunger. Food and Nutrition Bulletin, 28(2): 125–134. 3 de Onis, M., M. Blössner, and E. Borghi. 2010. Global prevalence and trends of overweight and obesity among preschool children. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 92(5): 1257–1264.
2 GFS 37 in comparison to an increase of 48 percent in developed countries. An increasingly overweight population brings with it a plethora of adverse economic and health consequences—including a rise in chronic diseases (such as diabetes and heart disease), increased health care costs, and decreased labor productivity. For example, China and India are estimated to lose 558 and 237 billion international dollars, respectively, in national income from heart disease, stroke, and diabetes between 2005 and 2015.4 Challenges to future global food security
6. Higher incomes and urbanization: A growing, urbanizing, and more affluent global population will put enormous stress on global food and nutrition security going forward. By 2050, the global population is expected to reach 9.3 billion.5 A significant portion of this growth will occur in urban areas of developing countries. In fact, the world’s urban population is expected to increase by 75 percent from 2010 to 2050. As a result global demand for food is expected to rise by 60 percent by 2050.6 At the same time, global per capita income is expected to more than double throughout the developing world in the coming decades. As global incomes grow, people will demand not only more but better food—moving away from traditional staple crops toward a more resource-intensive diet of meats, vegetables, and fruits.
7. Natural resource constraints: Attempting to meet the growing food demand through business as usual methods jeopardizes the very natural resources that are needed to produce more food for a growing population.
8. Water: Currently, 2.4 billion people—nearly one-third of the global population—live in water scarce areas.7 Water withdrawals for agriculture have played an instrumental role in increasing past agricultural production.8 Yet, current projections indicate that only 66 percent of irrigated water demand is likely to be met by 2050.9 Increased competition with non-agricultural uses adds to the challenge of sustaining future food production. Indeed, total global water withdrawals in 2025 are expected to rise by 22 percent above 1995 levels.10 Water pollution is also expected to cause significant stress for future agricultural production. 9. Land: Almost half of the world’s poor depend on degraded lands for their livelihoods and a quarter of all global land area has been affected by degradation.11 This is equivalent to a one percent loss in global land area annually—an area which could produce 20 million tons of grain per year.12 In Africa south of the Sahara, for example, the cost of land degradation could amount
4 WHO. 2005. Preventing chronic diseases: A vital investment. Geneva: WHO. 5 UN. 2011. World Urbanization Prospects, the 2011 Revision. http://esa.un.org/unup/CD-ROM/Urban-Rural-Population.htm. 6 Alexandratos, N., and J. Bruinsma. 2012. World agriculture towards 2030/2050: The 2012 revision. Working Paper No. 12-03. Rome: FAO. 7 Ringler, C., T. Zhu, S. Gruber, R. Treguer, A. Laurent, L. Addams, N. Cenacchi, and T. Sulser. 2011. Sustaining growth via water productivity: Outlook to 2030/2050. Washington DC: IFPRI. Mimeo. 8 Rosegrant, M.W., C. Ringler, and T. Zhu. 2009. Water for agriculture: Maintaining food security under growing scarcity. Annual Review of Environment and Resources 34: 205–222. 9 Nelson, G.C., M.W. Rosegrant, J. Koo, R. Robertson, T. Sulser, T. Zhu, C. Ringler, S. Msangi, A. Palazzo, M. Batka, M. Magalhaes, R. Valmonte-Santos, M. Ewing, and D. Lee. 2009. Climate change: Impact on agriculture and costs of adaptation. Washington DC: IFPRI. 10 Rosegrant, M.W., X. Cai, and S. Cline. 2002. Global Water Outlook to 2025: Averting an Impending Crisis. Washington DC: IFPRI. 11 Nkonya, E., N. Gerber, J. von Braun, and A. De Pinto. 2011. Economics of land degradation: The costs of action versus Inaction. IFPRI Issue Brief 68. Washington DC: IFPRI. 12 IFPRI. 2011. 2011 Global Food Policy Report. Washington DC: IFPRI.
to as much as 10 percent of the region’s GDP. Land degradation can reduce crop yields and increase production costs because farmers need to use more inputs to offset lower yields.13 The underlying causes of land degradation include limited access to agricultural extension, distortionary trade policies, and input subsidies. 14 Over the past several decades, a sizeable increase in agricultural output has come from both land expansion and yield increases, but arable land per capita is expected to decline by more than 50 percent by 2050.15 10. Energy: Rising energy prices present a number of challenges to future food security. This includes higher input and production costs for farmers that could translate into increased food prices for consumers. Rising energy prices also make alternative energy sources more profitable. Indeed, biofuel production is expected to increase by 50 percent before the end of this decade.16 More demand for biofuels increases the competition between biofuels and food production for already scarce natural resources. Energy access also remains a challenge, as roughly 1.5 billion people lack access to modern energy sources to support activities that help improve their livelihoods.17 11. Climate change and agriculture: The production of food is both a cause and casualty of increasing climate change. Activities along the entire food supply chain make agriculture a significant contributor of greenhouse gases that cause climate change. In fact, food production is estimated to generate between a quarter and a third of global greenhouse gas emissions, due to activities such as the clearing of land for agricultural cultivation and fertilizer use.18 12. Climatic change is expected to complicate global food production systems through higher and more variable temperatures and the increased occurrence and severity of extreme weather events.19 Recent evidence shows that developing countries are projected to suffer most from the impacts of climate change and bear up to 80 percent of its costs.20 Climate change is expected to reduce crop yields and increase food prices. Between 2010 and 2050, maize, rice, and wheat prices could increase by 87, 31, and 43 percent, respectively. Climate change is also projected to increase malnutrition. The impact will be especially harsh among poor people, who spend a large share of their income on food and have limited capacity and resources to adapt to changing and more erratic weather patterns. What is more, without serious policy changes, all of these impacts will be significantly magnified given recent reports of a potential four degree Celsius increase in global temperatures—which is higher than previously estimated.21
13 Rosegrant, M.W., E. Nkonya, and R.A. Valmonte-Santos. 2009. Food security and soil water management. Encyclopedia of Soil Science 1: 1–4. 14 von Grebmer, K., M. Torero, T. Olofinbiyi, H. Fritschel, D. Wiesmann, Y. Yohannes, L. Schofield, and C. von Oppeln. 2011. Global Hunger Index 2011. The challenge of hunger: Taming price spikes and excessive food price volatility. Bonn, Washington, DC, Dublin: Welthungerhilfe, IFPRI, and Concern Worldwide. 15 Ibid. 16 IEA (International Energy Agency). 2011. World Energy Outlook 2011. Paris: IEA. 17 United Nations Development Programme. 2011. Human Development Report 2011. Sustainability and equity: A better future for all. New York: United Nations. 18 Beddington, J., M. Asaduzzaman, M. Clark, A. Fernández, M. Guillou, M. Jahn, L. Erda, T. Mamo, N. Van Bo, C.A. Nobre, R. Scholes, R. Sharma, and J. Wakhungu. 2012. Achieving food security in the face of climate change: Final report from the Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change. Copenhagen, Denmark: CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS). 19 Nelson, G., M. Rosegrant, A. Palazzo, I. Gray, C. Ingersoll, R. Robertson, S. Tokgoz, T. Zhu, T. Sulser, C. Ringler, S. Msangi, and L. You. 2010. Food security, farming, and climate change to 2050: Scenarios, results, policy options. Washington DC: IFPRI. 20 World Bank. 2010. World Development Report: Development and climate change. Washington DC: World Bank. 21 World Bank. 2012. Turn down the heat: Why a 4°C warmer world must be avoided. Washington DC: World Bank.
4 GFS 37 Food security commitments of international community 13. In recent years, the international development community has made a series of commitments to strengthen their support to increase food security and improve agricultural productivity and nutrition. Years of relegating agriculture to the back burner have been replaced with increasingly more attention being given to the substantial role that agriculture plays in the development process. In the shadows of the 2007–2008 spike in food prices, the G8 countries committed US $22 billion within three years for improving global food security under their L’Aquila Joint Statement on Global Food Security in 2009. With the closing of the three-year funding window at the end of 2012, G8 countries were on track to commit all of the pledged funds.22 However, disbursement rates vary across countries. While several G8 countries (including the United Kingdom, Canada, and Italy) have fully disbursed their pledges, other member countries lag behind. 14. More recently, the G20 and G8 summits in 2012 included discussions on the need to increase investment in both agricultural research to enhance agricultural productivity and food security, and nutrition to enhance long-term human capital. As a result, G8 leaders launched the “New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition”, a US $3 billion agricultural investment plan in Africa to lift 50 million people out of poverty over the next decade in partnership with the private sector. 15. Likewise, the 2012 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro (Rio+20) was used as a springboard to launch two noteworthy initiatives to improve food security. The Zero Hunger Challenge is an ambitious bid to combine hunger reduction with sustainable development efforts. Among its goals, the initiative calls for access to adequate food all year round for all people. At the same time, leaders agreed to the goal of Zero Net Land Degradation with the targets of zero net land degradation by 2030, zero net forest degradation by 2030, and drought preparedness policies in all drought-prone countries by 2020.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Improve smallholder productivity 16. Converting smallholder farmers into profitable businesses is a key ingredient in future hunger reduction efforts. To do so requires improved access to smallholder-friendly and productivity- enhancing inputs, technologies, services, and markets. This includes: • Better-targeted and more productive social protection policies that cushion livelihood shocks and offer productivity-enhancing tools, such as vocational training, maternal and child health programs, and primary schooling. • Innovations in the channels and instruments through which financial services are offered to smallholders, especially young people, including value chain finance and information and communication technologies (ICTs). • The promotion of productivity-enhancing agricultural technologies that address smallholder- specific needs, capacities, and vulnerabilities through increased investment in agricultural research and extension. • Increased market access of smallholders through improved rural infrastructure and increased support toward innovative institutional arrangements for collective action, such as producers’ associations.
22 G8. 2012. Camp David accountability report: Actions, approach, and results. www.state.gov/documents/organization/189889.pdf.
17. Above all, smallholders should not be treated as a homogenous group but rather a diverse set of households who have different needs and capacities. Development strategies should reflect and be adapted to this diversity.
Adopt a nexus approach for resource-efficient and nutrition-sensitive food security 18. Food security efforts should adopt an integrated approach that recognizes the complex and interlinked relationship that food production has with emerging challenges, namely natural resource constraints and micronutrient deficiencies. A nexus approach can help to ensure that benefits in one area do not come at the expense of another. 19. The increasingly scarce and degraded state of natural resources demands emerging technologies that promote more resource-efficient and productivity-enhancing food production practices. This includes developing and promoting smallholder-friendly technologies that encourage more sustainable and efficient land and water use systems—such as organic soil fertility management, low-cost (solar panel) drip irrigation, and the recycling of wastewater for agricultural use (which also has the potential to reduce land degradation). Post-harvest technologies can also improve resource-use efficiency by decreasing post-harvest losses. Similarly, as rising oil prices drive up demand for biofuel production, new biofuel technologies and policies are needed that reduce the competition between biofuel and food crops for land and water resources. More investments need to be directed toward the development of biofuel crops that grow on marginalized lands (that are not suitable for food crops) or come from the non-edible parts of crops or from nonfood crops. 20. Food security efforts should also be leveraged to improve nutrition and health outcomes in developing countries, and not be solely focused on increasing food production and consumption. Forging links between agriculture, health, and nutrition includes the development and promotion of more nutritious staple food crop varieties, safety regulations to ensure that agricultural intensification does not harm people’s health, and more efficient postharvest handling to reduce deterioration in the nutritional quality of foods.
Promote agricultural climate change mitigation and adaptation 21. Agriculture (including smallholders) has a large potential for adapting to and mitigating climate change, and exploiting this potential will become increasingly important for food security. Agricultural investments and policies should target measures that simultaneously provide productivity, mitigation, and adaptation benefits. A climate change policy environment that creates value and incentives for smallholder farmers and integrates them into global carbon markets is essential.23 Investments in adaptation could help farmers improve land management, adjust their planting dates, and introduce new crop varieties that are more resistant to floods and droughts. Investments in mitigation could be used to help farmers improve their energy efficiency, raise crop yields, and manage their land in ways that increase carbon storage. For win- win-win solutions, strategies and investments must provide benefits for mitigation and adaptation, as well as productivity. 22. At the same time, the collection of internationally coordinated data on climate change and food security needs to be stepped up. This includes rigorous monitoring and evaluation of mitigation and adaptation interventions and their impact on relevant outcomes such as food security. The use of modern technologies such as remote sensing is needed to increase the quality and quantity of biophysical and socio-economic data, thereby helping policymakers implement climate change mitigation and adaptation polices that are compatible with food security. Specific focus needs to be given to monitoring changes in the food production and climate of population groups and regions that are especially vulnerable to climate change and food insecurity.
23 De Pinto, A., M. Magalhaes, and C. Ringler. 2010. Potential of carbon markets for small farmers: A literature review, Discussion Paper 1004. Washington DC: IFPRI.
6 GFS 37 Increase global collaboration among traditional and emerging partners 23. New actors are increasingly working together to reduce global hunger, ranging from private- sector corporations to philanthropic organizations and emerging economies (such as China, India, and Brazil). This presents a unique opportunity for mutual learning among traditional and emerging actors. For example, the United Kingdom in general and DFID specifically have an important role to play by sharing the lessons learned from both its successes and failures with past food-security initiatives. Traditional donors should encourage and support South-South cooperation, which offers the opportunity to harness the expertise and experiences of emerging countries. The private sector can also play an effective and sustainable role in improving smallholders’ productivity and should be supported by a business-friendly environment including a sound legal and regulatory framework to ensure that its engagement is socially and environmentally responsible. 24. The global community should work together to enhance the efficiency of world food markets through the elimination of distortionary and destabilizing trade policies, such as export restrictions. Export bans in recent years have led to tighter markets for other exporting countries and induced panic purchases by food-importing countries, both of which fuel further food price increases and food insecurity. The elimination of export bans could be beneficial for domestic food markets since export bans tend to inhibit a domestic production response, which could potentially exacerbate domestic supply problems. The UK can leverage its position and influence within the G8 and global development community to build global support for freer trade and less distortionary agricultural and trade policies.
Fulfill past food-security commitments and develop post-2015 agenda 25. Governments need to ensure that their past commitments to hunger reduction initiatives are completely fulfilled (and disbursed) in a timely manner. As the president of the G8 in 2013, the United Kingdom has a unique opportunity to influence other member countries to honor their commitments and move toward implementation. While past food-security initiatives should be applauded, they need to be accompanied by clear measures, timeframes, and accountability mechanisms. Now is the time for food-security efforts to move from rhetoric to action, including: increased agricultural investments (particularly in agricultural research) by governments, the private sector, and farmers; and the development of a concrete action plan with clear goals and accountability measures to improve smallholders’ livelihoods while maintaining environmental sustainability, turning farming into a modern, forward-looking occupation that offers a future for young, rural people. 26. Focus should shift toward the development of a post-2015 agenda that gives greater priority to eliminating hunger entirely. Developing countries should lead this process with their own strategies that are developed through experimentation and innovation. Effective, efficient, and sustainable policies that are well adapted to the local context can help countries maximize the local impact of the global agenda. DFID, in collaboration with the international community, should play a significant role in facilitating this process through knowledge, resource, and best- practice sharing. Collaborative research and capacity-building initiatives are especially needed to support region- and country-led programs within developing countries. Above all, funding to improve food security must be stable and sustainable, and should not fluctuate with changing governments and initiatives.
21 March 2013
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Written evidence submitted by The Hunger Alliance
1. The Hunger Alliance – a UK-based DFID-NGO coalition comprising of ActionAid, Action Against Hunger, CARE International UK, Christian Aid, Concern, Save the Children (UK), and others – welcomes this Inquiry. New research for the Hunger Alliance by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI)1 on sustainable smallholder agriculture’s contribution to better nutrition (attached) – drawing on evidence from Bangladesh, Tanzania, Ghana, Zambia and India – contains new evidence on the importance of supporting this type of agriculture for improving food security and nutrition outcomes.
2. The current global food system is hampering the realization of the right to adequate food, as enshrined in international law, of 852 million people. In poor countries, 15 percent of the population in developing countries is undernourished,2 and over 30 percent of the world’s population suffers from micronutrient deficiencies, or ‘hidden hunger’ – especially vitamin A, iodine, zinc and iron.3
3. Despite some progress, undernutrition remains the single largest risk factor contributing to the global burden of disease across Africa.4 More than 170 million children under five in poor countries were stunted due to chronic malnutrition in 2010, equivalent to 26 percent of children worldwide,5 and childhood malnutrition is the underlying cause of death in an estimated 35 percent of all deaths among children under five.6 This undernutrition not only affects children’s healthy physical development, it also undermines their cognitive development and therefore their future potential.
4. Specifically this new research finds: firstly, that female empowerment in agriculture improves child nutrition; secondly that low-input homestead gardens and small-scale livestock rearing are powerful instruments in providing micronutrients and ensuring access to healthy and diverse diets; thirdly that agricultural interventions are most effective when integrated with improved maternal public health and nutrition education, better dietary, water and sanitation strategies, social protection, and an explicit focus on women’s rights and women’s empowerment; and fourthly that biofortification of specific food has the potential to yield nutritional benefits.
5. To overcome undernutrition in food insecurity, DFID should: 5.1. support policies and programmes that support small-scale environmentally sustainable agriculture systems and ensure a firm understanding of where financial support for agriculture is being spent. 5.2. Specifically, within such support, DFID should prioritise women smallholders and tackle gender discrimination, empowering women and girls through education; back sustainable smallholder-based agricultural interventions such as homestead gardens and small livestock rearing; accompany investments in agriculture with support in complimentary sectors: primary healthcare, water, sanitation, social protection, health, hygiene and nutrition;
1 Wiggins, S and S.Sharada (2013) Smallholder agriculture’s contribution to better nutrition, (London: ODI) forthcoming 2 FAO (2012) State of food insecurity in the world, Rome: FAO 3 FAO (2012) Combating micronutrient deficiencies: Food-based approaches, p30, Rome: FAO 4 FAO (2012) State of food insecurity in the world, Rome: FAO 5 FAO (2012) State of food insecurity in the world, Rome: FAO 6 WHO (2012) Global health observatory (GHO) data repository (available at www.who.int/gho.en/)
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monitor progress on the biofortification of staples and the nutritional impacts on the most marginalized farmers. 5.3. Focus on women to overcome disparities in practices including access to markets, inputs, insurance and finance and land and water bodies. 5.4. Use the opportunities surrounding this year’s G8 to re-emphasise support for the Scaling Up Nutrition movement and to ensure improved monitoring, accountability and integration of CAADP, SUN and other initiatives. 5.5. Ensure that support for smallholder agriculture is environmentally sustainable and prioritises mitigation of and adaptation to climate change.
20 March 2013
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Written evidence submitted by ONE
1. ONE is a global grassroots advocacy and campaigning organisation committed to the fight against extreme poverty and preventable disease, particularly in Africa. Cofounded by Bono and other campaigners, and backed by 3 million members, ONE is nonpartisan and works closely with African activists and policy makers.
2. In 2012, ONE launched a new global agriculture campaign: “THRIVE: Food. Farming. Future.” This multi-year campaign calls on African leaders, donor governments and the private sector to play their full part in tackling the root causes of hunger and extreme poverty. We have calculated that investments in long-term agriculture and nutrition plans in 30 poor countries can help 50 million people lift themselves out of poverty and 15 million children escape the devastating effects of malnutrition.
3. In March 2013, we launched our latest agriculture report, “A Growing Opportunity: Measuring Investments in African Agriculture” 1. The report assessed whether African leaders and donors had met their commitments to agriculture and food security and had seized the opportunity to set African agriculture on the path to deliver its poverty-reducing potential. We looked at 19 African countries with signed, reviewed national agriculture investment plans and assessed progress on their commitments to reduce poverty, invest in agriculture, and include citizens in decision-making. The report also looked at eight donors and evaluated the quantity and quality of agriculture assistance, with special attention to their commitment to support country ownership. This submission will summarise the report’s findings and the recommendations for the UK government.
Introduction
4. Sub-Saharan African agriculture could and should be thriving. According to the World Bank, the region has the right conditions to feed itself: enough fertile farmland, enough water and enough favourable climates.2 According to the International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD), the Africa Progress Panel and others, Africa has the potential not only to feed itself, but also to become a major food supplier for the rest of the world.
5. Unlocking Africa’s agriculture potential would also unlock its development. Farming is Africa’s predominant livelihood: more than two-thirds of Africans depend on agriculture for their incomes. Investing in agriculture is one of the single best ways to reduce poverty in Africa. According to World Bank analysis, growth in the agriculture sector is 2.5 times as effective at reducing poverty as growth in other sectors.3
6. Yet Africa is far from realising this potential. For too long, Africa’s agriculture sector has been neglected. African governments failed over many decades to invest adequately in the agriculture sector and to create a policy and regulatory environment in which smallholder farmers could flourish. Compared to a sharp rise in domestic spending in Asia, public spending on agriculture
1 http://www.one.org/growingopportunity 2 The World Bank, 2012 “Africa Can Help Feed Africa: Removing barriers to regional trade in food staples.” http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTAFRICA/Resources/Africa-Can-Feed-Africa-Report.pdf 3 http://siteresources.worldbank.org/SOUTHASIAEXT/Resources/223546-1171488994713/3455847- 1192738003272/Brief_AgPovRedctn_web.pdf
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in Africa stayed stagnant and low throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Meanwhile, donor assistance to agriculture was slashed 72% between 1988 and 2003.
7. As a result, Africa’s cereal crop yields today are nearly as low as they were several decades ago, and just a fraction of those in Latin America and South Asia. Today, Africa is a net food buyer, looking outside the continent to feed its growing and urbanising population. Facing poor infrastructure, expensive fertilizer, poor access to extension and financial services, unreliable and unpredictable markets, inadequate use of technology, and limited land security, Africa’s smallholder farmers have been left unable to produce enough food to feed their families and unable to sell surplus to markets to generate income.
Bold Commitments from African Leaders and the G8
8. In 2003, African leaders took a first step towards reversing decades of neglect with a bold commitment to increasing investments in agriculture. Through the Maputo Declaration at the July 2003 African Union summit, African heads of state made a historic promise to their people: to allocate 10% of national budgets to agriculture and seek 6% annual agricultural growth by 2008. With the Maputo commitments, African leaders pledged to reverse the underinvestment that had held the agriculture sector back for so long.
9. In addition, reaffirming the need for ownership of their own development agenda, leaders in the African Union also adopted the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) to be implemented by member states systematically to eliminate hunger and reduce poverty through agriculture. An entirely African-led and African-owned programme, CAADP addresses policy and capacity issues across the entire agriculture sector in Africa. CAADP is premised on country ownership, with plans leveraging the resources, leadership and input of Africans. As of January 2013, 19 countries have signed CAADP compacts and held their business meetings, launching solid, costed and technically-reviewed plans to accelerate agricultural development.4
10. Following this leadership from African countries, donors stepped up their own commitments to agriculture and food security. In 2009, in the aftermath of a sharp spike in food prices, donors pledged to act with “scale” and “urgency” to achieve global food security. At the 2009 G8 summit in L’Aquila, G8 donors pledged $22 billion over three years to support sustainable agriculture and food security. They also agreed to a set of principles to deliver more effective and strategic assistance, including commitments to invest in country-led plans and provide predictable long-term financing and strategic coordination.
11. In 2012, G8 leaders at the G8 Camp David summit launched the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, building on the work of Grow Africa. A partnership of the G8, private companies and national governments, the New Alliance set an ambitious goal of lifting 50 million people out of poverty over ten years. Companies have agreed to invest in countries that have committed to make policy and regulatory reforms to enable more investment and agriculture productivity. Through the New Alliance, more than 60 private companies, half from Africa, have committed more than $4 billion.
4 Burundi, Ethiopia, Malawi, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Gambia, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Togo, Sierra Leone, Senegal, Tanzania and Mauritania.
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Accountability
12. Teeing up for this critical year, our A Growing Opportunity report holds governments accountable to their commitments on agriculture and food security. A major addition to this year’s report, building on ONE’s 2011 report – Agriculture Accountability: Holding Donors to Their L’Aquila Promises5 – is our coverage of African governments’ efforts to invest in their own agricultural development. We looked at the 19 African countries with vetted, signed national agriculture investment plans, developed through CAADP. For each of these countries, we looked at progress on their commitments to reduce poverty, to spend 10% of national expenditures on agriculture, to implement national plans, and to include citizens in decision making.
13. We then assessed donors’ delivery of their L’Aquila commitments. This year, we looked at eight donors (Canada, European Union, France, Germany, Japan, Italy, United Kingdom and the United States) and evaluated the quantity and quality of their agriculture assistance. We look at four different indicators of country ownership of national agriculture plans, from inclusion of non- state actors to donor support for these plans. For African governments, we look at whether budgetary and programme information was available to citizens and whether a country’s national agriculture plan included a structure for the participation of non-state actors. We also included case studies from Benin, Ghana, Kenya and Tanzania, to help illustrate the concept of country ownership and its impact on the CAADP national process. Finally, given that this year is a turning point for both African and donor governments, we offer some targeted recommendations on how to improve commitments to agriculture and food security.
Key Findings
14. The key findings in our report were:
1) African leadership, backed by donor support, is leading to real progress in agriculture growth, poverty reduction, and reorganising agriculture. A decade ago, African leaders put CAADP in place. Twenty-four countries have signed technically-vetted national agriculture plans and another six countries have started the process. Eight of the 19 countries with agriculture plans reviewed in the report are on track to meet the Millennium Development Goal 1A of halving extreme poverty by 2015. At least 13 have had 6% growth in the agriculture sector.
2) Countries are off track in meeting their own commitments for financial investment in agriculture. Only four of the 19 countries examined have met their Maputo target of spending 10 per cent of their national budget on agriculture, and two more are close behind. Alarmingly, nine countries have decreased investment in agriculture. The deficit from the Maputo commitments amounts to $4.4 billion in 2011 across these 19 countries. African leaders, in partnership with donors, must take urgent action to fill the shortfall in their funding commitments.
3) Although donor countries have met their $22 billion L’Aquila funding commitments, only half of the pledges have been paid out. Donor support for CAADP and country-owned plans are off track. The share of donor support which is allocated to countries with country- led, costed agriculture plans has been low. Donors should prioritise such countries for funding. Currently there is a 50% shortfall in funding for these African-owned agriculture plans. Donors must act with urgency to do their share in filling the financing gap of national
5 http://www.one.org/c/international/hottopic/3923/
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agricultural investment plans, including by meeting the target of $1.425 billion in funding for the Global Agriculture and Food Security Programme (GAFSP).
4) African governments need to increase transparency and do more to open their books to citizens. At least half of the African countries assessed did not have transparent agriculture budget documents. To enable their citizens to follow the money and monitor the services and results are delivered, all countries should publish and make available easy-to- understand and accurate citizen’s budgets that disaggregate the entire sector’s budget by programme.
5) Financing focused on women producers and nutrition outcomes is inadequate. Nearly half of the plans do not have gender-disaggregated outcome indicators at all that specifically focus on women, and only three had all of its indicators gender-disaggregated. Moreover, many plans did make a start at emphasising nutritional outcomes. All but one analysed include some reference to nutrition, and 12 contain time-bound and measurable nutritional outcome objectives, more plans should have a nutritional component.
UK Government
15. Although the UK’s has exceeded its L’Aquila commitment ($1.72bn commitment; $1.87bn disbursed), DFID’s agriculture spending as a share of its total official development spending (2.18%) is currently the lowest amongst the G7 and EU institutions. The UK has recently confirmed that it will increase its development assistance to 0.7% of GNI, which could present an opportunity to address this gap and mobilise additional resources for the agriculture sector. With the exception of its response to the food price crisis of 2008, DFID does not have a central, overarching food-security strategy. This remains the decentralised responsibility of country- level advisors.
16. DFID aligns with country priorities and provides two-thirds of its agriculture support through sector budget support. DFID is one of the largest donors to the CAADP Multi-Donor Trust Fund, with $11.6 million contribution as of May 2012. However, just 11% of the UK’s aid to agriculture goes to low-income countries with costed, reviewed agriculture investment plans, including those developed through the CAADP process.
17. DFID should increase its agriculture assistance and help fill the funding gap in national agriculture investment plans. This could be done through additional contributions to GAFSP and the CAADP Multi-Donor Trust Fund, and/or by increasing bilateral agriculture support to countries with agriculture investment plans.
Looking Ahead: Recommendations for the 2013 G8 Summit and “Nutrition for Growth” Event
18. The G8 Summit in Lough Erne and the related Nutrition for Growth event in London in June 2013 presents a historic opportunity for G8 leaders to contribute to African governments’ goals of lifting millions from poverty and preventing chronic malnutrition. Leaders should deliver on past promises made at previous G8 Summits and at the same time back African agriculture plans with the resources needed. Doing so would deliver a shared development vision defined by accountability, transparency, economic empowerment and partnership between governments, citizens, civil society, and the private sector.
19. The June meetings, held just months before the start of the African Union’s ‘Year of Agriculture’, provide an important platform for the G8 to help African governments realise the promise of the
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AU’s CAADP programme. The G8 has made repeated promises to support CAADP and African- owned agriculture plans. Yet country investment plans have only secured about 62% of their required financing, and many donors contribute only a small fraction of their agriculture assistance to low-income countries with country investment plans. To do their share in filling the financing gap of national agricultural investment plans, alongside African governments and the private sector, donors should fully fund GAFSP, the multilateral vehicle that addresses the underfunding of country and regional agriculture investment plans. G8 donors and additional partners should make new funding commitments to help complete the current $1.425 billion financing round, leveraging the 1:2 matching pledge from the US (up to $475 million).
20. Donors can also support CAADP and the implementation of agriculture plans by contributing to the CAADP Multi-Donor Trust Fund, which provides direct support for many CAADP activities and builds its institutional capacity. Where bilateral assistance is preferred, donors should work with the CAADP secretariat and national stakeholder platforms to identify gaps in country investment plan funding.
21. Finally, G8 donors should support the efforts to enhance CAADP for the next ten years of agriculture. Specifically, the G8 should endorse the inclusion of a stronger focus on nutritional outcomes in national agriculture investment plans and through GAFSP. As the primary multilateral vehicle to fund CAADP plans, GAFSP has an important role to play in reaching the goals set out by African governments in their investment plans, including nutritional outcomes. This may require enhancing the links between plans’ agriculture programmes and their overarching nutritional outcomes. The G8 can also improve poverty reduction and nutritional outcomes by expanding the New Alliance, thereby increasing the sustainability of agricultural sector growth. Donors should strive to improve the quantity and quality of nutrition-sensitive agriculture investments, aiming to improve and measure its impacts on micronutrient deficiencies, stunting, and other health indicators.
April 2013
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Written evidence submitted by Business Action for Africa
Smallholders and inclusive agricultural value chains
1. SUMMARY
1.1 Many factors conspire to keep average productivity on Africa’s small farms low and farmers lacking food security. Agricultural value chains provide one route to overcoming some of these constraints. Through participation in inclusive supply chains, smallholder farmers can gain access to critical inputs and a guaranteed market for their output. For companies, establishing reliable supply chains represents a core business investment rather than CSR or corporate philanthropy, which creates strong incentives to make them successful and sustainable.
1.2 Agricultural value chains have the potential not only to help smallholders increase their output and income; but also to play a key role in improving food security at the household level through facilitating improved on-farm consumption and access to more nutritious foods.
1.3 Inclusive agricultural value chains are complex and ensuring that they deliver benefits to both farmers and businesses is a challenge. They are not a feasible option for all smallholders: poorer and more marginalised are less likely to be able to participate and will require different support mechanisms.
1.4 Nevertheless case study evidence is building of successful inclusive supply chains. The experience of Business Action for Africa members – including CDC, SABMiller, Diageo and Unilever – demonstrate how inclusive supply chains can provide opportunities to large numbers of farmers.
1.5 Lessons are being learnt about the key elements of success. Inclusive supply chains work best when farmers are organised into efficient, representative and well- governed groups; when there are fair returns at each step in the chain; and when strong partnerships are established between farmers, intermediaries and buyers. NGOs can be effective implementation partners, providing training, extension and capacity building. Donors and the international development community can provide essential support through co-investment or funding for pilots. National governments have a critical role to play in creating a supportive enabling business environment, and should increase their investment in rural infrastructure, rural public services and agricultural research.
1.6 There does not need to be a tension between supporting medium to large commercial agriculture and smallholder farmers. Larger businesses create economies of scale and outgrower opportunities, and smallholders are an inevitable and productive part of the system. There is no trade off between the two and support is needed for both if either is to thrive.
1.7 Transformative partnerships are needed to scale up these individual success stories. Support is needed for multi-stakeholder partnerships that can facilitate this scaling-up, such as Grow Africa. Business has a key role to play in these partnerships.
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2. BUSINESS ACTION FOR AFRICA
2.1 Business Action for Africa is an international network of businesses and development partners working together for Africa's future. Business Action for Africa is led by a board of multinational corporations, DFID, CDC and the International Business Leaders Forum. Business Action for Africa partners work together in three areas: • Advocate: We advocate for the policies needed to drive growth and wealth creation for poor people in Africa, and to facilitate business engagement in tackling development issues. • Act: We catalyse business-to-business partnerships to drive action on business issues that matter for development, and development issues that matter for business. • Share: We facilitate practical, how-to knowledge sharing between practitioners committed to harnessing the power of business for development impact.
2.2 More information is available at www.businessactionforafrica.org.
3. KEY ARGUMENTS
3.1 Smallholders face many challenges; agricultural value chains can provide a route to overcoming some of them
• Smallholders are critical players in the drive to ensure global food security, due to their numbers and their central role in food production and stewardship of increasingly scarce natural resources. Although smallholder development has the potential to make a significant contribution to increased agricultural output in Africa, average productivity on the majority of Africa’s small farms currently lags far behind other regions.1 Sustainably increasing their productivity should be an urgent priority.
• African smallholders face many challenges that limit their capacity to increase farm output, including a lack of secure rights to the land, forests and fishing waters they depend on; lack of access to high quality, affordable inputs such as seeds, fertiliser and pest control; weak rural infrastructure leading to high transport costs; and insufficient support from research and agricultural extension services. Smallholders typically lack access to credit and other financial services; while rapid and dramatic changes in both export and domestic markets are making them increasingly inaccessible to most small- scale producers, despite strong growth in demand in these markets. Added to this are the challenges associated with climate change, including a greater frequency of the extreme weather events that smallholders are particularly vulnerable to such as droughts and floods; and increasing competition for natural resources, especially water and land.
• Women farmers, who constitute the majority of smallholders in Africa, face even greater obstacles, including highly insecure land tenure and a lack of representation in farmer groups. Given the same access as men to agricultural resources, women farmers can be just as productive, which would translate into a 2.5-4% increase in agricultural output in the developing world and as much as a 100-150 million reduction in the number of undernourished people.2
1 Wiggins (2009) Can the smallholder model deliver poverty reduction and food security for a rapidly growing population in Africa? Paper presented to FAO Expert Meeting on How to Feed the World in 2050, available at ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/012/ak982e/ak982e00.pdf 2 FAO (2011) The State of Food and Agriculture 2010-2011 – Women in Agriculture, Closing the gender gap for development, available at http://www.fao.org/docrep/013/i2050e/i2050e00.htm
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• Increased investment in small farms needs to come, first and foremost, from farmers themselves. However, insecure tenure over their land makes many farmers reluctant to invest in costly productivity-enhancing assets (such as labour-saving equipment or new variants of seeds); while they often also lack access to credit to fund such investment.
• One route to overcoming these constraints is through integration into agricultural value chains. Multinational and domestic commodity buyers are increasingly looking to smallholder farmers to source their raw materials. This is driven to an extent by growing consumer awareness and preference for ethically sourced products.3 But other commercial drivers are at work as well: in the face of growing demand, increasing competition for resources from emerging producers and climate change-related concerns about water supply, among others, inclusive supply chains involving smallholder producers can provide these buyers with the stable, secure and sustainable long-term sources of raw materials that are so critical to their continued growth and success.
• Becoming part of domestic or international corporate supply chains not only provides farmers with a guaranteed buyer for some or all of their output, but they typically also gain access to quality inputs such as high-yielding seeds and fertiliser, training and technical advice, and, in many cases, some form of financing.4 For companies, establishing reliable long-term supply chains represents a core business investment rather than CSR or corporate philanthropy, which creates strong incentives to make them successful and sustainable.
3.2 Agricultural value chains can help improve household food security
• Agricultural value chains have the potential not only to help smallholders increase their output and income through integration into inclusive supply chains; but also to play a key role in improving food security at the household level through facilitating improved on-farm consumption and access to more nutritious foods.
• Businesses can increase the supply of, and demand for, more nutritious products along the value chain through three pathways: developing fortified staple foods and condiments; creating local access to more nutritious food and dietary diversity for producers and farming communities; and providing targeted nutrition for infants and mothers during the critical first 1,000 days, which can help prevent stunting and support development.
• Business can contribute to better nutrition by embedding nutrition into the full range of products, processes and services, thus creating value for both the business and society. Opportunities exist at various stages in the value chain, for example through developing and supplying inputs that improve the nutritional quality and diversity of crops; reducing wastage and integrating nutrient preservation during post-harvest storage and transportation; increasing access to markets to boost producer incomes; and making nutritious food and beverages more affordable and desirable by utilising marketing capabilities.
3.3 Inclusive supply chains are complex; and less accessible to poorer farmers
• Inclusive agricultural supply chains are complex and ensuring that they deliver benefits to both farmers and businesses is a challenge. The extent to which farmers share in
3 Dalberg (2012) Catalyzing Smallholder Agricultural Finance, available at http://dalberg.com/documents/Catalyzing_Smallholder_Ag_Finance.pdf 4 The Dalberg report describes the various agricultural value chain financing models in some detail.
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the value generated by the chain depends on their ownership (for example of land or processing facilities); voice (the ability to influence key decisions); risk (including production and market risk); and reward (the sharing of economic cost and benefits).5 An extensive review of inclusive agricultural value chain arrangements concluded that no one model is perfect: what works best for smallholders while still being attractive to investors is very much context-specific, and is contingent on tenure, policy, culture, history as well as on biophysical and demographic considerations.6
• It is also worth noting that not all smallholders are capable of becoming commercial farmers in supply chains to urban or export markets or processers. Smallholders who participate in such inclusive value chains tend to be the wealthier and better-connected farmers who own more land or other productive assets, and who are often already organised into farmer groups. Estimates suggest that only around 10% of smallholders currently participate in farmer organisations, and only a fraction of these engage in corporate value chains.7 For the majority of smallholders, selling into local markets and supplementing farm income with off-farm work (or social transfers for the poorest) provide better routes to improved livelihoods and incomes.8 Treating all smallholders as one homogenous group can lead to problems in targeting.
3.4 Inclusive supply chains in action: some examples
• A number of members of Business Action for Africa specifically target smallholder producers in their agricultural supply chains. For SABMiller, one of the world’s largest brewers, sourcing raw materials from smallholders helps to maximise economic benefits while reducing import and distribution costs, and allows the company to balance the commercial advantages associated with its scale with the benefits of supporting local communities. In 2012, over 32,000 farmers were included in SABMiller’s smallholder programmes in Africa, India and Latin America, while its local sourcing programmes also supported around 100,000 direct farming jobs.
• Another major multinational brewing company, Diageo, has committed to growing its regional sourcing of agricultural inputs to 70% by 2015. For Diageo, the business case is built around the fact that increased local sourcing will enable it to benefit from a more secure local supply tailored to local needs, while buying inputs in local currency also allows the company to hedge against foreign exchange risks.
• In another example, CDC, the UK government-owned development finance institution and member of Business Action for Africa, is facilitating smallholders’ access to markets through its investment in an African agribusiness that operates an integrated value chain comprising procurement, processing, warehousing, transportation, distribution and merchandising. Export Trading Group (ETG) procured and distributed nearly 1.4 million metric tons of 25 different commodities during 2011-2012, and 80% of its Africa-originated stock was procured from smallholder farmers.
• Unilever has been piloting a number of initiatives with smallholder farmers to scale up certification and connect new sources of raw materials from smallholders into their supply chain. The company has announced a goal of engaging with at least 500,000
5 Vermeulen and Cotula (2010) ) Making the most of agricultural investment: A survey of business models that provide opportunities for smallholders, IIED, FAO and IFAD, available at http://www.ifad.org/pub/land/agri_investment.pdf 6 Vermeulen and Cotula (2010) describe the various models of collaboration in some detail, provide examples of different models in practice, analyse their strengths and weaknesses and assess value sharing potential. 7 Dalberg (2012) 8 Wiggins S (2011) “Supporting Small Scale Farming” in Island nation or global citizen? Solving the food crisis by helping small scale farmers, World Vision Australia Policy Report, available at http://www.worldvision.com.au/Libraries/Reports_policy_Island_nation_2011/Island_Nation_2011.pdf
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smallholder farmers in its supply network. Unilever aims to help farmers improve their agricultural practices, thus enabling them to become more competitive and improve the quality of their livelihoods.
3.5 Lessons are being learnt about what works
• As experience with inclusive agricultural value chains grows, a number of lessons can be extracted about factors that contribute to the success of these projects. First, farmer aggregation into groups is essential – dealing with individual farmers would raise the transaction costs to unsustainable levels. Special steps should be taken to ensure that such groups are effective, by means of capacity building where appropriate; representative (for example, that they include women or other marginalised farmers); and governed in a fair and transparent way.
• Second, agreements need to be carefully designed to ensure fair returns at every step in the value chain. Farmers are typically in a weak bargaining position: they may be completely dependent on the buyer for inputs, credit and the like, and often lack access to information about prices. In the worst cases, farmers could end up bearing all the risks or losing control over some of their assets. Farmer groups have an important role to play in helping negotiate fair terms and monitoring adherence to those terms.
• Third, partnerships are key, and partners need to focus on their respective core strengths. In most inclusive supply chain agreements there is a role for intermediaries such as NGOs, which may be contracted in to facilitate the formation of farmer groups, help with training and capacity building, and provide technical advice and extension services. SABMiller’s Mozambican subsidy worked with IFDC, an international organisation assisting farmers across Africa, to provide extension services and help with capacity building; while Unilever often works with several implementing partners, each focusing on its area of core strength to enhance the overall success of the project.
• There is also a role for donors and international development agencies, for example to co-invest in pilot projects to help reduce the risk born by companies in the early stages while trying to prove the business case; to provide research and technical expertise, or to help offset some of the R&D cost of testing new models; to help fund the marketing and outreach to farmers; or to help cover the costs of aggregating and strengthening the capacity of famers. In the examples listed above, SABMiller benefited from co- investment through the Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund (AECF), which helped strengthen the business cases underpinning their investment.
• National governments have a crucial role to play in creating the right enabling environment for business, including small and medium-sized businesses, many of which may be participating in the value chain as intermediaries providing cleaning, processing, packing or transporting services. In addition to ensuring a supportive investment climate for business, governments should scale up public spending on rural public services such as health, education and water and sanitation; and rural infrastructure such as roads, energy and irrigation.9 Public investment in agricultural research has also repeatedly been shown to be an essential prerequisite for agricultural development, and increased investment in this public good should be strongly encouraged and supported.
• Strengthening the rural investment climate will benefit not only those farmers and businesses participating in agricultural value chains but will underpin broader rural
9 Wiggins (2011)
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development. This is a goal worth pursuing: agricultural growth has been shown to have at least double the poverty-reducing effect of growth generated in other sectors. In Rwanda and Kenya, agriculture’s poverty-reducing impact has recently been found to be as much as three to four times greater than non-agricultural growth.10
• The experiences shared here by members of Business Action for Africa suggest that there is no need to choose to support either smallholder farmers or commercial agriculture. In practice, many large multinational and domestic businesses that source from smallholders does so in combination with working with medium and large commercial operations. Larger businesses create economies of scale and outgrower opportunities and smallholders are an inevitable and productive part of the system. There is no trade off between the two and support is needed for both if either is to thrive.
3.6 Going to scale: the need for transformative partnerships
• While there the number of examples are growing where individual companies have succeeded in integrating smallholders into their supply chains, delivering benefits both to the business and the farmers, these individual successes need to be taken to scale if the challenge of global food security is to be effectively addressed. A number of international partnerships have been created to help achieve this scaling-up. Grow Africa is a multi-stakeholder partnership, co-ordinated by the African Union, NEPAD and the World Economic Forum, that exists to accelerate investments into African agriculture, and to help ensure that these deliver on their promise of sustainable and inclusive growth. It connects governments, businesses, investors, farmers and development partners, in order to advance ambitious agricultural partnership initiatives.
• One example of a Grow Africa initiative is the Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania (SAGCOT), an inclusive, multi-stakeholder partnership created to rapidly develop the region’s agricultural potential. Launched at WEF Africa in 2010, SAGCOT is a public-private partnership that aims to boost agricultural productivity in Tanzania and the wider region, and thereby achieve the country’s agricultural strategy. SAGCOT will promote “clusters” of profitable agricultural farming and services businesses, with major benefits for smallholder farmers and local communities. SAGCOT aims to catalyse private investment of US$2.1 billion over a 20-year period, alongside public sector commitments of US$1.3 billion, so helping to deliver rapid and sustainable agricultural growth.
10 Diao et al (eds) (2012) Strategies and Priorities for African Agriculture – Economywide Perspectives from Country Studies, IFPRI Issue Brief 73, available at http://www.ifpri.org/sites/default/files/publications/oc73.pdf
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RECOMMENDATIONS
To further unlock business’ contribution through agricultural value chains, Business Action for Africa recommends that DFID:
• Encourage more multinational commodities businesses to establish inclusive supply chains incorporating smallholder farmers in Africa, by showcasing success and developing practical guidelines for helping ensure such arrangements deliver fair returns to farmers as well as buyers.
• Continue to support the Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund (AECF) and provide other forms of incentives such as co-investment to help address high initial risk associated with establishing inclusive agricultural supply chains.
• Encourage governments to provide a strong enabling environment for business, including small businesses, and to direct more public funds towards agricultural research, rural infrastructure and rural public services in support of agricultural development.
• Facilitate scaling-up through transformational partnerships, including through continued support for multi-stakeholder initiatives aimed at accelerating investment in Africa’s agriculture sector such as Grow Africa.
17 April 2013