Hunger Countries at Risk
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The dramatic rise in world food prices has once again forced hunger to the top of the humanitarian agenda. These extracts from OneWorld Country Guides serve as a reminder that many poor countries were experiencing food insecurity even before the current alarm about prices and shortages of food aid. With the impact of climate change injecting another dimension of uncertainty, it is no wonder that the World Food Programme is striving to create a greater sense of urgency amongst international policymakers.
Countries at Risk:
Afghanistan; Bangladesh; Benin; Burkina Faso; Burundi; Cambodia; Cameroon; China; Egypt; Eritrea; Ethiopia; Guinea-Bissau; India; Kenya; Laos; Malawi; Mali; Nepal; North Korea; Pakistan; Philippines; Rwanda; Somalia; Sri Lanka; Tajikistan; Tanzania; Timor-Leste; Uganda; Venezuela; Yemen; Zimbabwe
Afghanistan
After a good harvest in 2007 provided about 90% of the country's needs in its staple crop of wheat, there has been an alarming deterioration in food security in Afghanistan. Drought in the north combined with widespread poverty in rural areas has led to a significant shortfall for 2008. Imported wheat is expensive and difficult to obtain from Pakistan, the normal source for Afghanistan, so that the price of wheat has doubled in the space of 12 months. With average households now spending 75% of their income on food, there is real concern for the poorest families.
The UN issued an appeal for food-related aid in January 2008 to assist 2.6 million vulnerable people but has rapidly revised the number in need to 4.5 million, upping the appeal to $400 million in July. For a programme on this scale, the logistics of timely delivery of supplies to the beneficiaries will inevitably come under pressure.
Aid agencies such as Oxfam point to the tiny proportion of assistance directed towards agriculture and rural development, perhaps as little as $300 million out of a total of $15 billion since 2001. Reconstruction of the crumbling irrigation system, for example, would go a long way to restoring livelihoods and food security.
Bangladesh
Unfortunately, there is a stubborn hardcore of extreme poverty in Bangladesh which is not responding to government or NGO programmes. Possibly as many as 35 million people are in this category - 25% of the population - unable to provide themselves with sufficient food, creating widespread severe malnutrition, and overwhelming social safety nets. With nearly 50% of children underweight, the child mortality rate has not fallen in recent years.
Benin
With over 35% of the population beneath the poverty line in Benin, the impact of rising food prices has potentially serious implications for nutrition and health. Almost a quarter of children under 5 years are already underweight. According to the World Bank, in the first half of 2008 the Benin government spent nearly 10% of the national budget on subsidies and other measures to hold down food prices, a strategy which the Bank describes as “unsustainable”. Despite record harvests in 2007, the country is dependent on food imports.
Agriculture accounts for a third of GNP and employs over half of the population including many small subsistence farmers struggling to afford higher input prices. The government has launched the Emergency Food Security Programme which aims to boost domestic production in 2008 by subsidising the price of fertilizer and improving the infrastructure for seed distribution.
Burkina Faso
Concerns focus on the predominant livelihood of subsistence agriculture which is inefficient and highly vulnerable. For example, although the harvest for 2007 has exceeded basic food needs, poor distribution and poverty ensure that child malnutrition remains over 30%. All regions are known to have poor coping capacity for drought, flooding, and locusts, each of which is a regular hazard in Burkina Faso. The prospect of climate change aggravating these sensitivities undermines the already formidable challenge of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
Burundi
Food security has been declining in Burundi since 1993, with conflict-related displacement and disruption undermining agricultural productivity. This was already hampered by its fragile profile of small farms, frequent land disputes, bad water management and lack of modern equipment. The situation has been aggravated in 2006 and 2007 by unstable climate conditions, firstly the drought that has affected all of East Africa, and secondly from serious flooding after torrential rains in the western provinces.
Burundi already faces many worrying environmental challenges in the form of deforestation, degradation of soil and marshlands, and the reduction in the water level of Lake Tanganyika, all of which impact on food security. On top of these problems, there is underlying pressure on land and agriculture through the high population growth rate in Burundi along with the large number of refugees returning to their home villages from Tanzania. Land density is already the second highest in Africa. The consequence of all these concerns is that Burundi's food situation is described by the UN as "chronic insecurity" requiring constant attention. Over 800,000 people received food aid in 2007.
Cambodia
Cambodia's tortured recent history is responsible for a legacy of structural obstacles to poverty reduction plans. For example, the Khmer Rouge abolished the concept of private ownership in favour of communal farming which has evolved into a profile of very small farms; about 70% of the country's workforce is engaged in hand-to-mouth subsistence farming. Cambodia's rice yields are the lowest in the region. With minimal investment in inputs and irrigation and with little opportunity to supplement their incomes, most of these households experience seasonal food deficits. The Executive Director of the World Food Programme (WFP), Dr.Peter Piot, has said that there is a "chronic and persistent food insecurity problem in Cambodia". Over 35% of children under age 5 are underweight.
Although a new law awards title to farmers who have been working on their land for more than 5 years, few have taken advantage due to the expense and bureaucracy involved. This has led to unscrupulous land grabbing by wealthy agricultural interests seeking land for cash crops such as sugar. The government is aware of the strategic need for investment in agriculture, land rights and alternative livelihoods but there is great uncertainty as to how the dramatic increase in the price of rice will impact on this vulnerable rural economy. One immediate painful consequence is the WFP announcement in 2008 of termination of its school feeding programmes for 450,000 Cambodian children.
Cameroon
The core problem is not hard to identify; the World Food Programme describes Cameroon as a food insecure country and has further demonstrated that food intake is lower now than in the early 1980s. The result is that over 30% of young children are classified as suffering from "moderate chronic malnutrition" and the child mortality rate is rising rather than falling. High population growth - almost 70% since 1987 - presents a tough challenge to food production; in particular that the provinces in the extreme north of the country have simultaneously the highest population density and the lowest yielding drought-prone land.
China
China prides itself on food sufficiency, feeding 20% of the world’s population with 7% of the land, of which only about 10% is cultivable. Enabled by the gradual deregulation of commune-based agriculture in the 1980s, this achievement is now coming under pressure. In the decade to 2005, 21% of arable land was converted to non-agricultural use resulting in the loss of 20 million farmers. Environmental degradation affects the remaining land; for example, in the drought-prone North China plain, the groundwater table is falling by 1.5 metres each year.
The continued 30 year limit on government leases of farmland constrains private ownership and investment so that plots remain very small. Despite a succession of good harvests, the government may be abandoning the dream of self-sufficiency by expressing interest in purchasing agricultural land in Africa and South Asia. Nevertheless for the time being China is not a major importer of its staple food grains, rice, wheat and corn, casting doubt on claims that rising world food prices are attributable to Chinese consumption. The rise in demand for meat is met by importing soyabeans for animal feed. There are however reports that domestic food prices in China rose by 25% in the first quarter of 2008, implying significant pressure on the vast number of households who live below and just above the poverty line.
Egypt
Egypt is able to grow barely half of its demand for wheat and is the world’s largest importer of the crop. The country is therefore seriously exposed to the dramatic rise in world food prices, the latent threat to human development lying in the bulge of over 20% of the population which hovers just above the poverty line, already spending a large proportion of household income on food. The government has responded by holding the subsidised price of baladi bread which is available to all but normally shunned by the middle classes due to its lower quality. The inevitable increase in demand has led to shortages and, with the public mood becoming volatile, the army has been requisitioned to bake additional supplies. This bread subsidy costs the government almost $3.5 billion pa. The ration card scheme which subsidises essential foodstuffs such as rice and sugar has been extended to an additional 17 million people so that more than half of the population is now eligible. Exports of rice have been banned in order to protect supplies.
Although population growth of over 2% pa is a factor to consider in Egypt’s long term food security, it is the dominant and unforgiving desert terrain which limits production. The title of the government department responsible for farming – the Ministry of Agriculture and Reclamation – signifies Egypt’s belief in the potential of reclaiming land for agriculture. Major development plans are in place to progress towards food sufficiency by this means.
Eritrea
The fundamental challenge for poverty and hunger targets in Eritrea is food security. Much of the land is semi-arid, weather patterns are unpredictable and some of the most fertile regions are minefields. About 80% of the population lives in rural areas, the majority being poor subsistence farmers and nomadic herdsmen. Even in years of favourable rainfall, crop yields have fallen well short of the country's needs. Eritrea has a long history of droughts and, after the failure of seasonal rainfall every year in the period 2001-2004, received assistance from the world community to feed more than 2 million people, two-thirds of its population.
With the feeding programme in full swing in 2005, the Eritrean government embarked on a radical change of strategy. Distribution of food aid provided by the World Food Programme was abruptly ended and a "work-for-food" programme installed in its place. The government claims that with this additional labour, improved agricultural techniques and increased budgets for irrigation, alongside a new spirit of self-sufficiency, the country can manage without external assistance. Three successive years of good rains have prevented catastrophe but the true position is difficult to assess. A 2007 UN report estimated that 70%-80% of people are short of food essentials as prices rise beyond the means of the most disadvantaged groups. By contrast President Isaias Afewerki stated in an October 2007 interview that "we don't have any humanitarian problems... we do not need any food aid".
Ethiopia
Until the key to food security can be found, the majority of Ethiopians will remain locked in the poverty trap. 85% of households depend on agriculture, including about 10% herding livestock, all working on land of insecure and inadequate tenure in a sector unaccountably deprived of investment. Crops are therefore almost entirely rainfed in a country synonymous with the ravages of drought. Population growth of over 2% pa creates added pressure.
Over 7 million people are classed as chronically food insecure, largely in the highlands region where drought is most unrelenting. A further 10 million are identified as prone to drought. The first category is assisted by the Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP) which provides cash in return for labour on community projects and food for those unable to work. In addition the government has grasped the nettle of a resettlement programme which aims to move over 2 million people to more productive lands. Although admired for their innovation, both these strategies are fraught with difficulty and their sustainability is questionable.
2008 illustrates the volatile nature of food security in Ethiopia. In January the World Food Programme (WFP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization jointly published a positive assessment which applauded four consecutive “bumper” harvests, predicted a satisfactory 2008 harvest and even held out the prospect of grain exports. The report implied that the core aims of the government’s Food Security Programme - increased land under cultivation, a strategic reserve for emergencies and less aid dependency – were all coming to fruition. Yet by June, the world’s media featured images of emaciated children and dying livestock, supplemented by flashbacks to the 1984 famine. The rains had failed once again, government reserves had expired leading to an emergency appeal for $300 million to assist 4.6 million people, whilst the WFP was unable to fund or supply more than a month of emergency aid.
The reality may be more complex. Whilst drought has certainly affected what the government calls “pockets” of the south and east of the country, the dramatic rise in food prices has also disrupted response mechanisms during the June-September peak hunger season. The price of the staple teff grain has doubled within a year so that selling livestock and other assets fails to raise enough funds, cash payments under the PSNP are no longer sufficient, a new category of urban food poverty has emerged and the government struggles to prevent unauthorised exports. With two annual harvests and rainfall seasons to track, a government touchy about its aid dependency and the global media thirsting for disaster scenarios, assessment of food crisis in Ethiopia is never going to be straightforward.
Guinea-Bissau
Though the country is a major rice producer, the focus on cashew production and regular damage from salt water inundation have recently led to major food shortages, and resulted in a famine warning for the Tombali region in 2006. Contrary to global trends, agriculture has grown in importance to the economy in recent decades, but the country remains a net importer of food (most significantly of cheap rice from the USA and Southeast Asia).
India
There is consensus that the incidence of malnutrition has seen little improvement over the last 10 years. Almost half of all young children are underweight, many of them in the more serious categories of wasting and stunting. Rural households consume less food than in the 1950s. The government's safety net for feeding, known as the Public Food Distribution System (PDS), reaches less than 100 million people and is impaired by corruption at district level.
Regulations of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) which force Indian farmers to compete on an unlevel playing field have been a key factor in the crisis. Agricultural imports have increased four times since the WTO came into effect in 1995 and at least 4 million farmers have been rendered jobless. Apart from the scarcity of affordable food, a tragic human consequence has been the suicide of over 100,000 farmers in the last decade, most of them faced with crippling debts for expensive seeds and chemicals. It can be no surprise that India's insistence on special protection for its farmers was a vital factor in the collapse of the Doha round of WTO negotiations.
Internal factors have also contributed to food insecurity in India. Lack of investment in the rural economy is reflected in the 220,000 villages which lack electricity. Irrigation infrastructure has not been maintained and poor controls over industrialisation have also contributed to the collapse of groundwater levels and the loss of cultivable land. With yields of wheat falling and rice production static, there is bound to be alarm at the Ministry of Rural Development’s decision to invest $375 million in the production of diesel from the untested biofuel crop jatropha. Although this wild plant can be grown on arid wasteland, it grows even better on conventional farm land exposing the risk that commercial forces will overwhelm any regulation.
With almost 60% of the workforce dependent on farm livelihoods, the government has responded with a range of measures intended to boost the rural economy. The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) guarantees 100 days of paid employment to one person from every household to work on public infrastructure projects. Initially confined to selected states, NREGA is now being extended to the entire country. The 2008 budget also announced a farm loan waiver scheme which aims to write off the debts of 40 million farmers. Critics have suggested that the vast expenditure involved in these schemes should be more explicitly targeted to rural development needs such as soil regeneration, irrigation and diversifying livelihoods.
Kenya
In spite of its glossy image for tourists, the majority of Kenya's land is arid or semi-arid, the home of pastoral and nomadic people living on the margins of subsistence. 20% of the country's children aged under 5 years are underweight, a figure which has not improved since 2003. With only 18% of its territory suitable for farming, Kenya is not self-sufficient in food production and is vulnerable to unstable rain patterns. Successive years of drought up to 2006 compelled the World Food Programme (WFP) to provide support for over 3 million people. Then severe floods towards the end of 2006 affected a further 700,000, most of them cut off from help by inadequate roads. This cycle of drought and floods is known to be especially sensitive to the impact of climate change which looms in the background as a threat to food security.
Man-made shocks act on this vulnerability as much as more familiar extremes of weather. The post-election turmoil in early 2008 disrupted the March grain planting season with 50% of farmers not sufficiently prepared, according to the WFP. With signs of erratic rainfall in the arid regions and rising food prices stoking inflation, there are warnings of potential food insecurity in Kenya by the end of 2008.
Laos
The difficulty in converting national economic growth into poverty reduction is explained by the fact that over 80% of the population lives in rural areas working on just 5% of the country’s land that is suitable for farming. Lacking access to credit or economies of scale, many households survive predominantly by subsistence – markets for additional foodstuffs being inaccessible and expensive. Difficulties are especially acute for ethnic minorities in the northern uplands, these groups falling within the Lao Sung and Lao Theung ethnic categories, over 20% of the population cut off geographically and by language from the increasingly dynamic economy of the capital Vientiane and the majority lowland Lao Loum ethnic group.
A report published by the World Food Programme (WFP) in November 2007 concludes that “two thirds of the rural population are either food insecure (13%) or live on the edge of food security” and that “every second child in the rural areas is chronically malnourished”, a proportion unchanged over the last 10 years. The government has responded with a National Nutrition Policy 2008-2020 targeting the locations most in need.
Malawi
Maize is the staple of the Malawian diet. Good rains and generous government subsidies for agricultural inputs led to bumper harvests in the late 1990's. However, delayed rains, cutbacks in government subsidies and the prior sale of the country's strategic grain reserves resulted in a huge shortfall in the 2000-01 growing season, creating famine conditions by early 2002. The price of maize increased four-fold over a few months, leaving millions hungry and possibly causing several thousand deaths. The country faced a potentially even more serious food shortfall in 2005, when the lowest maize harvest in a decade left nearly 5 million people in need of food assistance. However, prompt government action to import 300,000 tonnes of maize from South Africa, coupled with a large-scale emergency feeding programme undertaken by the World Food Programme, prevented a humanitarian disaster.
Perhaps creating the foundation for a longer-term solution to recurring food crises, the 2005-06 Budget incorporated reforms exempting small-holder farmers from taxation and reinstating subsidies for agricultural inputs, while the 2006-07 Budget further increased development expenditures for agriculture and irrigation. Good rains in the 2005-06 and 2006-07 growing seasons, coupled with the effective distribution of subsidised seed and fertilizer have led to two years of bumper harvests, and early in 2007 Malawi commenced exporting large volumes of surplus grain to hungry Zimbabwe. However, malnutrition remains a significant problem for vulnerable sections of society.
Mali
Agriculture is the basis of the Malian economy with over 70% of the working population employed in agriculture and contributing 40% of the GDP. The majority are subsistence farmers (growing millet, rice, sorghum and corn) or, for nomadic populations, herders (tending cattle, goats and sheep). Commercial crops include cotton, peanuts, sugar, tobacco and vegetables. With most crops and animals dependent on rain, drought and/or locusts can greatly impact production and bring suffering as occurred in 2004-2005. However, preliminary estimates by the government for the 2007-2008 agricultural campaign indicate a 11% larger cereal crop than the preceding 5 year average. The government is also now backing public-private-partnerships to develop home-grown agricultural research efforts to address Mali's needs.
Namibia
Land reform in Namibia juggles the cause of social justice with the risk of food insecurity. Securing food production in a drought-prone environment has always been a key challenge for the country. Indeed the post-independence period has uncovered the painful reality that the white farmers with all their advantages were unable to vanquish the harsh arid Namibian climate. Even where adequate skills and investment are available, the subdivision of these farms into half a dozen smaller units tends to exacerbate any underlying weaknesses. Reports suggest that many of the families working on the 800 farms established under the reform programme remain beneath the poverty line.
The total 2006/07 harvest was down 40% on the previous year and 2007/08 is forecast to be only a little better. 24% of children under-age-5 suffer chronic malnutrition. Namibia is not self-sufficient in essential cereals and will be exposed to the dramatic rise in food import costs.
Nepal
A 2007 report by the World Food Programme (WFP) and the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation describes Nepal as chronically food insecure, its inefficient production further undermined by natural disasters and climate change. WFP is already targeting over one million people with food aid. Regions that are the focus of poverty alleviation programmes tend also to be those most affected by the Maoist conflict and successful implementation of the peace agreement is critical to the MDG programme in Nepal.
Norh Korea
North Korea is not only the poorest country in North Asia, but lacks even the foreign currency necessary to create food security for its people. In average harvests, production of rice and maize is thought to fall short of basic needs by 15%-20%. Harvest failures in the mid-1990s led to a full scale famine in which up to 2 million people died, often described as the worst global humanitarian disaster of that decade.
The traditional sources of food aid have been South Korea, China and the World Food Programme (WFP), their distribution networks often hampered by fickle and opaque government regulations. For a period during 2005/06, North Korea refused all food and fertiliser aid, in deference to the dogma of self-reliance and in denial of a WFP nutritional survey conducted in October 2004 which found that 37% of children suffered stunted growth whilst a third of all mothers were malnourished and anaemic.
In 2007 WFP reported that "having enough to eat is still a daily struggle for one-third to one-half of all North Koreans". Most people are dependent on the government's Public Distribution System, a notoriously inefficient programme which is supposed to ensure fairness through defined rations but which instead tends to favour elitist groups at the expense of others. The rations themselves typically fall far below the recommended daily calorific intake. In cities people may be able to buy extra food whilst those in the country may enjoy the luxury of a smallholding. Reports of people foraging for wild plants or selling their last possessions for food continue to filter out of the country.
Food stocks in North Korea are at their lowest in the months leading up to harvest in September. Severe floods in 2007 destroyed an estimated 16% of the harvest boosting the need for aid from 1.0 to 1.4 million tons. Given the uncertainty of the acute international political tension over North Korea's nuclear programmes, there is concern amongst development agencies that 2008 will be a particularly difficult year.
Pakistan
Steep rises in food prices are creating concern about a new class of urban poor in Pakistan’s cities. Production of the staple crop of wheat has been falling rather than rising, aggravated by wastage in transport, inadequate storage facilities, deteriorating irrigation systems and conversion of land for other purposes. A potentially controversial government solution aims to attract investment in agriculture from Middle Eastern countries, the object being to convert the wheat deficit into surplus, ambitiously addressing food security issues in both Pakistan and the investor countries.
Whether innovative or conventional, policies to boost food production in Pakistan must recognise that the natural water cycle has been exploited to the extent that the country may become water-deficient within five years. Mega-project solutions such as the controversial Kalabagh dam have run into strong popular objections – the division of water resources between Sindh and Punjab provinces proving to be contentious. World Bank estimates of the cost of addressing overall water scarcity issues in Pakistan are astronomic.
Philippines
Free trade rules may have undermined domestic food production to the extent that the Philippines is now the world's biggest importer of rice. As the crisis of sharply rising food prices takes hold, the government was unable to buy its required supplies of rice during the first quarter of 2008, the consequences of which remain uncertain.
Rwanda
Poverty reduction in Rwanda is constrained by the profiles of its population and agriculture. The density of 328 people per square kilometre is the highest in Africa, the pressure on land growing constantly through a high population growth rate of over 3% pa. Over 80% of the population is engaged in subsistence agriculture working on farms of average size less than one hectare. Yields are depressed by major soil erosion, inadequate irrigation and limited access to credit for farm inputs. A landlocked country with poor roads limits potential for cash crops and there is virtually no electricity in rural areas.
This pattern of production inevitably leaves the country dependent to a degree on imported foodstuffs and it is no surprise that Rwanda features on the list of 22 countries named by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) as “particularly vulnerable” to the 2008 crisis of rising food prices. Over 20% of young children are already underweight, a figure that has barely improved since 2000. For the longer term, the government’s strategic Vision 2020 envisages that the proportion of the population dependent on agriculture should fall to 50%, somewhat unconvincingly proposing a move towards cooperative farming alongside development of new sectors of economic activity.
Somalia
Almost 70% of the workforce is dependent on subsistence farming or tending livestock. Poverty indicators are therefore vulnerable to the unstable climate conditions experienced in the Horn of Africa region where years of severe drought are punctuated by widespread flooding, a profile likely to be aggravated by climate change. 2008 appears likely to bring a second successive failure of the main gu harvest - cereal production in 2007 was described by the World Food Programme (WFP) as the “worst in 13 years”. The secondary deyr rains at the end of 2007 also failed totally. The result is a food security emergency in the central and south regions of Somalia, with estimates of the numbers requiring assistance undergoing rapid upward revision to 3.5 million by the end of 2008, almost half of the population.
Two factors threaten to plunge a hotspot of food insecurity into a humanitarian disaster. First, the global explosion of food prices which squeezes the capacity of poor communities to cope with crop and livestock failures has hit Somalia particularly hard. Aid agencies are reporting price increases of 300% for staples such as rice and maize. Second, the delivery of food aid is seriously obstructed by the anarchic conditions of a conflict zone. The UN has been forced to pass a resolution allowing international naval vessels to enter Somali waters to defend food shipments against rampant piracy. On land, road transport is forced to negotiate its way through the country’s estimated 400 roadblocks, each operated by gun-toting militias demanding arbitrary payment. A tragic development in 2008 has been the targeting of aid workers, culminating in the murder of the acting head of UNDP in July.
These impossibly difficult conditions for delivery of food aid may explain in part the underfunding for the UN’s emergency appeal for $641 million. There is also concern that Somalia has become a forgotten emergency, suffering donor fatigue and media blackout. Meanwhile, the renowned resilience of the Somali people is being tested to the limit with rates of malnutrition exceeding emergency levels - Unicef reports that one in six children under age five has acute malnutrition.
Sri Lanka
The World Food Programme (WFP) has listed the country as one of "hunger's global hotspots". This is partly because the country is unable to grow enough rice to feed itself, and partly because of poor internal infrastructure for food distribution. Import duties on rice have been removed and the government is depending on Burma and Thailand to make available sufficient supplies.
Half of the population consumes less than the recommended daily calorie intake and malnutrition affects 29% of children. With rising food prices creating real hardship, the government concedes that critical levels of acute malnutrition could undermine Sri Lanka's reputation in health and education. The escalating civil war creates the worst possible environment for dealing with a potential food crisis, especially as the rice surplus regions in the north coincide with the conflict zone. A recent WFP report states that the conflict presents a "serious threat to overall food security".
Tajikistan
The World Food Programme describes Tajikistan as a food deficit country, where 27% of the population experience degrees of food insecurity and 36% of children under 5 years suffer from chronic malnutrition. After two consecutive poor harvests, an energy and food crisis brought about exceptionally cold weather in early 2008 has led to an emergency UN appeal for $25 million. It illustrates how infrastructure and supply routes are threatened regularly by floods, landslides, and other natural disasters, compounding the struggles of an already vulnerable population.
Tanzania
85% of farming is by hand tools with minimal inputs and poor access to credit. Although Tanzania is normally able to feed itself, as recently as 2006 prolonged drought compelled an appeal for international food aid. Arid and semi-arid regions such as Lindi, Mtware and Kigoma are especially vulnerable. Malnutrition is the cause of about 50% of child mortality.
Timor-Leste
Irrevocably linked with poverty is the decline in food security in Timor-Leste. In the absence of policies to assist them, farmers are too poor to upgrade their equipment, maintain irrigation or even to purchase seeds. The country lies in a region known to be particularly sensitive to the unpredictable impacts of El Nino and climate change. This combination of factors in 2007 caused a reduction of 30% in cereals and 20% in rice production; in West Timor yields are believed to be down as much as 50%. The country is in any event nowhere near self-sufficient in food and therefore exposed to increasingly expensive imports. 46% of children are assessed to have stunted growth due to malnutrition. The World Food Programme has projected that over 200,000 people, 20% of the population, will need assistance in the "hunger" months leading up to March 2008.
Uganda
With much of the country covered in lush and fertile terrain, Uganda is not normally linked with food insecurity. Yet there is a contradiction between President Museveni’s talk of food surpluses and the reality that the average calorie intake of 68% of the population falls below the recommended minimum level, and that this proportion is increasing rather than falling. The main cause of declining productivity and inefficient food distribution is the low level of government investment in agriculture, which at 4.7% of national budget is below the Maputo Declaration commitment of 10% and which fails to recognise that 87% of the population lives in rural areas.
Reassurances about food surplus and exports overlook other painful realities. There is severe insecurity in the northern provinces where food production meets barely 50% of the needs of 2.3 million people. The semi-arid northeastern province of Karamoja has lost its 2008 harvest to drought and much of its livestock to disease. Acute malnutrition in children exceeds the official emergency level of 15% and almost the entire population of about 1 million depends on food aid.
Venezuela
There is no immediate risk of hunger or the need for food aid in Venezuela but the country’s overtly socialist approach to food security is informative, especially in the context of Chávez’ assertion that the global food crisis is the “greatest demonstration of the historical failure of the capitalist model”. About 10% of arable land is owned by wealthy farmers capable of investment in modern inputs and irrigation whilst the remainder comprises poor smallholdings, often of uncertain tenure. The inability of this profile to deliver food sufficiency has prompted a combination of land reform and farming subsidies. Production has increased gradually during the Chávez era but investment strategies for agriculture have been revitalised as Venezuela scrambles to achieve the ideal of food sufficiency in response to the steep rise in cost of food imports.
Distribution is more problematic. The relevant Misión programme centres on the Mercal chain of over 15,000 outlets at which over 40% of the population is eligible to purchase essential foodstuffs at discounted prices. This state control acts as a disincentive to growers and distributors - especially when prices are rising – and food shortages were experienced in early 2008. The government has responded by strengthening its control of distribution through a state food company and imposing tough penalties on businesses accused of hoarding food supplies.
Yemen
The country was in the midst of its own food crisis before global food prices became headline news. Almost 13% of Yemenis exist below the food poverty line and the World Food Programme (WFP) is actively assisting 1.6 million people. 46% of children under-five are underweight compared with 30% in 1992.
The source of the problem is a long term decline in Yemen’s grain production brought about by inadequate attention to environmental sustainability, in particular depletion of groundwater and degradation of soil resources in a region highly prone to desertification. An investigation by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) warns that water basins may be depleted “in the very near future” unless Yemen introduces painful measures to halve both agricultural water consumption and the wastage in urban use. Furthermore, farmers have reported unusual delays in the onset of rains, a reminder that potential climate change creates additional uncertainty. Food security in Yemen is also seriously undermined by the use of good land for the cultivation of qat (a mild narcotic with amphetamine-like properties) which by contrast to grain production is increasing at over 10% pa and relies on traditional inefficient groundwater irrigation.
The consequence is that Yemen imports as much as 75% of its food requirements. Although protected by the parallel rise in the value of oil exports, the country is vulnerable to shortages in world stocks and its poorest households may have no mechanism to cope with astronomical prices. The WFP says that higher prices have already forced 6% of the population below the poverty line. In the longer term, economic vulnerability caused by the food deficit will rise as Yemen’s hydrocarbon reserves continue to diminish.
Zimbabwe
Land reforms have aimed to reverse the racially divisive distribution of the colonial period but the government's expropriation of properties managed by white farmers proved unplanned and chaotic, allowing the broader infrastructure of the sector to collapse. Government policies have failed to ensure adequate training and access to seed and fertiliser inputs, irrigation structures have not been maintained and price controls have diminished the basic incentive to farm. Drought and floods have been partly to blame but, with stories circulating that many farmers find it more profitable to sell firewood than tend their land, the government is now stepping in to reclaim some of the expropriated farms.
Projections for the 2008/09 cereal harvest are 40% down on 2007, meeting less than half of Zimbabwe's own requirements. Although imported food is arriving from Malawi and Zambia, Zimbabwe lacks the foreign exchange necessary to feed its own people. Having refused entry to the Food and Agriculture Organisation and World Food Programme (WFP) in 2006, the government has backtracked in allowing these agencies to return. Their prediction is that, by the peak of the hunger season in March 2009, 5.1 million people will be in need of food aid, about 40% of the population and an increase of 1.0 million over 2008. The UN has already launched a massive humanitarian appeal for 2008 for over $300 million. Donors will be concerned that the government's aid distribution will overcome a history of inefficiency and bias at election times.
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| children in Bamyan, Afghanistan © Beth Bolitho |
The UN issued an appeal for food-related aid in January 2008 to assist 2.6 million vulnerable people but has rapidly revised the number in need to 4.5 million, upping the appeal to $400 million in July. For a programme on this scale, the logistics of timely delivery of supplies to the beneficiaries will inevitably come under pressure.
Aid agencies such as Oxfam point to the tiny proportion of assistance directed towards agriculture and rural development, perhaps as little as $300 million out of a total of $15 billion since 2001. Reconstruction of the crumbling irrigation system, for example, would go a long way to restoring livelihoods and food security.
Bangladesh
Unfortunately, there is a stubborn hardcore of extreme poverty in Bangladesh which is not responding to government or NGO programmes. Possibly as many as 35 million people are in this category - 25% of the population - unable to provide themselves with sufficient food, creating widespread severe malnutrition, and overwhelming social safety nets. With nearly 50% of children underweight, the child mortality rate has not fallen in recent years.
Benin
With over 35% of the population beneath the poverty line in Benin, the impact of rising food prices has potentially serious implications for nutrition and health. Almost a quarter of children under 5 years are already underweight. According to the World Bank, in the first half of 2008 the Benin government spent nearly 10% of the national budget on subsidies and other measures to hold down food prices, a strategy which the Bank describes as “unsustainable”. Despite record harvests in 2007, the country is dependent on food imports.
Agriculture accounts for a third of GNP and employs over half of the population including many small subsistence farmers struggling to afford higher input prices. The government has launched the Emergency Food Security Programme which aims to boost domestic production in 2008 by subsidising the price of fertilizer and improving the infrastructure for seed distribution.
Burkina Faso
Concerns focus on the predominant livelihood of subsistence agriculture which is inefficient and highly vulnerable. For example, although the harvest for 2007 has exceeded basic food needs, poor distribution and poverty ensure that child malnutrition remains over 30%. All regions are known to have poor coping capacity for drought, flooding, and locusts, each of which is a regular hazard in Burkina Faso. The prospect of climate change aggravating these sensitivities undermines the already formidable challenge of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
Burundi
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| Settlement outside Bujumbura © Alexandra Illmer |
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| View of Lake Tanganjika from Bujumbura © Alexandra Illmer |
Cambodia
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| Food stalls, Battambong, Cambodia © Thnam Kanha Net |
Although a new law awards title to farmers who have been working on their land for more than 5 years, few have taken advantage due to the expense and bureaucracy involved. This has led to unscrupulous land grabbing by wealthy agricultural interests seeking land for cash crops such as sugar. The government is aware of the strategic need for investment in agriculture, land rights and alternative livelihoods but there is great uncertainty as to how the dramatic increase in the price of rice will impact on this vulnerable rural economy. One immediate painful consequence is the WFP announcement in 2008 of termination of its school feeding programmes for 450,000 Cambodian children.
Cameroon
The core problem is not hard to identify; the World Food Programme describes Cameroon as a food insecure country and has further demonstrated that food intake is lower now than in the early 1980s. The result is that over 30% of young children are classified as suffering from "moderate chronic malnutrition" and the child mortality rate is rising rather than falling. High population growth - almost 70% since 1987 - presents a tough challenge to food production; in particular that the provinces in the extreme north of the country have simultaneously the highest population density and the lowest yielding drought-prone land.
China
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| Cuisine, Guyiang, China © Tamilla Held |
The continued 30 year limit on government leases of farmland constrains private ownership and investment so that plots remain very small. Despite a succession of good harvests, the government may be abandoning the dream of self-sufficiency by expressing interest in purchasing agricultural land in Africa and South Asia. Nevertheless for the time being China is not a major importer of its staple food grains, rice, wheat and corn, casting doubt on claims that rising world food prices are attributable to Chinese consumption. The rise in demand for meat is met by importing soyabeans for animal feed. There are however reports that domestic food prices in China rose by 25% in the first quarter of 2008, implying significant pressure on the vast number of households who live below and just above the poverty line.
Egypt
Egypt is able to grow barely half of its demand for wheat and is the world’s largest importer of the crop. The country is therefore seriously exposed to the dramatic rise in world food prices, the latent threat to human development lying in the bulge of over 20% of the population which hovers just above the poverty line, already spending a large proportion of household income on food. The government has responded by holding the subsidised price of baladi bread which is available to all but normally shunned by the middle classes due to its lower quality. The inevitable increase in demand has led to shortages and, with the public mood becoming volatile, the army has been requisitioned to bake additional supplies. This bread subsidy costs the government almost $3.5 billion pa. The ration card scheme which subsidises essential foodstuffs such as rice and sugar has been extended to an additional 17 million people so that more than half of the population is now eligible. Exports of rice have been banned in order to protect supplies.
Although population growth of over 2% pa is a factor to consider in Egypt’s long term food security, it is the dominant and unforgiving desert terrain which limits production. The title of the government department responsible for farming – the Ministry of Agriculture and Reclamation – signifies Egypt’s belief in the potential of reclaiming land for agriculture. Major development plans are in place to progress towards food sufficiency by this means.
Eritrea
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With the feeding programme in full swing in 2005, the Eritrean government embarked on a radical change of strategy. Distribution of food aid provided by the World Food Programme was abruptly ended and a "work-for-food" programme installed in its place. The government claims that with this additional labour, improved agricultural techniques and increased budgets for irrigation, alongside a new spirit of self-sufficiency, the country can manage without external assistance. Three successive years of good rains have prevented catastrophe but the true position is difficult to assess. A 2007 UN report estimated that 70%-80% of people are short of food essentials as prices rise beyond the means of the most disadvantaged groups. By contrast President Isaias Afewerki stated in an October 2007 interview that "we don't have any humanitarian problems... we do not need any food aid".
Ethiopia
Until the key to food security can be found, the majority of Ethiopians will remain locked in the poverty trap. 85% of households depend on agriculture, including about 10% herding livestock, all working on land of insecure and inadequate tenure in a sector unaccountably deprived of investment. Crops are therefore almost entirely rainfed in a country synonymous with the ravages of drought. Population growth of over 2% pa creates added pressure.
Over 7 million people are classed as chronically food insecure, largely in the highlands region where drought is most unrelenting. A further 10 million are identified as prone to drought. The first category is assisted by the Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP) which provides cash in return for labour on community projects and food for those unable to work. In addition the government has grasped the nettle of a resettlement programme which aims to move over 2 million people to more productive lands. Although admired for their innovation, both these strategies are fraught with difficulty and their sustainability is questionable.
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| Oxfam relief workers distribute food in Ethiopia © Crispin Hughes / Oxfam Great Britain |
The reality may be more complex. Whilst drought has certainly affected what the government calls “pockets” of the south and east of the country, the dramatic rise in food prices has also disrupted response mechanisms during the June-September peak hunger season. The price of the staple teff grain has doubled within a year so that selling livestock and other assets fails to raise enough funds, cash payments under the PSNP are no longer sufficient, a new category of urban food poverty has emerged and the government struggles to prevent unauthorised exports. With two annual harvests and rainfall seasons to track, a government touchy about its aid dependency and the global media thirsting for disaster scenarios, assessment of food crisis in Ethiopia is never going to be straightforward.
Guinea-Bissau
Though the country is a major rice producer, the focus on cashew production and regular damage from salt water inundation have recently led to major food shortages, and resulted in a famine warning for the Tombali region in 2006. Contrary to global trends, agriculture has grown in importance to the economy in recent decades, but the country remains a net importer of food (most significantly of cheap rice from the USA and Southeast Asia).
India
There is consensus that the incidence of malnutrition has seen little improvement over the last 10 years. Almost half of all young children are underweight, many of them in the more serious categories of wasting and stunting. Rural households consume less food than in the 1950s. The government's safety net for feeding, known as the Public Food Distribution System (PDS), reaches less than 100 million people and is impaired by corruption at district level.
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| Kamal Nath |
Internal factors have also contributed to food insecurity in India. Lack of investment in the rural economy is reflected in the 220,000 villages which lack electricity. Irrigation infrastructure has not been maintained and poor controls over industrialisation have also contributed to the collapse of groundwater levels and the loss of cultivable land. With yields of wheat falling and rice production static, there is bound to be alarm at the Ministry of Rural Development’s decision to invest $375 million in the production of diesel from the untested biofuel crop jatropha. Although this wild plant can be grown on arid wasteland, it grows even better on conventional farm land exposing the risk that commercial forces will overwhelm any regulation.
With almost 60% of the workforce dependent on farm livelihoods, the government has responded with a range of measures intended to boost the rural economy. The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) guarantees 100 days of paid employment to one person from every household to work on public infrastructure projects. Initially confined to selected states, NREGA is now being extended to the entire country. The 2008 budget also announced a farm loan waiver scheme which aims to write off the debts of 40 million farmers. Critics have suggested that the vast expenditure involved in these schemes should be more explicitly targeted to rural development needs such as soil regeneration, irrigation and diversifying livelihoods.
Kenya
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| Emergency food supplies in western Kenya © Peter Armstrong |
Man-made shocks act on this vulnerability as much as more familiar extremes of weather. The post-election turmoil in early 2008 disrupted the March grain planting season with 50% of farmers not sufficiently prepared, according to the WFP. With signs of erratic rainfall in the arid regions and rising food prices stoking inflation, there are warnings of potential food insecurity in Kenya by the end of 2008.
Laos
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| Vang Vieng Market, Laos © Yip Seng Leong |
A report published by the World Food Programme (WFP) in November 2007 concludes that “two thirds of the rural population are either food insecure (13%) or live on the edge of food security” and that “every second child in the rural areas is chronically malnourished”, a proportion unchanged over the last 10 years. The government has responded with a National Nutrition Policy 2008-2020 targeting the locations most in need.
Malawi
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| Farming in Malawi © United Nations' Integrated Regional Information Network |
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| Distribution of maize seeds in Malawi |
Mali
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| Mangoes for sale in Mali © Dan Gerber |
Namibia
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| water pump in the kalahari © Adrian Arbib |
The total 2006/07 harvest was down 40% on the previous year and 2007/08 is forecast to be only a little better. 24% of children under-age-5 suffer chronic malnutrition. Namibia is not self-sufficient in essential cereals and will be exposed to the dramatic rise in food import costs.
Nepal
A 2007 report by the World Food Programme (WFP) and the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation describes Nepal as chronically food insecure, its inefficient production further undermined by natural disasters and climate change. WFP is already targeting over one million people with food aid. Regions that are the focus of poverty alleviation programmes tend also to be those most affected by the Maoist conflict and successful implementation of the peace agreement is critical to the MDG programme in Nepal.
Norh Korea
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| Malnutrition in North Korea © CAFOD |
The traditional sources of food aid have been South Korea, China and the World Food Programme (WFP), their distribution networks often hampered by fickle and opaque government regulations. For a period during 2005/06, North Korea refused all food and fertiliser aid, in deference to the dogma of self-reliance and in denial of a WFP nutritional survey conducted in October 2004 which found that 37% of children suffered stunted growth whilst a third of all mothers were malnourished and anaemic.
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| An elderly North Korean woman © Mercy Corps |
Food stocks in North Korea are at their lowest in the months leading up to harvest in September. Severe floods in 2007 destroyed an estimated 16% of the harvest boosting the need for aid from 1.0 to 1.4 million tons. Given the uncertainty of the acute international political tension over North Korea's nuclear programmes, there is concern amongst development agencies that 2008 will be a particularly difficult year.
Pakistan
Steep rises in food prices are creating concern about a new class of urban poor in Pakistan’s cities. Production of the staple crop of wheat has been falling rather than rising, aggravated by wastage in transport, inadequate storage facilities, deteriorating irrigation systems and conversion of land for other purposes. A potentially controversial government solution aims to attract investment in agriculture from Middle Eastern countries, the object being to convert the wheat deficit into surplus, ambitiously addressing food security issues in both Pakistan and the investor countries.
Whether innovative or conventional, policies to boost food production in Pakistan must recognise that the natural water cycle has been exploited to the extent that the country may become water-deficient within five years. Mega-project solutions such as the controversial Kalabagh dam have run into strong popular objections – the division of water resources between Sindh and Punjab provinces proving to be contentious. World Bank estimates of the cost of addressing overall water scarcity issues in Pakistan are astronomic.
Philippines
Free trade rules may have undermined domestic food production to the extent that the Philippines is now the world's biggest importer of rice. As the crisis of sharply rising food prices takes hold, the government was unable to buy its required supplies of rice during the first quarter of 2008, the consequences of which remain uncertain.
Rwanda
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| Herding cattle, Rwanda © Heidi Martin |
This pattern of production inevitably leaves the country dependent to a degree on imported foodstuffs and it is no surprise that Rwanda features on the list of 22 countries named by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) as “particularly vulnerable” to the 2008 crisis of rising food prices. Over 20% of young children are already underweight, a figure that has barely improved since 2000. For the longer term, the government’s strategic Vision 2020 envisages that the proportion of the population dependent on agriculture should fall to 50%, somewhat unconvincingly proposing a move towards cooperative farming alongside development of new sectors of economic activity.
Somalia
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| A child with ready-to-use-food at a feeding centre in Somalia. |
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| The WFP ship commandeered in Somali waters © United Nations' Integrated Regional Information Network |
These impossibly difficult conditions for delivery of food aid may explain in part the underfunding for the UN’s emergency appeal for $641 million. There is also concern that Somalia has become a forgotten emergency, suffering donor fatigue and media blackout. Meanwhile, the renowned resilience of the Somali people is being tested to the limit with rates of malnutrition exceeding emergency levels - Unicef reports that one in six children under age five has acute malnutrition.
Sri Lanka
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| Farmers in Sri Lanka |
Half of the population consumes less than the recommended daily calorie intake and malnutrition affects 29% of children. With rising food prices creating real hardship, the government concedes that critical levels of acute malnutrition could undermine Sri Lanka's reputation in health and education. The escalating civil war creates the worst possible environment for dealing with a potential food crisis, especially as the rice surplus regions in the north coincide with the conflict zone. A recent WFP report states that the conflict presents a "serious threat to overall food security".
Tajikistan
The World Food Programme describes Tajikistan as a food deficit country, where 27% of the population experience degrees of food insecurity and 36% of children under 5 years suffer from chronic malnutrition. After two consecutive poor harvests, an energy and food crisis brought about exceptionally cold weather in early 2008 has led to an emergency UN appeal for $25 million. It illustrates how infrastructure and supply routes are threatened regularly by floods, landslides, and other natural disasters, compounding the struggles of an already vulnerable population.
Tanzania
85% of farming is by hand tools with minimal inputs and poor access to credit. Although Tanzania is normally able to feed itself, as recently as 2006 prolonged drought compelled an appeal for international food aid. Arid and semi-arid regions such as Lindi, Mtware and Kigoma are especially vulnerable. Malnutrition is the cause of about 50% of child mortality.
Timor-Leste
Irrevocably linked with poverty is the decline in food security in Timor-Leste. In the absence of policies to assist them, farmers are too poor to upgrade their equipment, maintain irrigation or even to purchase seeds. The country lies in a region known to be particularly sensitive to the unpredictable impacts of El Nino and climate change. This combination of factors in 2007 caused a reduction of 30% in cereals and 20% in rice production; in West Timor yields are believed to be down as much as 50%. The country is in any event nowhere near self-sufficient in food and therefore exposed to increasingly expensive imports. 46% of children are assessed to have stunted growth due to malnutrition. The World Food Programme has projected that over 200,000 people, 20% of the population, will need assistance in the "hunger" months leading up to March 2008.
Uganda
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| Hunger walk, Uganda © Mbabazi Morgan |
Reassurances about food surplus and exports overlook other painful realities. There is severe insecurity in the northern provinces where food production meets barely 50% of the needs of 2.3 million people. The semi-arid northeastern province of Karamoja has lost its 2008 harvest to drought and much of its livestock to disease. Acute malnutrition in children exceeds the official emergency level of 15% and almost the entire population of about 1 million depends on food aid.
Venezuela
There is no immediate risk of hunger or the need for food aid in Venezuela but the country’s overtly socialist approach to food security is informative, especially in the context of Chávez’ assertion that the global food crisis is the “greatest demonstration of the historical failure of the capitalist model”. About 10% of arable land is owned by wealthy farmers capable of investment in modern inputs and irrigation whilst the remainder comprises poor smallholdings, often of uncertain tenure. The inability of this profile to deliver food sufficiency has prompted a combination of land reform and farming subsidies. Production has increased gradually during the Chávez era but investment strategies for agriculture have been revitalised as Venezuela scrambles to achieve the ideal of food sufficiency in response to the steep rise in cost of food imports.
Distribution is more problematic. The relevant Misión programme centres on the Mercal chain of over 15,000 outlets at which over 40% of the population is eligible to purchase essential foodstuffs at discounted prices. This state control acts as a disincentive to growers and distributors - especially when prices are rising – and food shortages were experienced in early 2008. The government has responded by strengthening its control of distribution through a state food company and imposing tough penalties on businesses accused of hoarding food supplies.
Yemen
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| Malnutrition in Yemen © Mohammad al-Jabri / Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN) |
The source of the problem is a long term decline in Yemen’s grain production brought about by inadequate attention to environmental sustainability, in particular depletion of groundwater and degradation of soil resources in a region highly prone to desertification. An investigation by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) warns that water basins may be depleted “in the very near future” unless Yemen introduces painful measures to halve both agricultural water consumption and the wastage in urban use. Furthermore, farmers have reported unusual delays in the onset of rains, a reminder that potential climate change creates additional uncertainty. Food security in Yemen is also seriously undermined by the use of good land for the cultivation of qat (a mild narcotic with amphetamine-like properties) which by contrast to grain production is increasing at over 10% pa and relies on traditional inefficient groundwater irrigation.
The consequence is that Yemen imports as much as 75% of its food requirements. Although protected by the parallel rise in the value of oil exports, the country is vulnerable to shortages in world stocks and its poorest households may have no mechanism to cope with astronomical prices. The WFP says that higher prices have already forced 6% of the population below the poverty line. In the longer term, economic vulnerability caused by the food deficit will rise as Yemen’s hydrocarbon reserves continue to diminish.
Zimbabwe
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| Zimbabwean food shortages © United Nations' Integrated Regional Information Network |
Projections for the 2008/09 cereal harvest are 40% down on 2007, meeting less than half of Zimbabwe's own requirements. Although imported food is arriving from Malawi and Zambia, Zimbabwe lacks the foreign exchange necessary to feed its own people. Having refused entry to the Food and Agriculture Organisation and World Food Programme (WFP) in 2006, the government has backtracked in allowing these agencies to return. Their prediction is that, by the peak of the hunger season in March 2009, 5.1 million people will be in need of food aid, about 40% of the population and an increase of 1.0 million over 2008. The UN has already launched a massive humanitarian appeal for 2008 for over $300 million. Donors will be concerned that the government's aid distribution will overcome a history of inefficiency and bias at election times.
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