Falling UK aid support for agriculture under fire

Parliamentary Group calls for DFID to end its Continued Neglect of Agriculture

“We have to be very careful not to pull out of a sector. This is exactly what the development community did when it became too difficult in agriculture about 15 years ago... and we now have a big problem because of that.”

- Andrew Steer, Director General of Policy and Research DFID to the International Development Committee November 2009

The Government has consciously and deliberately run down its support for agriculture in international development despite its expertise having led the world in the past the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Agriculture and Food for Development said yesterday at the launch of its new report ‘Why No Thought for Food?’

In highlighting this the APPG called on DFID to raise the percentage of its overseas aid going to agriculture and food security to 10% of its total budget – in line with the commitments made by African countries at the Maputo Declaration (2003) to deliver 10% of their budget to agricultural development. The APPG also called on DFID to ensure that the $20bn pledged to tackle food insecurity by international donors since June 2008 was spent urgently.

The report stated that with the global population set to rise at 6 million per month and almost double from 1 billion to 2 billion in Africa, simply put, the world must double its production of food – safe food, on less land, with less fresh water, using less energy, fertiliser and pesticide – by 2030, whilst at the same time bringing down sharply the level of greenhouse-gas emissions emitted globally. It is a daunting challenge, but one we can, and must, meet the report underlined.

“Unless we manage [this] holistically – and there is the real challenge – we are going to be faced with conflict, as we move forward in time, the order of which we haven’t seen before.”

Sir David King, Former UK Government Chief Scientist and Director of the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment - University of Oxford

The report outlined that a consensus now existed that agriculture, and as a direct result of this food security, has been globally neglected for 15 years and DFID has played a significant role in that neglect. At the same time 500 million smallholder farmers face a daily struggle to meet the needs of the 2 billion people who are dependent upon them, that is, nearly one-third of humanity.

Having spoken to a Who’s who of UK, African and International experts in this area the Report highlights that a return to a UK focus on agriculture is actively desired not only within multilateral institutions, but also within the developing countries themselves. It stated that while the UK still has a comparative advantage in terms of the expertise at its disposal, this will not last for long given a continued lack of investment and that this will ultimately be an opportunity lost for both the UK and more importantly the wider developmental effort.

The APPG also identified the inextricable link between food security in the developing world and that of the UK - from the movement of pests and zoonotic diseases to threats to global production from climate change and beyond. Indeed its impacts are felt beyond this single sector - it stated that hunger is not only a moral issue; it is an economic and social issue; it is a diplomatic issue; it is a security issue; and it is one that requires the developed world to act now if this global slide towards hunger is to be stopped.

With over 1 billion people hungry worldwide, we are currently further away from achieving MDG1, to halve the number of global hungry, than ever before – if we are to meet this target by 2015 we need to help move more than 100 million people out of hunger a year for the next 5 years, and this is only half of the total problem of global hunger.

The APPG concluded that as a result of rising food prices at home and abroad, a new level of public awareness had been created which in turn created a unique opportunity for the UK to seize the agenda in 2010.

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NOTES

The All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) was established by Parliamentarians in October 2008 in response to growing concerns over the heightening food crisis. Co-Chaired by David Curry MP and Lord Cameron of DIllington, it is a cross-party initiative drawing members from both Houses of the UK Parliament which aims to bring together Parliamentarians concerned with both the technical, and social science, of agriculture and food security. It seeks to use its cross-party membership to improve support from the British Government for farmers and other stakeholders in developing countries whilst recognising the pivotal role that increased levels of agricultural support and research, and their outputs, can have in eliminating global poverty. The Group’s website can be found at: www.agricultureandfoodfordevelopment.org

Lord Ewen Cameron of Dillington and David Curry MP, the Group’s Co-Chairs, are available for comment and interview.