Transcript Slide 1

Famine and Feast
Life on the margins: the inequality of food and nutrition security
STRESS FACTORS ON AGRI-FOOD BUSINESS
PowerPoint presentation by
Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders
(MSF) UK
Schools Team: Mary Doherty and Severa von Wentzel
March 2014
“Beyond funding, we find that the policies that contributed
to the recent food-price crisis have gone largely
unchanged, leaving global food security as fragile as ever.
The world needs policies that discourage biofuels
expansion, regulate financial speculation, limit irresponsible
land investments, encourage the use of buffer stocks, move
away from fossil fuel dependence and toward agroecological practices, and reform global agricultural trade
rules to support rather than undermine food security
objectives.” (http://www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/Pubs/rp/ResolvingFoodCrisis.pdf)
Stress factors on
agri-food system
Food price hikes
• Price spikes are of serious concern, because
they significantly raise global poverty. “People
who are already poor are...highly vulnerable to
even small shocks that will push them closer
to destitution, starvation, even premature
mortality”
(http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/user_upload/hlpe/hlpe_documents/HLPE_Reports/HLPEReport-4 Social_protection_for_food_security-June_2012.pdf)
Note to students: It may well be
useful in an exam if you could sketch
this graph with labelled axes and a
title.
• Long term declining trend in food prices.
• The global food system is becoming more
sensitive to high prices and volatility. Food
price hikes have increased in the last decade,
but price volatility is not a new phenomenon.
Some volatility is inherent in an agricultural
commodity market.
• Food price spikes pushed food security onto
the global agenda and drew attention to the
implications of 20th C food unsustainability.
Source: http://www.fao.org/worldfoodsituation/wfs-home/foodpricesindex/en/
http://www.econlib.org/library/Topics/HighSchool/RealvsNominal.html; GHI document http://www.ifpri.org/sites/default/files/publications/ghi11.pdf
Groups
vulnerable to price hikes
The groups who were
most negatively
impacted by the price
spikes were:
• Rural landless
• Pastoralists
• Smallholder farmers
• Urban poor
• Displaced people
“Poor families, for whom food is a large
proportion of the household budget, have
adopted negative coping strategies such
as withdrawing children from schools
(FAO 2009b), shifting towards less
nutritious foods or reducing frequency of
meals (Lang 2010), seeking more work
or borrowing money (Raihin 2009).
However, there is less evidence that
irreversible coping strategies, such as
the sale of productive assets, are being
adopted (Wiggins et al. 2010b).”
Source: http://www.odi.org.uk/sites/odi.org.uk/files/odiassets/publications-opinion-files/6038.pdf
contents
Agricultural price
index and population trend
As the world population has been rising, agricultural prices have been mostly
following a downward curve.
Vulnerability:
Low-income countries most affected
“The link between
intensifying
inequality, debt,
climate change,
fossil fuel
dependency and
the global food
crisis is
undeniable”*
Further info on
debt relief:
Heavily Indebted Poor
Country Initiative (HIPC)
and
Multilateral Debt Relief
Initiative (MDRI):
http://www.imf.org/external/np/e
xr/facts/hipc.htm
Quote: The Guardian “Why food riots are likely to become the new normal, March 2013
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2013/mar/06/food-riots-new-normal
Image from
http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/sites/default/files/images/A_High_Price_to_Pay.pdf
Power of food
Agro-industrialisation of the “Fast World”, which was built on
the myth of the free market, has entailed the
“extreme commoditisation of food” and marginalisation of
rural communities and the poor.
(www.researchgate.net/publication/...The.../32bfe5126ddd9a0460.pdf)
Action for students:
1. Watch the FAO video on price hikes and make notes for your folder
www.safeshare.tv/w/AsdCuESquO and m
2. Watch the Red Cross clip on “Food insecurity, how it happens and
what you can do” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79UGlB1IRh4
3. Note why women and children are especially affected: Save the
Children UK, A High Price to Pay, http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/resources/onlinelibrary/high-price-pay
Food Riots
• The food price index, a measure
of the monthly change in
international prices of a basket of
food commodities.
• Many poor countries are
susceptible to price spikes and
already have highest levels of
malnutrition. Food price hikes cut
access to nutritious food.
“Not only do high food prices
weigh heavily on the incomes of
the poor, they lead to more
political unrest around the world”
“Buttonwood: Gas, grains and growth”, The
Economist June 23rd 2012
“ No government is more than
nine meals away from anarchy”
Ewan Cameron
• The 2008 food price rises and
global rice shortage, rapid
population growth, and dictatorial
regimes / failings of the political
systems in the human rights
arena were the backdrop of the
Arab Spring and food riots across
the Middle East, North Africa and
South Asia.
Further info: Danger of
spreading global unrest:
http://necsi.edu/research/social/food_crises.pdf
Juan Mabromata/AFP/Getty Images
-
–
Factors of the global food
price crisis: Longer-term factors
Source: http://www.icfi.com/insights/reports/2009/final-assessment-food-security-vulnerability-mapping-adverse-effects-food-priceschildren-women-mena
Factors of the global food
price crisis: Short/medium-term Factors
Source: http://www.icfi.com/insights/reports/2009/final-assessment-food-security-vulnerability-mapping-adverse-effects-food-priceschildren-women-mena
Food crisis on
national level
Source: http://www.icfi.com/insights/reports/2009/final-assessment-food-security-vulnerability-mapping-adverse-effectsfood-prices-children-women-mena
Effects at the
individual and
household level
Action for
students: Use the
slides in this
section so far for
research and write
a one side of A4
about the impact
of the food price
crisis.
Source: http://www.icfi.com/insights/reports/2009/final-assessment-food-security-vulnerability-mapping-adverse-effects-food-prices-childrenwomen-mena
Food crisis
factors driving the price hikes
Action for students:
In pairs, discuss how the factors are inter-related and draw a spider diagram.on the challenges might
interact going forward.
•
Rising demand
– Increase in use of agricultural crops and land for energy (biofuels). The impact may become less
significant with the introduction of second generation biofuels technologies, but the competition
between agriculture and energy will persist.
– Rise in demand for feed crops and food given the nutrition transition and growing populations,
largely in urban areas and developing countries, demanding more and better food
•
Climate change. Impact on crop production may be very significant over time and is geographically
unevenly distributed. Interruptions to supplies and agricultural ecosystems in key exporting countries
due to weather and climate change’s possible contribution to them;
•
Yields, technology. Slowdown in yield increases for key food crops partly owing to reductions in
agricultural R & D. Land and water constraints will remain high.
•
Globalised agri-food business
– Growing power and concentration: shrimking farms, growing food processors and intermediaries
– Trade policies undermining developing countries’ food production capacity
– Increasing financial speculation in agricultural commodity markets and not always adequate
levels of publically-held inventories
.
Source: http://ase.tufts.edu/gdae/Pubs/rp/ResolvingFoodCrisis.pdf
AGRI-FOOD-SYSTEM:
BIOFUELS, FINANCIAL SPECULATION AND
LAND GRABS
What is going wrong in
agricultural production and markets?
Highlights fundamental issues
undermining agricultural
development and food security:
• Biofuels
• Financial speculation
• Land grabs
Action for students:
Read the report and/or watch the
interview with the authors.
Take notes in your folder and
create a spider diagram:
•
•
Report
http://www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/Pubs/rp/Resolvi
ngFoodCrisis.pdf
Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08bPnZudj3
M
Biofuel production
Biofuel boom
The umbrella term biofuels is mostly used to refer to alternative substitutes for petrol,
diesel or aircraft fuel. More on Biofuels: http://www.biofuels.co.uk/
Source: enoughFoodfor everyoneIf.org; http://www.grida.no/graphicslib/detail/biofuels-production-2005-by-country-ethanol-and-biodiesel_1353#
Biofuels debate
Action for students: Assign students opposing positions to debate the impact of
biofuel production in Africa:
•
saviour (development opportunity on the scale of Green revolution) or
•
threat to food insecurity in the region (decrease in food production and worse droughts).
Using the information below, prepare to debate the impact of biofuels on
food security in Africa.
For biofuels:
•
•
•
Largely unable to compete with food
prices because of cheaper exports,
African farmers could compete in
biofuels because North America or
Europe don’t currently export these.
Some biofuels require fewer nutrients
than food crops and could therefore be
grown on lan unsuitable for food
production.
Potentially an environmentally and
affordable alternative to address
dwindling natural resources and overdependence on fossil fuels
Against biofuels:
• Increased biofuel production in Africa could decrease the
land available for food production and food production .
Conversion of food crops to agrofuel production is partly
responsible for 12.7% decline in world cereal stocks
between 2009 and 2011 (de Schutter 2011).
• Biofuel production drives up world food prices. Given
globalisation, prices in Africa can be affected by biofuel
production and government subsidies, incentives and
mandates in other regions.
• Higher prices because of biofuel expansion can exacerbate
the effects of droughts and risk of famine.
• Provides profits for international investors, not locals.
• Largely unproven technology, first-generation biofuels are
corrosive and may not be an economically or
environmentally viable alternative
Source: Lifland, Amy. Starvation in the Sahel
http://hir.harvard.edu/crafting-the-city/starvation-in-the-sahel; http://ase.tufts.edu/gdae/policy_research/resolving_food_crisis.html;
Image: http://www.biofuels.co.uk/
Land leasing
A growing number of countries are leasing land abroad
to secure and sustain their own food production.
“As food-producing resources become more
valuable, resource-constrained countries
and speculative investors have bought or
leased millions of acres of agricultural land
in Africa and in other developing regions,
compromising the long-term food-producing
capacity of developing countries”
http://ase.tufts.edu/gdae/policy_research/resolving_food_crisis.
html
Source: http://www.grida.no/graphicslib/detail/an-increasing-number-of-countries-are-leasing-land-abroad-to-sustain-and-secure-theirfood-production_1164#
Land rush
Driven by speculation, land grabs can pose issues for
food security or development. Regulation or monitoring,
transparency, consultation and consent, and land rights
and governance for large-scale land acquisitions is
lacking, but attention is growing.
“Dramatic rise in the acreage of transnational land
acquisitions to rise from 15m–20m hectares in 2009 to
more than 70m in 2012.“ (Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2013/apr/15/ireland-michaelhiggins-land-rules-hunger)
“More than 60 per cent of investments in agricultural land
by foreign investors between 2000 and 2010 were in
developing countries with serious hunger problems.
However, two-thirds of those investors plan to export
everything they produce on that land. ”(Oxfam
http://www.oxfam.org/en/grow/policy/%27our-land-our-lives%27)
Further info:
On Land grabs by Oxfam:
http://policy-practice.oxfam.org.uk/publications/our-land-our-livestime-out-on-the-global-land-rush-246731;
http://sites.tufts.edu/jha/archives/1241
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExCQlobfAUU
By the Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/mar/07/food-waterafrica-land-grab
Opinion piece on the role of EU biofule policy:
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/european-biofuels-policy-isSource: http://www.weeffect.org/files/2012/12/LandGrabbingReport.pdf; feeding-cars-but-starving-people-in-developing-world-1.1633379
Image: http://www.economist.com/node/18648855
Land acquisition
or land grab?
Action for students:
1. Learn the factors which make a land
acquisition a LAND GRAB
2. Discuss the factors prompting the
increase in land grabs shown by this
chart and the role of politics in
ensuring domestic food security at the
expense of food security elsewhere.
As quoted in OXFAM Briefing Note October 2012: http://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/bnland-lives-freeze-041012-en_1.pdf based on
As shown in:
http://www.weeffect.org/files/2012/12/LandGrab
bingReport.pdf
Green or Greed ?
Action for students:
Work with a partner and using the model and information on the previous slides to
write a paragraph which explains how market power and influence is concentrated in
trading, processing and retail and not in small scale farming
1. Divide the class into groups and assign each group one of the articles below. Ask
each group to debate and distil the main points of their article and the slides which
follow in this presentation and prepare a handout sheet for the other groups.
2. What are the issues with current demand trend such as biofuels, meat-based
diets, post-production food waste?
3. Make sure that you note what may be the position / bias of your sources.
•
•
•
•
Socialist Magazine Monthly Review “Globalization of Agribusiness and Developing World Food Systems”
http://monthlyreview.org/2009/09/01/globalization-of-agribusiness-and-developing-world-food-systems
Worldwatch Institute “Agribusinesses consolidate Power” http://www.worldwatch.org/node/5468
FEW Resources.org “Some Issues posed by Market Concentration in Agriculture”
http://www.fewresources.org/market-concentration.html
Etc Group “Who will control the Green Economy?”
http://www.etcgroup.org/sites/www.etcgroup.org/files/publication/pdf_file/ETC_wwctge_4web_Dec2011.p
df
TEACHER RESOURCE
SLIDES
Commodity prices and price volatility
Oil prices superimposed on FAO Food Price Index and Food
Commodity Price Indices. Energy, mostly oil, accounts for
30% of the cost of food.
Source: http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article27857.html; http://www.fao.org/worldfoodsituation/foodpricesindex/en/; http://www.fao.org/worldfoodsituation/wfshome/foodpricesindex/en/; http://www.thepredatorybird.com/window-of-opportunity-a-skaters-journey-from-the-oil-capital-of-europe-to-the-edge-of-a-global-economiccatastrophe-in-five-hilarious-minutes/; http://www.econlib.org/library/Topics/HighSchool/RealvsNominal.html; GHI document
http://www.ifpri.org/sites/default/files/publications/ghi11.pdf
Time dependence of
Food Price Index
Source: http://necsi.edu/research/social/food_crises.pdf
Trading patterns
and protectionist barriers
“When countries with untapped agricultural resources provide food by importing more,
they are effectively importing unemployment. By the same token, countries that are
subsidizing food exports are increasing unemployment in food-importing countries. This
marginalises people, and marginalized people are forced to destroy the resource base to
survive. Shifting production to food-deficit countries and to the resource-poor farmers
within those countries is a way of securing sustainable livelihoods.” (UN Documents, Our Common
Future - http://www.un-documents.net/ocf-05.htm)
Source: UN Documents, Our Common Future - http://www.un-documents.net/ocf-05.htm
Dominant
trading houses
Concentration of power among very few players.
• Four multinationals dominate global trade in agricultural commodities:
Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), Bungo, Cargill and Louis Dreyfus.
• The largest trading houses have net income greater than that of Goldman
Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley combined.
FAO – CFS. The G20 has
introduced an agricultural
markets information
system (http://www.amisoutlook.org/) to increase
transparency in key
commodity markets.
Transparency is about
making information
available. Support for
open trade regimes and R
& D help reduce price
volatility.
Source: G20 Action to curb price volatility: http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2011/jun/23/g20-action-plan-to-curb-food-prices
http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2013/apr/15/ireland-michael-higgins-land-rules-hunger;
Global Corporate Regime for Agriculture: http://www.cidse.org/content/sectors/just-food/food-governance/food-governance.html
Food prices,
speculation and stocks
Price hikes, volatility and distortions are driven by
• Worldwide food speculation with rising levels of
investments
• Fluctuations in the financial markets
• Lacking information on stocks and availability given
secretive and deregulated agricultural commodity
derivatives markets and associated uncertainty and panic
• Profit motive remaining the priority over social, moral,
ethical and ecological considerations.
• Food reserves to limit volatility having been mostly
rejected, though a number of countries are increasing
them or changing their policies otherwise; they tend to rise
after price hikes.
Further info:
• Video on speculation: http://www.weedonline.org/themen/english/5021520.html
• Video: Food commodities speculation and food price crises http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlIQnA99b6M
•
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meetdocs/2009_2014/documents/deve/dv/oxfamspeculationvsfoodsecurity_/oxfamspeculationvsfoodsecurity_en.pd
f
Article on “Market speculation drives starvation” http://www.dw.de/market-speculation-drives-starvation/a-15490895
Source: G20 Action to curb price volatility: http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2011/jun/23/g20-action-plan-to-curb-food-prices
http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2013/apr/15/ireland-michael-higgins-land-rules-hunger;
Global Corporate Regime for Agriculture: http://www.cidse.org/content/sectors/just-food/food-governance/food-governance.html;
http://ase.tufts.edu/gdae/policy_research/resolving_food_crisis.html; Save the Children UK, A High Price to Pay,
http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/resources/online-library/high-price-pay ; http://www.cidse.org/content/sectors/just-food/food-governance/foodgovernance.html
Land grabbing
Extract from The Race for Land of http://www.weeffect.org/files/2012/12/LandGrabbingReport.pdf
Further info: Oxfam “Tell Coke, Pepsi and
Associated British Foods to make sure their sugar
doesn't lead to land grabs.”
http://www.behindthebrands.org/actnow
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