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State Department’s document on hunger and food security:
Some hits, some misses
Daryll E. Ray, APAC
Since the food crisis of 2008, the international community has revived the debate on food security, including increased multilateral conferences and declarations of intent. Of the countries most involved in the fight against world hunger, the United States are at the top. On 22 April, Tomothy Geithner Secretary of the U.S. Treasury announced a "comprehensive program for agricultural and food security", with an initial amount of $900 million in partnership with Canada , Spain, South Korea and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. This initiative is currently the only one to be implemented following the promises made during the G8 Summit in Aquila (Italy) in 2009, which sought to raise 22 billion dollars to combat food insecurity.
Whilst this engagement must be congratulated, many questions remain, particularly regarding the use of such funds: combating world hunger is commendable, but the question is how... In particular, the framework document that defines the common thread of the United State’s strategy towards world hunger raises a number of issues. As noted by APAC President Daryll E. Ray in an article entitled "State Department's Document on hunger and food security: some hits, some misses” (May 2010), the priorities listed by the U.S. government in its fight against hunger are indeed questionable: while hunger in the world affects mainly small farmers in poor countries, the U.S. administration intends to focus its efforts on private sector investment, including major agro-food companies - even if it means reducing state intervention in agricultural markets, which "discourages private investment"... But in the fight against hunger, are we sure this is the right direction?
Here are some excerpts from the article by Daryll E. Ray, which analyses the US administration’s framework document in light of these issues.
Momagri Editorial Department
State Department’s document on hunger and food security:
Some hits, some misses
As a part of the change from one administration to another and in response to the 2008 food price crisis which led to an increase in the number of hungry in the world to over 1.1 billion people, the US State Department followed up on the commitment made at the G-8 Summit in L’Aquila to raise “more than $20 billion to support a renewed global effort” to reduce world hunger by developing a consultation document called “Global Hunger and Food Security Initiative”.
The document recognizes that “chronic hunger and under-nutrition primarily results from poverty—people who are poor often simply cannot afford to buy food. Hungry families spend over half their income to buy the food they need to survive, with little to fall back on.” But before looking at local food production issues, public agricultural research, reduction of post-harvest loss, role of women, and sustainability, the flow of the argument quickly shifts to trade: “Food often cannot travel from surplus to deficit regions within and across countries because of poor roads and barriers at the border and checkpoints along the way.”
No one is arguing that moving food from food surplus regions to food deficit regions is not a good idea. It is, but first things first. It all begins with small holder farmers producing sufficient food to feed their families. Marketing of food surpluses comes next. On these issue, the State Department document comes up short. In some sense the document provides a 30,000 feet view of US intentions without the kind of specificity on the producer side that is likely to result in increased production in the target countries.
Instead of looking at small holder systems with minimal access to capital the document says, “We will work with partners to develop private input industries, organize private dealer networks, expand sustainable irrigation and water management, and strengthen farmer organizations.” Later on we read, “Agribusinesses are a crucial connection between small-scale producers and markets to purchase inputs and sell products. They are the link between producers and consumers through which handling, storage, processing, market information, transportation, and product distribution services are delivered.”
A later bulleted point reads: “Create an enabling policy environment for agribusiness growth. Frequent and unpredictable public intervention in the agricultural sector deters private investment and limits the ability of farmers and businesses to access capital. Companies function best when regulations are transparent, mechanisms exist to enforce contracts, and policies are predictable. The U.S. will contribute to strengthening enabling policy environments for growth by improving the ability of governments to collect and analyze market information, training private sector trade associations in how to engage local and national governments, [and] pressing for reductions in government controls on commodity prices.”
While the document is strong on the needs of developing and protecting agribusinesses, it says little about protecting developing country farmers’ traditional access to both agricultural land and pastoral lands—the latter often is seen as empty because the pastoralists only use the land on a seasonal basis. Without stable access to their traditional lands, farmers and pastoralists are often displaced by large foreign owned enterprises that have the capital necessary to produce products for export markets.
(…)
We hope that in the revision of this document, the US State Department will provide additional focus on the circumstances, skills, and needs of small holder agriculturalists and pastoralists, recognizing that the characteristics of agriculture are different from those of the manufacturing and service sectors.
Also, food reserves are not mentioned. It is extremely important to do all that can be done to increase the productivity of small-holder farmers. But the irregular rains and other disruptions to production will still occur. To us that would suggest that the creation of grain/staples reserve programs should be right up there with efforts to enhance farmer-productivity and probably precede implementation of many of the other programs.
Daryll E. Ray holds the Blasingame Chair of Excellence in Agricultural Policy, Institute of Agriculture, University of Tennessee, and is the Director of UT’s Agricultural Policy Analysis Center (APAC). (865) 974-7407; Fax: (865) 974-7298; dray@utk.edu; http://www.agpolicy.org. Daryll Ray’s column is written with the research and assistance of Harwood D. Schaffer, Research Associate with APAC.
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