In the wake of an unprecedented spike in basic food staple prices alongside a steady growth over the past several years, the world may be facing a new era of higher prices and food insecurity with enormous implications for nations across the African continent and their people.

The shock manifests itself around the globe in individuals’ daily lives – millions are being forced to reduce their consumption to only one meal a day, switch to lower-quality and lower-nutrient foods they can afford, or pursue desperate measures to ensure a source of income steady enough to provide for their families. The World Bank estimates that 100 million individuals around the world could be pushed over the edge into poverty due to the doubling of food prices over the past three years. These pressures and frustrations have sparked riots and general unrest in many parts of the world, including Senegal, Mauritania, Cameroon, and Ivory Coast, whose poor often spend up to 80% of their income on food, often imported.

Over the course of the past year, global food prices increased an average of 43%, with certain staple grain commodities such as wheat and rice facing respective 130% and 74% average increases during that time. Such rises have had a significant impact around the world, especially on the 1 billion individuals around the world living on less than $1 a day and on the 30 nations the United Nations has flagged as food insecure, 22 of which are in Africa.

 These spikes in prices can be explained in part by recent shortfalls of production in food-exporting nations, often due to drought, combined with pressures from rising oil prices – which impact food prices because of oil’s role in cultivation, in the production of inputs such as fertilizers and pesticides, and in shipping and transport. Then, in response to the growing insecurity and price inflation, many important grain-exporting nations increased restrictions onthose exports or took other protective measures such as expanding their stockpiles instead of exporting. Such actions further reduce the supply of grain available on global markets, thuspushing prices up even more.

While such factors account for the spike seen this spring, global food demand has been steadily rising for the past several years with a growing population. Also, increased demand for more resource-intensive food such as meat and dairy products has accompanied growing prosperity, especially in India and China. In addition, the increased demand for biofuels, which are made with agricultural products, has encouraged a shift in production away from food, putting further pressure on global food supplies.

Thus, while prices have been stabilizing and even declining this past month, they are still not expected to return to the levels they were at a couple of years ago. Nor is a stabilization of prices a sign that we should stop being concerned about the vulnerability of the world’s poor; in particular, the food insecurity of many African nations. Instead, many see the recent crisis as a wake-up call to the vulnerabilities in the global food system and to the inability of many nations, especially those that are overly reliant on food and petroleum imports, to protect themselves from or to respond to crises. This vulnerability is due in large part to a historic development paradigm that has underemphasized agriculture and rural development and instead focused on developed nations’ paradoxical promises of global free markets while enforcing global markets whose terms of trade are overwhelmingly in favor of first-world producers.

For example, Mauritania, one of the 22 “food insecure” African nations and one of many , is a nation with only 0.2% of its land arable and relies on imports for 70% of the food it consumes, especially after having scaled back governmental support of agricultural development after the 1980s.  As a result of the price jumps, including 117% increase in cooking oil over the past six months, the Washington Post reports that, “the number of people not getting enough food is up this year by 30% in rural areas.”

With projected increases in fuel prices, food prices, and global population, as well as the environmental pressures on agriculture from climate change, we can expect that the pressures on food security and on millions of livelihoods will not be going away any time soon. Considering the risks for nations and individuals, particularly in Africa, AFJN asks the United States to give these concerns priority and to look critically at the role it has been playing and can play in the future in alleviating those pressures.

First, recognizing that nutrition and food aid is crucial in breaking an individual or family’s cycle of poverty, AFJN calls for increased food aid and support to the most vulnerable populations, those for whom spending more on food means not being able to afford healthcare or a child’s education, or those for whom increased prices mean the difference between eating or going hungry. We also emphasize the importance of a dynamic approach to food aid, an approach that is tailored to local needs and local markets, as well as a wider effort to promote global food security.

It is important that both developed and developing nations around the world recognize the importance of investing in agriculture. Many see incentives and investment opportunities coming from consistently higher prices as a sort of silver lining. However, it is equally important that such an emphasis on improving agricultural output be understood not only in terms of scientific developments such as advanced seed varieties, profitability for agricultural firms, or gross measurements of global output. Instead, it needs a holistic, systematic lens – a lens that gives priority to the impediments farmers in poor rural areas in African nations often face, such as lack of access to affordable seeds and fertilizers or the capital to purchase them, obstacles to market access such as poor infrastructure or poor information, and unequal market structures.

Thus, AFJN calls on the United States to not only support small scale farmers and rural development around the world, but to look critically at the way its own policies discourage important progress in food security. The impetus American energy policy is giving to devoting agricultural land to the production of biofuels is irresponsible: putting upward pressure on food prices and with minimal gain. Subsidies for American farmers and food commodities marketed around the world distort prices and make it impossible for small scale African farmers to compete in African markets. AFJN is very disappointed in the attention Congress gave to the detrimental impact of these domestic subsidies in its recent passing of the 2007 Farm Bill. While American policy requiring food aid to be purchased exclusively from American producers is slowly changing, more effort can be made to ensure that U.S. food aid works with efforts to develop local markets and to move toward local food self-sufficiency.

Finally, AFJN hopes Congress will strongly consider these concerns as it continues its work on the FY 2009 national budget. AFJN also hopes the United States will answer the call of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations to action and work as a global partner with other nations of the world at the World Food Security summit in Rome, June 3-5.

-FAO Report and Summit
-Washington Post series
-New York Times series
-Oxfam America
-Bread for the World