The World and the Food Gap
Michel Morkos Al-Hayat - 08/07/08//
The FAO Director General, Jacques Diouf, announced mid last week that in light of the 2007 rise in food prices, the number of hungry people around the world increased by 50 million, a development deemed out of line with the efforts undertaken by international institutions and advanced governments to shrink their number to half a billion people by 2015. As the food prices have been mounting since last year, more people will fall prey to hunger in 2008 due to the high cost of living, the mounting oil and fuel prices, the global economic recession and the fewer job opportunities available.
The issue is not about the efforts deployed in order to reduce the number of hungry or poor people. All over the world, there are 2.9 billion people who live on $2 a day and are thus deprived of the needed calories. But the problem arises when considering the food and population equation more than four decades later. The world population is expected to reach 9 billion people in 2050 based on the annual increase average of 80 million. If the world currently needs more crops, how can Earth, 40 years from now, provide enough food to an additional three billion people at affordable prices? As a matter of fact, the price of wheat, soya and milk doubled in one year, while the price of corn increased by 50 percent and rice by 25 percent. So how will the situation be in the future?
Through industrial technology and innovation, assisted by UN organizations and agencies, the developed countries focus on two things that can indirectly expand the world economic crisis: the rise of oil prices and basic food commodities needed to provide an acceptable nutritional level to the world's poor, who live below the poverty line, according to the needs of different world communities.
The World Bank, the IMF and FAO top the list of those interested in providing food. Along with these institutions, there are countries and regional groups that spare no effort to reduce the number of hungry people who have increased from 780 million in 1995 to 850 million in 2007.
So far, nature is apparently avenging the civilization's expansion on its account; it produced its own bubble, threatening half of the world population with an increase in their food needs. This is not only due to the shrinking crops, but also to the mounting prices of grain and the rising cost of the factors of production, starting with fertilizers, pesticides and fuel and ending with labor, storage and transportation fees. If satellites count 1.5 billion hectares of cultivated land - equaling only one third of the globe's reserve of cultivable land, then the remaining areas include forests, pastures and urban areas. Only 1.3 billion hectares, most of which of poor soil, can be made available for cultivation in order to make up for the crops shortage and meet the demographic development.
The FAO Director General ascribed the current situation to the neglect of agriculture in developing countries for a long period, now that its share of the official development assistance (ODA) dropped from 17 percent in 1980 to just 3 percent in 2006. In addition, less than 0.6% of the domestic agricultural product is channeled to agricultural research in developing countries compared with more than 5 percent among OECD countries.
In his opinion, to increase agricultural production in developing countries, more private and public investments must be funneled to this sector. The organization estimates the agriculture's annual investment needs at around $24 billion. It includes increasing water management resources, rural roads and storage facilities as well as research and guidance.
Agriculture experts call for assessing the events of the "green revolution" between the 1950s and 1990s, when some governments sought to replace traditional agriculture thanks to the research and development in the agricultural field. The revolution led to an intensive use of pesticides and fertilizers. Traditional agriculture was replaced with three variables: new types were used in agriculture, chemical fertilizers and pesticides were intensively used, let alone the need for water. Water is the most important element, especially that underground water has dropped in light of intensive use and slow regeneration. The world uses 4500 cubic kilometers of water annually with 70 percent consecrated for agriculture, 20 percent for electricity production in particular, and the remaining 10 percent for household use. However, in light of urbanization and civilization expansion more quantities of water will be dedicated for households to the detriment of agriculture, which will hinder the expansion of agricultural area. In addition, the use of pesticides modified the cells of weed and insects and increased their immunity to pesticides. As a result, wheat currently requires ten treatments and cotton twenty.
In a future where money is rare and energy price is on the rise, we must develop an agriculture that is both productive and protective, regenerative of the oceans and environment, with affordable prices. It should be called a "double green revolution" as a professor in France's INRA calls it. In turn the economist Hervé Guyomard says that it has become our duty to invest intensively in agriculture. Others assure that investing $400 per hectare can triple the agricultural production.
When it comes to investing in agriculture, the FAO insists on the need to focus - on the medium and long term - on supporting investment in this sector, from private and public resources, improving the rural infrastructure and allowing small farmers to benefit from the opportunities provided by the market. In parallel, efforts must be exerted to build capacities in order to ensure sustainability in agricultural development.
But will the surplus oil revenues be invested in agriculture? Everyone is looking for solutions and means.
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