The Economist
January 27, 2011
Like national defence, securing food supplies usually counts as a core task of government. Hence, as prices surge, food security is rising to the top of the political agenda. Or so it sounds.
On January 24th the British government's chief scientific officer said that "the case for urgent action in the global food system is now compelling." He was presenting a report from hundreds of scientists that concluded with "a stark warning for both current and future decision-makers on the consequences of inaction-food production and the food system must assume a much higher priority in political agendas across the world."
Politicians say they are listening. "If we don't do anything," France's president Nicolas Sarkozy said on the same day, "we run the risk of food riots in the poorest countries and a very unfavourable effect on global economic growth."
Companies are attentive, too. At the Davos gathering of the self-proclaimed great and good a few days later, a score of firms, including seed companies, food processors and grain traders proclaimed: "The world needs a new vision for agriculture." They promised to work with farmers and governments to boost farm output, cut emissions and reduce rural poverty, all (in an amazing coincidence) by 20% each decade. Amid this sense of renewed urgency, though, lurks fear: that politicians will prove as fickle about food today as they have been in the past.
The first people to say that feeding the world deserved more attention were not politicians, scientists or business people. They were aid workers from the Gates Foundation, a charity originally set up to focus on health. It started paying for agricultural research in 2006, long before food prices leapt. "We realised you couldn't do health without doing something about hunger and poverty," says the foundation's Prabhu Pingali. "And you couldn't do something about hunger and poverty without agriculture." Since then, the foundation has given $1.4 billion of grants to third-world farmers; its programme is now comparable to America's.
In 2009, in response to soaring prices, food riots and disruption to world trade, rich governments also began to worry about agriculture, and promised to do something about its problems. "To the people of poor nations," said Barack Obama in his inauguration speech in January that year, "we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish." In November 2010 he set up a bureau of food security in the government's main aid agency, US-AID, to provide money and give clout to the promise.
America bullied other countries into following suit. At a summit meeting in Italy in 2009, the eight richest nations promised $20 billion over three years for food security and agricultural development. That led, after yet another summit, of the G20 (the world's largest economies) in Pittsburgh, to something called the Global Agriculture and Food Security Programme (GAFSP), formally set up in April 2010. Donors pledged $900m, more than half of it from America. These promises embodied the claim that rich countries are pushing for a second Green revolution and are determined to combat global hunger.
Now that claim is being put to the test. After rising through the second half of 2010, food prices-as measured by The Economist's own food index-surpassed the 2008 peak this week. But so far, the world's leaders have been found wanting.
In November, 20 poor countries submitted their requests to GAFSP for projects worth $1 billion. Only three got anything. That was unsurprising. Roger Thurow of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, a think-tank, notes that GAFSP is "already gasping". America has handed over only $67m of its promised $475m. Congress has whittled down the president's budget request for a further $400m to $100m. An accompanying piece of legislation to help switch US-AID's efforts from emergency aid to long-term investment seems to have been torpedoed. Two dozen aid agencies recently warned Mr Obama of a "strong risk" that GAFSP would cease to exist.
Other countries are reneging too. Less than one-third of the promised $20 billion for agriculture turns out to be new money. Much of that has not arrived. A big cause of food-price rises is trade bans by exporters. The G20 has asked the Russian government to study how to block these. But Russia is one of the chief culprits: Foxes Inc regulating hencoop security.
It is hardly surprising that scientists and business people are raising the alarm about feeding the world. "I'd like to say agriculture is at the top of the agenda," says Dan Glickman, also of the Chicago council and a former American agriculture secretary. "But I don't believe it. What's needed is sustained leadership from governments, NGOs and the private sector. I see it from [Bill] Gates and some companies. But the big resources have to come from governments, and that's much harder now."
