Global Policy Forum

In November 2006, world cereal prices reached their highest level in 10 years, according to UN Food and Agriculture Organization's (FAO) December 2006 Food Outlook. As a result of the higher prices, the FAO predicts that in 2006 developing countries will spend 5 percent more on food imports than they did in 2005. Along with poor harvest, the price increases stem from a fast growing demand for biofuel that diverts crops away from food purposes. (Hindu Business Line)

The number of hungry across the world continues to increase, reports UN News. UN's Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Jean Ziegler blames the rising hunger levels on degraded lands, "massive underfunding" of UN feeding programs, and EU and US agricultural subsidizing and dumping. With 80 percent of the world's hungry living in the countryside, governments and UN agencies must invest in small-scale agriculture and irrigation, Ziegler argues. He further highlights that people must have "access to justice" when their right to food is violated, and recommends that "Israel be held responsible under international law" for the extensive damage that its bombings did to Lebanese livelihoods.

The UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Jean Ziegler, strongly criticizes Europe's policy towards Africa. Ziegler highlights the obvious, but vastly ignored, connection between EU agricultural subsidies and the large flow of African migrants to Europe. While Europe destroys African agriculture by dumping subsidized food, Europeans want their borders closed to poverty-stricken Africans and respond with security measures to a problem which is in fact about "hunger refugees." Ziegler calls for a halt to the "deadly dumping." (AlertNet)

In this Seattle Post-Intelligencer article, agricultural development specialist Peter Rosset criticizes the Gates and Rockefeller Foundations' US $150 million initiative to bring a "new" green revolution to Africa. Rosset finds that an "apparent naiveté about the causes of hunger" has led the Gateses to invest in technology packages that will likely only benefit seed and fertilizer industries, have "negligible impacts" on total food production and worsen countryside marginalization. Rosset holds much higher hopes for the "Food Sovereignty" approach focusing on ending "free trade extremism," improving land access for the poor, and increasing support for family farmers and ecological farming methods.

This article reports on how Nestlé – a major producer of chocolate and sweets – took over Jenny Craig – a producer of weight-loss products. In a similar move, Unilever – another major food producer – bought both Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream and Slim Fast in 2000. These major food producers do not only make money by steering consumption towards processed, low nutrition value foods that cause obesity. They also make money from their customer's attempts to battle obesity. (Associated Press)

This Food First list provides a critique of traditional hunger alleviation including US aid, the free market, and population control. The points demonstrate the misconceptions that limit the effectiveness of hunger relief. The article suggests that by recognizing these faults, individuals and agencies can better identify ways to address underlying causes of hunger.

850 million people suffer from chronic hunger and five to six million have lost the capacity to produce or buy enough food, even under normal weather and market conditions. As most poor countries actually produce enough food to feed all of their people, Inter Press Service sees unequal distribution and limited physical and economic access to food as the main causes of famines. Furthermore, man-made crises, such as wars, have more than doubled the number of famines since 1992.

In this article, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) make clear that, thanks to highly developed early warning systems, rich governments can prevent most famines. However, donor countries seldom prioritize "preventability" and hesitate to give money until the press shows pictures of ongoing humanitarian crises. Inter Press Service also points out differencing opinions between the FAO and the WFP on the impact of direct food shipments to starving people.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) penalized the European Union for banning genetically modified (GM) food imports between 1999 and 2003. The penalties will please the highly subsidized US food corporations, while discouraging resistance to GM food imports all over the world. (Guardian)

This BBC article looks at the main factors causing Africa's continuous struggle for agricultural self sufficiency. Decades of underinvestment in rural areas, hundreds of armed conflicts, HIV and high fertility rates turned Africa from a net food-exporter in the 50s into a continent dependent on foreign aid and food imports. Furthermore, many rich countries destroy local agricultural markets with subsidized food exports while abusing aid for their own corporate interests.

This article likens the international emergency relief system to a "lottery" where media coverage decides which countries receive aid. Furthermore, donor governments' tie their decreasing contributions to their economic and political interests. Africa Renewal calls for a more predictable and fair distribution of aid funds and urges governments to support initiatives like the United Nation's Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF). In addition, the article clarifies the controversy between food-shipments and locally bought food.

The author of this article charges that the "western powers" are responsible for the famine crisis in Niger. In recent years, neoliberal policies of the International Monetary Fund have contributed to famine in several areas of Africa, most recently in Niger. Surprisingly (or not), one IMF-imposed condition required that countries receiving aid sell off their grain reserves. (Kilombo)

After two decades of uncompromising liberalization, transnational corporations now drive the global food system. Corporations' "tremendous political and economic power" created and worsened soil erosion, air and water pollution, pesticide residues and the inhumane treatment of animals. In addition, transnational corporations often influence governments' positions on agricultural and food issues. This publication calls for farmers, workers, consumers and environmental activists to "create a united response to corporate power." (Center of Concern)

A recent study published by the International Food Policy Research Institute says that Africa will not meet the Millennium Development Goals by 2015. In the last three decades, the food shortage has substantially worsened and the debt burden still obstructs funding for productive investments in development in Africa." The upcoming UN summit in September should represent an opportunity to review this strategy. (Inter Press Service)

The Duke of Marlborough, a British aristocrat, receives over half a million pounds sterling in agricultural subsidies for his Blenheim estate near Oxford. At the same time, desperate Indian peasants, overwhelmed by subsidized imports and free-market reforms, commit suicide in large numbers. Rahul Rao, an Oxford-based scholar, connects Blenheim with his home city of Bangalore in India, showing a global web of institutions, policies and responsibilities that simultaneously creates wealth and destitution.

The EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) has distorted trade for decades. The sugar industry illustrates the injustice of this policy all too clearly. While the EU guarantees its sugar farmers a price that is over three times the world market price, African sugar producers struggle in vain to compete in an unfair market. These subsidies, paid for by European taxpayers, mean the security of a way of life in the North, but cost millions of African jobs, causing increased poverty and malnutrition. (Independent)

This article from the New Statesman examines the global effects of agricultural subsidies. Although fair trade is growing, consumers "remain fixated by price, whatever the consequences." These subsidies allow rich nations to keep their agricultural goods artificially low, and thus African producers, unable to compete, are doomed to fail. Fields lie barren and unused, next to piles of US rice—food aid for farmers that rich countries have subsidized out of a job.

Advocates of free trade have long pushed for the liberalization and acceleration of the global food trade. Bodies like the World Trade Organization (WTO) treat agricultural goods like any other consumer good. But as the number of hungry people in the world grows, critics are raising questions about who benefits from liberalizing the food trade. Transnational corporations (TNCs) like Cargill, Archer Daniels Midland, and Monsanto have profited tremendously from the food trade, while rural farmers and the global poor suffer the consequences. (Center Focus)

According to a new report from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), real prices of most farm products have fallen and the long-term forecasts do not look encouraging. While the lower price gives many urban consumers access to a more nutritious diet, it hurts billions of people who derive their livelihoods from agriculture, especially in poor countries that depend on a single commodity. (UN News)

This report from ActionAid shows how trade liberalization concentrates power over the global food market into fewer hands. Five companies now control 90 % of the world's grain trade and one company, Monsanto, manages 91 % of the global genetically modified seed market. Market concentration drives down prices for staple goods like wheat, coffee and tea, hurting farmers and small producers in poor countries.