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Food 2025 blog
The Challenge of Global Hunger Today Isn't Production Based, It's Access Based -- Jim Harkness
"There are about a billion people undernourished today, far more than there were 30 years ago. But, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), we produce 17 percent more calories per person today than we did 30 years ago, and far more than enough for everyone on the planet to have plenty to eat," Jim Harkness, president of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy and panelist on our upcoming Global Food Systems Forum.
Harkness spoke in October 2011 at the National Food Policy Conference and shared seven key economic areas that need to be addressed in order to be able to feed nine billion people by 2050.
1. WE HAVE TO ADDRESS GLOBAL POVERTY.
"...one place we might start is by looking at fair prices for farmers and fair wages for farm workers and food industry workers. The International Fund for Agricultural Development calculates that 70 percent of those living in extreme poverty are in rural areas. So, better prices for farmers would help to reduce poverty because agricultural development is the key basis for growth of developing country economies."
2. WE HAVE TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE CRUSHING EFFECT TWO DECADES OF TRADE LIBERALIZATION HAS HAD ON FOOD SECURITY.
"By 2007, over two-thirds of developing countries were dependent on food imports to feed their people. Then in 2007-08, and again last January, global food prices hit record highs, and those countries were priced out of the market. The result was a hundred million more people hungry, food riots and in some cases, revolution."
3. FINANCIAL DEREGULATION HAS CREATED CHAOS IN AGRICULTURE MARKETS.
"In early 2008, we heard that farmers in the Midwest were having trouble getting forward contracts from the local grain elevator. We looked into it, and later that year put out a report showing how a series of deregulatory moves in Congress and in the executive branch opened up commodity futures markets— which include agriculture—to a wave of new speculative money. This money played a role in dramatically driving up prices in 2007-08, and after a massive sell-off, prices collapsed."
4. WE MUST HAVE SERIOUS CLIMATE CHANGE POLICY THAT REDUCES EMISSIONS, AND SUPPORTS CLIMATE-RESILIENT AGRICULTURE.
"In just the last year, we saw nearly 20 percent of the U.S., primarily in the south, under extreme or exceptional drought. In the upper Midwest, torrential spring and early summer rains and flooding along the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers wiped out cropland. At the global level, a severe drought in East Africa threatens the lives of more than 10 million people. Major agriculture producing countries like Russia, China, Brazil and Australia have experienced either extreme drought or widespread flooding in recent years that is affecting global food production."
5. WE NEED TO SUPPORT THE ABILITY OF FOOD INSECURE COUNTRIES TO BUILD—AND, IN MANY CASES REBUILD—THEIR OWN FOOD SYSTEMS.
"If we’re going to address poverty, food production and climate change all at once, we need to rebuild these systems through agro- ecology, an integrated approach that applies ecological principles to agriculture, with an emphasis toward what works for small-scale agriculture."
6. JUST AS WE NEED TO INTEGRATE CLIMATE-RESILIENCE INTO OUR AGRICULTURE SYSTEMS, WE ALSO NEED TO INTEGRATE PUBLIC HEALTH INTO OUR FOOD SYSTEM.
"...just because there is access to calories doesn’t mean there is access to healthy food. In fact, in many parts of the world struggling with food security, including within the U.S., unhealthy food is the most readily available."
7. FINALLY, WE ARE GOING TO NEED A MUCH MORE EFFECTIVE AND DEMOCRATIC SYSTEM OF GLOBAL INSTITUTIONS.
"....feeding the world requires action on a number of pressing global issues: better regulation of trade, investment and financial markets; climate change; and multilateral support to build sustainable food systems in the developing world. Rebuilding a strong, democratic and effective system of international institutions will be essential if we are to build the kind of food system we need, from the local level to globally, by 2050."
Harkness's full remarks are attached below. Please share your thoughts.
2011 10 20 Feeding2050 JH
Food security should be a people's issue, not a women's issue
How does this play into food security? According to research done by the Mary Robinson Foundation - Climate Justice (MRFCJ), food security is a women's issue. In Uganda, men make the money, but women feed the family. It's women who are out plowing the fields, cooking meals for their families, adapting practices to deal with climate change, caring for livestock, and the list goes on.
Watch this video on the MRFJC's work in Uganda.
But food security shouldn't be a women's issue. It should be a people's issue. So how do we include men in the global conversation? Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland and keynote speaker at our Global Food Systems Forum, discusses this important issue in her video below.
Hunger and food justice
We have enough food to feed everyone. We have enough to make each one of us chubby. So why do so many people still experience food insecurity and hunger?
Anuradha Mittal, Executive Director of The Oakland Institute and panelist at California Roots, Global Reach, speaks about hunger and food justice at the 2010 Environmental Land Earth and Water Conference in Eugene Oregon.
Roy Steiner answers questions on development
Roy Steiner, deputy director in the agricultural program at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, answers questions on Africa and development from CNN iReporters.
How do we get better food in our schools?
According to FoodCorps, only 2% of children eat enough fruits and vegetables. Kids in the south suffer from very high rates of obesity. 1 in 3 children born in 2000 are on track to develop type II diabetes and 50% of children of color are expected to develop diabetes during their lifetimes. That's an astounding number.
So how do we fix this? Debra Eschmeyer of FoodCorps (and speaker at California Roots, Global Reach) says we start with the schools.
Watch her video to see how:
