With the Spice Girls back together, temporarily we must hope, for the closing ceremony of the Olympic Games, David Cameron could have been forgiven for making the most of the public’s desire to celebrate the success of the Olympics. Instead he risked being the party pooper, by convening a summit in Downing Street about hunger with Vice President Michel Temer of Brazil.
I was delighted to learn yesterday that Tufts University’s Global Development And Environment Institute, will award its 2012 Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought to Michael Lipton of Sussex University and to world-renowned agricultural expert and CGD Non-Resident Fellow Peter Timmer. This year's award, titled "The Global Food
This post is co-authored by Vijaya Ramachandran
Last week, the G-20 agriculture ministers meeting in Paris issued a communiqué calling for the World Food Programme to develop hedging strategies to purchase food. In a little-noticed section towards the end of a 24-page document, the ministers stated:
We invite the multilateral, regional and national development banks or agencies to further explore, in connection with the private sector as appropriate:
Development of hedging strategies that could help international humanitarian agencies, in particular WFP, to optimize food procurements and maximize the purchasing power of financial resources, building upon forward purchase… (Annex 5)
The Partnership to Cut Hunger and Poverty in Africa held an event on Capitol Hill on Friday to launch an excellent report by Stephanie Mercier, a former Senate Ag Committee staffer. I had the pleasure of serving as a discussant. Though the report title focuses on food aid and the next farm bill, the report also covers the evolution of U.S. food aid and the modest but important improvements that were made in the 2008 farm bill.
This is a joint post with Vijaya Ramachandran.
The UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) recently reported that the December 2010 Food Price Index surpassed the peak reached in June 2008. A closer examination of the data, however, provides some modest hope that the worst effects of the 2007-08 price spikes can be avoided, with luck and better policies.
First, it is important to note that only two of the five components of the Food Price Index were above 2008 levels—meat (slightly above) and sugar (more than twice as high). Second, as shown in the chart below, staple grain prices, which are key to preventing hunger among the poor, are increasing sharply, while rice and, to a lesser degree, wheat remain well below their 2008 peaks. Maize is the exception, thanks in part to U.S. policies supporting corn-based ethanol that bring to mind the zombies populating popular culture—they just won’t die!
Over 7 million people are expected to face severe food shortages in Niger over the next few months. When I was there in early June, many villages in the far east of the country had not yet received rain, there had been an exodus of young men to Nigeria, Benin and Libya, and women were searching for the bitter green berry – known as dilo – to cook and eat, a last resort for those who have nothing.
The World Food Programme feeds almost 100 million people around the world. It has a world class logistical capability but its financial risk management capacity is extremely limited. In a new paper coauthored with Benjamin Leo and Owen McCarthy, I argue that the World Food Programme must be empowered to actively manage price risk, using financial markets to feed more people in a timely manner.
Feeding three billion additional people over the next four decades and improving food security for one billion people who are currently hungry or malnourished—all in an era of worsening land and water scarcity, climate change, and declining crop yields—is a dire challenge. Meeting it will require a giant leap in agricultural innovation in developing countries, similar to the 1960s Green Revolution. You can help to design the solution.
This is a joint posting with Owen McCarthy and Julia Barmeier
The events in Haiti have demonstrated the reactive nature of emergency response—specifically the myriad of appeals for funding for food, medicines and basic supplies. While these initiatives can produce positive results for the disaster victims, they are often encumbered by long delays, which mean that people stay hungry and sick for days, weeks or even months. The United Nations says that it is currently feeding 4,000 people, and hopes to feed 2 million people within a month.
Last week, the leaders of the Group of 8 pledged 20 billion dollars in agricultural aid, with the purpose of boosting agricultural productivity -- especially in Africa. But will $20 billion over a three-year period help to feed many of the 1.02 billion people on earth who suffer from food insecurity?