GLOBAL ECONOMY
What is food security?
The World Food Summit in October, 1996 has defined food security as “Food security exist when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy lifestyle” (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2001, p. 4) and this definition has been kept within the aspects of food security such as the availability of staple foods, stability of suppliers and access for all to the supplies (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2001).
People started relying less on subsistence farming as commercial and industrial development had steadily changed its susceptibility in developed countries after the 19th century where war, famine, and epidemics that were always correlated with fluctuations in food production that was linked to population fluctuations (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2001).
Hunger remains the number one threat for heath and most of the world’s hunger comes from developing and less developed countries globally. There are 1.02 billion undernourished people in the world today (World Food Programme, 2009).
Today, hunger eradication depends on family planners as much as farmers since land productivity has slowed by half ever since 1990 because, even though the world’s population growth has slowed over the past three decades, there is still an additional 76 million people per year suffering from food insecurity (Brown R. L., 2005).
Food insecurity on the other hand, is defined by FAO as “a term applied when people live with hunger and fear of starvation’ (Alweendo, 2009).
The cause of food insecurity
Rising food prices
Food is no longer cheap as it was in the past and it is not only the present times where the world’s economy is facing food crisis which has always been seen with an obvious rise in food prices and this is directly and indirectly affecting the agriculture in many different ways (Sumanjeet, 2009).
While food price dropped in the more developed countries ever since the financial crisis, it has raised in developing countries and combined with the decrease in the level of income, it has caused a surge in people facing starvation (Pearlman, 2009) as people living in poverty in the less developed countries spends 50 to 70 percent of their income on food (World Food Programme, 2009).
Market speculation is another factor being held responsible for the recent jump in global food crisis and as the head of United Nation Environment Program has said, “The way that the markets and suppliers are currently being influenced by perceptions of future market is distorting the access to that food” (Sumanjeet, 2009). Sumanjeet also stated that with recent collapse in the USA and Britain’s stock market, speculations had shifted to the commodity markets and the global food market is particularly vulnerable seeing that recent food prices are inflected by its future prices.
Climate change
In a research conducted in 2005, it was reported that even a slight change in climate could affect the production of crops. For example, the slightest change of one degree Celsius in temperature could reduce the grain yields by 10 percent and this means the change in climate is now affecting the crops’ production directly (Brown R. L., 2005).
Accessing the food harvest was once rather straightforward as it was largely a matter of harvesting and extrapolating with minor adjustments. However, it has all recently changed in the recent years and is no longer only slowing or accelerating of trends but in certain cases, the direction is reversing (Brown L. R., 2005).
In some geographical regions, grain harvesting and fish catching that were once rising ubiquitously is now slowing down and shrinking in key food-producing areas as we have entered an era of discontinuity on the food front whereby making a reliable projection is even more difficult due to over-plowing and over-grazing (Brown L. R., 2005).
According to The Star, in the news today, sea species such as the jellyfish is heading north towards Japan due to global warming and is threatening the fishermen’s source of revenue and lives and this year’s swarm had been the worst. These marine intruders measuring up to 6 feet in diameters could ruin up to a day’s catch of 100,000 fishes by tainting or killing fishes when they are caught in the same net. Such increase in jellyfish is a warning sign of how unhealthy and stressed our oceans really are (The Star Online, 2009).
Global water crisis
Water security has been described as the “sustainability access to adequate quantities of water, of acceptable quality, for human and environmental uses, on a watershed basis” (Bakker, 2007).
Livestock farmers need to ensure that they have water sustainability as a key pre-requisite to a farm as it addresses their animals’ and crops’ welfare, health and performance (Manning, 2008).
Overuse of water resources is an increasing concern as poor management of water resources in some countries are leading to increased competition for water resources, hence reduced flows in rivers and lakes and this factors will impact the livestock and crops management and production (Manning, 2008).
An article by Alweendo, 2009 has confirmed that floods in Namibia are a threat to food security. Drought in the area has made farmers vulnerable in 2007 and floods in 2008 have made the situation worse.
The consequences of food insecurity
Household food security is an issue of importance to the people worldwide who are suffering from constant hunger and malnutrition and to those who are at risk in the future, including the upcoming generations (Braun, 1992).
Malnutrition and hunger
“Malnutrition is the largest single contributor to disease” (World Food Programme, 2009) and according to Guha-Khasnobis, Acharya, and Davis, 2008, inadequate calorie consumption, protein deficiency, poor dietary quality, insufficient consumptions of protein and micronutrients are among the many forms of malnutrition being suffered by over 30 percent of the world’s population. Guha-Khasnobis, Acharya, and Davis, 2008 also said that in developing countries, approximately 840 million people are undernourished or constantly food insecure while as many as 2.8 million children and 300,000 women dies needlessly every year because of malnutrition and this is particularly severe in countries such as Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
All estimates concludes that South Asia, particularly India and Bangladesh contributes to a great proportion of the developing world’s food insecure problem, followed by East Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa (Braun, 1992)
In 2006, Nigeria is still faced with the problem of associating their food supply with the ever increasing demand for it even after four decades of attaining their independence and due to economic recession, malnutrition and household food security are related human welfare problems that heightened (Lawal & Jibowo, 2006).
Children and pregnant women
As reported by UNICEF in 2008, it was revealed that the world’s poorest and most vulnerable children, especially from Africa and Asia are being hit hardest by climate change which leads to increased hunger and childhood diseases (UNICEF UK, 2008) and everyday, 14,000 children dies of hunger related causes (World Food Programme, 2009).
A poor dietary system together with infectious disease would cause a stunt in a child’s growth and physiological damage to the immune system, clinical conditions such as anemia which leads to impaired development and death (Iram & Butt, 2006). This would eventually result with baby girls who become mothers in the future who in turn have low birth weight and due to poor nutrition in the womb as some 30 million infants are born each year in developing countries with impaired growth (Iram & Butt, 2006).
Achieving food security
Food security is considered a primary responsibility of the state in all Asian countries while policies and programs of the states plays a key role, there is also an increasing awareness in meeting its objectives on the role of domestic and international markets as well as the civil society institutions (V. S. Vyas, Academic Foundation (New Delhi, India), Asian Development Research Forum (Bangkok, Thailand), Samnakngan Ko?ngthun Sanapsanun Kanwichai, International Development Research Centre (Canada), 2005).
Food security of the poorest nations calls for intergovernmental and inter-agency cooperation and one international agency in particular, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United States (FAO) has the ability to provide the needed leadership and coordination mechanisms as they have the unique access to the up to date information on the state of food and agriculture around the world and are able to predict where climatic, political and other commotion might lead to local and regional food security (Hulse & National Research Council Canada, 1995).
Existing food security monitoring systems
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), 2001, most existing food security monitoring systems are used around four main pillars which includes agriculture production monitoring, the market information system, the social monitoring of the most helpless populations or monitoring of vulnerable groups and the food and nutirional surveillance systems.
Agriculture production monitoring is usually combined with monitoring the products of livestock farming and is often focused on cereal crops, animal production and/or grazing established by the statistical services of the ministry of agriculture by monitoring rainfed crops based on techniques such as climatic and meteorological analysis, agriculture field studies for harvest forecasting and satelite image processing (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2001).
Data collection to supply information on the types of commodities examined, transmission and processing of data by telephone, fax, emails and dissemination of prices and availability of quantities and qualities must be carried out by Marketing Information System (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2001).
Monitoring vulnerable groups includes monitoring the three types of food security which includes chromic food insecurity which affects individuals or groups who consumes less than the minimum needed over a period of time, cyclic food insecurity which affect farmers and transitory food insecurity that affects urban dwellers who depends on highly unstable markets (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2001).
As for the food and nutrition surveillance system, the food and health relationship has an effect on the nutritional status of each individual. In general, there are five major sources for monitoring the health and nutrition data and this consist of adminitrative services which collects qualitative and quantitative data, random sample surveys which can add additional information to existing surveys for different purposes, precise study and research on health and welfare, community monitoring systems which data is usually collected and processed several times a year by health officials and international databases which uses the FAO’s access of the food situation and WHO’s Global Database on Child Growth (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2001).
Forecasting
Forecasting could also be used as “it is the foundation of all warning systems” and is sometimes used by the organizations and firms who are responsible of monitoring the information and other bodies who are also gathering information on food security and it has to be applied to the areas of food security which includes the availability, stability, access and biological utilization (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2001).
Fighting hunger
Besides agriculture monitoring, organizations such as World Food Programme (WFP) works hand in hand with other governments an non-profit organization was set up back in 1962 as the United Nation’s frontline agency in the fight against hunger and is continually responding to emergencies and preventing hunger in the future (World Food Programme, 2009).
According to the World Food Programme’s website, their strategic plan comes with five objectives and it includes saving lives and protecting livelihoods in emergencies, preparing for emergencies, restoring and rebuilding lives after emergencies, reducing chronic hunger and undernutriton everywhere and strenghtening the capacity of countries to reduce hunger and is geared towards achieving them.
WFP announced on 16 October 2009 that this year, they have aimed to provide food to 108 million people in 74 countries in the world and even given their aim, they could only reach approximately 10 percent of those who are in need globally (World Food Programme, 2009).
Malaysia’s agriculture has been through much change since the 1950s and had evolved a good deal in the past few decades. The Malaysian government had carried out an approach to overcome the problem of small farm size by grouping small farms into mini-estates to attain economies of scale for better management and production sustainability. “Overall, the government’s policies on sustainable agriculture development have been compatible with other policies, particularly improving living standards of the rural poor and small farmers”. (Agro-chemicals News in Brief, 1999).
On the other hand, the role of government in Pakistan, as in many other countries has been rather extensive as they have had certain explicit goals for the agriculture sector which comprises of agriculture pricing and marketing policies, whilst economic policies includes trade and commercial policies with goals that consist of “obtaining a high agriculture growth rate, increasing productivity of a sector, pursuing an export oriented strategy, conserving and developing the natural resources, promoting institutional development, bringing social and economic equity to the agrarian structure, and focusing on small farmers and rain-fed area development” (Carey & Farugee, 1995).
Another independent agency that provides economic, development and humanitarian assistance around the world in support of the foreign policy goals of the United States is the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). To date, the United States has been the world’s largest food aid donor in providing and in response to the food crisis, the United States’ Government has committed over US$5.5 billion for 2008 and 2009 to fight hunger globally and US$4.75 billion of these funds were programmed by USAID to provide immediate and expanded humanitarian response, invest in staple food production for vulnerable state, supporting trade liberalization to reduce price volatility and increase availability and use of advanced agricultural technologies (USAID, 2009).
Connecting farmers
Purchase for Progress (P4P), a project by the World Food Programme (WFP) is purchasing food in bulks from developing countries where they have operations, straps up their purchasing power to help poor farmers to connect with the market so that they will be able to get a good price for their produce for the reason that when farmers are able to secure a buyer and sell their produce, they will be able to grow more for the future (World Food Programme, 2009).
According to World Food Program, “P4P relies on a collective effort by governments, international agencies, the private sector and others key players. Partners specialized in enhancing agricultural productivity will help small-scale farmers to produce more food than their families need.”
Online campaigns
In Rome, The FAO has recently launched an online campaign, www. 1billionhungry.org, which calls upon the world to go on a ‘hunger strike against hunger’ to show solidarity for those who do not have enough to eat everyday with a petition to end hunger. It has options to allow Internet users from all over the world to promote the ‘end hunger petition’ through emails and various social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Youtube (1billionhungry, 2009).
The United Nation’s World Food Programme on the other hand has launched a ‘Billion for a Billion’ campaign, www.wfp.org/1billion which is trying raise awareness and to gather one billion internet users to help eradicate world hunger (World Food Programme, 2009).
In the near future
40 years from today, there would be another 2.5 billion mouths to feed globally, where most of these people derive from developing countries such as Africa, South America and Asia. The crops production will have to double in quantity in order to feed the world’s growing population unless we are able to cut down on food wastage and reduce the water consumption. (Varma, 2009).
According to the World Food Programme’s Billion for a Billion campaign, for every 250,000,000 emails sent globally, there are 20 children who have died of hunger. In order for the food security to at least maintain the way it is at present, in the future, everything would have to be double of what is used today and is will not be sustainable (Varma, 2009).
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