Presidential Address: The Food Crisis
By Conway, Gordon
Annual General Meeting of the Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) 2 June 2008 Today I am going to talk about a crisis that is both topical and reflects a more deep- seated and longerterm problem facing the world.
It is not surprising that there has been enormous unrest surrounding the rising cost of food in developing countries and, indeed, here in the West. In the developing world, food accounts for 50-60% of the budget of poor households. A five-person household living in Bangladesh on the poverty line of $1 a day per person spends its $5 as: $3.00 on food, $0.50 on household energy and $1.50 on nonfoods. Thus, a 50% increase in food and energy prices means there is nothing left over for other expenditures (von Braun 2008).
The question that arises from the increasing prices of maize, rice, wheat and oil over the last two years is whether this is just a temporary blip or whether there really is an underlying longer- term trend (Figure 1) (von Braun 2008).
Elementary economics tells us that if a commodity becomes scarce, is likely to become scarce or is perceived as becoming scarce, prices rise, producers respond by producing more of the commodity and prices then fall. The recent peak was in part a result of adverse weather conditions in 2006 and 2007 (in Australia, the Ukraine and Europe), which meant that cereal production fell. Grain stocks, already low, became lower which worried the global trading markets. The costs of fuel, fertiliser and transport were also rising and so increasing the costs of food production and distribution. In response to the rising prices, several countries imposed export bans, so deepening the crisis.
Yet, as expected, prices eventually began to fall. The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) food price index fell in April 2008. Wheat production for 2008 was forecast to increase by 8% and rice production by 2.3%, although the prospects for the maize crop were not so rosy, partly due to adverse spring weather and the subsequent severe floods in the US Midwest. The Organisation for Economic Co- operation and Development (OECD) and the FAO anticipate that cereal prices will continue to fall before reaching a plateau in approximately five years’ time. But even this forecast is debatable due to the ever-rising price of oil and hence of fertilisers (Figure 2) (IFDC 2008). Already, there are reports of farmers in Africa not applying fertilisers because they cannot afford them.
There are also longer-term trends that influence food prices: rising populations; rising per capita incomes; growing demand for livestock products; growing demand for biofuels; increasing water and land scarcity; the impact of climate change and the slowing of productivity increases.
One of the consequences of the rise in per capita income in the developing countries is that people switch from cereals to livestock products such as milk, cheese, butter, eggs and, in particular, meat. This, in turn, means an increase in the demand for grain for animal feed.
We know that world cereal production is not increasing rapidly enough to meet these demands and one reason is that we are not investing enough in research, especially in recent years and especially in sub-Saharan Africa. Since the 1980s we have assumed that the private sector will fund the agricultural research we need but, inevitably, the private corporations tend to focus on those crops that provide a high return to investment, such as cotton, soya bean, palm oil and maize. They do not focus on many of the basic staple crops that poor people need.
Growth in production of aggregate grains and oilseeds has been slowing from an average of 2.2% in the period 1970-90 to an average of 1.3% since 1990 (Trostle 2008). Part of this is attributable to declining growth in yields, down from an average of 2% between 1970 and 1990 to 1.1% between 1990 and 2007. Most serious has been the long stagnation in cereal yields in sub-Saharan Africa (Figure 3) (FAO FAOSTAT 2006).
Finally, among the serious longer-term trends are growing shortages of water resources and, in the background and likely to come to the foreground, the spectre of climate change. Lack of water and deterioration of the quality of existing water resources (for example through salinisation) are already affecting agricultural production in many countries and this will be exacerbated by climate change.
Global food prices began to drop in May partly because of the lifting of various export bans and partly in response to the forecasts of increased planting and higher yields. But for the reasons listed above it is unlikely that the blip was a one-off event. Such blips may recur and may become worse in their effect. It was significant that the forecast increases in production in the latter part of 2008 were largely based on the responses of the OECD countries and the traditional rice exporters of Asia. There has been little or no response from the small farmers of sub-Saharan Africa and Asia.
So, why do developing countries not respond? There are a variety of reasons, including variable and unreliable markets; lack of inputs; high costs of fertilisers; inappropriate technologies for farmers; poor land tenure; lack of water and poor agricultural extension policy. What is interesting and very challenging is that the barriers to producing more food vary enormously from country to country. You cannot apply the same set of solutions to Ghana as you can Nigeria, or to Malawi as you can Zimbabwe, or to Kenya as you can the Sudan.
For many commentators the solution appears to lie in repeating the success of the Green Revolution that transformed agriculture in Latin America and much of Asia in the 1960s and 1970s. But there are reasons to believe this will not suffice.
The Green Revolution was one of the most successful technologies of the twentieth century. Pioneers such as Norman Borlaug, M.S. Swaminathan and Vo long Xuan achieved a big drop in the real term prices of grain by developing and disseminating new short-strawed varieties of wheat and rice that take up nitrogen to produce high yields in the very large, uniform, highly irrigated lands of places like Java, Luzon, Sonora and the Punjab. There the new farming techniques were relatively easy to implement. The topography and small size of farms in places like Africa make a similar approach so much more difficult and the Green Revolution passed them by.
The result is that today there are approximately 850 million people worldwide chronically undernourished (with approximately 200 million of those in Africa), 180 million children severely underweight for their age, 400 million women of child-bearing age are anaemic, and over 200 million children vitamin A deficient.
A typical 1 ha farm in Africa easily has the potential to produce 2 tonnes of grain per hectare with the varieties of cereal that are available today. But low soil fertility, weeds, pests and drought reduce the yield below the 1 tonne needed to feed the farming family, leaving little or nothing to sell (Figure 4). Families do not have enough to eat and are unable to pay medical or school fees, so furthering a vicious circle of chronic malnourishment, persistent illness and a lack of education.
What is the way forward? In a book published 10 years ago I argued that we needed a ‘Doubly Green Revolution’ that would repeat the success of the Green Revolution on a global scale and in many diverse localities, and yet be equitable, sustainable and environmentally friendly (Conway 1997).
One example in recent years that meets these goals is the development of new hybrid rice varieties for Africa. At the African Rice Center (WARDA) they have used modern tissue culture to successfully cross the Asian rice species (Oryza saliva) with the African species (Oryza glaberrima). These new hybrids, known as the NERICAs, combine the best features of both parents. In the early weeks they are like the African parent: low growing, resistant to pests, diseases and drought. As they grow, they become like the Asian species, producing high yields with little fertiliser: 3 tonnes per hectare or more compared with the 1 tonne of the African parent. Because the NERICAs are not owned by large corporations and because they are self-pollinating they are not patented and the seed can easily be passed from one farm to another. Hence they are available to everyone.
Such technological breakthroughs are crucial, but farmers also need reliable and accessible markets: input markets, small agro- dealers who can sell small amounts of grain and fertiliser, and output markets that enable them to get the best price for their produce.
These are some of the ingredients for success. The combination of new seeds, improved soil fertility, control of pests, disease and weeds with a good price for their products can help even the poorest farmers get out of poverty. However, overhanging this potential for progress is the threat of climate change. Although climate change is a response to global warming, most of the serious consequences involve the availability of water: in some regions greater and more intense rainfall, in others increasing droughts. To this we can add rising sea levels, more intense cyclones, salt water incursions, etc. Water, of course, is the key to agriculture: lack of water and increasing temperatures result in an increase in surface temperature, which in turn leads to increased evapotranspiration and a decrease in crop yield. Although some claim there were no signs of the effects of climate change on the 2008 food price crisis, the Australian drought may have been worse in its effect than previous droughts because global warming increased evapotranspiration (Nicholls 2004; CSIRO 2007).
What happened in Australia can also happen in Africa. The projections produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) indicate that northern and southern Africa will become much hotter (as much as 4[degrees]C or more) and drier (precipitation falling by 15% or more) over the next century (IPCC 2007). This will severely threaten wheat production in the North and maize in the South.
We urgently need technologies to combat drought: new drought- tolerant varieties and breeds; drought-resilient cropping and farming systems; and small-scale sustainable water supplies.
In the Ningxia Autonomous Region of China, farmers are experimenting with many different ways of conserving water, including covering crops with plastic film; new crop varieties; terrace planting; economical irrigation techniques and water cellars.
In Zimbabwe farmers are developing conservation farming techniques that do without ploughing. Instead the stalks of the previous maize crop are left to decompose on the soil surface, the seeds of the next maize crop being sown in small basins made by hoes and containing small quantities of manure or fertiliser. The technology increases soil moisture and prevents erosion. Yields with the new maize hybrids can be 2 tonnes per hectare even in bad drought conditions.
Finally, the ‘Doubly Green Revolution’ is also about diversifying farmers’ livelihoods – cultivating a variety of crops, complementing crops with livestock and aquaculture where appropriate, and building sources of off-farm income that connect them to the rural economy. For the young people getting a decent education will allow them to migrate to nearby market towns, find good jobs and so provide yet another source of income for the family. To get out of poverty, farm families need to be not just more productive but more resilient, able to better cope with the increasing incidence of floods, droughts and other calamities that they will face and are already facing (Conway 2007). It is not an easy challenge and we in the developed world have to do everything we can to help make it happen.
References
Conway C R 1997 The Doubly Green Revolution: food for all in the 21st century Penguin Books, London (Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, 1999) (Producaode Alimentos no Seculo XXI: Biotecnologia e Meio Ambiente, Estacao Liberdade, Sao Paulo, 2003)
Conway G R 2007 Presidential Address: Building resilience The Geographical Journal 173 273-5
Conway C and Toenniessen G 2003 Agriculture. Science for African food security Science 299 1187-8
CSIRO, Australian Bureau of Meteorology 2007 Climate change in Australia: technical report
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations FAOSTAT Average Cereal Yields 2006 (http://faostat.fao.org/) accessed 4 July 2008
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCQ 2007 Climate change 2007 – the physical science basis Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC 847-940
International Center for Soil Fertility and Agricultural Development (IFDQ 2008 IFDC Report 33 1, Alabama, USA (http:// www.ifdc.org/NewLayout/PublicationsCatalog/FreeReports/ March%202008%20English%20Newsletter2.pdf)
Nicholls N 2004 The changing nature of Australian droughts Climatic Change 63 323-36
Trostle R 2008 Global agricultural supply and demand: factors contributing to the recent increase in food commodity prices United States Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service (http:// www.ers.usda.gov/Publications/WRS0801/ WRS0801 .pdf) accessed 4 July 2008
von Braun J 2008 Rising food prices: what should be done? International Food Policy Research Institute Policy Brief, Washington DC (http://www.ifpri.org/pubs/bp/bp001.pdf) accessed 4 July 2008
SIR GORDON CONWAY KCMG FRGS FRS
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