Last June, before thecurrent financial crisis, world leaders met in Rome to address the foodcrisis. Severe shortages and highprices resulted in commitments for greater investment in agriculturalproductivity.
Manyparts of sub-Saharan Africa have been hit hard by the food crisis, but now,solutions to the problem may be affected by the current global financialturmoil. Among the groups following the situation is IFPRI, the InternationalFood Policy Research Institute. Todd Benson is the head of the institute'sUganda Strategy Support Program. From Kampala, he spoke to VOA English toAfrica Service reporter Joe De Capua about food security issues on the continent.
"It'sa very heterogeneous continent, as you're aware. And Uganda is probably one ofthe more optimistic places to be based here in Africa. This is a food basket.It looks like the rains are good. The food is still flowing. That said, westill have plenty of people that really are having a lot of trouble getting thefood they need, particularly Karamoja (in northeastern Uganda). But outside ofUganda, in the region, places like Kenya, that's just being faced with a wholeseries of problems with their food security linked to the post-electionviolence, to some bad cropping conditions. And where do you go to when you havea food deficit? You certainly want to look at the international markets. Sothis financial meltdown is going to cause all sorts of problems clearly," hesays.
Askedwhether the economic crisis has had any immediate effects on the foodsituation, Benson says, "From the financial crisis, no, not yet? We are warnedit will be a couple of weeks, couple of months, before we start seeing theeffects, as the reduced demand in the developed world translates into reduceddemand for the products of the developing world, like Uganda. So, this may be aslow onset sort of crisis in terms of the food insecurity."
Manyplans were proposed at June's food summit, but had many actually been put inplace before the financial crisis hit? Benson says, "No, but that's in partbecause?sort of the short term responses that you can make to the food crisisreally have to do with increasing agricultural production. I mean in asustainable way, that's the response you want to see. And that depends on thecropping cycle. And we just haven't had enough time since June to see anyenhanced production due to increased use of inputs (such as fertilizers) orincreased farmer response to the higher prices even."
IFPRIhas made a number recommendations "to address the current food crisis andimprove long-term functioning of the world food system." The first isProductivity and Research. "Working to enhance productivity. If Africa'sagricultural productivity remains quite stagnant, if we're just gettingsubsistence level production out of our field, it's unlikely that we're evergoing to see sustainable increases in agricultural production that will meetgrowing needs for food by the rising population, as well as to enable some sortof economic growth to come out of that. So we really need to see at theindividual farmer field?ideally doubling the amount of grain or bananas orwhatever the crop may be out of the same plot of land. That really isfundamental," says Benson.
Thesecond recommendation is Nutrition and Social Protection. "The people who aremost at risk, who bear the greatest brunt of the long term effects of anyhunger, any malnutrition, are your most vulnerable people in the population.So, your young children and their mothers?need to be in good health, goodnutrition, in order that the child is born and can grow up with the fullpotential," he says.
Finally,IFPRI emphasizes Market and Trade. "That is very important to come to asustainable food security situation here in Africa. As I noted, Uganda isreally a food basket, but a lot of our regional trading partners will notnecessarily benefit from the surpluses that we produce if we can't engage intrade with them. There's any number of reasons that there are barriers totrade, anything from infrastructure, to policies at the border, to problems injust getting the information back and forth as to who has the food and whoneeds the food," says Benson.