Even as the Caribbean persists in its inexplicable dilatoriness over what regional Heads have long agreed is a need to drastically reduce its food import bill by paying a great deal more attention to strengthening their agricultural sectors, the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organiza-tion (FAO) continues to predict a likely global food crisis by the middle of the century unless there are significant increases in food output.
In response to the recent predictions by Britain’s academy of sciences, the Royal Society that the global population could reach 9 billion by 2050 the FAO says that global food production will have to increase by at least 50 per cent if significant pockets of population, particularly in poor countries, are not to go hungry.
As far as developing countries – including the Caribbean are concerned – the FAO says that investments in agriculture will have to reach around US$83 billion annually and food production will have to increase by around 70 per cent by mid-century. That, for poor countries, is a daunting challenge.
Unquestionably, we in the Caribbean with our small population and considerable agricultural potential are, among the poorer regions of the world that are perhaps best positioned to stave off any food crisis and even to help feed hungry stomachs in other parts of the world. But there is much that still needs to be done by way of getting our act together if that potential is to be transformed into a level of agricultural production that can guarantee our food security.
Discourses led by Guyana have sought to push the Caribbean Community in the direction of a regional approach to ensuring that meaningful action is taken to strengthen our food production capacity. At both the 2008 forum held here in Georgetown and at the Caricom Heads Summit held here earlier this year the challenge of responding to the need to secure regional food security was acknowledged and the Caricom Secretariat itself has been hosting regional fora on other food-related issues including the strengthening of the Caribbean’s fisheries sector.
As a follow up to these initiatives one might have expected that by this time some kind of regional multi-disciplinary committee of experts would have been established to think through and report on the various issues that have to do with our food security, issues like whether or not we will be able to produce enough food at affordable prices; the extent of capacity in terms of land and water available for agricultural production; new technology requirements that can enable more efficient use of scarce resources; funding needed for investment in research and development; levels of investment necessary in order to help agriculture adapt to climate change and the extent to which agriculture can help contribute to mitigating weather events.
These are all issues that need to be carefully and collectively considered by the region and it is likely that we may even need a fair measure of external support if they are to be addressed thoroughly and effectively.
One might also have expected a far greater level of intra-regional discourse at the level of Caricom Agriculture Ministers and an attendant aggressive public information drive to keep the people of the region abreast of progress towards the promised collective effort to safeguard our food security. Again, we have seen no such development.
The question arises as to whether there is any real collective enthusiasm for building a strong regional agricultural sector particularly in the face of evidence that at least one Caribbean territory appears to see its solution for food import costs as lying in the establishment of a bulk import agency while another is in the midst of a major extra-regionally funded agricultural diversification programme.
This month’s World Food Summit – at which we expect that the region will be heavily represented – offers an opportunity for the Caribbean to promulgate its own food plan for the future and at the same time to make a collective case for long-term support funding for its implementation. It does not appear, however, for all the high level meetings, discourses and summitry that have ensued for some time now that there is any regional plan in any shape or form that the region can take to the World Food Summit.
Given the FAO’s recent restatement of its concern that an impending global food crisis is real, Caricom Heads need to provide clear and concrete indications of a genuine commitment to a regional food initiative; not another high profile declaration of intent but a real, live and practical initiative like, for example, the creation of the aforementioned cadre of multi-skilled technicians to work through the various issues related to putting the plan together and making their submission within a reasonable time frame. After that we need to see evidence of practical action on the ground to move the process forward.
The CARICOM Region will have a position for the World Summit on Food Security (not World Food Summit) to be held in mid November in Rome. I will send a copy to you all which hopefully it can be published in your newspaper on the dates of the summit. Definitely we have to understand some of the issues the region is facing for example the issue of subsidies and negative effects of trade liberalization. While developing countries have been hit by many crises in the past, the current economic turmoil is different in at least three important aspects. First, the crisis is affecting large parts of the world simultaneously, and, as such, traditional coping mechanisms at national and subnational levels are likely to be less effective than they were in the past. Previous crises that affected the developing countries tended to be confined to individual countries or several countries in a particular region. Under such circumstances, these countries tended to rely on large exchange-rate depreciations to help them adjust to macroeconomic shocks, while remittances (money sent home from family members working in other areas or countries) represented an important coping mechanism, especially for poorer households. During the 2009 crisis, however, many countries have seen a substantial decline in remittance inflows. The scope for real exchange-rate depreciation is also more limited in a global crisis, as it is not possible for the currencies of all developing countries to depreciate against one another; some must appreciate while others depreciate. This situation has left developing countries with less room to adjust to the rapidly changing economic conditions.
The second key difference is that the current economic crisis emerged immediately following the food and fuel crisis of 2006–08. While food commodity prices in world markets declined substantially in the wake of the financial crisis, they remained high by recent historical standards. Also, food prices in domestic markets came down more slowly, partly because the US dollar, in which most imports are priced, continued to appreciate for some time, but also, more importantly, because of lags in price transmission from world markets to domestic markets. At the end of 2008, domestic prices for staple foods remained, on average, 17 percent higher in real terms than two years earlier. This represented a considerable reduction in the effective purchasing power of poor consumers, who spend a substantial share of their income (often 40 %) on staple foods.
Soaring food prices propelled food security and agriculture back on the policy agenda. With food commodity prices in world markets gradually falling, and in the face of the global financial and economic crisis, the focus risks shifting away from the plight of poorer countries struggling to feed their populations. While dealing with the global recession, the international community must not forget its commitments to the one billion people suffering from hunger.
Economic crises have typically led to declines in public investment in agriculture, with devastating impacts on poverty and hunger. Past experiences and empirical studies tell us that particularly at this time, support to agriculture should not be reduced; indeed, it must be increased. Only a healthy agricultural and agro-industrial sector, combined with an overall growing economy and effective safety nets, will effectively reduce and eventually eliminate hunger.
1. Unlike previous crises, the current food crisis prompted by increased prices in global agricultural markets is characterized by the fact that price increases are simultaneously affecting the vast majority of agricultural products in the region. In addition, various projections indicate that this trend is likely to last longer than in previous occasions, where price increases had lasted relatively short periods of time, whereas low price cycles had extended in time.
2. Inflation in the food sector as a result of the crisis has affected both net exporting and net importing countries. In many nations, food accounts for 75% of the total expenses for the poorest sectors of the population. The nature and magnitude of the crisis’ impact on the countries and its repercussions on food security are not equal for all the countries. Evidently, net food and energy importing countries will be the hardest-hit.
3. This record increase in prices came at a time of abundance in terms of production and trade, not shortage. During the seventies, there was shortage, however, now difficulties have emerged because supply is not enough to cover a rapidly-expanding demand.
4. Many factors are having an influence on the food price increase. Some of them – such as the higher oil prices, the increasing demand for food in Asia, the climate change and the growing production of biofuels – would seem to indicate that we are witnessing a structural change in the world agricultural markets. But this does not mean that the cycle of prices is going to disappear in the future. It has also been demonstrated that there are a series of situational factors that have had an influence on the food price increase. It is not a simple task to identify the main determining factor.