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	Agriculture has vital role in ensuring Africa’s food security by UN News / Reuters Foundation   19 June 2008   Agriculture has vital role in ensuring Africa’s food security.   Despite the fact that African agriculture remains undercapitalized, inefficient and uncompetitive, it holds the key to ensuring food security on the continent, the head of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said today.   Addressing the 25th FAO Regional Conference for Africa, Director-General Jacques Diouf stated that with political will and good governance, Africa can boost its agricultural production and feed its population.   He told the gathering in Nairobi that the global surge in food prices, coupled with other factors such as climate change, the diversion of agricultural production for biofuels, rapid urbanization and population growth, and animal and plant diseases have worsened food insecurity in Africa.   At the same time, he called food insecurity a political issue, a matter of priorities in the midst of the most fundamental of human needs. The decisions made by governments determine the allocation of resources, he pointed out.   In 2003 African leaders committed to allocate at least 10 per cent of their budgets to agriculture and rural development. However, a report by the African Union indicates that only one in five countries have reached or exceeded that target.   Mr. Diouf pointed out that, in the last 30 years, agricultural imports have risen more rapidly than exports, with Africa becoming a net importer of agricultural commodities, 87 per cent of which were food products in 2005.   According to FAO, some of the major factors inhibiting agricultural development on the continent relate to the availability of water, arable land, fertilizers and seeds.   To address some of the negative impacts of soaring food prices and to boost food production, FAO launched an initiative last December to support low-income, food-deficit countries by helping farmers access the vital inputs they need.   June 4, 2008   Kofi Annan says African nations must be wary of biofuels. (Reuters)   African nations should be wary of growing biofuels on prime farm land or risk uprisings triggered by food shortages, former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on Wednesday.   "African governments trying to produce biofuels, whether from sugarcane or other products, have to be careful to protect their essential farm lands," he told Reuters on the sidelines of a June 3-5 Rome summit to combat the food crisis.   "If they take the prime land in any country for biofuels ... they will regret it because the population will turn on them," he said. Many nations at the summit say biofuels are partly to blame for soaring food prices.   Some African nations have expressed interest in increasing output of biofuels, partly encouraged by rich nations trying to curb fossil fuel use blamed for stoking global warming.   Congo Republic said it had large areas available for plantings of sugarcane and Nigeria said it could expand cassava use. Both said biofuels would not disrupt food production.   Annan, who stepped down from the United Nations at the end of 2006 is now chairman of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), also said investors had to be wary of seeking to grow crops for biofuels in Africa.   Investors "go in and say "we will invest $1 billion" and they (governments) get all excited and give away some of their best farm lands for biofuels," he said. "Then five years later we ... discover that all the fertile lands have been used for biofuels. "One has to be extremely careful on biofuels”.   Annan"s AGRA announced a new partnership on Wednesday with four U.N. agencies to help boost food production in Africa"s breadbasket regions.
	The hardest-hit by rising food costs will be the poorest people by AP / AFP / Reuters   June 3, 2008   Soaring food prices could trigger a global catastrophe, with the world"s poor unable to feed their families, human rights activists say.   The warning came as world leaders arrived in Rome for a UN summit to tackle the food crisis which is pushing over 100 million people into hunger, provoking food protests and could aggravate violence in war zones.   "The current food crisis amounts to a gross violation of human rights and could fuel a global catastrophe, as many of the world"s poorest countries, particularly those forced into import dependency, struggle to feed their people," said Johannesburg-based poverty campaign group ActionAid.   "It is an outrage that poor people are paying for decades of policy mistakes such as the lack of investment in agriculture and the dismantling of support for smallholder farmers," said ActionAid analyst Magdalena Kropiwnicka.   "This is a multi-faceted issue that calls for a multi-faceted response and considerations," said Japan"s Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, adding he hoped the summit would issue a "forceful message on medium- to long-term measures such as increasing food production and agriculture productivity".   The summit was called last year by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) to talk about climate change and biofuels, but the food price crisis will now take centre stage.   Poor harvests, low stocks and rising demand, especially from India and China, caused huge food price spikes over the last two years, stoking protests, strikes and violence in Africa, Latin America and Asia.   The International Committee of the Red Cross has warned that increased hunger caused by the price spikes will exacerbate conflict in war zones.   With food prices expected to remain high over the next decade even if they fall back from current records, the summit will seek to address long-term policies, such as support for small farmers and trade reforms, as well as immediate food aid.   Opponents of biofuel say it has caused 30 per cent of the global food price hikes by diverting food from people"s mouths into fuel tanks and competing for arable land.   "To continue the pursuit of biofuels in the face of the credible, impartial and growing opinion that this is exacerbating the food crisis is morally outrageous and utterly indefensible," said Rob Bailey, of hunger campaigners Oxfam International.   ActionAid said it wanted the summit to stop arable land being switched to biofuel production.   June 3, 2008   Rising hunger could dwarf tsunami, warns Oxfam   The global food crisis looms as a humanitarian catastrophe that could dwarf even the 2004 Asian tsunami, posing an immediate threat to 290 million people, according to estimates released overnight by aid group Oxfam International.   This is in addition to the 854 million people who already endured persistent hunger before food prices skyrocketed to a 30-year high - rising 83% in three years. As world leaders gather in Rome today for a three-day food summit, Oxfam warned of an unprecedented threat to more than a billion people.   "We estimate the amount needed for immediate assistance to the poorest populations in the 53 developing countries most vulnerable to the price levels is about $US14.5 billion ($A15.2 billion)," said Oxfam Australia chief executive Andrew Hewett. "That is what is required now to maintain minimum nutrition levels and some degree of continuing food security. It sounds like a lot of money, but compared with what the US Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank have invested in the financial system in the last six months - $US1 trillion - it is not a huge amount."   Oxfam and other aid groups are urging world leaders to rethink the way emergency food is bought and distributed to avoid further damage to struggling farmers and markets. They want aid budgets to be spent on buying food within needy regions rather than on buying and shipping the surplus crops of American and European farmers.   "An alternative is to look at somewhere like Zimbabwe, which is facing a major shortfall in maize, but neighbouring South Africa has a surplus," Mr Hewett said. "If the World Food Program moved quickly to buy that, it could stimulate the local economy. It is cheaper and easier to transport to where it is needed, and helps on a regional basis.   Oxfam and other aid organisations are calling for an overhaul of international trade and subsidy arrangements that they argue punish rural producers and agricultural workers who make up the majority of the world"s poor.   The Oxfam report said: "This crisis represents an enormous challenge … but also a genuine opportunity to deliver long-overdue reforms to the food and agriculture system."   It urged the summit to ensure that aid rations were backed up with immediate heavy investment in agriculture. "International aid to agriculture almost halved between 1980 and 2005," Mr Hewett said.   2 June, 2008   Farmers criticize "empty food policies".   Dozens of farmers groups kicked off a forum in Rome to coincide with the UN food agency"s summit on food security with an impassioned plea for an overhaul of world agricultural policies.   "We have empty plates and we have empty policies," said Paul Nicholson of La Via Campesina, an international small farmers" movement. "Let us protect and defend a farming system that feeds the world and cools the planet," he told a news conference held across the street from the Rome headquarters of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.   "Free trade policies have seriously damaged the food system over time, leading to the food crisis that we"re facing today," said one La Via Campesina delegate.   On Sunday however, the FAO and the UN International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) were represented at the parallel forum"s first plenary session, and Olivier De Schutter, the UN special rapporteur on the right to food, was also on hand.   De Schutter last month joined the growing chorus accusing biofuels – until recently cast as a alternative to polluting fossil fuels -- of usurping arable land and distorting world food prices.   IFAD"s Gunilla Olsen received warm applause for her comments. "The food crisis is a reflection of a long and growing social crisis and policy crisis," she said. "There can be no more fundamental interest than not being hungry."   May 29, 2008   U.N. Report seeks Action to Address Food Crisis.   The United Nations called on world leaders Wednesday to agree to urgent measures to ease demand for grains and alleviate high food prices.   “This is a unique moment in history: for the first time in 25 years, a fundamental incentive — high food commodity prices — is in place for stimulating the agriculture sector,” said Jacques Diouf, director general of the Food and Agriculture Organization, in a prepared statement.   He said the current global food situation was a reminder that previous commitments to eradicate hunger had not been met.   The report by the United Nations food agency said 22 countries were particularly vulnerable to sharp increases in food and fuel prices because many of their people were already hungry, and they depended on imports for fuel, and in some cases, for major grains.   Eritrea, for instance, imports 100 percent of its petroleum and 88 percent of its major grains, and three-quarters of its population is undernourished. Among the other countries listed were Haiti, Tajikistan, Niger, Botswana, Cambodia and Zambia.   Food prices have soared since 2006, prompting discontent across the globe. The Food and Agriculture Organization’s index of food prices increased 24 percent in 2007 compared with the previous year, and 53 percent in the first three months of 2008.   The report suggested that the current run-up in prices affected nearly all major food and feed commodities, instead of just a few crops. It predicted that higher food prices would continue.   “The possibility of further sharp price hikes and continued volatility as a result of unforeseen events seems to be likely for the next few seasons,” the report said.   The report said the price increases were caused by a confluence of events. Weather problems created crop shortages, and demand for biofuels ratcheted up demand for corn, sugar and other feedstocks.   Stockpiles of grains have dropped by 3.4 percent a year, on average, since 1995 because demand has outstripped supply. An increasing appetite for meat and dairy products in China and other developing countries has intensified the demand for feed grains.   The report encourages targeted food giveaways and food subsidies to the world’s poor, and short-term subsidies to small-scale farmers to provide them with seeds, fertilizer and animal feed to increase production.   For the long term, it emphasizes that the public sector should invest in agricultural research and outreach programs.   "In many low-income countries, food expenditures average over 50 per cent of income and the higher prices contained in this report will push more people into undernourishment," the report said.   Millions of people"s purchasing power across the globe would be hit, said the report, co-produced by the Food and Agriculture Organisation, the UN food agency in Rome, and the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) in Paris.   The cost of many food commodities has doubled over the last couple of years.   "Biofuel demand is the largest source of new demand in decades and a strong factor underpinning the upward shift in agricultural commodity prices," the report said, adding it was time to consider alternatives. The benefits at environmental and economic level as well as in terms of energy security were "at best modest and sometimes even negative", the report said.   The proportion of total funds that households use to pay for food varies hugely, from more than 60 per cent in Bangladesh, to 40 or 50 per cent in many other developing countries, and just 10 per cent in the United States or Germany, or 27 per cent in China, the report said.   It also highlighted the impact of financial investors in the commodities futures markets, saying this added upwards pressure on prices.   The hardest-hit by rising food costs will be the poorest people on the planet, where a large share of income is spent on food, the FAO warned."We are hugely concerned about the poorest and we expect the number of undernourished people to rise," said the FAO.
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