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	Ten years after the global food crisis, rural women still bear the brunt of poverty and hunger by Cecile Duflot Oxfam France, agencies   Apr 2019   The 'Global Report on Food Crises', released today by the Food Security Information Network, says that more than 113 million people across 53 countries experienced acute hunger and required urgent food, nutrition and livelihoods assistance in 2018.   Reacting to the news, Oxfam France's Executive Director Cecile Duflot, said:   'We live in a world of plenty, yet one in nine people are hungry, more than 110 million women, men and children require urgent humanitarian assistance, and two global food price crises in a little over ten years pushed 44 million people into poverty. This is a human-made crisis caused by conflict, climate change, and a broken global food system.   Decades of bad policy making have led to the corporate takeover of our food and agricultural systems where ensuring a decent income for farmers or a sustainable food supply comes a poor second to securing shareholder returns.   At the same time, governments have failed to invest in, or provide development aid for, smallholder agriculture - even though smallholder farmers, many of which are women, play a critical role in feeding hundreds of millions of people across the globe.   Governments in rich and poor countries alike have promised bold reforms, but delivered little. That must change. Governments and aid donors must do far more to support women by promoting gender equality in agriculture to unleash their huge potential to help end hunger.   They also must invest primarily in small-holder agriculture, where growth has been proven to be two to four times more effective at reducing hunger and poverty than in any other sector.   Oxfam's new report 'Ten Years after the Global Food Crisis, Rural Women Still Bear the Brunt of Poverty and Hunger' analyses the reforms implemented since the food price crisis in 2007-2008, and highlights why they will not be enough to prevent another crisis or end hunger.   The 2019 'Global Report on Food Crises' forecasts that conflict and insecurity will remain the main drivers of acute food insecurity and malnutrition in 2019, together with extreme climate events like Cyclone Idai and the drought in southern Africa, which will undermine the livelihood of hundreds of millions of people in the region.   Women play a crucial role in agriculture, feeding hundreds of millions of people worldwide. Yet, they face systemic discrimination - for instance when it comes to the right to own land or access to credit.   However, the 2019 food crises report highlights that women are more likely to be food-insecure than men in every region of the world, and that they are disproportionately affected by climate change, conflict and displacement.   In several countries, including Afghanistan and Ethiopia, the situation of women worsened in 2018, and they are more affected by acute malnutrition than a year before.   The report also underlines the need for more and better data on how emergencies impact hunger and food insecurityof women. This could help to better understand the root causes of malnutrition, and to fight them effectively.   The price of food commodities rose by 83% between early 2007 and May 2008. A similar spike in food prices happened again between 2010 and 2011. These spikes were driven by a range of factors, including food price speculation, increased global demand for biofuels, decreasing food stocks, the diversion of food for livestock, and extreme weather events linked to climate change.   Structural problems which also contributed to the spike in food prices include the liberalization of agricultural trade, the concentration of distribution and input supply in the hands of a few corporations, the marginalization of smallholder farmers, declining public investment in agriculture and decreasing development aid to small-holder agriculture.   Reforms and increased investment in agriculture pledged in the aftermath of the crisis have been inadequate. According to UN estimates, there is an investment gap in developing-country agriculture of USD 260 billion annually.   Oxfam analyzed project data for EU development aid to the agricultural sector and found that, contrary to what it promised, only 2-3 percent of EU funding promoted gender equality in agriculture.   In a 2008 report, the World Bank states that growth in small-scale agriculture is two to four times more effective at reducing in hunger and poverty than growth in any other sector.   http://reliefweb.int/report/world/ten-years-after-global-food-crisis-rural-women-still-bear-brunt-poverty-and-hunger http://reliefweb.int/report/world/gender-inequalities-and-food-insecurity-ten-years-after-food-price-crisis-why-are-women http://www.oxfam.org.nz/news/response-global-hunger-tragically-inadequate http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/1193249/icode/ http://www.fsinplatform.org/global-report-food-crises-2019 http://www.landesa.org/blog-closing-the-crop-gap-transformative-change-through-womens-land-rights/ http://gfpr.ifpri.info/ http://bit.ly/2IR314y http://skoll.org/2018/12/04/secure-land-rights-for-climate-resilience/ http://www.brettonwoodsproject.org/2019/04/unsustainable-the-imfs-approach-to-the-sustainable-development-goals/ http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/04/world-bank-dispossessing-rural-poor/ http://bit.ly/2IP1Txt http://www.transparency.org/ http://www.taxjustice.net/ http://www.gfintegrity.org/ http://cesr.org/tax-inequality-human-rights http://srpoverty.org/ Visit the related web page
	Environment - Revitalizing, Restoring, and Improving Rural Areas by Claudia Ringler, Ruth Meinzen-Dick International Food Policy Research Institute   Large fish kills on Vietnam's coast, acceleration of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, and growing risks predicted from global warming for biodi-versity, natural resources, and agriculture are just some of the environmental problems affecting rural areas and, consequently, the whole world.   At the same time, the number of undernourished people increased to nearly 821 million in 2017, largely because of the often intertwined problems of civil conflict and climatic challenges that particularly affect rural populations.   To address these challenges, rural revitalization must go beyond economic progress as conventionally measured to also restore and improve the natural environment - not only for better rural living conditions, but also for the health of the planet.   Agriculture has a key role to play in this revitalization of the environment. Rural areas are the locus of key ecosystem services, including: provisioning services, such as the production of food and water; regulating services, such as control of climate; supporting services, such as oxygen production; and cultural services, such as spiritual and recreational spaces for both urban and rural dwellers.   In fact, all of humanity depends on the health of the world's ecosystems in rural areas. But rural environments and the services they provide are in danger: climate change, deforestation, soil degradation, water and air pollution, and solid wastes are growing threats to rural production, sustainability, and the well-being of rural and urban residents alike.   Lack of rural infrastructure and services and poor economic opportunities compound these threats to the potential of rural areas. A comprehensive approach to creating sustainable rural systems, as recognized under the United Nations Agenda 21, would ensure that ecosystem services are managed to meet present and future needs, while providing adequate services and economic benefits for everyone.   Environmental trends in rural areas generally point to rapid and sometimes irreversible losses of key eco-systems and their functions, which in turn will affect social and economic outcomes for agriculture and rural areas.   Climate Change.   Global warming has already reached approximately 1C above pre-industrial levels, with larger warming over land. Higher temperatures and extreme weather events disrupt agriculture and food systems, and have already contributed to increased hunger and malnutrition.   As solutions for climate change mitigation in the energy sector are becoming available and relatively affordable, the largest challenges for both mitigation and adaptation strategies lie in the agriculture space, which contributes up to one-quarter of greenhouse gas emissions.   Deforestation: Forests provide essential timber and nontimber products (such as food, fuel, housing, and paper), provide living space and health benefits, and harbor more than half the world's species.   Tropical forests will be the key source of natural climate solutions for the next 10 years, chiefly through reforestation and avoided deforestation. Despite solid evidence of the critical functions of forests, loss of tropical forests has been increasing for almost two decades, reaching 15.8 million hectares in 2017 (with total tree cover loss at more than 25 million hectares).   And while humans are to blame for almost all direct deforestation globally, their indirect contribution, through climate change - related disasters such as fires and storms, is also growing.   Land Degradation: One-third of the world's lands are considered moderately to highly degraded due to the erosion, compaction, waterlogging, salinization, acidification, and chemical pollution of soils, with erosion being the key challenge.   Many of these challenges are directly caused by agricultural production: tillage can compact the soil or expose it to erosion; irrigation with insufficient drainage leads to waterlogging and salinization; agrochemical applications contribute to chemical pollution; and ammonium-based fertilizers contribute to acidification.   Addressing these challenges will be essential for increasing agricultural productivity and food security, particularly in Africa south of the Sahara.   Water pollution: Agricultural pollution is a growing threat to the world's water supplies, particularly in developing countries where it remains largely unaddressed. Excessive use of inorganic fertilizers and effluents from livestock production are rapidly increasing nitrogen and phosphorus runoff.   While Brazil, China, India, and the United States currently have the largest agricultural pollution loads, going forward pollution growth is expected to be fastest in low-income countries.   Industrial water pollution also affects agriculture, fisheries, and rural drinking water. Without careful attention to water quality, rural economic transformations that increase processing and industrial production pose considerable risks to the environment and human health.   Ground Water mining: Over the last four decades, extraction of groundwater has increased dramatically to support agricultural development in many parts of the world, including China, India, the United States, and parts of the Middle East.   Today, more than a third of global irrigated cropland relies on groundwater. Resulting groundwater depletion and degradation affect farmers, rural communities, and the environment through drying-up of springs and wetlands, salinization, and pollution.   Availability of free or cheap electricity for pumping (most recently through solar power) contributes to the overuse of groundwater. Addressing this depletion is particularly challenging because groundwater cannot be easily observed and the many users of groundwater are often dispersed.   Solid Waste: With increased wealth, population growth, and urbanization, the generation of solid waste has grown exponentially in recent decades. Daily per capita generation of solid waste ranges from 0.1 to 4.5 kilograms globally, and while levels are highest in high-income countries, the rest of the world is catching up fast.   In low-income countries, where just over a quarter of waste in rural areas is collected (compared with almost half in urban areas), most waste is dumped in open landfills in rural areas and growth in non-managed waste disposal is faster than managed waste disposal. The impacts on public health and the environment have yet to be fully assessed.   Air Pollution: Agriculture is a major contributor to air pollution: directly through emissions of ammonia gas from livestock manure and intensive cropland pro-duction, the burning of crop residues, and machinery operations; and indirectly through the burning of for-ests in shifting cultivation practices.   Ammonia causes soil acidification, eutrophication, and ground-level ozone and contributes to the formation of airborne particulates linked to respiratory disease and premature death.   The rural dependence on burning wood, charcoal, crop residues, and dung - because of lack of access to clean energy sources - not only contributes to deforestation and soil depletion but also exposes approximately 2.8 billion people to house-hold air pollution, with an estimated annual death rate of approximately 4.3 million people.   Rural and urban air pollution often combine in a deadly cocktail, as happens in wintertime in New Delhi, when pollutants from the burning of wood and rural crop residues are trapped in the city, adding to the pollution from vehicle emissions and local industries, and shaving around six years off the life expectancy of city residents.   Population Growth: By 2050, about 3.1 billion people are expected to reside in rural areas (compared with 6.7 billion in urban areas), but the share of rural populations will vary substantially by region and across countries.   Only Africa south of the Sahara expects a substantial increase in total rural population, by 260 million people between 2020 and 2050, but that increase will be much less than that of the region's urban population, projected to grow by around 800 million people during the same period.   Population growth intensifies pressure on resources through higher demand for food and fiber, use of natural resources, and generation of waste. The demographic shift from rural to urban areas and the occupational shift from farm to nonfarm can have positive or negative implications for the environment.   As agricultural labor becomes more scarce, labor-intensive approaches to resource conservation, such as terracing, and labor-intensive maintenance of irrigation become more difficult. The labor shortage is compounded in many areas where youth and men are likely to migrate or shift to nonagricultural enterprises, resulting in aging of the agricultural workforce and increased responsibilities for women.   However, labor constraints can also create opportunities for environmental conservation, such as a shift from annual crop farming to more sustainable agro-forestry and permaculture approaches.   Agriculture remains the main employer in most rural areas, and as such is essential to rural livelihoods and rural economic growth in most developing countries. However, agricultural laborers face large safety and health risks, long working hours, energy-intensive work, and low compensation.   Monitoring working conditions and remuneration in agriculture are important measures of economic and social sustainability that can also support the environmental functions of rural areas.   Poverty and Inequality: As countries struggle to provide services for rapidly growing cities, rural areas are often left under or unserved. Access to education, health, clean water, transportation, and electricity is dramatically lower in rural areas of developing countries compared with their urban counterparts.   With low income levels and limited opportunities in more remote rural areas, it is not surprising that environmental degradation, as a result of reliance on fuelwood for cooking and heating or from using slash-and-burn agriculture, for example is common.   However, as incomes rise, environmental degradation tends to increase - as chemicals are overapplied due to increased availability without concomitant agricultural extension, or groundwater is overdrawn as a result of access to motor pumps.   In many countries, it is predominantly men who migrate from rural areas or shift to nonagricultural activities, while women take up an increasing share of agricultural work. This has implications for environmental conditions because women are often more labor-constrained and have less formal education, less control over assets, and less access to extension ser-vices.   Women are also less likely to have recognized land rights, resulting in lower incentives and ability to invest in sustainable land management practices.   Resource rights and Resource Pricing: Property rights to land and other resources are important to provide resource users with the authority and motivation to make long-term investments in those resources.   For example, land users - whether individuals or communities - without secure rights have little incentive to plant and care for trees, and in many cases might even be prohibited from doing so.   Lack of state recognition of land rights is especially problematic for collectively held resources such as pastures, forests, and riparian areas - all areas that are particularly important for environmental services and for marginalized groups such as pastoralists, forest-dependent communities, and indigenous peoples. Even where household land rights are secure, women often lack recognized land rights.   Improving Rural Environments: Rural areas are underfunded despite their essential contribution to human and planetary health. Shifting demographics will likely further concentrate funding in urban areas and further displace funding from rural areas.   But failure to invest in rural revitalization will likely harm both rural and urban areas, as urban areas rely on healthy and thriving rural areas for safe food, clean water, and energy, as well as the dilution of wastewater, disposal of solid waste, and important psychological and other health benefits yet to be adequately valued.   Ensuring the future of both rural and urban areas will require investments, policies, and institutions that directly support the environment and provide social services and economic opportunities that do not adversely affect the environment..   * Claudia Ringler is deputy division director and Ruth Meinzen-Dick is a senior research fellow, Environment and Production Technology Division, International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington, DC, USA. This is an extract from Chapter 6: Environment - Revitalizing, Restoring, and Improving Rural Areas from the 2019 IFPRI Global Food Policy Report: http://gfpr.ifpri.info/ Visit the related web page
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