FAO's ANNUAL REPORT ON THE STATE OF FOOD AND AGRICULTURE DRAWS LESSONS FROM
THE PAST 50 YEARS
DESPITE TANGIBLE PROGRESS, 13 PERCENT OF HUMANITY STILL SUFFERS FROM HUNGER
AND RELATED DISEASES
Paris, 15 September 2000.- More than 800 million people still lack
access to the food they need, much less than the 960 million estimated 30
years ago, but still a massive number accounting for 13 percent of the
world's population, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) says in
its annual report "The State of Food and Agriculture (SOFA-2000)," released
today at a news conference at the Institut National Agronomique,
Paris-Grignon.
Undernourishment, especially in populous Asian countries, has
diminished. Famine now only occurs in exceptional circumstances, but Africa
is still a major focus of developmental concern, SOFA indicates.
The past 50 years have left a backlog of unresolved problems, new
challenges, risks and uncertainties. "For a long time, the key contribution
made by agriculture to econonomic and social development has not always been
recognized. Moreover, world hunger has failed to attract the sustained
attention it warrants," according to FAO.
SOFA points out that the last years of the twentieth century were
generally unfavourable for world food and agriculture. "Many developing
countries have been facing unusually adverse climatic conditions, together
with the negative economic impact of the financial crisis that erupted in
1997, declining prices of several of their major commodity exports and, in a
number of cases, political instability and conflicts."
"Food supply disruptions, associated with these problems, have led
to the outbreak or persistence of serious food emergency situations in a
large number of countries - currently more than 30 - around the world."
"Prospects for a continuation of the productivity growth seen in the
past are hindered in many countries by land degradation, strained water
resources and reduced irrigation investment opportunities. However, there is
now evidence that biotechnology can contribute substantially to overcoming
these problems, provided adequate precautions are taken against negative
outcomes," SOFA says.
Four prominent experts contributed articles to the FAO report. They
are professors Marcel Mazoyer (INA-PG), Michael Lipton (Sussex), Robert
Evenson (Yale) and Pranab K. Bardhan (Berkeley). In a special chapter on
lessons learned from the past 50 years, their studies focus on: - The
socio-economic impact of agricultural modernization; - Food and nutrition
security: why food production matters; - Agricultural production and
productivity in developing countries; - Political economy in the
alleviation of poverty and food insecurity.
In his study, professor Mazoyer explains that "world food security
is first and foremost a matter of grossly inadequate means of production of
the world's poorest peasant farmers who cannot meet their food needs ..."
It is also a matter of insufficient purchasing power." He deplores the
widening gap between small-scale traditional farmers and those involved in
industrial agriculture because a continuation of this process could lead to
explosive situations for both rural and urban societies.
In the second study, professor Lipton states that "for food-insecure
low-income populations, higher yields (per hectare and per litre) for food
staples and therefore extra employment and self-employment income in growing
them, will be the main source of enhanced food security, at least until
2020." But he also emphasizes the crucial importance of a nutritionally
balanced diet and warns against "second generation" nutritional problems.
Obesity, in particular, is a more serious threat than is commonly realized.
Professor Evenson, in the third study, underlines that investments
are essential for growth in agricultural productivity. However, "governments
of developing countries and development agencies have not always been able
to distinguish between productive and essential public investments and
unproductive and non-essential public investments where the private sector
is the efficient form of economic organization."
In the fourth study, professor Bardhan writes that "reducing
poverty and food insecurity is not simply a question of enhancing
agricultural productivity and production or of generating more income; it is
fundamental to address institutional, political and economic factors that
tend to exclude individuals and population groups from progress."
Commenting on the food security situation in the world, the FAO
report says that "armed conflict and civil strife remain major sources of
food insecurity and caused agricultural output losses estimated in all the
developing countries at US$121 billion over the 28 years from 1970 to 1997,
an average of US$4.3 billion per year,"
According to the report, the economic losses and disruptions to food
supply and access caused by war and civil strife can be disastrous,
especially in low-income countries where there are no effective social
safety nets. Destruction of crops and livestock results, at best, in
reduced food security and, at worst, in famine and death," says the FAO
report.
The last 15 years have seen a larger number of food emergencies
arising from natural or human-induced factors, and the latter have been
increasing steadily. "Whereas human-induced disasters contributed to only
about 10 percent of total emergencies in 1984, by late 1999 they were a
determining factor in more than 50 percent of cases, the report says.
"Economic losses from conflict in developing countries exceeded
total food aid to those countries in the 1980s and 1990s. For the full
decade, the former were about US$37 billion and the latter US$29 billion,"
according to FAO.
One way to help farmers in poor countries is to offer them credit
facilities. The report notes that borrowing through microcredit schemes is
growing at a "phenomenal" pace in developing countries. "The total number
of borrowers grew by 50 percent between 1998 and 1999 to reach 21 million
globally; 12 million of these borrowers live on less than US$1 per day."
In the developing and transition countries, almost 1.2 billion
people, or about one out of four, live on less than US$1 per day. Most of
these people, including children, work long hours at physically demanding
jobs just to survive. They turn to microcredit because they cannnot access
formal credit sources.
At the SOFA launch, FAO also presented a study on the cost of
hunger by Professor Jean-Louis Arcand (Universities of Montreal-Canada and
Auvergne-France) analysing the impact of undernutrition on the Gross
Domestic Product of developing countries. The report says: "Eliminating,
or at least significantly reducing, poverty in a country will have an
important impact on the growth rate of its GDP. Increasing the daily energy
supply to 2,770 kcal per person per day in a sample of countries that were
below that level could increase the average annual GDP growth rate by some
0.8 percent. This gives an idea of the magnitude of cumulative growth losses
in countries suffering from malnutrition," according to professor Arcand.
***
For further information, please consult FAO website
(http://www.fao.org) or call FAO's media relations branch (tel.
0039.06.57052232) or Pierre Antonios (Paris, cellular phone: 0673416001).
****
Enquiries should be directed to:
FAO Media-Office ([log in to unmask])
John Riddle, 0039-06-5705 3259, [log in to unmask]
Liliane Kambirigi, 0039-06-5705 3223, [log in to unmask]
Erwin Northoff, 0039-06-5705 3105; e-mail: [log in to unmask]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L
Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html
You may also send subscription requests to [log in to unmask]
if you have problems accessing the web interface and remember to write your full name and e-mail address.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
