Burundi, Eritrea, Haiti experiencing extreme hunger levels

BY EDMUND SMITH-ASANTE

The just released 2012 Global Hunger Index report titled “The Challenge of Hunger: Ensuring Sustainable Food Security under Land, Water, and Energy Stresses”, has stated that two of the three countries with extremely alarming levels are Burundi and Eritrea in Sub-Saharan Africa, while the third is Haiti.

South Asia, it says,  is the other region that continues to suffer from the highest levels of hunger, which on a global scale remains serious with 20 countries having levels of hunger that are “alarming” or “extremely alarming.” 

According to the report released in Washington, D.C. for the seventh year by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Welthungerhilfe, a non-governmental aid organisation based  in Germany and Concern Worldwide, an international NGO dedicated to the reduction of suffering and the ultimate elimination of extreme poverty in the world’s poorest countries, unsustainable use of land, water, and energy is threatening the food security of the poorest and most vulnerable around the world.

It explains that hunger is inextricably linked to growing pressure on land, water, and energy resources, and that growing scarcity and degradation of farmland, rapidly rising incomes, and changing consumption patterns have all contributed to an increasing number of international land investments or land deals, which have not necessarily inured to the benefit of the countries involved. 

“Many of these deals have targeted Sub-Saharan Africa, where land rent is lower, regulatory systems weaker, and levels of hunger higher,” points out a statement announcing the 2012 report.

Responding to this trend, Welthungerhilfe President, Bärbel Dieckmann, stresses that
“Large-scale foreign investments in land should be closely monitored. Local organisations are needed to secure transparency and the participation of smallholder farmers whose livelihoods are impacted by land deals.”  

Aside the pressure on land, the report indicates water scarcity is exacerbated by climate change, especially in the severely water-stressed areas of the world, which are home to more than 2 billion people. 

The 2012 Global Hunger Index (GHI) maintains that flooding, drought, and environmental degradation all threaten agriculture in many parts of the world.
With respect to rising global energy prices,  the 2012 GHI says they are a serious threat to food security, increasing demand for agricultural land and water for crop production which, in turn, raises food prices.

Higher energy prices also increase agricultural input costs, such as the cost of fertiliser and groundwater pumping and machinery, putting further pressure on prices, according to the report.
To counteract this, Tom Arnold, Concern Worldwide’s Chief Executive Officer, believes “Agricultural production must increase substantially to meet the demands of a growing and increasingly wealthy population,” adding, “Yet to avoid more stress on land, water, and energy resources, and to ensure that all have access to adequate food, production must be sustainable and must prioritise the poor.”

The 2012 GHI also states that food security is threatened by governments’ focus on short-term economic gains comprising uncoordinated land, water, and energy policies; and lack of political willingness and action to design policies that increase efficiency and reduce waste of natural resources while protecting the poor.

While positing that the long-term availability of natural resources is crucial for food security and human well-being, Claudia Ringler, IFPRI Deputy Division Director, says “If local, national, and international natural resource policies focus on sustainable, long-term gains, if policies are coordinated and tradeoffs among land, water, and energy policies are minimised, we can strengthen the global food system while preventing resource depletion.”

“Such a shift to sustainable food security would benefit billions of people today and many more in future decades,” IFPRI’s Deputy Division Director believes.

Meanwhile, the Index has made four clear recommendations to improve food security under growing land, water, and energy stresses.

These are that countries should secure land and water rights; support the newly adopted Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries, and Forests and secondly phase out inefficient subsidies for water, energy, and fertilisers, in particular biofuel mandates in Europe and the United States, and encourage market solutions that promote efficient use of natural resources.

Thirdly the 2012 GHI urges the scaling up of technical solutions, particularly those that conserve natural resources, and foster more efficient and effective use of land, energy, and water from farm to plate.

Lastly countries have been asked to tame the primary drivers of natural resource scarcity, by, for example, addressing demographic change through giving women access to education and reproductive health services; raising incomes and lowering inequalities; and mitigating and adapting to climate change through agriculture.