FAO Strategies for Improving Food Security
The terms of international trade favour the North.
The rich world keeps the South wedded to commodity production by putting up tariff barriers to manufactured goods. Barriers to textiles and clothing alone cost poor countries $53 billion a year in lost trade - this equals the total of all Western aid to the South. Ironically, maintaining poverty in the South means poor countries can buy less of the manufactured goods the rich are so eager to supply.
There is no such thing as a 'free' market; what we have to strive for is one that is fair. The first step is to become informed and make wise decisions as consumers and investors. As citizens we can oppose unfair trade and voice that opposition to our political leaders.
Over-population in the South has often been blamed for ecological catastrophe.
In fact, poor people have more at stake in preserving the resources they depend on. It is short-sighted commercial exploitation by a few companies which is levelling the world's forests for commercial products such as timber, furniture and paper, or for conversion of the land for growing commodities, plantation crops, narcotics or for running livestock. Such practices supply the countries of the North with consumer goods while leaving all the environmental and social costs in the South.
To preserve a common future the environment must take priority. We can help by encouraging environmentally sensitive commodity production and questioning our own consumption.
There is no quick fix for areas with food shortages - the answers for each region are specific to it.
The Green Revolution was often hijacked by rich elites who priced small farmers out of the market. In many countries commercial farming, propped up with subsidies, continues apace with its arsenal of polluting chemicals, its pesticide-resistant pests and declining yields. The real answers lie elsewhere, with the farmers who make the best use of their lands, fighting pests with natural biological control methods, growing a variety of crops to keep the soil fertile, and by saving the best seeds for future crops. In order for their efforts to succeed they must be able to make their own decisions. Too often governments, agribusiness companies and policy makers, on the other side of the globe, control the agriculture agenda.
Women inherit every disadvantage and none of the power.
Yet, they do most of the farming in many parts of the world. They work more hours than men - yet 70% of the world's adult poor are women. Four hundred million women of child-bearing age weigh less than 45 kilograms - their poor health is a major contributing factor in the health problems suffered by their children. The best way to attack women's hunger is by improving access to fairly-paid work and to land. In 'developed' countries many women earn half as much as men. Often their work may not even be counted as work. Women produce half the world's food but own only 1% of its farmland. Education also improves women's control over their fertility, health and standard of living.
A billion people living in the villages of the South have no land of their own to farm.
Two-thirds of them live in India and Bangladesh. In Guatemala and Peru 85% of rural workers are landless. Wherever the problem exists there is usually a history of unsuccessful land-reform movements - thwarted by the landowning elites with political power and connections. Giving land to poor farmers so they can grow their own food would not be successful on its own. Redistribution of land would have to be implemented alongside improved access to credit and the means of production, like machinery. But land reform could create the jobs which poor people from rural areas seek in city slums.
War causes hunger.
Conflict robs people of homes and livelihoods - refugees have no land to grow food and no work to enable them to buy it. In 1994 the total world military budget was $767 billion - more than the total income of the poorest 45% of the world's population. The 'peace dividend' has yielded $935 billion since 1987 through reduced arms spending, but very little of it has gone towards international development aid - which is constantly falling as a percentage of GDP. We need to lobby our leaders to work for peace and to use its dividends wisely.
Greater stability would give poorer nations the opportunity to reduce their own military expenditure.
More than a billion people live on less than a dollar a day.
The wealthiest one-fifth of the world's people control about 86% of the money, the poorest fifth about 1.4%. Free markets and free trade cannot create opportunities for poor people when the real need is for fair trade and fair markets. Super-rich individuals apart, the politics of greed makes no economic sense for the wealthy countries that pursue it. Economic success in the South would mean increased trade and more, rather than less, jobs in the North. By sharing wealth we could actually be safeguarding it.
Inequality is not just about economics, it is about moral choice.
We need to replace the harmful myth of the importance of individual financial success - so important to modern imperialism - with the idea of the individual within a community. People aware of their connectedness with other people, species and environments can build both compassion and strength. Many poor communities with little to spare are working towards this ideal - whether it's poor women running communal soup kitchens in Peru and Bolivia, or farmers across Latin America involved in a programme to share their knowledge with each other.
Rediscovering traditional foods
Another way to help make up for food shortages is to recognise the wisdom of traditional peoples and their knowledge of locally available food resources.
Amaranths and quinoa, two crops traditionally grown in Peru and Mexico are examples. Both grains are versatile, well adapted to local soils and climatic conditions, and provide more high-quality protein than most commercial grains, including rice, wheat and corn.
The world needs a 'blue revolution'.
The World Commission on Rivers reported in 1999 that more than half the world's major rivers are going dry or are severely polluted. Contamination of rivers and river basins displaced 25 million environmental refugees in 1998 - for the first time exceeding the 21 million refugees from armed conflicts around the world. Based upon United Nations projections, 4 billion people will be affected by water shortages by 2050. By then, Nigeria, for example, will have only about 900 cub. metres of water per person compared with 3200 cub. metres per person in 1990 (nearly a 75% reduction in available water).
Governments and communities need to develop plans for managing rivers at the catchment or watershed scale and involve local people in their and implementation.
