Food Price Watch, produced by the Poverty Reduction and Equity group at the World Bank, is a series that aims at drawing attention to trends in domestic food prices in low- and middle-income countries and their policy implications. Contact: José Cuesta (jcuesta@worldbank.org)

...Hundreds of millions of people face starvation as a result of British government policy which puts food companies’ profits before the needs of the world’s poor.

This accusation is made today in a new report from the anti-poverty charity War on Want, which exposes UK government food policy as a central cause of global hunger...

The report – entitled ‘Food Sovereignty: Reclaiming the Food System’ – contrasts the UK government’s preferred approach of ‘food security’, based on free markets supplemented by aid, with the positive alternative of food sovereignty, which returns control over the food system to farmers...

From War on Want

The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2011 highlights the differential impacts that the world food crisis of 2006-08 had on different countries, with the poorest being most affected. While some large countries were able to deal with the worst of the crisis, people in many small import-dependent countries experienced large price increases that, even when only temporary, can have permanent effects on their future earnings capacity and ability to escape poverty.

This year’s report focuses on the costs of food price volatility, as well as the dangers and opportunities presented by high food prices. Climate change and an increased frequency of weather shocks, increased linkages between energy and agricultural markets due to growing demand for biofuels, and increased financialization of food and agricultural commodities all suggest that price volatility is here to stay. The report describes the effects of price volatility on food security and presents policy options to reduce volatility in a cost-effective manner and to manage it when it cannot be avoided.From Docubase blog

• Read the executive summary
• Download the full publication

• Small import-dependent countries, especially in Africa, were deeply affected by the food and economic crises. Some large countries were able to insulate themselves from the crisis through restrictive trade policies and functioning safety nets, but trade restrictions increased prices and volatility on international markets.
  
  
• High and volatile food prices are likely to continue. Demand from consumers in rapidly growing economies will increase, population will continue to grow, and further growth in biofuels will place additional demands on the food system. On the supply side, there are challenges due to increasingly scarce natural resources in some regions, as well as declining rates of yield growth for some commodities. Food price volatility may increase due to stronger linkages between agricultural and energy markets, as well as an increased frequency of weather shocks.
  
  
• Price volatility makes both smallholder farmers and poor consumers increasingly vulnerable to poverty. Because food represents a large share of farmer income and the budget of poor consumers, large price changes have large effects on real incomes. Thus, even short episodes of high prices for consumers or low prices for farmers can cause productive assets – land and livestock, for example – to be sold at low prices, leading to potential poverty traps. In addition, smallholder farmers are less likely to invest in measures to raise productivity when price changes are unpredictable.
  
  
• Large short-term price changes can have long-term impacts on development. Changes in income due to price swings can reduce children’s consumption of key nutrients during the first 1 000 days of life from conception, leading to a permanent reduction of their future earning capacity, increasing the likelihood of future poverty and thus slowing the economic development process.
  
  
• High food prices worsen food insecurity in the short term. The benefits go primarily to farmers with access to sufficient land and other resources, while the poorest of the poor buy more food than they produce. In addition to harming the urban poor, high food prices also hurt many of the rural poor, who are typically net food buyers. The diversity of impacts within countries also points to a need for improved data and policy analysis.
  
  
• High food prices present incentives for increased long-term investment in the agriculture sector, which can contribute to improved food security in the longer term. Domestic food prices increased substantially in most countries during the 2006–08 world food crisis at both retail and farmgate levels. Despite higher fertilizer prices, this led to a strong supply response in many countries. It is essential to build upon this short-term supply response with increased investment in agriculture, including initiatives that target smallholder farmers and help them to access markets, such as Purchase for Progress (P4P).
  
  
• Safety nets are crucial for alleviating food insecurity in the short term, as well as for providing a foundation for long-term development. In order to be effective at reducing the negative consequences of price volatility, targeted safety-net mechanisms must be designed in advance and in consultation with the most vulnerable people.
  
  
• A food-security strategy that relies on a combination of increased productivity in agriculture, greater policy predictability and general openness to trade will be more effective than other strategies. Restrictive trade policies can protect domestic prices from world market volatility, but these policies can also result in increased domestic price volatility as a result of domestic supply shocks, especially if government policies are unpredictable and erratic. Government policies that are more predictable and that promote participation by the private sector in trade will generally decrease price volatility.
  
  
• Investment in agriculture remains critical to sustainable long-term food security. For example, cost-effective irrigation and improved practices and seeds developed through agricultural research can reduce the production risks facing farmers, especially smallholders, and reduce price volatility. Private investment will form the bulk of the needed investment, but public investment has a catalytic role to play in supplying public goods that the private sector will not provide. These investments should consider the rights of existing users of land and related natural resources.

Links

• Price volatility
• World food situation
• CFS Round Table: Monitoring food security
• FAO Hunger Portal
• Agricultural Develoment Economics Division
• Statistics Division
• Food security statistics
• Alliance Against Hunger and Malnutrition
• The Right to Food

he 2011 edition of our flagship report is a compelling look at the global food crisis, with particular emphasis on global innovations that can help solve

a worldwide problem. State of the World 2011 not only introduces us to the latest agro-ecological innovations and their global applicability but also gives broader insights into issues including poverty, international politics, and even gender equity. 

Written in clear, concise language, with easy-to-read charts and tables, State of the World 2011, produced with support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, provides a practical vision of the innovations that will allow billions of people to feed themselves, while restoring rural economies, creating livelihoods, and sustaining the natural resource base on which agriculture depends.

Worldwatch Institute

Preview State of the World 2011:

• Table of Contents
• Chapter 1: "Charting a New Path to Eliminating Hunger" by Brian Halweil and Danielle Nierenberg
• Chapter 2 policy brief: "Moving Ecoagriculture into the Mainstream" by Louise E. Buck and Sara J. Scherr
• Chapter 3 policy brief: "The Nutritional and Economic Potential of Vegetables" by Abdou Tenkouano
• Chapter 4 policy brief: "Getting More Crop per Drop" by Sandra Postel
• Supplement: Innovations in Action 
• Supplement: Africa's Indigenous Crops

• Press Release: State of the World 2011 Launch (available in several translations here)
• Press Release: "A Revolution of Greens" Needed to Curb Food Price Crisis 
• Press Release: Agriculture - The Unlikely Earth Day Hero
• Press Release: Blue Revolution Key to Getting "More Crop per Drop" and Strengthening Food Security
• Press Release: Fishing for Sustainable Practices to Conserve Fisheries 
• Press Release: Farming the Cities, Feeding an Urban Future
• Author Bios 
• Media Clips

Learn More about Nourishing the Planet:

• Nourishing the Planet Project Summary (available in several translations here)
• Nourishing the Planet Blog
• If you need to get in touch with Nourishing the Planet (www.NourishingthePlanet.org) co-project director, Danielle Nierenberg, email her directly at daniellenierenberg@gmail.com

Living on a Spike: How is the 2011 food price crisis affecting poor people?

July 8, 2011 23:16 Source: Oxfam GB

From the Introduction:

In April 2011, world food prices fell back slightly for the first time in eight months, but remained at 37 per cent above their March 2010 level. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) warns that food is likely to remain expensive into 2012. The World Bank estimates that in February 2011, world food prices were only 3 per cent below their 2008 peak, and in some places, for some items, they even exceeded their 2008 levels. Rapid rises in the basic costs of living are occurring in the slipstream of the global economic recovery, but have been overshadowed in the media by the drama of the Arab spring – events that some believe to be connected.

Coming in such rapid succession, these two price spikes suggest that after a long period of relatively stable, low food prices, volatility may be becoming the norm. It is therefore important to understand the cumulative impact of these price spikes on poor people, and their broader social and political consequences. In many poor countries, 70–80 per cent of household expenditure is devoted to putting food on the table (compared with 10–20 per cent in rich countries). Food prices are thus a matter of life and death, or at least, of hunger and plenty.

Most research on the food price spikes in 2008 and 2011 has focused on macro-economics, analysing global price trends and statistics, and their impacts, from afar. Oxfam GB and the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) decided to take a different approach, seeking to reveal the human face of the crisis by soliciting the views of poor people in eight communities across four countries – two in Asia (Bangladesh and Indonesia), and two in Africa (Kenya and Zambia). This report summarises the findings.FROM Docubase

+ Full Report (PDF; 601 KB)

+ Summary (PDF; 118 KB)

The failure of the system flows from failures of government – failures to regulate, to correct, to protect, to resist, to invest – which mean that companies, interest groups, and elites are able to plunder resources and to redirect flows of finance, knowledge, and food.

This report describes a new age of growing crisis: food price spikes and oil price hikes, devastating weather events, financial meltdowns, and global contagion. Behind each of these, slow-burn crises smoulder: creeping and insidious climate change, growing inequality, chronic hunger and vulnerability, the erosion of our natural resources.

Based on the experience and research of Oxfam staff and partners around the world and, Growing a Better Future shows how the food system is at once a driver of this fragility and highly vulnerable to it, and why in the twenty-first century it leaves 925 million people hungry.

The report presents new research forecasting price rises for staple grains in the range of 120–180 per cent within the next two decades, as resource pressures mount and climate change takes hold.

Growing a Better Future supports a new campaign with a simple message: another future is possible, and we can build it together.

 Downloads

A recently released report commissioned by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) found that roughly one third of the food produced in the world for human consumption every year — approximately 1.3 billion tonnes — gets lost or wasted, The report Global Food Losses and Food Waste also found that:

• Industrialized and developing countries dissipate roughly the same quantities of food — respectively 670 and 630 million tonnes.
• Every year, consumers in rich countries waste almost as much food (222 million tonnes) as the entire net food production of sub-Saharan Africa (230 million tonnes).
• Fruits and vegetables, plus roots and tubers have the highest wastage rates of any food.
• The amount of food lost or wasted every year is equivalent to more than half of the world's annual cereals crop (2.3 billion tonnes in 2009/2010).

The report may be downloaded from the web site (full report pdf).

UN Pulse: Permanent Link: Global Food Losses and Waste

Assessing the Impact of Increased Global Food Prices on the Poor

Source:  International Food Policy Research Institute

Abstract

Using panel data from Mozambique collected in 2007 and 2008, the authors explore the impact of the food crisis on the welfare of households living with HIV/AIDS. The analysis finds that there has been a real deterioration of welfare in terms of income, food consumption, and nutritional status in Mozambique between 2007 and 2008, among both HIV and comparison households. However, HIV households have not suffered more from the crisis than others. Results on the evolution of labor force participation suggest that initiation of treatment and better services in health facilities have counter-balanced the effect of the crisis by improving the health of patients and their labor force participation. In addition, the authors look at the effect of the change in welfare on the frequency of visits to a health facility of patients and on their treatment outcomes. Both variables can proxy for adherence to treatment. This is a particularly crucial issue as it affects both the health of the patient and public health, because sub-optimal adherence leads to the development of resistant forms of the virus. The paper finds no effect of the change in welfare on the frequency of visits, but does find that people who experienced a negative income shock also experienced a reduction or a slower progression in treatment outcomes.

Click Link to download pdf report:  FoodCrisisHIVMozambiqueWorldBankReportJan2011.pdf

From : Reliefweb

The report highlight that even though 2009 proved to be another challenging year for World Food Programme,(WFP). The number of hungry people worldwide grew to more than 1 billion, the highest number on record. The Programme also faced shrinking humanitarian safe space to reach people, with unprecedented attacks on WFP staff and other humanitarian workers.  Despite these challenges, WFP was able to provide life-saving food and nutrition assistance for 101.8 million people affected by conflict, storms, droughts, displacement, financial crises and other shocks that left them without food;  84 million of these beneficiaries were women and children. The report is available in English, French and Spanish .

From UN Pulse:

Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) announced free access to its online database of food, hunger and agricultural information - FAOSTAT that contains over one million data points covering 210 countries and territories. UN Pulse:

Global: Multimedia coverage, links and stories : Some frontline stories

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has released new Flagship publications:

• The State of Food and Algriculture


• State of World’s Forests


• State of Food insecurity in the World

Economic crises - impacts and lessons learned

2009 has been a devastating year for the world’s hungry, marking a significant worsening of an already disappointing trend in global food security since 1996. The global economic slowdown, following on the heels of the food crisis in 2006–08, has deprived an additional 100 million people of access to adequate food. There have been marked increases in hunger in all of the world’s major regions, and more than one billion people are now estimated to be undernourished.

• and The State of Agricultural Commodity Markets. FAO’s most important publications present comprehensive and objective information and analysis on the current global state of food and agriculture, fisheries and aquaculture, forests, agricultural commodity markets and hunger. These titles are issued regularly, to inform public debate and policy-making at national and international levels.

• Global agriculture towards 2050 (pdf, news release)
• The technology challenge (pdf, news release)
• The special challenge for sub-Saharan Africa (pdf, news release)

The FAO has also released a number of expert papers commissioned to provide technical background material for the Forum.

Climate change, energy and food : high-level conference on world food security: the challenges of climate change and bioenergy

http://www.fao.org/foodclimate/hlc-home/en/

http://www.ifpri.org/pubs/bp/bp010.pdf

The UNEP report on Environmental Food Crisis noted that the ensuing crisis has resulted in a 50–200% increase in selected commodity prices, driven 110 million people into poverty and added 44 million more to the undernourished. Key causes of the current food crisis are the combined effects of speculation in food stocks, extreme weather events, low cereal stocks, growth in biofuels competing for cropland and high oil prices (full report, pdf).

UN Pulse permalink

 Highlights
Countries in crisis requiring external assistance (total: 33 countries)
Food Emergencies Update
Global cereal supply and demand brief
National food price review
FAO global cereal supply and demand indicators
Low-Income Food-Deficit Countries’ food situation overview
Policy measures taken by governments to reduce the impact of soaring prices
Regional reviews

	Africa
	Asia
	Latin America and the Caribbean
	North America, Europe and Oceania

	Crop and Food Situation in Southern Sudan
	Nigeria Crop and Food Supply Mission summary
	Policy measures related to export restrictions are being relaxed

Statistical appendix
Note

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has released its latest report on the food crisis, The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2008. According to the press release accompanying the report, "another 40 million people have been pushed into hunger this year primarily due to higher food prices."

UN Pulse permalink

The World Food Programme has released its 5 November 2008 summary of high profile emergencies in Hunger's Global Hotspots. The summary includes information on the situations in Afghanistan, Chad, DRC, Cuba, Ethiopia, Haiti, Kenya, Sri Lanka, Sudan, and Zimbabwe.

UN Pulse

The High-Level Task Force on the Global Food Crisis recently issued its Comprehensive Framework for Action (pdf, 1.02 MB). The framework for sets out the joint position of the High-Level Task Force members on proposed actions to:

• address the current threats and opportunities resulting from food price rises;
• create policy changes to avoid future food crises; and
• contribute to country, regional and global food and nutritional security.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has issued a related news story and fact sheet about the health implications of the food crisis. More information is available from the UN news page for the Food Crisis.

UN Pulse  

What’s Behind the Global Food Crisis? How Trade Policy Undermined Africa’s Food Self-Sufficiency
Source: Food & Water Watch
From press release:

Despite assertions by global trade ministers, this week’s World Trade Organization negotiations in Geneva will not solve the current global food crisis, according to a new report released today by U.S.-based consumer advocacy group Food & Water Watch.

The report, What’s Behind the Global Food Crisis? How Trade Policy Undermined Africa’s Food Self-Sufficiency, found that the steady increase in food cultivation in Africa between 1980s and early 1990s slowed after the WTO went into effect in 1995. Non-food cash crop cultivation was stagnant for the dozen years before the WTO went into effect but grew swiftly since 1995.

+ Full Report (PDF; 880 KB)

From Docuticker

The International Monetary Fund's (IMF) report Food and Fuel Prices - Recent Developments, Macroeconomic Impact, and Policy Responses (full-text, 1.72 MB) claims that the sharp rise in food and fuel prices "have had adverse effects on the poor and could pose risks to macroeconomic stability in a number of low and middle-income countries." The report also assesses countries' policy responses and the role of IMF in responding to the challenges.

UN Pulse: Permanent Link: IMF study on food and fuel prices

Internal World Bank study delivers blow to plant energy drive / Aditya Chakrabortty

Biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75% - far more than previously estimated - according to a confidential World Bank report obtained by the Guardian...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jul/03/biofuels.renewableenergy

World Food Programme Strategic Plan
The Executive Board of the World Food Programme has approved the Strategic Plan 2008-2011 (WFP/EB.A/2008/5-A/1/Rev.1, pdf, 571 KB). According to the press release, the plan focuses on using local resources to provide aid.

UN Pulse Permanent Link: World Food Programme Strategic Plan

This week, we offer you a selection of sites you can visit to keep tabs on the world food situation. And don’t forget to check the Food and Agriculture category over on our sister site, DocuTicker, for the latest reports from think thanks, government agencies, NGOs, etc.

+ Global Information and Early Warning System on Food and Agriculture
“Established in the wake of the world food crisis of the early 1970s, the Global Information and Early Warning System (GIEWS) remains the leading source of information on food production and food security for every country in the world, whether or not it is an FAO member. In the past 25 years, the system has become a worldwide network which includes 115 governments, 61 Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and numerous trade, research and media organizations. Over the years, a unique database on global, regional, national and subnational food security has been maintained, refined and continuously updated. GIEWS has invested in innovative methods for collecting, analysing, presenting and disseminating information, making full use of the revolution in information technology and the advent of computer communications. The System supports national- and regional-level initiatives to enhance food information and early warning systems.

“In a period when the number of food emergencies has been growing, GIEWS continues to provide policy-makers and relief agencies throughout the world with the most up-to-date and accurate information available.”

Offers mailing lists by continent and an RSS feed.

See also: United Nations Secretary-General’s Task Force on the Global Food Security Crisis

+ U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service: Factors in Food Commodity Price Increases
“The recent runup in global food commodity prices reflects both long-term trends and short-term events. Slower long-term growth in global crop production and more rapid growth in demand have tightened world balances of grains and oilseeds. In addition, about 5 years ago, global production of ethanol and biodiesel began to add to the demand for grains and oilseeds. Other factors that have put upward pressure on prices include the declining value of the U.S. dollar, rising energy prices, increasing agricultural costs of production, adverse weather conditions in 2006 and 2007 and, most recently, steps taken by some countries to curb their food exports to mitigate their own food price inflation.”

Selection of articles, reports, webcasts.

+ U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service: Briefing Room — Global Food Security
“Worldwide, some 1 billion people in 70 lower income countries are hungry, and the situation could grow worse in the poorest countries. Ironically, most of these people live in rural areas where food is produced. But food availability does not guarantee food security, which depends also on the ability to buy food and to utilize it effectively. Individual health and education levels, as well as local conditions such as safety of the water supply, affect the ability to utilize food effectively.”

Offers reports, feature articles, data, an FAQ and links to related resources.

+ International Food Policy Research Institute
“The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) seeks sustainable solutions for ending hunger and poverty. IFPRI is one of 15 centers supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, an alliance of 64 governments, private foundations, and international and regional organizations.”

News updates, datasets, reports, press release newsfeed.

+ ReliefWeb: Global Food Crisis
“income growth, climate change, high energy prices, globalization, and urbanization are transforming the world food situation (International Food Policy Research Institute - IFPRI). Food prices are rising (some have more than doubled) affecting not only the worldÕs poor, but also communities that had so far been food-secure. “That’s the new face of hunger, people who suddenly can no longer afford the food they see on store shelves because prices have soared beyond their reach” (World Food Programme - WFP).

“Rising prices also hamper those in need of humanitarian assistance. WFP issued an emergency appeal to reach the people it originally planned to assist this year. According to WFP, an estimated 854 million people are food insecure. High food prices are believed to remain high, intensifying concerns about food security and risking a “major setback” in the accomplishment of the UN Millennium Development Goals (WFP).”

Updates, maps, related resources, data, key documents, FAQ.

+ USAID: Global Food Insecurity and Price Increase Updates
At present, 37 countries throughout every region of the world are experiencing localized food insecurity, lack of access to food, or shortfalls in food production or supplies. In the past year, global food prices have increased an average of 43 percent, according to the International Monetary Fund. On April 14, the World Bank estimated that the doubling of food prices during the past three years could potentially push 100 million people throughout the world into extreme poverty.

Approximately 1 billion people — or nearly one-sixth of the world’s population — subsist on less than $1 per day. Of this population, 162 million survive on less than $0.50 per day. At the household level, increasing food prices have the greatest effect on poor and food-insecure populations, who spend 50 to 60 percent or more of their income on food, according to the International Food Policy Research Institute. Overall, increased food prices particularly affect the poorest people within developing countries. Among the populations affected by current food insecurity and price increase are people in Haiti and Tajikistan.

+ WashingtonPost.com: Global Food Crisis
Feature article series, graphics, news updates, links to related resources.

+ World Bank: Food Price Crisis
News, multimedia, regional information

+ Congressional Research Service report
Rising Food Prices and Global Food Needs: The U.S. Response

Permalink Resourceshelf

Permalink Docuticker

As world leaders pack their bags for a crisis summit on food in Rome next week, the news is of food prices beginning to fall, and of large donor pledges to cover the cost of emergency needs. So, that's all right, then. Or is it?

Actually, no. The Food and Agriculture Organisation summit is a vital step in a process that will develop through a series of events in 2008, including the G8 in Hokkaido in July, and the UN Call to Action on the Millennium Development Goals, in New York in September. At this stage, the Rome summit must deliver four things...

Permalink Docuticker

http://www.un.org/ecosoc/GlobalFoodCrisis/documentation.shtml

• Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations - FAO
  • Crops Prospects and Food Situation – FAO, April 2008
  • Fighting Food Inflation – European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and FAO, 10 March 2008
  • Growing Demand on Agriculture and Rising Prices of Commodities: An Opportunity for Smallholders in Low-Income, Agricultural-Based Countries? – FAO, 14 February 2008
  • Current World Fertilizer Trends and Outlook to 2011/12 – FAO, 2008

• World Food Programme - WFP
  • Response to Global Food Crisis, 10 May 2008

• World Bank
  • Implications of higher global food prices for poverty in low-income countries – World Ban k, 16 April 2008

• United Nations Environment Programme - UNEP
  • Agriculture and Environment: Climate Change Challenges and Policy Options (English, French, Spanish)
  • Website on bio-energy
  • Farmers and the Future of Agro-biodiversity
  • Agriculture, Agro-Biodiversity and Climate Change
  • Investing in Agriculture and Agro-biodiversity
  • Agricultural innovations and their impact on agro-biodiversity
  • Biofuels and agro-biodiversity
  • Governance and Agriculture

• United Nations Energy
  • Sustainable Bioenergy: A Frameworkd for Decision Makers, April 2007

• UNICEF
  • Documentation on the topic of Nutrition, Unicef

• United Nations Conference on Trade and Development - UNCTAD
  • Accra Declaration, UNCTAD XII (Please see paragraphs 5 and 6)

• United Nations System Chief Executives Board for Coordination – CEB
  • Joint communiqué, Berne, Switzerland, 29 April 2008
  • United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 40th Session - The World Food Crisis-Statement (Advanced Edited Version)
  • Civil Society Forum on the Global Food Crisis, 16 May 2008 - Outcome Document

• Additional Internet Links
  • United Nations Secretary-General's Task Force on the Global Food Security Crisis
  • Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food – Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
  • Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations - FAO
    • Portal of the World Food Situation, FAO
    • High-Level Conference on World Food Security: the Challenges of Climate Change and Bioenergy
  • International Fund for Agricultural Development - IFAD
    • Rising Food Prices, IFAD
  • International Monetary Fund - IMF
    • IMF Works with Vulnerable States on Food Price Policies – IMF, 28 April 2008
    • Ministers Resolve to Counter Slowdown, Combat Food Hikes – IMF, 13 April 2008
  • International Food Policy Research Institute – IFPRI
    • The World Food Situation, IFPRI, December 2007
  • United Nations Development Programme - UNDP
    • Drought and Food Security in Africa- UNDP
  • Food price crisis, World Bank
  • World Food Programme - WFP