With just two years before the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) deadlines for tackling hunger and food security, all the evidence suggests that progress is seriously off track. On a global scale, more than 870 million people are still hungry and 2 billion people poorly nourished. Many countries are projected to fail in their objective to halve the proportion of poor and hungry citizens as part of the MDGs.
The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)’s 2012 Global Food Policy Report, released on March 13, says there is little cause for optimism. New data from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and results from IFPRI’s own scenario modeling, suggest that on its current trajectory of “tepid promises and unfulfilled commitments, the international community will fall far short of the Millennium Development Goal of halving the proportion of people who suffer from hunger by 2015.”
The second in an annual series, the report charts successes and disappointments in the battle against hunger and food insecurity. Reviewing food policy developments and trends with discussions of major food policy developments, it also offers recent research results and presents perspectives of farmers from around the world.
Looking back over the past year, IFPRI, a member of the CGIAR Consortium, claims that “2012 may have been more notable for the talk about food security than actions to achieve it.” A number of countries made important and promising changes in food-related policies. Elsewhere, there was no shortage of good intentions. But in most cases, these have yet to be translated into action.
In 2012, the member countries of the G8, together with African partners and the private sector, made a commitment to food and nutrition security. The G20 member nations promised to promote greater public and private investment in agriculture and technology. In June 2012, the Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development made what the report describes as “tepid commitments” to a green economy, but came to no clear conclusion of how to go about it. The European Union proposed a limit on using food crops to make biofuel, but to date these discussions have yet to be put into practice.
Missed opportunities
Despite notable increases in investment in agriculture, food security, and nutrition, the international community – including development agencies and financial institutions – continues to miss major opportunities to take decisive action, says the report.
Launching the study, IFPRI Director General Shenggen Fan said the international community now had an “unprecedented opportunity” to make real progress towards tackling food insecurity. He called for concrete steps, among them:
- increased investment in agriculture, particularly agricultural research in many developing countries of sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, where investment levels are too low;
- Specific commitments for an action plan to improve smallholders’ livelihoods while maintaining environmental sustainability and creating a viable future for young people in rural areas;
- A stronger focus on gender in the design of policies, strategies, and development projects;
- An end to subsidies, trade restrictions, and other policies in industrialized countries that create market distortion, causing difficulties for poorer countries.
More rising food prices
Looking back over 2012, the food production system suffered from a series of stresses, crises and policy failings, including severe drought in Central Asia, Eastern Europe and the United States and ongoing conflict in large areas of Central Africa, noted the report.
Fan said that using current projections, food prices are expected to continue to rise significantly over the next decade. In 2013, many factors that threatened food security in 2012 are expected to continue, he said.
Looking forward, it will be important to make national and global food systems more resilient, both to sudden shocks such as price spikes and weather extremes and ongoing stresses.
The IFPRI report urges more serious and sustained investment in agricultural production. But above all, it calls for countries and institutions to keep their promises.
“We must monitor whether promises have been kept and where interventions have been successful,” said Fan. ”We should encourage those who have walked the talk and question those who didn’t. And we should be insistent that food policies focus not just on cutting hunger, but on eliminating it completely.”
More information:
- The 2012 Global Food Policy Report
- The IFPRI World Hunger blog
- IFPRI’s videos on hunger and food insecurity issues
- IFPRI’s Slideshare presentations on hunger and report
- IFPRI’s Facebook Page
- Timeline – 2012 Food Policy Issues, Actions and Decisions (Infographic)
- Estimates and Projections of Undernourished People Worldwide (Infographic)
- Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (Infographic)