The Horn of Africa is facing its worst drought in over half a century, and nearly five million people face starvation. We have little control over the political factors responsible for the terrible tragedies that play across our television screens and on the front pages of the world’s newspapers. But what can the world do to prevent the scale and toll in lives that makes this story news? How can we build agricultural systems resilient enough to absorb environmental shocks?
Though this famine has been driven as much by political instability and poor infrastructure as by weather, our response must include policies and investments that focus on long-term strategies. We need holistic ways to prevent famine – or at least the elements of famine that we have the power to stop. And for that, we need research into more sustainable and optimal use of land, water and grazing systems.
Right now, the focus must be on delivering food and other relief aid for the hungry and starving. It is estimated that more than US$2.5 billion will be needed in the Horn just for the minimum requirements of keeping the majority alive. Only half of that has materialized so far. In addition, we know that short-term aid will do nothing to prevent a grim repeat of this history. Focusing our efforts on long-term solutions via research and innovation would not only enhance our understanding of extreme weather events like drought, but also provide vital knowledge and technologies that farmers, herders, aid workers and policymakers can use to inform decisions on how to cope with them.
We must give farmers and herders a fighting chance at being able to absorb shocks and recover. To do this, we must increase access to weather information; develop and deliver appropriate grazing and feeding strategies, as well as hardier animal breeds; improve soil management, water capture and storage technologies; and enhance agricultural extension and land use strategies.
We also need the ability to secure incomes. In the good years, farmers should be able to build up reserves for the poor year. In addition, some areas may no longer be suitable for farming and may require coming out of use, or farmers may have to switch to more appropriate drought-resistant species of crops, or develop more tolerant varieties. Investment in research that can enable these changes is highly cost-effective: for every US$1 invested in international agricultural research, US$9 worth of additional food is being produced in developing countries, according to a recent study of CGIAR impact.
Although droughts can result in failed harvests, they do not have to result in famine, which often has more to do with bad policies and neglect. The issue is often not a lack of food, but rather a lack of access to food, grazing and water.
Research addressing dry land agriculture can pay off and has paid off. As United States Secretary of State Hilary Clinton noted in a speech this month at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), the last time a drought of this magnitude struck Ethiopia, in 2002-2003, more than thirteen million people faced starvation. Today, thanks in part to agricultural improvements, fewer than five million do—although this is obviously five million too many.
Even the best agricultural research can only pay off if its findings are put into practice. This requires an encouraging policy environment, sufficient infrastructure, access to markets, and services to educate and share knowledge with herders and farmers and together with them to develop local best practices.
To achieve this, governments, researchers, non-governmental organizations and aid agencies, farmers, civil society, businesses and funders, must all work in partnership. Only by mobilizing our collective strength can we develop and deliver the effective solutions at a scale needed to avert future food crises.
Of course, real long-term development will require an end to conflict and significant, sustained political commitment. In spite of the known benefits of investments in agricultural development, donors continue to fall short of their promise to mobilize US$22 billion for agriculture and food security by the end of 2012. A recent analysis by the One Campaign found that donors have come up with only 22 percent of their financial pledges to date, and most have not reported how they plan to deliver the full amount they pledged.
We are living in a strained global economy, and some cuts to international development and public goods are inevitable. But such investments, aimed at building resilience and helping the world’s most vulnerable people to cope with a changing climate, are far more cost effective in reducing reliance on foreign aid spending than short term, humanitarian assistance. Ultimately such assistance will do far more to provide food and incomes to the people who are most vulnerable, whether to famine or to the forces that lead to civil unrest.
Short-term solutions only alleviate the symptoms of poverty. We must also tackle its real causes, those that impede the ability of vulnerable countries to embrace long-term structural change. The answer is to invest for the long-term in international agricultural research systems, and in the means to transfer the best solutions to farmers in the field. This is the only way to ensure a ready supply of food and a buffer against the cruel and extreme forces of political strife and climate change.
(Article by Lloyd Le Page, published on Alertnet and ReliefWeb)