Africa’s Food Crisis: A Letter From Uganda

Ethically and morally, let’s all mutually agree that it’s now on record that the world is cage trapped with the current onset of the global food crisis. The urban wealthy may have cause to argue that this effect hasn’t been felt by each household, but the prices of food crops mainly cereals and grains all over the world have sky rocketed and surged drastically, triggered by the ever growing global demand side overtaking the supply side constraints in the major food production countries.

Society has now actually seen the sarcastic appropriation by the major corporate powers who are now steadfast using the overwhelming food crisis to call for a conclusion to the Doha Round of the WTO, yet evidence clearly shows that with the ever increasing levels of liberalization of agriculture, this will not help solve crisis rather than being a part of the root cause of it.

Its upon this background that I humbly ask you all as individuals, non governmental organisations, churches and mosques that are concerned about the current Food crisis and which reject the two-faced hijacking of the crisis with insincere attempts to push through a Doha Round of WTO expansion that has yet to be able to be concluded on its own "merits",

In my personal belief, the best observation from the crisis has been the assessment of the conflicting policies of international institutions that are dynamic in developing countries. Their very regular policy ‘advice’ normally has made a basis of the blue prints for individual third world governments’ domestic policy.

Analysts and civil society seem to see FAO as the only remaining “good boy” over time, whereas the World Bank and IMF have continuously been poked as criminals for their continues indirect and under table arm twisting techniques of forcing many countries to implement policies that have with adverse and severe consequences affected food production systems in the developing countries.

The IMF and World Bank will be hard-pressed to agree their supposed sins committed in developing countries over the past two decades with out any regard for the far reaching consequences that are truly hard to correct, in the form of concrete steps to undo the harm caused by its policies that have led to the dismantling of systems put in place to protect farmers, mainly in Africa and the third world.

Let’s also analytically look at the effect caused by the gluttonous profit factor involving the speculative trading in agricultural commodities which has dramatically grown. A number of big investment banks have ambitiously and greedily launched agricultural commodity index funds, as they eagerly anticipate and look for new pastures to make quick profits following the credit crunch.

The overall result has been enormous fluctuations in the global market prices that do not appear to relate to changes in the economic fundamentals of demand and supply. Records show that four years ago $10-15bn was invested in agricultural commodities funds - now that figure has grown to more than $150bn in less than 6 years. It’s now public knowledge, that the Wall Street investment funds own 40% of US wheat futures and more than one fifth of US corn futures.

So, that now shows us all that it goes back to the large-scale issues such as agricultural subsidies, the unpredictable changes in pension funding, the ever growing power of Big Corn, Detroit, the whole agribusiness sector and the financial sector. But those who really pay the price of this are the African farmers, third world consumers and poverty stricken families who now have to pay more for their food bills. We do not get to see the suffering induced either directly by the behavior of first world states, or indirectly by their political indifference and learned helplessness in the face of the ever growing global corporatism that seeks to own and rule the world.

Let’s also analytically look at the growing population factor. It’s evident that global food demand is rising as the global population is steadfast growing, and as the billions of people in emerging economies such as China and India use their increasing affluence to buy more meat, eggs and dairy products. This also partly explains why over 30% of the world’s annual grain produce now goes to feeding animals and birds rather than feeding people directly. Statistics show that farming one acre of decent land can produce 138lbs of protein from grain, but one acre given over to beef farming will produce only 20lbs of protein, so that also partly explains why more lands seems to be going to animal rearing rather than to food crop growing, yet the high population growth rate keeps demanding more food.

Quotations and warning by personalities like Mr. Dominique Strauss-Kahn, head of International Monetary Fund (IMF) have further helped prove the gravity of the food crisis. He said "those kind of questions [related to the food crisis] sometimes end in war." This has already happened with strikes, demonstrations and food riots in many countries over the ever rising food costs not tallying with the peanut incomes earned by these rioters yet they still remain with the challenge of providing for their dependants. At present, according to media accounts, food fights tied to the food costs inflation have flared up and been reported in Egypt, Burkina Faso, Haiti, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Mauritania, Ethiopia, the Philippines, Pakistan, Thailand, Italy, Afghanistan and Indonesia.

The United Nation’s Special Rapporteur for the Right to Food, Mr. Jean Ziegler, has described the continued diversion of food towards production of bio-fuels as a "crime against humanity". Then what? If really he means what he says, I humbly ask the International Criminal Court start criminal proceedings as well as issue warrant of arrest to the perpetrators of such inhuman acts that have starved millions of people in Africa and the third world states by demanding bio-fuels for Europe and America at the very expense of hunger, death and misery in Africa and Asia.

While the world has seen increases in food production, food dependency in many developing countries has extensively grown. Food production in Africa is now 10 percent less than it was in 1960. Sub-Saharan Africa now receives half of total food aid contributions not because of its self sufficient but because of the known influence of political arm twisting that is forcing African and third world states to simply implement Foreign Government demand and desires. As of now, more than 200 million people in Africa are undernourished and of those, about 40 million in any one year face acute hunger. Countries in sub-Saharan Africa that once fed themselves and exported food are now almost certified and accredited net food importers.

Agricultural exporting countries have called for new rules on food aid as part of the Doha Round negotiations at the World Trade Organisation (WTO), this is in light of the evidence that the USA sometimes uses food aid to dump agricultural surpluses and to indirectly attempt to create new markets for its exports buy buying these food rations from the American farmers then cunningly call it food aid. Indeed, food aid has the serious potential both to reduce domestic production of food, damaging the livelihoods of poor third world farmers, and to displace exports from other market competitor countries into the recipient country.

The potential impact of food aid on the commercial international food trade has been a recent source of debate and controversy at the Doha Round of the World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations. The current debate focuses on the potential for the use of food aid as a means by donors to avoid the WTO rules and agreement on export subsidies reductions.
Given the complexities of concessional food aid allocations which are usually sold at prices lower than the prevailing world market prices. It’s being used by donor states to achieve the same objectives as export subsidies and credits. For example, food aid program, administered by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), explicitly used concessional sales of food aid to promote the development and expansion of foreign export markets for US agricultural commodities.

Then behind the irony of the food aid is the bio-technology industry that is maniacally using its vast financial power to breakdown African governments, CSOs and farmers resistance towards the now much publicised genetically modified crops. It’s very clear that once GM crops are accepted as humanitarian food aid it will be very politically difficult for these African third world governments to oppose the now growing corporate take over of Africa’s agricultural economy.

Food aid has become a foreign policy tool for western governments and thus famine and food aid is now seen and used as a commercial activity. African states and their farmers are ably capable of producing a lot more food for their communities and nearby regions. But policies of the U.S., the WTO, the World Bank and IMF actually do promote the use of African land and resources for crops export instead, and many African and third world governments end up neglecting agriculture for domestic food needs.

As a way forward, there is urgent need for western world food aid policies which should take into consideration the significant role of food aid and the need to have a functioning domestic market thus governments should ensure that food aid brings the needed benefits without compromising the domestic food market at the same time. International agencies and donors should give full consideration in the context of their aid programmes to requests for the provision of technical and financial assistance to least developed and net food-importing developing countries to improve their agricultural productivity and infrastructure.

The persistent nature of food insecurity calls for more than just relief food aid, there should be a clearly laid out policy framework which works towards social protection to respond to both transitory and programme needs to be integral parts of governments strategies and poverty reduction programmes. Food aid in these particular instances is used to meet the affected people’s food security requirements therefore food aid should also be used to address the needs of food insecure households, thus there is need for proper targeting using appropriate national and international standards and practices.

National and international NGOs should play key roles in facilitating good governance of the food aid systems, and in grass roots needs assessment and as donors in food aid delivery. Its also prudent that there should be an agreement to phase out in parallel with other measures to end export subsidisation both programme food aid, as grants or concessional loans, and monetisation in development projects. These are the forms of food aid that are mostly likely to be anti-developmental in a global context, either trade displacing or distorting markets in food importing recipient countries.

To end this all, we must have a commitment by all western states and the corporates to pledge long term commitments aimed at reversing the many decades of hunger, poverty and disease that have adversely affected the southern hemisphere low developed states by proving aid for trade financial facilitation that shall help boost the agricultural and infrastructural sectors that would help boost and restart development in Africa and the third world.

By; Godfrey Ssali
AAI Africa Facilitator & Programmes Officer,

SEATINI-Uganda
P. O. Box 3138 Kampala, Uganda
Tel: +256-414-540 856
Fax: +256-414-540 857