50 posts categorized "Food Prices"

The new government of President Otto Perez Molina has initiated a program called “Hunger Zero” to combat chronic malnutrition in Guatemala.  Despite being a so-called Middle Income Country (a rung above the poorest countries, as measured by the size of the national economy), chronic malnutrition remains a persistent problem, with rates in certain areas as high as those in the poorest countries in Africa.

According to the head of the Food and Nutritional Security Secretariat (SESAN), Luis Enrique Monterroso, the project will begin in the hardest-hit municipalities and then expand to all 166 municipalities affected significantly by hunger. Included in the Hunger Zero program are nutrition interventions focused on the 1,000 Days "window of opportunity," from pregnancy until a child's second birthday. The government has also created the Dignity Triangle program, which focuses on food availability, access, and nutrition education.

Bread for the World is a strong supporter of the 1,000 Days Partnership and the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) movement, which advocate for improved nutrition in pregnant women and children during this critical period. At this stage of life, the effects of malnutrition can cause irreversible damage to brain development, cognitive abilities, and resistance to diseases. Guatemala is also a supporter of these initiatives, which share key objectives with the new government’s anti-hunger programs.

The recently appointed head of SESAN happens to be a friend of Bread for the World! When Bread hosted the SUN Civil Society Working Group meeting that followed our 2011 National Gathering, Luis Enrique was there representing his country. His skills and commitment to ending hunger and malnutrition in Guatemala were evident to Otto Perez during his election campaign. He was asked to head this very important office, which is responsible for coordinating the efforts of 13 government ministries and reports directly to Guatemala's Vice President.

Todd Post, editor of Bread for the World Institute's Hunger Report, and I recently traveled to Guatemala and were able to meet with Luis Enrique in his new capacity. He is excited about the challenge before him and expressed his thanks for Bread for the World's support in giving him the opportunity to learn about SUN, which is just getting started in Guatemala.  He has already set an ambitious goal: reducing hunger by 10 percent within four years. He has also begun to work on Hunger Zero by identifying the 166 most malnourished of the country's 366 municipalities.

Guatemala is a country that faces many challenges – social, political, and economic. It is also a country that has correctly identified addressing the root causes of malnutrition as key to its future success.  Let’s follow the developments there and wish “our man in Guatemala” great success!

    Scott Bleggi is a senior international policy analyst with Bread for the World Institute.

Improving nutrition among children is essential to the future of the United States. Unfortunately, childhood hunger and poor nutrition is not among the frequently-discussed issues of this primary season. 

Before the “First in the South” primary – South Carolina’s on January 21-- the candidates would do well to read the 2012 Hunger Report to hear about childhood hunger from South Carolina resident and public health expert Ed Frongillo:

“The idea that children are somehow protected from food insecurity by parents is a myth,” says Frongillo, professor of public health at the University of South Carolina. “Children are aware of the inadequate quantity or quality of food, the struggles that adults are going through to meet food needs, and the limitations of resources for meeting those needs.” 

The effects of multiple hardships on children have been well documented by Frongillo, Chilton and her colleagues at Children’s HealthWatch, and researchers elsewhere—and portrayed more bluntly in the images and words of Witnesses to Hunger. Violence, evictions, parental anxiety rising to crescendo as the month comes to an end and the refrigerator empties—the list goes on.

There is only so much any one program can do to soften the effects of these problems on children. But an analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities shows that SNAP lifts more families with children out of poverty than any other assistance program except the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). About half of all Americans will receive SNAP benefits at some point before age 20. Among African-Americans, the figure is 90 percent.

The EITC offers a tax refund, a lump sum payment that comes once a year and is ideal for paying down debt, fixing a busted car, dealing with a lingering medical problem, or other such expenses. Low-income working families find it difficult or impossible to budget for these items, because all their resources are simply consumed by day-to-day needs.

SNAP and other nutrition programs, on the other hand, come through for low-income families all year long. They also help the many people who have short-lived scrapes with hunger without experiencing the other hardships of poverty. This is why programs such as SNAP are so vital to meeting the needs of all families, regardless of the harshness of their environment.

Good nutrition is essential, while hunger and malnutrition before age 2 cause harm that is generally irreversible. In addition to providing foods needed for a healthy pregnancy and early childhood, WIC includes nutrition education and access to health care. The program has been proven to reduce rates of fetal mortality and low birth weight and to enhance the nutritional quality of a baby’s diet.

A landmark study in 1991 showed that every dollar spent on WIC saves the government between $1.77 and $3.13 in Medicaid costs for newborns and their mothers. The findings in the study and the strong support for the program from doctors and other medical professionals contributed to bipartisan support for steady increases in WIC funding to ensure that no family would be denied participation. But 20 years later—in spite of volumes of additional research that confirms the value of WIC—it seems that ideological differences among elected officials threaten funding for a cost-effective program with broad public support (94 percent in a 2010 study).

Cutting WIC, SNAP, and other nutrition programs goes against everything we know about the value of preventive care in saving on long-term healthcare costs.

Nutrition programs are one of the most cost-effective ways to control rising healthcare costs, which in the long run are a much greater threat to the nation’s economy than the cost of nutrition programs. Hunger makes people more vulnerable to chronic health problems. Intermittent hunger also contributes to binge eating and overeating to cope with stress and depression. Hunger in babies wreaks havoc on their metabolism and makes them susceptible to obesity later in life. And hunger among children affects cognitive development and leads to lower academic achievement.

Read more on the issue “Women and Children First” from the 2012 Hunger Report.

+The 2012 Hunger Report is available at www.hungerreport.org.

Kate Hagen is Hunger Report project assistant at Bread for the World Institute.

According to information released this morning by the Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS NET), famine will persist for at least another month in areas of Somalia. Due to the consistent delivery of food aid and emergency supplies since the crisis began, some areas previously have been downgraded from Integrated Food Security and Phase Classification (IPC) 5, meaning “famine”, to IPC Phase 4 “emergency”.

However, according to FEWS NET officials nearly 250,000 people continue to face imminent starvation and death rates, especially among children, remain extremely high, in part due to continuing outbreaks of measles, cholera and malaria. The death toll thus far is “tens of thousands”, and food security in Somalia is the worst since the 1991/92 famine. A continued multi-sectoral response (food, water, sanitation, health, security) is still required and any significant interruption to deliveries will result in a return to famine.

The ongoing famine results from the complete lack of rain during two traditional rainy periods (Oct-Dec 2010, and Apr-Jun 2011) that contributed to crop failures, high levels of animal mortality and very high food prices. While continued, large-scale responses are critical, the flow of local and donated cereals to markets in Somalia indicate that earlier market-based interventions are working.

As we gather with family and friends this Thanksgiving, let’s say a prayer for the return of rain to Somalia and an end to the ongoing crisis there.

Scott Bleggi is the senior international policy analyst in Bread for the World Institute

An immigrant worker on a small farm in Duffield, VA, picks tomatoes during the summer of 2011. Bread for the World Institute's 2012 Hunger Report focuses on the need to update U.S. food and farm policies, including providing support to small- and medium-sized farmers. (Photo by Laura Elizabeth Pohl)

Next Monday, Nov. 21, we will release our 2012 Hunger Report, Rebalancing Act: Updating U.S. Food and Farm Policies. The release of the report is timely for many reasons -- among them, the imminent reauthorization of the U.S. farm bill.

Many Bread members worked to improve the farm bill the last time it was revamped in 2007 to 2008. One of our main messages back then -- "The farm bill is important to everyone who eats" -- is just as true now. The farm bill allocates hundreds of billions of dollars to shape our country’s food production system. It has an even greater impact on hungry and poor people than on the rest of the U.S. population because it contains the budget for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP (formerly food stamps).

The 2012 Hunger Report, then, provides information and policy recommendations to support Bread members in working to make the next farm bill a better tool for reducing hunger and poor nutrition in America. Unlike our 2007 Hunger Report, which was called Healthy Food, Farms, and Families, this year's report places far more emphasis on aligning farm policies with achieving better nutrition outcomes for all Americans.

U.S. farm policy needs to ensure a safe and affordable food supply, protect the natural resources that agricultural production depends on, and produce nutritious foods. A cursory look shows that the goal of producing nutritious foods is badly in need of attention. In fact, the United States does not produce enough fruits and vegetables for Americans to meet the recommended daily allowances (RDAs) of vitamins and minerals. Current policies favor production of calories, not nutrients. Thus, a rebalancing towards the production of healthy foods is vital.

Rebalancing Act is largely focused on bringing food and farm policies into alignment, especially in ways that could reduce hunger and malnutrition in low-income households. For example, policies that support small and medium-size farmers in supplying school meal programs with healthier foods could help both farmers and the millions of low-income students who depend on school meals for a large share of their nutrients.

Our 2007 work to reform farm policies was an uphill struggle.  The budget environment is much different this year. I said that this report is timely. Two days after its release, in fact, the Joint Committee on Deficit Reduction, aka the “Super Committee,” is due to present its recommendations to the rest of Congress.  Its mandate: to identify $1.2 trillion over 10 years in U.S. budget cuts. Any plan to find that much in “savings” is highly unlikely to spare farm bill funding from cuts. This time around, the House and Senate agriculture committees may be forced to restructure farm programs.

As Bread gears up to raise questions about hunger and the role of the farm bill in reducing it, I hope you’ll take a good look at the 2012 Hunger Report. I worked on both the 2007 report and on this one, and I think this new edition will be every bit as useful to anyone interested in improving the next farm bill.

+The 2012 Hunger Report will be released at www.hungerreport.org on Monday, Nov. 21.

Todd Post is senior editor at Bread for the World Institute.

During their June 2011 meeting in Paris, the agriculture ministers of the G-20 countries highlighted the vital role of global agriculture—both now and for the future. In the Ministerial Declaration - Action Plan on Food Price Volatility and Agriculture - the Ministers also acknowledged that strong global governance is an indispensable element for achieving food security, nutrition, and security, and called for greater policy coherence.

These are good first steps. A lot more is needed urgently.

According to the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), food prices have now reached peak levels not seen since the 1970s as maize (corn), wheat, and sugar prices have doubled or tripled over the last year. The sudden spikes in staple food prices that began in 2007 have ushered in an era of high prices combined with volatility. These conditions affect all families, but especially those who are poor—because poor people spend so much of their entire incomes, often 50 percent to 70 percent, on food. It is very difficult for them to adjust to rapid price increases because there is little discretionary spending in the household budget. There are also indirect economic costs. When food prices increase and families have less to spend on other goods and services, there is further weakening of already fragile local and national economies. In many low-income countries, high food prices are a major direct contributor to hunger and poverty.

Food Prices in Somalia—Price Changes (June 2010 - June 2011)

Source: FAO GIEWS

Large changes in family income due to price swings such as these 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.

Given the complex web of factors that affect global food security, international organizations and the governments of both developed and developing countries must use a comprehensive approach to prevent a food crisis from reoccurring.

This week, on November 3-4, G-20 leaders will meet in Cannes, where they must find ways to deal with the increasing global food price volatility that is hurting poorer countries. At Cannes, the G-20 leaders should:

• Commit to providing more resources for investment in agriculture or at least to honoring their promises to fund the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP)
• Look to institutional development and assist Africa in the development of privately-held commodity exchanges;
• Discuss the links between biofuel policies and food prices, with a view to mitigating the impact of biofuels on food prices;
• Agree to avoid export restrictions on food;
• Make progress toward liberalizing trade in agriculture and reducing the most distortionary aspects of tariff escalation and non-tariff barriers.

A food-security strategy that relies on a combination of increased small holder productivity in agriculture, greater policy predictability and general openness to trade will be more effective to addressing global food security.

 
A farm worker picks cherry tomatoes on David Mann Farm in Fort Blackmore, Virginia, near the southwest border with Tennessee, on July 2011.  Photo credit: Laura Elizabeth Pohl

“In times of economic downturn, like our country now faces, we begin to fear that which we do not know. And many choose to point the blame for our economic problems on immigrants,” said David Roefaro, mayor of Utica, NY, at last month’s hearing, “The Economic Imperative for Enacting Immigration Reform.” before the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees, and Border Security.

The United States in the 21^st century is clearly not the first, and is unlikely to be the last, society to blame outsiders for its economic problems. What’s important is that we identify the facts of the situation and ensure that they are considered when it comes time to establish policies.

 Despite the controversy surrounding nearly every aspect of U.S. immigration policy, the three witnesses at the hearing—mayors from New York, Georgia, and Maine—identified at least one area of consensus: every day, immigrants are making economic, social, and cultural contributions to the United States.

 Farm workers’ contributions, for example, begin with the work that they do to supply food for our tables. The rest of the economy benefits as crops are harvested by “skilled migrant farm laborers who have harvesting down to a fine art,” as Mayor Paul Bridges of Uvalda, GA, put it. Bridges said the direct contribution of agricultural workers to Georgia’s economy is $6.85 billion.

The direct contribution, though, is augmented by the taxes immigrants pay in their role as consumers. In Georgia and in every other state, immigrants pay the same amount of sales tax on every purchase as other customers, thus helping to pay for schools, transportation, and other public services. Other contributions to the state economy come from rent, mortgage payments, and property taxes.

Immigrants make a net contribution to the national economy as well, since they pay federal taxes and support Social Security, contributing up to $7 billion a year. Unauthorized as well as authorized immigrants pay into Social Security, even though the former will never receive a single monthly check.

In North Carolina, immigrants contribute more than $9 billion to the economy. Communities with a declining tax base that are having trouble surviving can get a badly-needed influx of vitality when immigrants arrive and start new businesses, buy homes, pay local taxes, and purchase consumer goods from local and regional markets. Immigrants also can enhance a city’s culture since they diversify activities and organize events that promote civic engagement.

Although these contributions should be evident, the position of immigrants is increasingly threatened by the enactment of anti-immigrant legislation at both state and federal levels. Some states have passed harsh anti-immigrant laws with far-reaching repercussions. Bridges, who has been an educator and farmer in his part of Georgia, spoke up at the hearing about the problems caused in more than one area of the economy and community by laws such as H.B. 87 (which, among other provisions, allows the police to check the immigration status of anyone suspected of a crime and requires businesses to use an electronic verification system before hiring workers).

One problem is that local law enforcement agencies are forced to use their scarce resources to implement the new laws. Often, police officers are not trained for these duties, which in any case take them away from their chief responsibility of protecting the community from crime. The new laws also contribute to a climate of fear for immigrants, both authorized and unauthorized.

The repercussions of anti-immigrant legislation such as that passed in Georgia are felt throughout the state as well as at the community level.  Immigrants have been driven out to more welcoming states; reportedly, this created labor shortages in Georgia of as many as 11,000 workers.

Shortages of farm workers can also lead to a domino effect:  crops worth millions of dollars are left to rot in the fields. Not being able to harvest and sell all their crops creates hardships for farm operators and their families and puts them at greater risk of defaulting on business and personal loans. Consumers, in turn, have to pay more for produce since it’s in shorter supply; for low-income families in particular, this often means less nutritious meals (since grocery budgets generally don’t increase just because food prices have). This carries consequences for productivity, both for individuals and the economy as a whole.

Georgia is just an example of what is happening as states try to fix the immigration system. Lifting up the economic and other contributions of immigrants, which are often left out of the immigration debate altogether, will be key to finding humane, fair, and practical solutions for the broken U.S. immigration system.

Note: Bread for the World has not taken a legislative position on the issue/issues covered in this blog post.

A politically contentious word. A word that many governments shy away from. A word associated with failure that becomes fixed in the international news agenda, bringing continued bad publicity.

The F-word is Famine.

The current crisis in the Horn of Africa, triggered by drought, instability, and high food prices, is affecting at least 12.4 million people. The United Nations has declared two regions of southern Somalia—southern Bakool and Lower Shabelle--famine areas. No respite is expected in the near future as the Horn of Africa-wide food crisis continues to worsen.

Mark Bowden, the U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia, cautioned that inaction now means that famine could spread to all eight regions of southern Somalia within two months, as both infectious disease outbreaks and poor harvests due to lack of rainfall continue.

What is a famine?

According to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), a famine means that these conditions coexist:

• At least 20 percent of households face acute food shortage and have no means of coping with them.
• Acute malnutrition rates among children exceed 30 percent.
• More than two people in 10,000 die every day. (See map)

The U.N. has reported that malnutrition rates in Somalia are currently the highest in the world, with peaks of 50 percent in some southern areas. In southern Bakool and Lower Shabelle, acute malnutrition rates exceed 30 percent; in some areas, deaths of children under five are exceeding 6 per 10,000 per day.

They didn’t deserve to die

So far, 11,000 people are reported to have died in the past 45 days. The inexcusable thing about this crisis is that it could have been significantly mitigated. For months, the Early Warning Systems Network (FEWSNET) pointed to an impending famine. Crops dried up, livestock died, and desperation spread--but these went unheeded. Now, drought has forced a fourth of Somalia’s 7.5 million people to flee their communities in hopes of finding help in neighboring countries.

The importance of promoting community stability and resilience cannot be overemphasized. Multi-sectoral programming to address the impacts of limited food availability, high food prices, asset losses, and malnutition, is imperative. As I have stressed in an earlier blog, it is far more cost-effective to target assistance in building agricultural and economic systems that are sustainable in the long run. It’s better and cheaper to prevent calamities than to respond to hunger emergencies.

Often, though, funds for preparedness and contingency planning are in short supply while large amounts of money go to post-disaster response. For instance, despite early warnings in November 2010, by March of 2011, the World Food Program remained 60 percent underfunded, and had to cut back its feeding programs in Somalia and Ethiopia.

Investing in long-term development requires long-term, sustained commitment from national governments and the international donor community. Yet donor governments are held responsible by taxpayers to show that their efforts are in fact producing results--something that takes time and can become politically contentious.

What we forget is the haunting fact that we have only two options: to pay less now, or to pay dearly later.

Yesterday, World Bank President Robert Zoellick helped celebrate the 40^th anniversary of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), congratulating the organization on its work to overcome global hunger and poverty.

The Washington, DC,  anniversary event highlighted the importance of continued research to reducing hunger. Much of the United States’ success is directly related to investment in agriculture. In 1900, 50 percent of the U.S. population was involved in agriculture. Today the figure is just 2 percent—yet U.S. farmers are able to feed our own 300 million people and export enough surplus food to feed millions more. The United States exports agricultural technology as well.

CGIAR and other research organizations helped free 23 million people in China from hunger. And today, more than 60 percent of the maize and 50 percent of the beans planted in Africa are varieties developed by CGIAR. Investments in research have also enabled CGIAR to develop drought-tolerant, pest-resistant, and nutrient-rich varieties of crops. The founder of CGIAR, Dr. Norman Borlaug, said in his 1970 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, “The Green Revolution has not yet been won.” His statement is still true today, when high food prices are threatening the food security of an additional 44 million people.

To feed a projected global population of 9 billion in 2050, agricultural production will need to increase by 70 percent from current levels. In the 1970s, as a result of pioneering work by Borlaug and others, rice and wheat yields were rising by 3 percent a year. Now these yields are increasing by just 1 percent annually. In many parts of the world, crop production is falling dramatically. Climate variability alone is predicted to reduce yields in Africa by 38 percent.

At the G-20 agriculture ministers’ meeting this June, member countries made the critical point that both food-surplus and food-deficit countries need to strongly support agricultural research. According to the International Food Policy Research Institute, it will take an increase in spending on agricultural research from the current $5 billion per year to $16 billion just to raise global yields by 1 percent by 2025.

To meet the challenge of feeding hungry people, Zoellick said we need to continue the visionary work of Dr. Borlaug and other researchers. The key is to invest in collaborative agricultural research that builds the research and technical capacity of developing countries. This sets the stage to achieve greater food security through sustainable development and economic growth.

Recently Secretary of State Hillary Clinton officially launched Feed the Future in Tanzania.

In her address to a group of Tanzanian women farmers, Clinton pointed out that nutrition is closely connected to agricultural development. She said that “profound transformation” could occur in Tanzania’s fertile southern region, “because where women learn the best ways to grow and cultivate their own nutritious food which they use to feed their children and sell at market, we see progress.” She added: “I was pleased to hear that already the diversity of crops here is making a difference in the nutritional status of your children.”

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks with Tanzanian women farmers at Mlandizi Farm Women's Cooperative in Mlandizi, Tanzania, on June 12, 2011. State Department photo

During her visit, Clinton also recorded a video address to participants in 1,000 Days to Scale Up Nutrition for Mothers and Children: Building Political Will, co-hosted June 13 by Bread for the World Institute and leading Irish development organization Concern Worldwide.

In the message, now available on the USAID website, Clinton emphasized the importance of nutrition for the 1,000-day “window of opportunity” from pregnancy to a child’s second birthday. The evidence is clear: malnutrition during this period causes damage to physical and cognitive development that is largely irreversible. Clinton also announced the redesigned thousanddays.org, which will enable the global nutrition community to share ideas, lessons learned, and notes from the field.

The Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP) has also just announced that Four countries will receive a total of $160 million in direct funding to support the agriculture and food security plans that they are already developing.

Feed the Future, GAFSP, and other recent global food security initiatives recognize not only that poverty is the cause of hunger, but also that hunger and malnutrition are, in turn, major causes of poverty.

It is far harder for hungry people to escape poverty:

• They have less energy for physical activity, so their work is generally less productive. Yet their labor is usually the only asset they have.
• Their capacity for physical and intellectual development is diminished. Hungry children grow more slowly, encounter more trouble learning, and have lower school attendance and achievement. Hunger compromises investments in education
• Hungry people have higher rates of disease and premature death, because hunger causes serious long-term damage to human health.
• Hunger passes from generation to generation: hungry mothers give birth to underweight infants who start life with a handicap.
• Hunger contributes to social and political instability, undermining governments’ capacity for effective efforts to reduce poverty.

Attention to both hunger and poverty—and to both agriculture and nutrition—must be part of any plan to reduce either hunger or poverty in a sustainable way.

Yesterday at the International Food Aid and Development Conference being held in Kansas City, USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah called a special meeting of faith-based organizations, saying that these groups are important to the “whole of government” effort the United States is undertaking to combat hunger and poverty. At the meeting, faith-based organizations working on these issues gave Shah valuable feedback on how food assistance programs can be improved.

Faith-based organizations are often the first source of assistance when people are hungry. Feedback on the results of U.S.-funded food security programs from groups working overseas—important partners in implementing these programs--is essential to drive forward initiatives such as USAID’s Feed the Future. Those based in the United States, including Bread for the World, have constituents who remind Congress that the federal budget is a moral document that shouldn’t be balanced on the backs of the world’s most vulnerable people.

Shah said that every $1 spent by the U.S. government on food assistance leverages another $4 from donors such as the World Food Program.  He said that every night nearly 1 billion people go to bed hungry and that 3.5 million children under 5 die every year from nutrition-related illnesses.  Sudden dramatic spikes in food prices in 2007-2008 drove nearly 100 million additional people into hunger.  With today's high food prices, nearly 44 million people do not have access to safe and nutritious food.  

The International Food Aid and Development Conference continues this week.  Its theme, “Food Aid:  Results that Matter to Hungry People,” reflects the efforts being made by government, the private sector, and the donor community to improve the quality, nutritional value, and timeliness of delivery of the U.S. food aid provided to vulnerable populations overseas.