Food Security (Africa)

Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts

Tuesday 9th November 2010 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Development (Mr Stephen O'Brien)]

I want to start by congratulating the hon. Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) on securing this debate on a very important subject, and on the powerful and passionate way in which she presented her argument. She also presented the context for any debate on food security, recognising the enormous range of challenges, of which food security is one. The question is how we achieve the critical balance between determining what will be most effective, and what will have most impact in assisting Britain to partner countries to help them graduate away from aid over time, simultaneously meeting the needs of the very poorest people in those countries.

I was delighted that both the hon. Lady and my hon. Friend the Member for Calder Valley (Craig Whittaker) had an opportunity to travel to Kenya with the all-party group on agriculture and food for development—there is no substitute for seeing things for oneself in order to bring these issues to life. To some degree, I have seen these things for myself, as I was born in Tanzania and partly raised and educated in Kenya. The scale of this issue is immense. More than 200 million people in Africa—more than one in four of the continent’s population—suffer chronic hunger. Although Nigeria, Ghana, Rwanda and Ethiopia have all made significant progress in reducing hunger, many countries have made little or no progress and, frankly, some are going backwards. Levels of hunger in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have nearly trebled since 1990, and the levels in Burundi, Botswana, Swaziland, Zambia and Gambia have also increased due to conflict, rapid population growth, economic stagnation or HIV/AIDS. In the years to come, climate change and the scarcity of natural resources will add to the challenge.

The Government are determined to make faster progress in helping to reduce hunger. That is why, at the millennium development goals summit in September, we reaffirmed our determination to tackle malnutrition and to focus our efforts on “the first 1,000 days”—the period from conception until a child’s second birthday—after which intellectual and physical damage from chronic under-nutrition is irreversible.

In doing so, we agreed to work with six major donors to co-ordinate and accelerate our work in countries with high levels of malnutrition. Ghana, Malawi and Uganda are among the first countries to request assistance to reduce under-nutrition rates, which will please the hon. Lady as she referred to a very good example of this type of work in Malawi. It is also why, soon after taking office, the Government reaffirmed our commitment to the L’Aquila food security initiative, which was agreed at the G8 summit in 2009. The agreement aims to increase food production in developing countries, make food more affordable for the poorest and most vulnerable, create wealth and lift the poor out of poverty.

The hon. Lady asked how much of the £1.1 billion in L’Aquila commitments have been spent so far. Although that figure is not yet available, we will certainly write to her as soon as it is. However, I can tell her with confidence that the UK will have met its commitments, which I hope reassures her. Within the G20, we have committed to improving food security by making agricultural trade and markets function more effectively and reducing food price volatility in order to protect those most vulnerable to food price increases.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) on securing this debate. Does the Minister agree that one of the most important things that can be done for food security is to improve food storage facilities? On the ground, I have seen food go to waste many times simply because appropriate food storage was lacking.

[Mr O'Brien]

I defer to my hon. Friend’s experience and expertise in such matters, as he has shown great commitment to them over the years. He is right. No supply chain can be managed without the ability to store foodstuffs and distribution points that make it accessible, particularly to the hardest to reach. He is right to emphasise that we should consider a well-designed, holistic approach to solving the big challenge.