Food Security and Famine Prevention (Africa)

William Bain Excerpts

Thursday 15th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr William Bain (Glasgow North East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy), whose comments on the role of agriculture in development I agree with strongly. I too congratulate the hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd), my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) and the whole Backbench Business Committee on calling this important debate.

I believe that few people across the country could fail to be moved by the scale of the disaster that has inflicted itself on the horn of Africa. More than 13 million people have been affected in Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya, and 800,000 people have become refugees. Christian Aid and Oxfam have said that the crisis has three main causes: the worst drought in the region for 60 years; high food and fuel prices; and conflict, particularly in Somalia. Somalia’s per capita gross domestic product is only $333—among the lowest in the world—and 43% of its population survive on less than $1 a day.

It is clear that long-term solutions to prevent a repeat of such a famine will require good governance, sound growth policies and active preparedness through the building of food reserves in the affected countries. However, a major factor contributing to the crisis has been underinvestment in the smallholder agriculture sector across the whole east Africa region. I welcome the contribution made by the G20 Agriculture Ministers in their June summit in Paris, where they called for an increase in food production, made food security a central issue in the G20’s reforms over the next year and pointed out the need for a 70% increase in agricultural production by 2050 to deal with a global population that is likely to rise to 9 billion people.

In developing countries there is a need to double food production to prevent future crises. Three out of every four people in developing countries live in rural areas, and 2.1 billion people still live on less than $2 a day. We know that investment in the agricultural sector does more for growth and poverty reduction than investment in any other sector. I strongly welcome the launch of Oxfam’s Grow campaign, which is aimed at highlighting the importance of food security and calls for the regulation of commodity markets and policies that promote the production of food rather than biofuels. Currently, subsidies for first-generation biofuels amount to $20 billion a year.

There is a clear and pressing question for the international community on food price regulation. The 2010 agriculture and commodity prices report of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation found that in June 2008 the prices of basic foods on international markets had reached their highest levels for 30 years, threatening the food security of the poor worldwide. In 2007 and 2008, as a result of high food prices, an additional 115 million people were pushed into chronic hunger. As US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation this May in Rome, rising global food prices since last June have pushed a further 44 million people into extreme hunger.

The World Economic Forum’s report on global risk describes the link between water, food and energy as one of the future drivers of social and economic instability across the world. The International Food Policy Research Institute predicts a 30% increase in demand for water, and the International Energy Agency forecasts that the world economy will require at least 40% more energy by 2030. Half a billion people throughout the world face chronic shortfalls in water now, and that number that is likely to rise to more than 4 billion by 2050 as a result of climate change, with food production being particularly exposed.

The UNFAO outlined in its June report on crop prospects that food insecurity has reached alarming levels in east Africa, and throughout the continent some 23 countries are in need of external assistance to feed their populations. The OECD secretary-general, Angel Gurría, spoke in early June at the International Economic Forum of the Americas of the imperative to increase public and private agricultural investment and of an end to export bans.

There is an ongoing debate among non-governmental organisations and economists about the contribution of commodity price speculation and trading in commodity derivatives to the volatility of global food prices. Last week, Members were lobbied by Michael Masters and David Frenk of Better Markets, who also spoke to Governments in Paris and in London, about the need for concerted G20 action on commodity derivatives. They established the clear link between speculation from index funds and the monthly spike in commodity derivative stocks.

Such speculation does not add liquidity to those markets or help farmers, and we need the Treasury to join Governments throughout the G20 to put in place a global version of the Dodd-Frank Act, making sure that all transactions are regulated by the stock market and that, in such transactions, position limits are placed on the trading of financial institutions.