Nations asked to focus on systems to tame food crisis

It is by no accident that about 3.1 billion people globally today still lack access to efficient food diet, a new report says.

Friends of the Earth International attributes the unending food and hunger crisis to the unjust food systems that prioritises profits over peoples’ rights, lives and environment.

“Hunger, malnutrition and rising food prices are a result of an unsustainable economic system, and to approach it, there is need for system change, based on agroecology and food sovereignty,” the report reads.

Hunger was widespread even before the Russia-Ukraine conflict began with the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), estimating between 702 and 828 million people being affected by hunger in 2021 globally.

In 2020, over 2 billion were reported not to have adequate access to food even as covid-19 pandemic pushed 150 million more people into hunger.

According to World Food Programme (WFP), currently there are about 3.5 million people in Kenya who are food insecure.

This is on the back of the widespread drought that has hit most parts of the Arid and Semi-arid Lands (ASALs).

The ASALs in the country are spread across 29 counties with varying degrees of aridity.

Current extreme climatic conditions have had devastating effects on the environment and livelihoods of communities with spiraling vulnerabilities.

WFP estimates that the number of food insecure people could rise to almost 4.35 million by end of October this year if drought worsens and no effective measures are taken in taming the crisis.

According to the 2022 Long Rains Assessment report released in August, over 700,000 people in the country are at emergency levels.

An estimated 940,000 children, aged half a year to five years and 135,000 pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers across the country are acutely malnourished.

“These persistent and shocking levels of hunger expose structural problems in the industrial food system,” the report notes.

“The issue is not inadequate food production, but a blind obsession with productivity, profits and global markets as the way to supply food, rather than a focus on realising the right to food and peoples’ rights more widely.”

Friends of the Earth International further notes that the current industrial food system is a driver of multiple crises ranging from climate, food, environmental and public health.

Global production chains are also highly vulnerable to these shocks.

Supplied by an industrial model of food production, they rely heavily on fossil fuels and chemical inputs, and are dominated by a handful of corporations.

This means that food prices track rising energy prices, while intensive food production contributes to carbon emissions and environmental destruction.

As the climate crisis intensifies, extreme weather events like droughts, floods and heatwaves experienced in the Horn of Africa become more frequent.

This pushes vulnerable people further into poverty and hunger, whilst affecting small scale producers’ ability to feed their communities in the future.

Ongoing conflicts, wars and occupations are also among the main drivers of global hunger, for instance the Russia-Ukraine war.

The invasion of Ukraine by Russia brought the food crisis to the headlines, with prices of wheat shooting up 70 per cent.

FAO thereafter predicted a possible additional 13 million people pushed into hunger.

Although, prices were rising even before any supply gaps, pushed up by food trader speculation and profiteering in financial markets.

The panic in global food markets, caused by the conflict between the world’s largest producers of wheat and chemical fertiliser, has exposed the huge fragility of a global food system.

Today, at least 20 countries depend on Russia and Ukraine for half of their wheat imports.

In Eastern Africa, wheat has become a staple food, despite most of it not being grown in the region. 84 per cent is imported, mainly from Russia and Ukraine.

The report notes that the answer to the crisis is not to deepen free markets, or produce more intensively, but to have a shift in focus, away from profits and economic growth, and direct it towards right to food.

“A radical transformation of our food system towards food sovereignty is possible. It requires adequate public policies to reduce dependency on food imports and boost domestic food systems, especially in Africa,” the report reads in part.

This means ensuring social and economic justice, via debt cancellation, stopping free trade agreements and unfair investment deals, generally dismantling corporate power.

It further notes that there is the requirement to invest in public institutions and policies to support the right to food and agroecology.

This while guaranteeing peoples’ rights to control their territories; land, water and seeds.

This means valuing local knowledge and markets, and nurturing social relations founded on justice and solidarity.

It involves tackling the overlapping oppressions that operate in the food system such as patriarchy, racism and class, and recognising the fundamental role of women in food production.

“Ultimately, nations need to support those who feed the world in a way that protects biodiversity, lowers emissions and counters destructive industrial agriculture as the answer to the global food crisis is system change,” the report says.