Climate Change: Impact on Food Security
International Trade or Aid? Evaluating the Best Response
Aug 30, 2009
These are the poorest regions in the world with high levels of chronic under-nourishment, and are the ones which contributed the least to the problem of environment decay and climate change. But they will be the hardest hit. The international community and the developed nations have expressed concern towards them in a recent G8 summit declaration which states,” We underscore that climate change severely affects developing countries and is becoming a major threat to their ability to achieve internationally agreed development goals including the MDGs.”
The impacts of climate change on agriculture and food security are manifold. The widely discussed phenomenon of global warming is just one dimension of climate change. The mean global temperatures are projected to increase between one to four degrees Celsius by 2100. This will bring benefits to agriculture in temperate latitudes, with increases in crop yields and growing periods. But in drier regions, previously cultivated areas will become unsuitable for agriculture, losing 10% to 20% of grain growing capacity. This scenario predicts regional disparities in food production and availability. Moreover, with an increase in climate variability, another dimension of climate change, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts that the world will face increased frequency and severity of cyclones, floods, storms and droughts, causing fluctuations in crop yields and local food supplies. These inconsistencies will have serious effects on semi-arid areas, like Sub-Saharan Africa and certain parts of South Asia.
But there is a ray of hope. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the UN predicts that the overall global food production is likely to keep pace with population growth and the food demand in the future. Thus apart from taking mitigating action to halt the climate change, the International Community faces the challenge of removing the regional disparities in the availability of food across the globe.
How Effective Will Food-Aid Be
Currently, the UN and the developed nations respond to food needs of populations in emergency situations after natural disasters or in conflict areas. The UN World Food Programme (WFP), the world’s largest humanitarian food aid agency, is the main channel used by the world to deliver disaster relief and food aid. The food distributed is received mainly from donations from richer countries. There are other charity institutions as well providing food aid. Is such food aid sustainable in future? Given the fact that the emergencies which shall arise in future due to climate variability would need food to be delivered to distant pockets with poor rail and road infrastructure, or often in situations where such an infrastructure is destroyed in floods or storms, the food aid would reach the needy ones only after many in need may have already perished!
International Free Trade- The Best Option
A concept note published by the UN agency, OCHA states that markets contribute to the four pillars of food security namely food availability, food access, food stability and food utilization. Markets enhance food availability by enabling producers to purchase inputs used for food production, and also facilitate trade between surplus and deficit areas. Globally, markets and trade are important in promoting food availability, access, stability and calorific consumption in most regions of the world.
A study published by US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has revealed that trade liberalization has the potential to enhance developing countries’ food security position and reduce their food gap. The study suggests several trade-related options to improve food security. On the export side, it suggests increasing market access for products exported by developing countries to raise incomes and help reduce food insecurity. On the import side, an option could be to strengthen the Uruguay Round trade provisions on food aid to assure minimum global volumes and to target them towards the low-income countries. We have witnessed that in countries where market mechanisms have progressed well, the regional food shortages are not felt by the populations. At the international level, the open economies and free trade in certain commodities have ensured equitable distribution of surpluses and countries are able to overcome the deficits. It is a zero sum game indeed at the global level, in totality, we have what we need. The trade surpluses and deficits of world economies should add up to a zero.
The FAO estimates that even in the face of adverse impacts of climate change and variability, sufficient food will be available in coming decades, mainly due to research and technological progress. The OCHA and USDA studies provide the possible solutions to future food shortages in Sub-Saharan and south Asian countries, caused by climate change, through market mechanisms and trade liberalization.
If we can achieve free trade in agricultural commodities or food items over next decade, the humanity will be saved of witnessing deaths of fellow human beings due to hunger, when surplus food will be rotting in other parts of the world!
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