The looming food crisis – how ready is Ghana?

Last Updated: Thursday, 3 April 2008, 13:59 GMT Previous Page

Kenkey – a Ghanaian staple. Email Print Have Your Say (6)  Comments   RSS       There are clear signs on the wall that the world is in crisis. There is food crisis in most parts of the world, and the World Bank is already concerned that there would be food prices related conflicts and riots in some parts of the world. The crisis is not necessarily as a result of shortage of food, but the rise in world food and energy prices. This would exacerbate world hunger and malnutrition, and Ghana could be affected, unless the appropriate steps are taken. On March 7 2008, I wrote an article titled, ‘Rise in world food prices has implications for Ghana’, drawing attention to the possible ripple effects of the rise in world food prices on Ghana. The article was published on myjoyonline. And if readers’ comments to stories on this site is the basis for determining the popularity of stories published, then that article received very little attention, because there is only a single reader’s comment to that story. Probably, the warning was not strong enough to generate any public interest. But as I write, only last Tuesday April 1, 2008, a riot broke out in Cote d’ Ivoire over rising food prices leading to one death and injury to about 10 others, forcing President Gbagbo to cancel custom duties and cut taxes on household products. The BBC reported riots in other West African countries including Cameroon, Burkina Faso and Senegal. And the World Bank estimates 33 countries face potential social unrest because of rising food and energy prices. How ready is Ghana to avert any such crisis resulting from the rise in world food prices which the government has no control over? Wheat and rice prices for delivery in March 2008 have jumped to an all-time record, soyabean prices are at a 34-year high and corn prices at an 11-year peak. The new benchmark prices for corn are also more than 5 per cent higher than previously. Corn for March 2008 rose to $4.43¼ a bushel, the highest level in 11 years for a front-month contract. For instance, the US Department of Agriculture has predicted that global corn stocks will fall to a 33-year low of just 7.5 weeks of consumption, while global wheat stocks will plunge to their lowest level in at least 47 years at 9.3 weeks. In response to the dire situation the prices are expected to engender, the President of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick was reported by the BBC to have said that the top priority in addressing the challenge was to give the UN World Food Programme an extra $500m for emergency food aid. And the World Bank president also believes that funds should be made available to help build local food markets and boost agricultural productivity which could create a “green revolution” for sub-Saharan Africa. Zoellick said “The poor need lower food prices now. But the world’s agricultural trading system is stuck in the past.” “If ever there was a time to cut distorting agricultural subsidies and open markets for food imports it must be now.” The WFP however, sees an opportunity in the crisis. They argue that, the rise in food prices opens up a market for small holder farmers to make more money for their produce. That also opens up agriculture to investments because it has become profitable. Investments in irrigation, high yielding seeds, equipment and training in human resources for the sector has now become lucrative because of the possible high return on investments in the sector due to the high prices for food. Cote d’ Ivoire is next door to Ghana, and I hope the incidents there can and should serve as a warning to us. ‘A stitch in time’, the sages say, ‘saves nine’. Ghana can’t afford to play games with the reality staring us right in the face. By now a national programme to address the issue should be rolled out and all stakeholders should be involved, because the good people of Ghana can’t afford to wait for the worse to happen. Authored by Emmanuel K. Dogbevi Email: edogbevi@hotmail.com source.

Asia can overcome food, fuel inflation – World Bank

Fri Apr 4, 2008 12:47pm IST

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By Vithoon Amorn

DANANG, Vietnam (Reuters) – The economies of East Asia are sound and should be able to weather a slowdown as well as inflationary pressures from the high price of rice and other commodities, a senior World Bank official said on Friday.

Global rice prices have been rising since October when India, which normally exports 4 million tonnes annually, banned exports of non-basmati rice.

Other major producing countries like China, Egypt and Vietnam have also curtailed exports of rice, the staple food of about half of the world’s 6.6 billion people, threatening to drive prices even higher and heightening food security fears.

“High and rising food prices, especially rice prices, posed a special challenge,” Juan Jose Daboub said in a statement at a two-day meeting of Asian finance ministers in Danang, Vietnam.

“Governments needed to take short-term steps to protect the poor, but also to ensure that long-term solutions were found to relieve shortages,” said Daboub, a World Bank managing director and one of three deputies to its president, Robert Zoellick.

Inflation across the region was contributing to significant reductions in the incomes of the poor, who have to spend between one-third and two-thirds of their income on food, Daboub said.

However, he cautioned against adopting excessive state subsidies to deal with food inflation, saying that could seriously strain fiscal positions and distort markets.

Daboub’s statement to the 10-nation ASEAN group on the global slowdown said the region was “positioned well to weather the downturn, thanks to sound economic management, strong growth and accumulated reserves over the past decade”.

A World Bank report on Tuesday said Asia faced a tough job in managing inflation at a time when economic growth was slowing.

Rising food and fuel prices have helped drive inflation to a 26-year high in Singapore, a 14-month high in India and the highest in more than a decade in Hong Kong, China and Vietnam, which is hosting the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) meeting.

The Philippines, one of the world’s biggest rice importers, has sought to buy large shipments from Vietnam and Thailand to replenish its dwindling stocks.

The government wants to have enough rice for 30 days of consumption before July, when the supply of local rice dwindles.

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UN official: Philippine gov’t taking right steps on food issue

www.chinaview.cn 2008-04-04 14:35:36

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MANILA, April 4 (Xinhua) — The Philippine government is taking right steps to prevent a possible food crisis, an official of the United Nations’ World Food Program (WFP) said on Friday.     ”Initially, we wouldn’t have been so concerned about the Philippines because it already is responsible for growing internally about 85 percent of the food that it consumes,” Valerie Guarnieri, WFP’s country director in the Philippines, told local media.     Guarnieri said the Philippine government can fill up the remaining 15 percent by just making “extra efforts” to get commitments from other countries to supply the food needed by the country, Philippine TV network ANC reported.     She said securing rice imports is one of the two best ways to prevent a food crisis in the country, which she said is being “aggressively” pursued by the government.     Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo had announced that Vietnam has committed to sell the government 1.5 million metric tons of rice, which she said will augment the country’s rice supply starting June.     Arroyo had also said that she plans to convince Thailand to sell additional rice for the country.     The government has also started the process of providing rice stubs to poor Filipinos, as well as other measures to mitigate the rising prices of rice.     The National Food Authority has started selling 18.50 pesos (0.44 U.S. dollars) per kilo rice in poor communities.     The other way to mitigate the increasing prices of staple needs is to provide food subsidies to the poor, which Garnieri said is already being done by the Philippine government.     Guarnieri said the increasing prices of rice, and its possible unavailability in the world market, can turn out as a positive development for Philippine agriculture, especially for the farmers.     Countries, including the Philippines, would have to “reemphasize the need to look also at local production” now that there is a looming world food crisis, she said.     In the Philippines, she said, the government should focus on measures on how to improve measures that would not only increase food security, but also “benefit poor farmers.”

Editor: Sun Yunlong

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Global food crisis looms as grain prices soar

Foreign Staff

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RICE and maize hit record prices yesterday on speculation that global demand for cereals would not be met as governments in producer countries curb exports to prevent protests.
Rice, the staple food for about 3-billion people — nearly half the world’s population — rose 2,4% in Chicago yesterday after doubling in the past year. Soya beans advanced for the third day and wheat also rose.
Harvests have been reduced by drought in countries including Canada and Australia, and by a US freeze followed by excessive rain last year. China, India and Vietnam have cut rice exports and Indonesia has reduced import tariffs to protect food supplies and cool inflation.

Steep increases in food prices have been the main driver of world inflation — and the same is true of SA, where commodities such as maize are priced internationally.

SA’s food price inflation rose to 14,1% in February from 13,4% in January, with steep increases in grain products (where the inflation rate was running at 20,8%), as well as in meat, milk cheese, eggs and vegetables. Higher food prices accounted for about a third of February’s inflation rate of 9,8%, making them the biggest single driver.

Severe weather in producing countries and a boom in demand from fast-developing countries have pushed up prices of staple foods by 80% since 2005.

Last month, rice prices hit a 19-year high; wheat prices rose to a 28-year high and almost twice the average price of the past 25 years.

World Bank president Robert Zoellick called yesterday for a co-ordinated response to the spiralling prices, which “were exacerbating shortages, hunger and malnutrition around the globe”. He said 33 countries could face social unrest because of higher food and energy prices.

Speaking ahead of International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings in Washington next week, Zoellick said the crisis required the attention of political leaders in every country, since high prices and price volatility were likely to stay for some time. The crisis also highlighted the need to conclude a long-awaited deal in the Doha trade talks, which would cut distorting subsidies and open markets for food imports.

“We need a new deal for global food policy that should focus not only on hunger and malnutrition, access and supply, but also on the interconnections with energy, yields, climate change, investment, the marginalisation of women and others, and economic resilience and growth.”

A fairer, more open global trading system would give farmers in developing countries more opportunities and confidence to expand food output.

“The solution is to break the Doha development agenda impasse this year,” Zoellick said. “There is a good deal on the table. It’s now or never”.

Agreement on contentious agriculture issues is the key to striking a trade deal in talks that began in 2001.

Around the world, protests against food prices are increasing and governments are responding with often counterproductive controls on prices and exports, he said.

With shifting populations, higher energy prices and demand for biofuels draining maize stocks, no one country can deal with the problem alone, Zoellick said.

“We need a stronger delivery system, to overcome fragmentation in food security, health, agriculture, water, sanitation, rural infrastructure, and gender policies. A shift from traditional food aid to a broader concept of food and nutrition assistance must be part of the deal.”

Zoellick said the response should begin with helping the most needy and called on rich nations to fill the $500m funding gap at the United Nations’ World Food Programme to provide food aid to the world’s poorest. With Reuters, Bloomberg.

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