Food Sovereignty and the Food Crisis

August 2008

According to the World Bank and the FAO, over the past three years, global food prices have risen 83%, with an increase of 45% just between June 2007 and June 2008. In March of 2008, the average world price of wheat, soy, rice and maize were 130%, 87%, 74%, and 31% higher than the year earlier, respectively. With such high increases comes food riots and mass starvation. In Morocco, Mauritania, Senegal, Cameroon, Egypt and Burkina Faso, millions have taken to the streets to protest rising food costs, resulting in injuries and even death for protestors.

The food crisis is expected to turn back many human development gains made in the past few years and 100 million people in the Global South may sink into hunger. What is most appalling is the fact that there is not a food shortage in the world; on the contrary, there were record grain harvest in 2007 and enough food in the world to feed everyone at a rate of 1.5 times current demand. As Nobel Prize winning economist Amartya Sen observed, "starvation is the characteristic of some people not having enough food to eat. It is not the characteristic of there being not enough food."

The current global food crisis has been variously attributed to natural disasters in major wheat-producing countries, low grain reserves, high oil prices, more consumption in developing countries per capita, the high price of oil and diversion of food items (such as corn or other cereals) to agro-fuel production.

While many factors have contributed to the most recent and visible episodes of mass hunger, at a global level, the situation represents a failure of the international economic system to allow Africa countries to achieve food sovereignty. According to the Declaration of the Forum for Food Sovereignty, food sovereignty is the "right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems." Instead of allowing markets and corporations to determine food prices and access, food sovereignty puts local producers, consumers, and distributors at the center of food policies and systems. Food sovereignty means that a country's citizens ensure that they have enough food and surplus to feed their nation on their own efforts.

Food sovereignty operates under the premise that access to food is a basic human right and that there is no justification for over 850 million people starving in the world today. Food sovereignty also has positive environmental implications as it steers production from large-scale industrial farming to smaller, more sustainable methods. This approach emphasizes the empowerment of women, local markets and the community.

It is important to note that food sovereignty is not synonymous with food security. Food security is an element of food sovereignty, but means only having physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs. While a country can be "food secure" through imports, this dependency on foreign foods can lead to a vulnerability to price and supply risks, which many African nations currently face.

In the 1960s, Africa was a net exporter of food. Today, nearly all African countries are net importers. Global commodity markets have replaced local agricultural systems. While this has yielded tremendous profit for some multinational corporations and investors in agribusiness, it has yet to see much benefit for the majority of the African people.

Under the auspice of liberalization and free market policy, the IMF and World Bank reduced the state's role in agricultural planning, weakening small farmers and encouraging commercial export commodity agriculture in Africa. Although it goes against World Bank and IMF policy prescriptions, some African nations have taken an interest in preserving food sovereignty by offering their farmers subsidies Malawi is a strong example. Its government realized that farmers would be able to produce more crops that were less vulnerable to environmental conditions if they could afford expensive fertilizers. With the subsidized fertilizer, in just two years, Malawian farmers were able to more than double their yields of corn, leaving them with a surplus that could be traded.

Despite such obviously positive results, donors and financial institutions discourage African nations from subsidizing their farmers as it goes against the free market policy theme. The term "free" trade is evidently subjective, as both the European Union and the U.S. have heavily subsidized industries (around $1 billion per day in subsidies) and "dump" cheap food and other agricultural exports on African markets, pushing local farmers out of business. The World Bank estimates that American subsidies on cotton reduce West Africa's exports of the same crop by $250 million a year. The following 1986 statement by then U.S. Secretary of Agriculture John Block is telling. "The idea that developing countries should feed themselves is an anachronism from a bygone era. They could better ensure their food security by relying on U.S. agricultural products, which are available, in most cases at lower cost."

In 2005, a coalition of major foundations and international experts launched the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) to overcome the continent's food crisis. There is no doubt a role for technology in food production. However, AGRA's reliance on scaling up the use of external inputs that have yielded dubious results in other poor countries at the expense of tackling the more critical systemic causes of hunger in Africa is problematic. The use of genetically modified crops and a heavy reliance on chemical fertilizers can decrease biodiversity and destroy soils. Reliance on imported seeds, fertilizers, and machinery reduce the control farmers have over their land and the means they wish to employ to grow their crops.

African food producers should be integrated into the global economy on fair terms that prioritize food sovereignty principles of local empowerment and sustainable farming methods. International financial institutions and donors must understand that liberalization and free trade policies undermine food sovereignty and thus food security in African nations. Food sovereignty is a critical framework not just for approaching the current food crisis, but for achieving people-driven development and fighting poverty across Africa.

Links

Human Need and Corporate Greed: Understanding the Call for a New Green Revolution in Africa
Sameer Dossani
"This Special Guest Paper for Africa Action argues that approaches to fighting hunger in Africa focused on high-tech inputs such as chemical fertilizers or genetically modified (GM) crops do not address the root challenges faced by African farmers..." Go >

Just Africa
"Africa Action's blog features several posts on food sovereignty and the food crisis..." Go >

Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA)
Rockefeller Institute and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
"The Alliance is currently working with African governments, other donors, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), the private sector, and African farmers to improve the productivity and incomes of resource-poor farmers in Africa..." Go >

Declaration of the Forum for Food Sovereignty
"A gathering of representatives from more than 80 countries gathered together in the village of Nyeleni in Selingue, Mali have issued a declaration to strengthen a global movement for food sovereignty..." Go >

The Destruction of African Agriculture
Walden Bello
"African agriculture is a case study of how doctrinaire economics serving corporate interests can destroy a whole continent's productive base..." Go >

Farmer Power the Key to Green Advance
BBC News
"Behind several kinds of environmental damage lurks the hand of the farmer. The key to better prospects for them and the environment, argues Michel Pimbert in the Green Room, is giving them more control over what they do..." Go >

Food Aid or Food Sovereignty? - Ending World Hunger in Our Time
The Oakland Institute
"Food Aid or Food Sovereignty? not only provides a timely critique of food aid as it exists today, but offers analysis and recommendations to help shift the terms of debate around hunger and food aid. Recommending food sovereignty as a policy tool, the report advocates for food self sufficiency as the means to eradicate world hunger..." Go >

Food Sovereignty in West Africa: From Principles to Reality
Sahel and West African Club, OECD
"Based on input from from West African governments, regional organizations and NGOs, this report assesses how the 1990 Food Aid Charter principles have been implemented to develop trade and agricultural policies at a regional level in West Africa..." Go >

From Food Rebellions to Food Sovereignty: Urgent call to fix a broken food system
Food First Institute for Food and Development Policy
"The skyrocketing cost of food has resurrected the specter of the ‘food riot'..." Go >

How Northern Subsidies Hurt Africa
Africa Recovery
"One of the many economic differences between developed and developing countries is that developed countries subsidize farmers while developing countries tax farmers. The author outlines how these subsidies hurt developing countries' farmers..." Go >

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