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Lets be clear: Food insecurity Is NOT a past or future threat, its here. Now. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) last month reported that world food prices hit a “historic peak,’ the highest in the 20 odd years since they first began the index.The reasons? The FAO cites greedy speculators, rising demand, increased population, extreme weather, and faulty futures markets.

In fact, as much as 115 million acres of farmland around the world — the bulk of it in Africa — are leased to foreign investors. Its commonplace for African farmers to have little more left after harvest than a bag of corn, some nuts and melons.

But none of this is news here. We all know about the Third Pole, about how the survival of three billion people (half the world’s population) is in serious jeopardy due to dwindling freshwater runoff from the Himalayas. We know about the dire situation in the Middle East, where drought is expected to be so extreme that current crops will not be able to withstand the heat. We are aware that China’s self-sufficiency in terms of homegrown grain supply (a key factor in stabilizing food insecurity over the past few years) as its northern regions are ravaged by ongoing unprecedented drought.

China: Self-sufficiency Threatened by Drought

“China’s grain situation is critical to the rest of the world – if they are forced to go out on the market to procure adequate supplies for their population, it could send huge shockwaves through the world’s grain markets,” It was China’s self-sufficiency in grain which prevented world food prices from moving even higher when they spiked three years ago, he has noted.Historically speaking, major droughts have stirred people to rebel and overthrow, and the Chinese leaders are acutely aware of this historicity. Both President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao have made separate visits to drought-stricken areas in the previous week, and each called for “all-out efforts” to cope with the water shortage.

And then, there would be Africa. Hunger and food security: Is Africa selling the farm?

Flashback Madagascar, 2009: Hunger feeds a Coup

In March 2009, civilian protesters led by a baby-faced former disc jockey swarmed through the streets of this hilly capital city. They were calling for the ouster of then-President Marc Ravalomanana for what they saw as literally giving away the farm, selling out his impoverished nationThe anger was about food. Mr. Ravalomanana reportedly had leased 3.2 million acres – nearly half the island nation’s arable land – to a South Korean conglomerate, Daewoo, for 99 years. In theory, it should have been a win-win deal: Daewoo would pay Madagascar $6 billion to grow corn and oil palm, helping South Korea meet both its food-security and bio-fuels needs, while providing Madagascar with revenues and desperately needed jobs.

Mozambique bread riots may be warning sign on African food security

As world population heads toward a peak, Malthusian worries reemerge

By John Yemma, Editor / February 7, 2011

Food and people. Thomas Malthus posed them as two forces rarely in balance. Plentiful food encourages population growth. A booming population devours more food than can be produced.Famine and other ugliness follow. Population crashes.

Students who learn of Malthus’s grim prediction usually take away two lessons. The first is the sharp contrast between arithmetic and geometric progression. Food supplies grow slowly, Malthus said. But consumers multiply like rabbits. A geometric progression outstrips an arithmetic one every time.

The second lesson is about why Malthus’s catastrophe hasn’t occurred. Most scholars think it is because the 19th-century Anglican parson didn’t have sufficient regard for technology and innovation. From the “green revolution” to global trade, from drip irrigation to entrepreneurial ingenuity, Homo sapiens learn and improve. We farm better, manage resources more carefully, and as education increases, birthrates fall.

The Right to Food

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 first recognized the right to food as a human right. It was then incorporated in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (Article 11) adopted in 1966 and ratified by 156 states, which are today legally bound by its provisions.
The most authoritative UN interpretation of the right to food in international law is contained in General Comment No. 12 of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1999):

“The right to adequate food is realized when every man, woman and child, alone or in community with others, has physical and economic access at all times to adequate food or means for its procurement”.

Bangladesh and food security by J.Bergsma, IFPRI

Solutions
Hunger and food security: One way to create an African breadbasket: Zamabia

With corn and soy crops planted late last year and now reaching the harvest stage, Chobe has a 14-year lease from the Zambian government, and expects to hire 3,000 people locally during 2011. Under an agreement signed with the Zambian government, 80 percent of the Chobe crop will be Download PDF of map: The 21st-century African land rush

The FoodFirst Information and Action Network (FIAN) last week participated in a series of programs at WSF in Dakar entitled “Stop land grabbing; defend the right to food and the rights of peasants.”. Along with Amnesty International and International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) they demanded a “new international instrument to demand social justice: The new United Nations complaints mechanism for violations of the rights to food, housing, health, education and water.”

And this past weekend, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPR) conducted a workshop in India which addressed the problem of food security through a three-pronged approach which ties together health, nutrition and agriculture.“Leveraging Agriculture for Improving Nutrition and Health”

“We are standing face to face with some serious challenges: hunger, malnutrition, and poor health are denying billions of people the opportunity for a healthy, well-nourished, and productive life. Agriculture, which played a key role in feeding billions of poor in the world in the past, faces more volatile growing conditions due to changing climate and scarcer resources because of urbanization and population growth.”

(Watch videos, see pictures and read reports here . )

Last year, an IFPR’s project detailed a framework to address solutions for coping with food insecurity as a result of population growth and climate change using modeling techniques,to evaluate 15 different scenarios through 2050. The conclude:

The negative effects of climate change on food security can be counteracted by broad-based economic growth—particularly improved agricultural productivity—and robust international trade in agricultural products to offset regional shortages. In pursuit of these goals, policymakers should increase public investment in land, water, and nutrient use and maintain relatively free international trade. This inquiry into the future of food security should be of use to policymakers and others concerned with the impact of climate change on international development.

Food security, farming, and climate change to 2050

Can the world’s farmers meet the growing demand for food as an uncertain climate future adds to food security challenges from a growing population with higher incomes? IFPRI partnered with StatPlanet to offer Food Security CASE Maps: interactive Climate, Agriculture, and Socio-Economic maps underlie the analysis in IFPRI?s latest report: Food Security, Farming, and Climate Change to 2050. (Nelson, Gerald C., Mark W. Rosegrant, et al. Food Security, Farming, and Climate Change to 2050: Scenarios, Results Policy Options. Washington, D.C.: International Food Policy Research Institute. Start the tour here.