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Page added on December 11, 2016
Food Insecurity: An Agent for Violent Conflict
Up to two billion people live in countries affected by violence, conflict and fragility. Often, such political instability goes hand in hand with food insecurity. “Conflicts have pushed over 56 million people either into crisis or emergency levels of food insecurity”, Kimberly Flowers, Director of the Global Food Security Project, said at this years’ John McGovern Lecture held at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). The number continues to grow with the escalation of conflicts and violence in countries like Syria, Yemen or South Sudan.
Families can no longer afford regular meals because of rising food and fuel costs. Credit: IPS
However, since the food price crisis in 2007/08 pushed the total number of hungry people to over one billion – a sixth of the worlds population – political leaders have started to pay attention to food insecurity.
Under President Obama, the United States has invested 6,6 billion dollars in “Feed the Future”, a long-term development program focusing on reducing poverty and hunger. The program aims at teaching farmers in developing countries new agricultural techniques, how to increase productivity and improve nutrition.
Kimberly Flowers underlined that in the United States, opinions on food security are not divided among party lines. The U.S Congress has enacted the Global Food Security Act this summer, a law that will ensure that global hunger and poverty remain a top U.S. foreign policy. “Food security is real and evidence based. Congress understands the importance of addressing this issue”, Kimberly Flowers told IPS.
Despite the uncertainty a Trump administration will bring with it, with the Global Food Security Act, food-security investments will continue for at least two more years.
For the first time, the U.S. intelligence community has recognized the linkage between political instability and food insecurity and has assessed that the overall risk of food insecurity in many countries will increase during the next ten years because of production, transport and market disruptions to local food availability.
“Food insecurity is both the cause and consequence of conflict”, Kimberly Flowers told the audience, linking it with political stability and calling food insecurity a “national security imperative”.
The lack of access to food can be used as a strategic instrument of war. “Hungry populations are more likely to express frustration with troubled leadership, perpetuating a cycle of political instability and further undermining long-term economic development”, Kimberly Flowers said.
In a paper released by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), the authors state that food insecurity heightens the risk of democratic breakdown, civil conflict, protest, rioting, and communal conflict.
In Syria, President Bashar al-Assad as well as the Islamic State have used food or the absence of food as war tactics, deliberately cutting off Syrians from humanitarian assistance or offering starving citizens food in return for them to join their ranks. The war has devastated Syria’s agriculture and has cost the country 35 years of development. Its food production is at a record low as farmers are unable to hold on to, let alone cultivate their land.
In Nigeria, food insecurity has risen as a result of instability and especially affects areas where Boko Haram operates. “Boko Haram’s actions are preventing food production; they have placed landmines in farmer’s fields, stolen cattle, and forced civilians to flee, leaving land unfarmed”, said Kimberly Flowers. The result is that certain areas are deprived of their harvest, and where food is available, prices have increased drastically.
In Venezuela, on the other hand, food insecurity is linked to economic mismanagement. “90 per cent of Venezuelans report that food has become too expensive to buy”, said Kimberly Flowers. Once a rich country with strong leadership, Venezuela’s dependence on oil revenues has brought the economy to the verge of collapse after a global drop in oil prices. As the population grows hungry, the government has resorted to increasingly authoritarian response tactics.
In South Sudan, conflicts between the government and oppositional groups have had such an impact on the economy that food prices increased dramatically. The denial of food and food aid has played a central part in countering insurgencies in the country. Up to 95 per cent of the population in South Sudan depends on agriculture to survive, “yet there is no underlying state infrastructure to support the agricultural industry”, Kimberly Flowers said. “The dangerous combination of armed conflict, weak infrastructure and soaring staple food prices could result in famine conditions.”
In 2015, the international community has adopted 17 key objectives to be achieved by 2030, known as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The first two goals are to eradicate poverty and hunger. But can these goals really be achieved when instability and conflict are constant threats?
“The SDGs underestimate the difficulties of helping more than a billion people to regain a sustainable path of economic growth and reconstruct a torn social fabric within a short 15 years”, said Kimberly Flowers. To believe that hunger and poverty can completely be abolished within the next 14 years is unrealistic. However, the efforts to implement the SDGs will have a sustainable impact on the countries in need of help. For example on food insecurity: “The number of food insecure people is projected to fall significantly, 59 per cent, by 2026.”
Kimberly Flowers believes that the most important factors to decrease food insecurity are a strong government and keeping agriculture high up on the development agenda.
15 Comments on "Food Insecurity: An Agent for Violent Conflict"
Boat on Sun, 11th Dec 2016 10:08 am
How smart is it to feed exploding populations. Nigeria for example is out of control. Their problems are self inflicted one baby at a time. If you want to reward areas of the world with free food and tech. Reward areas that show the ability to voluntarily reduce their populations.
Cloggie on Sun, 11th Dec 2016 10:29 am
However, since the food price crisis in 2007/08 pushed the total number of hungry people to over one billion – a sixth of the worlds population
I’m hungry three times a day. The best remedy is to take a bite.
Yet for some reason these “hungry people” will manage to increase their population numbers from 1 billion today to 4 billion by the end of the century. Something doesn’t add up here.
You always have to distrust these figures from NGOs, UN bodies and similar do-gooder clubs, who make a living of keeping the story alive of needy Africans, who absolutely need your dollars (all credit cards accepted), otherwise they will fall over, flat on their face.
Obviously hunger exists, notably in war situations, the worst in living memory being the war between Nigeria and Biafra (1967-70). But it remains to be seen of the situation in Africa as a whole is really that bad, with billions and and billions development aid flowing in every year.
Meanwhile there are ever more Africans saying: “leave us alone”.
http://globalfarmernetwork.org/2016/06/open-letter-to-the-eu-parliament-from-a-kenyan-farmer-leave-africa-alone/
http://www.chimpreports.com/mwenda-blasts-obama-leave-africa-alone/
Sissyfuss on Sun, 11th Dec 2016 10:30 am
I would bet that the lovely African woman in the picture has 8 children and cannot understand why they suffer from hunger on a regular basis. She probably blames the developed world for not sending copious amounts of free aid and IPhones.
Cloggie on Sun, 11th Dec 2016 10:40 am
Even this typical Christian do-gooder has to admit that over the last 40 years merely 1:10,000 Africans die in a war:
http://bigthink.com/videos/should-we-just-leave-africa-alone
[2:30]
They now even have an IKEA store in Cairo:
http://tinyurl.com/jqveonu
Wikipedia “List of countries by number of mobile phones in use”
China 93%
Nigeria 94.5%
Zimbabwe 103.5% (!)
Kenia 71%
Yeah right, these poor Africans.
onlooker on Sun, 11th Dec 2016 10:41 am
Boat, guess what, I agree with you totally.
penury on Sun, 11th Dec 2016 11:10 am
I can remember reading the articles in the 1950s papers issuing the pleas for food assistance for the starving millions, in those days it was always S.E. Asia and W.African nation which would face immanent starvation without massive world intervention. At that time starvation was not due to a lack of food, but a lack of money to transport and feed the poor people. The world has not ended and if you compare the population of these poor nations I suppose that you will find that the stories were true and the populations plummeted to levels from which they have never recovered, Right?
Apneaman on Sun, 11th Dec 2016 11:30 am
They’ll be heading for Europe along with the middle east in even greater numbers – hundreds of millions. Should be great fun for ClogO and friends. We won’t be coming to the rescue this time.
paulo1 on Sun, 11th Dec 2016 11:44 am
Cloggie, get a brain.
Poor countries have high cell phone use/ownership because there is no hard wired infrastructure (think copper lines). It is the same for Costa Rica, Guatemala, and every other central american country.
People do need to communicate for work, etc.
Sissyfuss on Sun, 11th Dec 2016 11:52 am
Hey Clogareney, maybe those 94.5% of Nigerians with mobile phones could call each other up and discuss methods of birth control. Nah, they’re too busy discussing whether Merkel has a chance in hell of reelection.
dooma on Sun, 11th Dec 2016 3:05 pm
STOP having so many kids! For starters.
Then things might settle down a fair bit.
Davy on Sun, 11th Dec 2016 4:28 pm
If we had a 5 year ban on having children we could reduce population from 7BIL to 6.725BIL with normal death attrition and prevent an increase of 655MIL to current population.
JuanP on Sun, 11th Dec 2016 5:40 pm
The Sustainable Development Goals are BS. If you want to avoid hunger and starvation in the future learn how to grow food now. If you want to help your kids and grandkids to avoid hunger and starvation in the future teach them how to grow, preserve, and prepare food. I can afford to buy whatever I want but I still grow more food than I eat. Maybe you can’t afford to invest the time I invest in doing this but you should do whatever you can. Doing nothing about this will lead you to a bad place.
makati1 on Sun, 11th Dec 2016 6:08 pm
JuanP, you are correct on both of your comments.
Most Europeans and Americans have never been out side their country and have no idea how the rest of the world lives except from the propaganda their country feeds them. They look around and either think the rest of the world is just like theirs only poor or they think it is like pictures of the world 80 years ago. Neither are reality as you well know.
“Sustainable development” and “Transition” are both possibilities that have passed us by, I think, about the same time those antique photos were taken. There is plenty of food today, but there is still the problem of distribution and waste.
Most food is now a “for profit” capitalistic means of controlling the masses. Growing it local is the only way. Hunger is nothing new to the poor countries, but it will be a severe shock to America and Europe soon. The weather, she is ah changin’.
GregT on Sun, 11th Dec 2016 6:33 pm
“The Sustainable Development Goals are BS.”
That’s because ‘sustainable development’ is an oxymoron Juan.
penury on Mon, 12th Dec 2016 11:57 am
JuanP you are correct, however the large problem is as Davy says “profit” is the paragim, The human population is accepted by the “Elites” only as long as they provide wealth to the “Elites: and food is the current weapon of choice.