Global Food for Thought

National and Global Market Implications of the 2012 US Drought

February 26, 2013

The Chicago Council's Global Agricultural Development Initiative is pleased to release a new Issue Brief, “National and Global Market Implications of the 2012 US Drought," authored by Wallace E. Tyner. Professor Tyner is an energy economist and James and Lois Ackerman Professor of Agricultural Economics at Purdue University.

Issues Briefs offer factual and analytical information and resources to policymakers and other non-governmental stakeholders to advance understanding of the potential implications of major developments, events, and decisions on US agricultural development and food security policy. 

Read the full Issue Brief.

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US Food Aid Reform is Long Overdue

There are rumors that U.S. food aid programs could see major changes in the next budget, including converting some of the Food for Peace program into straight cash grants instead of in-kind food assistance.  Two independent task forces convened by The Chicago Council on Global Affairs have recommended changes in this direction for several years. The task forces found that a move to a cash-based food aid system that serves the same number of people food aid does now would actually make US food aid more effective and efficient, advancing the US reputation as the world’s largest donor of food aid to help hungry people.

The 2012 US Agriculture & Food Policy Panel and 2009 Global Agricultural Development Leaders Group issued the following recommendations:

Increase funding for local purchase of food aid

US food aid would be more efficient and cost effective if the US transitioned to a more cash-based food aid system except in certain emergency situations in which a food donation is required.  A cash-based food aid system is a speedier and more cost-efficient way to reach beneficiaries in developing countries than shipping U.S.-grown food to low-income countries. Cash can also be distributed rapidly even to remote locations.  Local and regional purchases of food aid reduce delivery time by an average of 13.8 weeks, or by more than half the current delivery method, while stimulating agricultural development.  The transaction costs of a cash-based system are also lower than shipping food aid.  According to the FAO, approximately one-third of the total funds allocated for emergency food aid is spent on transportation costs.  Moreover, a cash-based system will allow local and regional purchases of food and stimulate local markets without artificially lowering prices.

The United States is the only aid donor that still gives food in-kind rather than cash. Donation of U.S.-purchased food aid should continue only when local supplies are inadequate or nutritionally dense foods are not readily available.  These instances could include donations to refugee camps in famine areas or aid following natural disasters.

Scale down the monetization of food aid

Both task forces also recommended that the United States should scale down the practice of monetization.  The loss to taxpayers is huge considering the overhead costs, and the practice contradicts efforts to eliminate wasteful government spending.  The 2011 GAO report on reducing duplication in government programs and saving tax dollars found that the process of using cash to procure, ship, and sell commodities costs $219 million out of total budget of $722 million over a three-year period.  Almost 30 percent of the funds appropriated for development projects did not reach intended recipients due to the monetization process.   The GAO report concludes that monetization “cannot be as efficient as a standard development program which provides cash grants directly to implementing partners.”  Additionally, the sale of U.S. goods can drive down local market prices and discourage local food production.  Groups recommended that the US government transfer funds directly to nongovernmental organizations to conduct their development programs overseas.

About the task forces

The 2012 US Agriculture and Food Policy Panel was a bi-partisan task force led by Catherine Bertini, former executive director, UN World Food Program; August Schumacher Jr., former undersecretary of Agriculture for Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services, US Department of Agriculture; and Robert L. Thompson, professor emeritus of Agricultural Policy, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.   The panel’s final statement, released in June 2012, included recommendations for how to modernize US food and farm policy to meet the production, nutrition, and environmental challenges of the future.

The 2009 Global Agricultural Development Leaders Group was a bi-partisan task force led by Catherine Bertini and Dan Glickman, former secretary, US Department of Agriculture.  The group released recommendations in February 2009 laying out the opportunities and benefits of greater US investment in agricultural development in Africa and South Asia as a means to alleviate global poverty and hunger and increase global food production.

More information:

• U.S. Agriculture and Nutrition Policy Statement: Transforming American Food and Agriculture Policy (PDF), June 2012
• U.S. Monetization Policy: Recommendations for Improvement (PDF), December 2009
• Renewing American Leadership in the Fight Against Hunger and Poverty (PDF), February 2009

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Photo of the Week

A One Acre Fund farmer in Nyamasheke District, Rwanda, applies microbuses of fertilizer to her fields as she plants climbing beans. Credit: Stephanie Hanson. Photo courtesy of the One Acre Fund blog.

One Acre Fund is an NGO in Kenya, Rwanda, and Burundi that helps 135,000 smallholder farmers grow their own way out of poverty by providing a "market bundle" that includes education, finance, seed and fertilizer, and market access.

Agriculture Reflection

By Tessa Ries

When young people are faced with the big question, “What do you want to do when you grow up?” agriculture is usually not an expected response. However, as our planet faces environmental problems, such as a growing population, and one billion people who are food insecure, agriculture becomes a significant and exciting field. When I am asked, I reply, “I want to be a plant scientist.”

My reasons for being interested in agriculture are many, however at the root is my passion for helping people reach food security. No matter where we live or who we are, we are all dependent on agriculture. In reality, many of us are detached from our food system and although it sustains us, we are naïve to its realities. For those of us who are food secure, the thought that so many go hungry every day is almost unfathomable.

The first time I witnessed food insecurity was in Guatemala, and it was a pivotal moment in my life.  I realized how fortunate I am to be food secure, and more importantly how I want to be a part of the movement to establish global food security. From the time I was very young, plants have fascinated me, and so I began to study them. I was raised on a crop farm, so getting close to plants was second nature; when I was not working in the field or in my garden, I was reading agronomy and horticulture texts. I was able to expand my experience with plants thanks to the World Food Prize’s Borlaug-Ruan International Internship program. I interned with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in Turkey. CIMMYT is an international organization that strives to sustainably increase global food security through increasing the productivity of maize and wheat. 

Commentary - Inspiring a new generation of farmers and ag-professionals critical to meet future food needs.

By Mr. Lloyd Le Page

Mr. Lloyd Le Page is President and CEO of Heartland Global, Inc.

The year I was born, the population on the planet was around 3 billion, Israel was in a fight for survival with its neighbors, and John McCain was shot down over Vietnam. Some things don’t seem to have changed much, but farmers now feed an additional 4 billion consumers annually.

In roughly the same amount of time, children born in 2013 will have grown up to become middle-aged farmers, agricultural researchers, policy makers, or be in the middle of their agriculturally based careers. By 2050, farmers will need to increase food production by over 70% to feed an additional 2 billion increasingly urban and affluent consumers, with larger quantities, better quality and more diverse food. This heightened demand will include greater amounts of easy-to-prepare and pre-packaged foods, meat, poultry and dairy products.

The good news is that if we apply our minds, food needs can be met. Increasing the rate of growth in crop productivity, improving resource efficiency, and reducing environmental impact are key elements of the solution. However, to do this we must educate and enthuse current and future generations to stay in agriculturally related jobs.  One might think that, presented with these challenges and the resulting opportunities, children and youth of farmers around the world would have the same passion and excitement that many of us feel working in agriculture today. However, the evidence seems to show a different story.

Regardless of whether one is involved in agriculture in Iowa, India, Indonesia, Ivory Coast or Italy, it is clear that children of farmers are leaving rural farming-areas to seek employment in other sectors. As a result, the average age of farmers seems to be increasing. Data from Canada, Nigeria, Thailand and China seems to support this hypothesis.  There is local variation and the data correlates somewhat with the success of family planning programs, where smaller families leave fewer family successors to takeover farming activities when the oldest children move to the cities for education and jobs.

So how do we ensure that a new generation rises to meet the challenges facing our global food supply? I believe there are three priority areas that must be addressed if we are to ensure a successful new generation of farmers, agri-business professionals and agricultural policy makers.

Roger Thurow - Outrage and Inspire - WOW! AG DEVELOPMENT WORKS

WOW!  AG DEVELOPMENT WORKS

Kabuchai, Kenya

There’s a building boom going on in this western Kenya village.

The blueprint for Zipporah and Sanet Biketi’s new house is coming to life.  The walls, made of some 4,000 bricks formed by Sanet’s hands, are standing tall just as they planned: two bedrooms, a sitting room, a storage room and a narrow bathroom which will feature a water basin for washing-up.

When I visited them last month, Zipporah and Sanet proudly led me on a tour of their house.  It was still open to the sky, the floor was dirt, and weeds were sprouting in the rooms.  They hoped to have the roof completed before the rainy season begins in a month or two; they still lacked a few iron sheets and the wooden poles for the ceiling frame.

The house was a work in progress, but still it was a glorious site to behold.  I had first caught a glimpse of their dream at the end of 2011, as I was reporting The Last Hunger Season book.  The Biketis had reaped the best maize harvest of their lives – twenty 90-kilogram bags, a mighty increase from just two bags the year before.  As new members of One Acre Fund, for the first time in their lives they had access to better-quality certified seeds, micro-doses of fertilizer, farming advice and credit to pay for it all.  With their bumper harvest secured, the Biketis had enough food to feed their four children throughout the year and to act on other goals.

Commentary: Overcoming the twin challenges of youth unemployment and food insecurity: what role for agricultural employment?

By Dr. Jennifer Leavy

Dr. Jennifer Leavy is a researcher at the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex, UK.

In the contemporary context of profound and significant global change, youth unemployment levels have hit historic highs (ILO, 2012a,b,c; OECD, 2012)[1], and despite improved undernourishment estimates in the two decades to 2007, one in eight people suffered chronic undernourishment in 2010-2012 - one in four in sub-Saharan Africa - according to the recent United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) State of food insecurity and hunger in the world  report (2012).

Add to the twin challenges of youth unemployment and hunger and food insecurity, an apparent ageing of the farm population – the average age of farmers is now in the range of late-50s to early 60s across the globe from The United States to Europe, to Africa, to Australia.On the surface the answer seems simple enough: encourage young people to farm and we solve three ‘problems’ in one fell swoop.

Agriculture will provide under- and un-employed young people with employment and income, this in turn will provide the food we need via increased production, and ensures farming is passed from one generation to the next. This message adds yet another  framing of young people as the saviours of undernutrition to the many other framings and narratives that place young people in the role of saviours (of the agriculture sector) or ‘sinners’ (young people are too lazy for agriculture, idle, unemployed)[2].

It seems obvious – if more than a little instrumentalist in approach. Of course the answer is not as simple as that.

Strong messages emerging from primary research with young people in rural areas under the Life in a Time of Food Price Volatility project – a four-year study across ten developing countries - and from the Future Agricultures Consortium  youth theme, focusing on young people and agricultural policy processes in sub-Saharan Africa, shed light on young people’s attitudes towards agriculture and the likelihood of being able to address food security concerns via engagement of young people with the sector.  Some of these attitudes include:

• Most young people have no interest in agriculture, not within their own visions for their future. This is often echoed by their parents. By agriculture, people invariably think of farming: back-breaking work, low input, 365 days a year for little or low return. Those who do see a future for themselves in farming believe it needs to be ‘smarter’, more productive and more reliable. More modern?

Commentary - The Best Investment We Can Make for Our Future

By Dr. Catherine Woteki, Chief Scientist and Under Secretary for Research, Education and Economics at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) 

Among the most ominous threats the world faces today is the possibility that we won’t be able to feed the 9 billion people who are projected to be living on Earth by mid-century.  Feeding that many people in a way that is sustainable into the far future is a huge task. It means producing more food than has been produced in all of human history and doing that every year thereafter.  Leaders in the G 8 and G 20 have called on agricultural experts from around the world to rise to this challenge, and we at USDA, like our global colleagues, are working on solutions to achieve sustainable intensification of our arable land.  The resource we need more than any other to ensure such work continues is a well-trained generation of young people engaged in agriculture.  

I hear from leaders in both the public and private sectors that there are good jobs waiting for community college and university graduates with the right education in food, natural resources and agricultural sciences. After all, from “farm to table,” this industry is among the largest in the United States.

In the United States, 4-H, USDA’s premier youth develop organization, is a mainstay of agricultural experience and education.  Science is the beneficiary of this program, and young people who get involved in 4-H are more likely to study science and math, and pursue a career in science, engineering, or computer technology.  Girls in 4-H are twice as likely to pursue science careers as their peers. 

USDA offers other opportunities for students to participate in agricultural sciences. Our Agricultural Research Service (ARS) labs provide intern research opportunities and field experience to undergrad, graduate and post-doctoral students.  Many young scientists come from other countries, attracted by the chance to conduct research of mutual interest and benefit. It also gives them unique opportunities to acquire new skills and knowledge, or in some cases, to impart new skills and knowledge to ARS researchers. 

The Norman E. Borlaug International Agricultural Science and Technology Fellowship Program helps developing countries strengthen agricultural practices by providing scientific training and collaborative research opportunities to visiting researchers, policymakers, and university faculty.