Op-Ed Contributors

How to ensure food security

By Anthea Webb (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-08-18 07:45

This summer has been brutal. More than 1,200 people have lost their lives in China as a result of torrential rain and landslides; millions more have lost their homes and seen their farms inundated - and this on top of the worst drought in the south-west of the country earlier this year. We (World Food Programme China) extend our sincere condolences to the families who have lost their loved ones. And we understand the despair that farmers must feel as they watch their harvest disappear.

Sadly, the suffering is being felt across the globe. In Pakistan, 20 million people have been affected by massive flooding. In Russia, wildfires have cost countless lives and together with drought, reduced the harvest by up to 20 percent. In West Africa, drought has ravaged Niger and other countries of the Sahel, with as many as one in four young children acutely malnourished.

China's response has been exemplary. Not only has it mounted several massive simultaneous rescue and relief operations for its own people, but also it has been swift in sending relief to Pakistan, Russia and Niger, including $1 million through the World Food Programme (WFP).

Ominously, the effects of these natural disasters may be felt long after the immediate danger passes. Their impact on global grain prices is already being felt. Countries are beginning to introduce export restrictions on grain in an effort to control domestic prices. Expectations of higher prices to come may be causing some producers to hold onto their stocks. Speculators are rediscovering agricultural commodities.

News that China has imported more grain so far this year than in recent years has also attracted attention.

Are we on the cusp of another "global food crisis" like the one seen in 2008?

In many ways, the global food crisis never abated, it was simply overshadowed by the financial crisis.

In many developing countries, food prices have stayed high. In Tajikistan, wheat prices started out this year more than 100 percent higher than the average before the crisis. In Sri Lanka, even the poorest of the poor are expected to pay more than twice as much for rice, and the same goes for Benin, where the price of sorghum has more than tripled compared to the average price over the previous five years.