why no thought for food? - the...

Why No Thought for Food? A UK Parliamentary Inquiry into Global Food Security

January 2010

The All Party Parliamentary Group on Agriculture and Food for Development

“We have to be very careful not to pull out of a sector.This is exactly what the development community didwhen it became too difficult in agriculture about 15years ago... and we now have a big problem because of that.”

Andrew Steer, Director General of Policy and ResearchDFID to the International Development CommitteeNovember 2009

Why No Thought For Food?

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ContentsWitnesses 3

A Message from Ronan Keating, 4UN FAO Goodwill Ambassador

Foreword: An Appetite for Change 5

Context 2050: A Perfect Storm 8

The Global Situation Today: 15A Hungry World

Donor Neglect 19

DFID Neglect 21

Recommendations 28

Conclusion 34

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COVER PHOTO: Natural Resources Institute, University of Greenwich

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The APPG has been delighted with the response fromthe world’s leading authorities in the fields ofagriculture and food security to its inquiry into the UK’srole in addressing global food security.

During the course of the Inquiry the APPG receivedsome 130 written submissions, which are available on-line, as well as hearing from 29 of the most respectedexperts directly. Those experts who provided oralevidence are listed below:

Vanessa Adams, Director of Business DevelopmentWest Africa Trade Hub;

Akin Adesina, Vice-President of the Alliance for aGreen Revolution in Africa;

Tom Arnold, CEO, Concern Worldwide;

Brian Baldwin, Vice Chair of the Global Donor Platformfor Rural Development (GDPRD);

John Beddington, UK Government Chief Scientist;

Simon Blackmore, Discipline Leader in PrecisionFarming and Agricultural Robotics;

Joachim von Braun, Director General of theInternational Food Policy Research Institute;

Andrée Carter, Director, UK Collaborative onDevelopment Sciences;

Jacques Diouf, Director-General of the UN Food andAgriculture Organization;

Michael Gidney, Director of Policy, Traidcraft;

Peter Hazell, Agri-Economist and FARM-Africa Trustee;

Janice Jiggins, Wageningen University & One of thechief authors of ‘Agriculture at a Crossroads: TheInternational Assessment of Agriculture, Knowledge,Science and Technology for Development.

Jane Kennedy, Former Minister of State for Farmingand the Environment, Defra;

Sir David King, Former UK Government Chief Scientistand Director of the Smith School of Enterprise and theEnvironment - University of Oxford;

Ivan Lewis, Former Parliamentary Under-Secretary ofState, DFID;

Richard Mkandawire, Head, Comprehensive AfricanAgriculture Development Programme (CAADP), at theNew Partnership for African Development (NEPAD);

David Nabarro, Special Representative of the UNSecretary General for Food Security and Nutrition;Senior UN System Coordinator for Avian and PandemicInfluenza;

William Otim-Nape, Former Director General of theUgandan National Agricultural Research Organisation;

Christie Peacock, Chief Executive, FARM-Africa;

Malcolm Potts, Reproductive Scientist and Fred H.Bixby Endowed Chair in Population and Family Planningat the University of California, Berkeley;

Guy Poulter, Director of the Natural Resources Instituteat the University of Greenwich;

Callum Roberts, Marine Conservation Biologist, YorkUniversity;

Renwick Rose, Co-ordinator, Windward IslandsNational Farmers’ Association;

Josette Sheeran, Executive Director, UN World FoodProgramme;

Olivier De Schutter, UN Special Rapporteur on theRight to Food;

Geoff Tansey, Author, Consultant and Joseph RowntreeCharitable Trust Visionary;

Camilla Toulmin, Director, International Institute forEnvironment and Development;

Steve Wiggins, Research Fellow and ProgrammeLeader at the Overseas Development Institute;

Matthew Wyatt, Assistant President for External AffairsInternational Fund for Agricultural Development;

Witnesses

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I wish to express the joy andpride I feel to have been invitedto write a few words at thebeginning of this importantreport in my capacity asGoodwill Ambassador of theFood and AgricultureOrganization of the UnitedNations.

I have been honoured to serve the UN Food andAgriculture Organization, in my position as FAOGoodwill Ambassador, since 2005. I wished to join theFAO’s campaign to end world hunger, and since thevery day of my nomination I have committed myselfpersonally and professionally to address the universalhumanitarian issues that underpin the FAO’s mission –to build a food-secure world for present and futuregenerations.

I don’t pretend to be an expert on issues related tofood security and sustainable development, but I joinedthe FAO and thus the United Nations family to lendsupport to help make visible the very real and dramaticproblems, and the concrete challenges and activitiesthat the FAO and the populations they support faceeveryday.

For the first time in history, more than one billion peopleare undernourished worldwide. This is about 100 millionmore than at the beginning of 2009 and it means thatone in every six persons suffers from hunger every day.The events of the last three years have beenparticularly tragic as they have demonstrated howfragile our global food system is and how vulnerable weall are. This recent increase in hunger has not been theconsequence of a poor global harvest, far from it: itwas caused by the global economic crisis, which hasreduced incomes and employment opportunities of thepoor and significantly reduced their access to food.

It is for this reason that the theme chosen for the 2009World Food Day was “Achieving Food Security in Timesof Crisis”. At a time when the fallout from the globaleconomic crisis still dominates the news, the worldneeds to be reminded that not everyone works inoffices, factories, or banks. The crisis is stalking thesmall-scale farms and rural areas of the world, where70 percent of the world’s hungry live and work.

As we move into 2010, let us reflect on those numbersand the human suffering behind them. Crisis or nocrisis, we have the know-how and the resources to dosomething about hunger. Let us work together to makesure hunger is recognized as the critical problem it trulyis, and solve it.

Make no mistake, though, the difference betweensuccess and failure will be political will alone.

Today’s Parliamentarians hold the key to unlocking theproblem of global food insecurity. The fundamental wayto address poverty in the Global South must begin withputting agriculture back at the top of the internationaldevelopment agenda. Every day we put the world inour mouths and assume we have the right to do so butat the same time the 500 million smallholder farmersacross the developing world are facing a daily struggleto produce, procure and provide enough food for theirfamilies and the 2 billion people they support.

Only Parliamentarians can generate the energy neededto take this discussion into the new and innovativedirections needed, as this report demonstrates. Assuch I commend the All Party Parliamentary Group onAgriculture and Food for Development’s report intoglobal food security to you as an example of how thedebate around this critical issue must be reignited andreinvigorated.

I hope the publication of this report can foster an evenstronger commitment to ensuring that the one billioninnocent victims from hunger have access to thenecessary resources to cultivate their hope for a better life.

Thank you.

Ronan KeatingUN FAO Goodwill Ambassador

A Message from Ronan Keating, UN Food andAgriculture Organization (FAO) Goodwill Ambassador

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In October 2008 the All Party Parliamentary Group(APPG) on Agriculture and Food for Development cameinto being with the aim of bringing together, in oneplace, Parliamentarians concerned with both thescientific and developmental aspects of agriculture. Itwas hoped that the APPG would develop into a forumfor discussions around food security, growth andlivelihoods in the developing world, bringing thesecrucial issues, as one, to a Parliamentary audience forthe first time. From the start, the Group’s undertakingshave been sustained by an extensive supporters’network of experts drawn from a variety of differentdisciplines and sectors.

Two months after the Group’s formation in December2008, Secretary of State for the Environment HilaryBenn declared “British agriculture has led the world onmany occasions and we need it to do so again onsustainable agriculture”. As a former DFID Minister hisobservation was very welcome, although it raisedserious questions around his old department’scontinued neglect of agriculture – both at home andoverseas.

It is difficult to believe that having pledged to halve theproportion of people who suffer from hunger by 2015as part of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs),DFID did not see the potential ‘value added’ by theBritish agricultural expertise and had not seized uponthis opportunity to take the lead on the global stage insuch a vital sector for rural development. The WorldBank has worked out that economic growth fromagriculture generates at least twice as much povertyreduction as growth from any other sector, and yet withso many successes under its belt, DFID has continuedto oversee the dramatic decline in global OfficialDevelopment Assistance (ODA) spent on agriculture -falling from $6.2 billion in 1980 to $2.3 billion in 2002.Yet at the very same time, global ODA levels haveincreased massively by 65% meaning that not only isinternational assistance for agriculture lower now than it

was in 1980 in real terms, but that as a share of totalODA it has fallen even more devastatingly from 17% in1982 to just 3.7% in 2002.

Simultaneously public funds available for agriculturalresearch have declined in recent years with whatremains being largely channelled through multilateralinstitutions which DFID has simultaneously sought toreform. The question, then, is why has the Governmentconsciously and deliberately run down its support foragriculture in international development when it onceled the world – why no thought for food? After thisabandonment of agriculture nearly 30 years ago, manyNGOs who worked in this sector were left to deal withthe growing problem as ‘firefighters’, while foodinsecurity escalated and the money available tosupport their vital work fell away. Their leadership roleover the past three decades in community-ledagricultural development cannot be underestimatedand has ensured that many people have been savedfrom the indignity of chronic hunger and ultimatelystarvation.

Currently the world is letting MDG 1, and the halving ofthe number of people who suffer from hunger globally,slip through its fingers and further out of reach. Even ifwe can reverse this trend of increasing hunger andsomehow manage to meet this target in the remainingfive years of the MDGs, which seems highly unlikely,what next? Little attention is being given to the globalneeds beyond 2015 – such as the need to doubleagricultural production by 2050 if the most basicrequirements of an expected global population of 9billion people are to be met. The continued neglect ofagriculture and food security – and the reluctance tosignificantly reinvest in UK expertise in these areas –continues to fly in the face of all the evidence we havereceived during the nine-months of this inquiry. Ittherefore can only be seen as a missed opportunity –both for the UK and, more importantly, the widerdevelopment effort.

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Foreword: An Appetite for Change

“There has been an erosion of capacity in agricultural research not just in the UK – there has been a saddecline in a lot of African institutions – what are we going to do about it?”

Richard Mkandawire, Head, Comprehensive African Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), at the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD).

“The UK government and DFID were part of the neglect of agriculture and the food issues in the 1990s andwe should not forget that this was a political mistake which is haunting many nations today.”

Jacques Diouf, Director-General of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.

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Despite 30 years of neglect, the UK still has an unrivalledbank of cross-sector expertise and experience whichcan help halt, and ultimately reverse, our current globalslide towards hunger, although this expertise will not bearound forever. Gareth Thomas, DFID Minister of State,has recently stated that, in the past, DFID seems to“have lost the plot a little” with respect to agriculture.Similarly, Andrew Steer, DFID’s Director General of Policyand Research, told the International DevelopmentCommittee in November 2009, “We have to be verycareful not to pull out of a sector. That is exactly what thedevelopment community did when it became too difficultin agriculture about 15 years ago...and we now have abig problem because of that. Much smarter would havebeen to say the problem is just as important as ever itwas but we had better learn what we did wrong...[and]not [that] ‘This is too difficult; we are failing, therefore weare going to pull out of this sector’.” Although DFID isnow beginning to recognise the errors it has made in thisregard, it now urgently needs to begin putting policies inplace to begin rectifying the situation.

As the then DFID Minister Ivan Lewis told our inquiry,“DFID cannot do everything: it has to pick and choosewhere it will take a lead”, although it remains unclearwho decided that agriculture was an area which DFIDshould savagely withdraw from despite its expertisebeing well respected and still in high demand. At thesame time, African countries are stuttering towardscommitting 10% of their national budget on agriculture –for them it is all about new, sustainable investment infood security and agricultural productivity. It is vital thatDFID’s country programmes fully support this agriculturalagenda. At the very least we should be putting 10% ofour ODA into agriculture in those countries that areupholding their Maputo commitment – that is, we shouldbe helping those that help themselves. For Africa,agriculture is the key and DFID must be there to helpunlock that potential.

A large body of well respected work is now accruing onthe subjects of food security and agriculture; indeed ithas become evident that DFID must now build on thefindings of influential works such as that of theInternational Assessment of Agriculture, Knowledge,Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) andbegin to implement fundamental changes to the way inwhich agriculture is practiced if hunger is to be avertedin ways that will ensure equity and restore theenvironment – recommendations which DFID Ministersapproved back in June 2008.

This report is the culmination of a nine-month inquiryby the APPG. During this time we have gatheredinformation including some 130 written submissionsand heard evidence from 29 sources in the UK, thedeveloping world, and beyond; indeed we have beenfortunate enough to hear from an exceptional calibre ofwitnesses who make up some of the world’s foremostexperts and eminent authorities on food security issueswhilst also taking in the views of key stakeholders onthe ground. While is has not been possible to pick upon all of the important issues raised during the inquiry,the APPG does intend to revisit those issues brought toour attention by the witnesses which undoubtedlyrequire further attention two notable examples of whichare the areas of population – as raised by MalcolmPotts; food sovereignty as raised by several witnessesand; precision farming as raised by Simon Blackmore.

The result of all our work will be put to DFID for reply. A full copy of this report, the written submissions andminutes from the oral evidence sessions are availablefor download atwww.agricultureandfoodfordevelopment.org/inquiry.

This is the time for action and, while Parliamentarianshave often been neglected as the vehicle for change interms of food security, there is much that can be donein the Parliaments of the developed and developingworlds to remedy this situation. Rising food prices athome and abroad have created a level of publicawareness and understanding not seen since the mid-1980s which in turn has created a unique opportunityfor action in 2010. The cost of further inaction, however,does not bear thinking about.

We commend this report to you

David Curry & Lord Cameron of DillingtonCo-ChairsAPPG on Agriculture and Food for Development

Ian GibsonFormer Chair APPG on Agriculture and Food for Development

This report was written and compiled by JamesBirch with assistance from Patricia Constant, ChrisHaines, Peter Simpson, Scott Smyth and TonyWorthington.

Thanks must go to the Natural Resources Instituteat the University of Greenwich for publishing thisreport.

This report and inquiry could not have beenpossible without the financial support of Action Aid,CAZS-NR Bangor University, Christian Aid, ConcernWorldwide UK, Farm Africa, Find your Feet,International Agri-Technology Centre, John InnesCentre, Rothamsted Research, The NaturalResources Institute at the University of Greenwichand the UK Food Group.

The APPG would also like to thank the AssociateParliamentary Food and Health Forum and; TheParliamentary and Scientific Committee for theirassistance during this inquiry.

Copies of all written submissions and the minutesfrom the oral evidence sessions can be downloadedfromwww.agricultureandfoodfordevelopment.org/inquiry

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“There is an intrinsic link between the challenge we faceto ensure food security through the 21st century andother global issues, most notably climate change,population growth and the need to sustainably managethe world’s rapidly growing demand for energy andwater. It is predicted that by 2030 the world will need toproduce 50 per cent more food and energy, togetherwith 30 per cent more available fresh water, whilstmitigating and adapting to climate change. Thisthreatens to create a ‘perfect storm’ of global events.”

John Beddington, UK Government Chief Scientist

These comments made by John Beddington in one of hisfirst public statements following his appointment as ChiefScientist reflect a view that is increasingly shared by theinternational community. Food and safe drinking waterare vital for our existence, but in wealthy developedcountries these have been largely taken for granted. Thatis, up until now.

The recent steep rises in food prices, global food safetyscares, and the continued volatility of the agriculturalcommodities market have had an impact not limited tothe developing world, resulting in ‘food riots’ and socialunrest in over 20 countries spreading over fourcontinents. Yet, unsurprisingly, it is the poorest that have

suffered hardest, and the impact on developing nationshas been disproportionately more severe as, for the firsttime in over a decade, world hunger has increased. TheFood and Agriculture Organization (FAO), World FoodProgramme (WFP) and others confirmed that in June2009, the number of the world’s hungry increased byover 100 million in 2009 due to the global financial crisis,taking the total to over 1 billion.

“Investment is needed in sustainable agriculture, which isthe most important economic sector for most Africans.African governments have made a commitment to invest10% of their budgets in agriculture. We will strengthenour support for their commitment.”

The G8 2005

“The tendency of decreasing ODA and national financingto agriculture must be reversed.”

The G8 2009

With the level of resources, skills and scientific know-howat the disposal of the International Community, this is anembarrassing failure, and one that is all the more starkwhen set against the backdrop of the successive bindingcommitments made by Governments (including the UK),which culminated at Gleneagles in 2005. Indeed our

Context 2050: A Perfect Storm

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expert witnesses unanimously agreed that without a twintrack of delivering on these existing pledges and securingthe necessary new investment in sustainable agriculture,the problem is only set to worsen.

“Many African economies have been growing very wellover the past 15 years – where they don’t do so well is ifyou subtract population growth. The farm sectors seemto be doing rather well – internationally they are doing aswell as any farm sectors in the rest of the world but percapita the increase isn’t that much because Africa isgoing through a demographic transition and is still in thehigh growth phase.”

Steve Wiggins, Research Fellow and Programme Leaderat the Overseas Development Institute

“Rapid population growth is extraordinarily relevant tofood security...we need to empower local communitieswith the information and technology they need.”

Malcolm Potts, Reproductive Scientist and Fred H. BixbyEndowed Chair in Population and Family Planning at theUniversity of California, Berkeley

The world population is predicted to rise from its current6 billion to over 9 billion by 2050, rising at a rate of 6million a month. Africa’s population alone is projected tonearly double from 1 billion to 2 billion and estimatessuggest that to meet the most basic of needs for thisincreased global population, food production will need todouble. 2009 marked the first point in human historywhere urban populations outnumbered rural ones, atrend set to continue with urban populations set to swellto approximately 5 billion in 2030. This continued growth

in urbanization will result in additional and larger cities,which will need to be serviced with food, water andenergy. Yet at the same time further assistance is requiredfor rural populations of the developing world, of which40% currently live in less-favoured agricultural areas withpoor infrastructure, infertile soils and limited marketaccess. In Sub-Saharan Africa this figure rises to 65%.

“The challenges are around sustainable consumptionrather than rampant consumption which has becomethe model for our GDP growth.”

Sir David King, Former UK Government Chief Scientistand Director of the Smith School of Enterprise and theEnvironment - University of Oxford

Economic growth projected for the developing world willhelp lift people from poverty, but in other ways will add tothe challenges ahead. A rise in incomes from £1 to £5per day will result in a new consumer demand fordifferent foodstuffs, with a shift in diet from largelycarbohydrate-based foods to more protein-based onesas well as ‘high-value’ processed and packagedfoodstuffs such as meat and dairy products. Thisincreased consumption requires a greater input of animalfeedstuffs, which in turn places a greater strain onavailable natural resources.

“Thinking hard about how rights for smallholder farmers,livestock keepers, hunters and gatherers can beprotected in an era when land is starting to becomeseriously valuable is a major area to look at.”

Camilla Toulmin, Director, International Institute forEnvironment and Development

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“As the population grows the available freshwatersupply falls, but as the population grows the demandfor that population to meet all its needs grows – wheredoes global demand meet global supply – roughlymid-century.”


The physical and economic scarcity of fresh water willbe an increasingly significant impediment to achievingglobal food security by 2050 as global food productionneeds to be significantly raised without increasingdemands upon already unsustainably exploited waterresources. While the Green Revolution doubledproduction of many food crops, this was accompaniedby a trebling of water consumption - something whichis no longer an option.

Total world demand for fresh water is projected toincrease by over 30% by 2030, and energy demand byover 50%. Agriculture is reliant on both inputs and is byfar the largest user of water, using approximately 70%of total supplies.

Already, a lack of water resources is becoming anincreasing threat to farmers’ livelihoods and widerpolitical stability in many regions while the flow of‘virtual water’, a concept which refers to the waterembedded in the production and trade of various

foodstuffs, water from water-rich yet economically poorareas to water-poor but economically rich onescontinues to be an unregulated phenomenon.

Indeed, the development of flash points in Central andSouth Asia, the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africademonstrates an unsustainable reliance on rain-fedagriculture which has variable productivity, withnoticeable effects ranging from the outputs of small-holder farmers at the most local level right up to thenational GDP output in countries which are heavilyreliant on agriculture.

Sub-Saharan Africa currently has a ‘carrying capacity’of 0.1 – 5 persons per hectare in terms of water usage.With populations set to rise in this part of the world, itis estimated that by 2050 there will be 6 people percultivable hectare of land in Uganda and 14 in Ethiopiaby this time. An adequate renewable and sustainablesupply of water for both human and agricultural use iskey to meeting the global food requirements of 2050.

“What we see happening is that both privatecompanies and sovereign governments in developingcountries are seeking to solve the problem bypurchasing land in poor countries and getting physicalaccess over water, over phosphorus, over land, overbiodiversity: if we don’t offer alternatives, we will endup in a terrible geo-political mess.”

Janice Jiggins, Wageningen University & One of thechief authors of ‘Agriculture at a Crossroads: TheInternational Assessment of Agriculture, Knowledge,Science and Technology for Development

Similarly, inorganic fertilisers, such as phosphate, arefinite in supply. Resource predictions, based on currentextraction rates, anticipate that between 50 and 90years of phosphate are left globally, leading someexperts to believe we are already past ‘peakphosphate’ with future supplies set to decrease inquality and increase in price. Between May 2006 andMay 2008, prices for wheat rose by 61%, maize 108%and rice 185%, yet over the same period, the price ofurea (used in nitrogenous fertiliser) rose by 160% andDAP (Diammonium Phosphate) 318%. Increasing priceswill impact greatly on the ability of smallholders toaccess these inputs and, in turn, on the fertility of theirsoil. This is a key concern for current social safety-netprojects which rely heavily on such inputs for short-term gains. There will be a need to link these intolonger-term sustainable agricultural development toensure outputs.

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“We need to help smallholder farmers adapt to climatechange but we also need to involve them in changemitigation.”

Matthew Wyatt, Assistant President for External AffairsInternational Fund for Agricultural Development

“When shocks come slowly to African agriculture,farmers adjust – the shocks that they cannot dealwith are those that arrive in one season.”

Steve Wiggins, Research Fellow and ProgrammeLeader at the Overseas Development Institute

For Africa, climate change is fundamentally aboutagriculture. This is where 70% of the poorestindividuals find their livelihoods: climate change andfood security are so tightly intertwined it is impossibleto talk about one without the other. Indeed, the force ofclimate change is already having a significant impacton crop production, with changes in temperature,significant increases in rainfall in some places andharsher drought conditions in others, causingshortages of staple foodstuffs including rice andcereals.

“The insect vectors, pests and diseases are movingextremely fast and we have frankly no grip whatsoeverover what they might do in the next 20/30 years.”


The increasingly rapid movement of both plant andanimal diseases is also linked to climate change.Examples include: viruses such as foot and mouth,bluetongue, avian influenza; plant diseases such asthose spread by whiteflies; and pests such as diamondback moth. These were, until recently, largely unknownin countries like the UK but they are spreading fasterthan previously anticipated, and are threateninglivelihoods and economies in both the developing anddeveloped world regardless of country borders.

In September last year, Richard Betts, Head of ClimateImpacts at the Meteorological Office Hadley Centre,presented the new findings on the globalconsequences of climate change beyond 2°C. Bettsstated, “Four degrees of warming, averaged over theglobe, translates into even greater warming in manyregions, along with major changes in rainfall. Ifgreenhouse gas emissions are not cut soon, we couldsee major climate changes within our own lifetimes.” Heconcluded that, for Africa, the western and southernregions are expected to experience both large warming(up to 10°C) as well as a decrease in rainfall of up to20% in some areas, with all computer modelsindicating reductions in rainfall over southern Africa.Regardless of what agreement, if any, is now madepost-Copenhagen, climate change is going to hitAfrican farmers hardest.

This is without doubt the biggest problem facing Africatoday and it is a problem which the developed anddeveloping world must come together to solve if themost haunting of forecasts beyond 2030 are to beavoided.

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“There is a real danger that the poorest people in Africaare swept away in this anti-livestock sentiment,livestock is a pathway out of poverty.”

Christie Peacock, Chief Executive, FARM-Africa

Rising global temperatures are likely to impact on water,food and ecosystems in all regions. Extreme weatherevents will become both more severe and more frequent.Rising sea levels, increasing temperatures, acidificationand flooding will hit hardest in the mega-deltas, whichare important areas for food production, and will impacttoo on freshwater quality for many. Global greenhousegas emissions must be simultaneously reduced by 80%by 2050 compared to 1990 levels if the chance of a 2-degree increase in global temperature is to be reducedto approximately 1 in 3. Currently, industrial agriculture isdirectly responsible for 14% of all greenhouse-gasemissions worldwide.

“Cheap food is not cheap – it will increasingly cost us.”Janice Jiggins, Wageningen University & One of thechief authors of ‘Agriculture at a Crossroads: TheInternational Assessment of Agriculture, Knowledge,Science and Technology for Development

“If you are going to pay scientists to find out how muchis safe to fish, then it is sensible to take heed of whatthey are saying, and that just isn’t happening at themoment…By fishing less we can get more. Thetechnical solutions are straightforward, implementingthem is politically challenging.”

Callum Roberts, Marine Conservation Biologist, YorkUniversity

At the same time, the marine environment is also anincreasing cause for concern. The poor state of the

world’s fish stocks is a result of decades of overfishingand a lack of robust global systems to manage theworld’s waters. This has not only affected the level of fishstocks themselves, but has also served to destabilize thewider marine eco-system – Callum Roberts told ourinquiry that the footprint of fishing is essentially globalbut by fishing less we can get more. Unless immediateaction is taken, scientists are suggesting that there couldbe a total collapse of marine fish stocks by 2050.

“The problem is that the ecosystems services from theoceans are so critical to life on earth that this has tobe something that has to be managed – this is thestarting point of our oxygen and the starting point of ourfood stock…it’s absolutely critical to our way of life.”


“While you can negotiate with your colleagues overhow much fish you can take, you can’t negotiate withnature about how much fish is produced…We areessentially fishing to full capacity across the wholefootprint of the world’s oceans now…that means if we want to increase the productivity of global fishsupplies, we have to do it by managing fisheriesbetter.”

Callum Roberts, Marine Conservation Biologist, YorkUniversity

Food waste is another issue which requires urgentconsideration. Reports indicate that in developingcountries, on occasions, as much as 60% of produceis wasted through a straightforward lack of post-harvest technology, storage and infrastructure systems.Meanwhile, in developed countries, deeply-concerningfood-waste levels are a direct result of consumersthrowing away nearly a quarter of all purchased food as‘unwanted’.

“It is an industry....where unusually, farmers pay retailprices for inputs and recieve wholesale prices for theiroutputs – not a resilient and sustainable practice.”Janice Jiggins, Wageningen University & One of thechief authors of ‘Agriculture at a Crossroads: TheInternational Assessment of Agriculture, Knowledge,Science and Technology for Development

“There is a gap between theory underpinninggovernment policy and practice on the ground...What we need is the kind of reform in trade policywhich has been talked of for so very many years buthas yet to be brought to bear.”

Michael Gidney, Director of Policy, Traidcraft

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The food industry is now a global and highly complexindustry governed by market forces where staple foodsare exchanged as commodities; while unsustainablefood supply chains, reinforced by distorting rules andregulations, often act to the detriment of small-scalefarmers. In addition to the complicated and moraldebate concerning the global trade of food productsand patenting of materials which could be utilized forthe common good, there is heightened internationalconcern over food safety. With products andingredients being sourced from all over the world, therisks to human health increase as supply chains arelengthened and the potential for adulteration and failurein the food chain grows.

“As one looks at the issue of smallholder farmers andhow they engage with a rapidly globalized agriculturalmarket...The issues of how to organize them better are critical: the issue of how to train them in quality,providing low-cost certification for them, and investingin infrastructure and finance to allow them to takeadvantage of these supermarket revolutions that we have.”

Akin Adesina, Vice-President of the Alliance for aGreen Revolution in Africa

“All too often, developing countries have sacrificedtheir long-term interest in building robust agriculturalsystems to their short-term interests to buy cheapfood on international markets.”

Olivier De Schutter, UN Special Rapporteur on theRight to Food

“Increasing productivity must be supported by accessto markets – this is fundamental.”

William Otim-Nape, Former Director General of theUgandan National Agricultural Research Organisation

“Most importantly for us it is not only a matter ofproducing food...For us, agricultural development alsomeans development of the farmer – getting the smallfarmers to understand – we talk about standards – ifpeople don’t understand trade policy, then what?”

Renwick Rose, Co-ordinator, Windward IslandsNational Farmers’ Association

What does this mean for global food security? Simplyput, the world must produce 50% more food – safefood, on less land, with less fresh water, using lessenergy, fertiliser and pesticide – by 2030, whilst at thesame time bringing down sharply the level ofgreenhouse-gas emissions emitted globally. It is adaunting challenge, but one we can, and must, meet.

Yet agriculture cannot stand alone. It is crucial that across-sector approach, incorporating human health,among other considerations, is used to secure anincrease in agricultural production. Indeed it isinescapable that in many regions of Africa the labourforce has been fatally weakened by endemic disease.

AIDS, for example, has decimated the agriculturalwork-force in Africa meaning that many men andwomen are unable to look after their livestock andcrops properly, leaving largely inexperienced childrenand youths to secure family livelihoods. At the sametime, huge reservoir of knowledge has been lostamongst extension workers as well as at managementlevels, compounding issues around a wider lack oftraining and institutional memory.

Conversely, food insecurity can have both severe andwidespread effects in people living with HIV-AIDS, withthe International Food Policy Research Instituteshowing that hunger and HIV often co-exist andinteract with each other. Indeed it is estimated that

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adults living with HIV need 10-30% more energy thanprior to infection.

As long as the impact of endemic diseases such asmalaria, TB and HIV/AIDS continues, it is unlikely thatAfrica will be able to attain the high rates of economicgrowth to which the New Partnership for Africa’sDevelopment (NEPAD) aspires and subsequently meetthe food security needs of the continent. A failure toact on food security and agriculture in the short termrisks losing key development gains in other sectorssuch as health, nutrition and education, among others,in the longer term with clear implications for povertyand inequality.

“We need to help create a stable food market whichcan meet global demand for future generations. This isboth a moral duty and an investment in our futuresecurity.”

Hilary Benn, Secretary of State for the Department ofthe Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

“There is an awful lot to be learned within Africa abouthow to improve African agricultural performance – ifAfrica wants models of better agriculturalperformance, a lot of them are already in Africa.”

Steve Wiggins, Research Fellow and ProgrammeLeader at the Overseas Development Institute

“We can learn things from other places... To survive inagriculture means sharing.”

Geoff Tansey, Author, Consultant and Joseph RowntreeCharitable Trust Visionary

“DFID needs to recognize that it is not just in the biginternational research centres that work is done butit’s very often on that interface between high scienceand a lot of local knowledge about local conditions,practices, varieties of seeds and in trying to get abetter marriage between the research community andthe beneficiaries of that research.”

Camilla Toulmin, Director, International Institute forEnvironment and Development

There is a unanimous view amongst the internationalcommunity and donor organizations that such a PerfectStorm can still be avoided. Any potential solution mustbalance existing indigenous knowledge and bestpractice in the field with new science, cutting-edgetechnologies and appropriate social interventions. It isimportant that whatever choices are made are basedon clear and present evidence that they will benefit thepoorest of farmers.

“This is going to require a massive improvement inglobal governance so that we begin to manage thesethings in the run up to 2050 and not after a series ofdisasters.”


“The time period in which to act and start speaking onthis is extremely short because these things arealready happening and they are increasing.”


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“African Union Heads of State and Ministers haveexpressed their recognition of the crucial role ofagriculture. In sub-Saharan Africa, agriculturecontributes at least 40 per cent of exports, 30% ofGDP, up to 30 percent of foreign exchange earnings and70 to 80% of employment. Accelerating growth inagriculture is critical to sustained growth and industrialdiversification in the wider economy. In both rural andurban areas, poor people, particularly women, dependdirectly on agriculture for their livelihoods and foodsecurity.”

Commission for Africa

“Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequatefor the health and well-being of himself and his family,including food...”

Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 25

“The fundamental way to address poverty in Africa muststart with getting agriculture back on the agenda.”

Akin Adesina, Vice-President of the Alliance for a GreenRevolution in Africa

“Smallholders can turn around the food productionequations tomorrow if given the resources: these arethe most efficient producers the world over.”

Brian Baldwin, Vice Chair of the Global Donor Platformfor Rural Development (GDPRD)

“We cannot expect to reach 2050 with a well-fed world ifwe think business-as-usual is the answer – it isn’t...wehave the wrong rules, wrong institutions and the wrongincentives...the UK had an absolutely fundamental rolein creating the structure of the global economy todayand shaping the food system. Now we have aresponsibility to change.”


There can be no peace and prosperity without a securefood supply and the world has just witnessed thepassing of an ominous landmark.

Over 1 billion individuals today suffer from chronichunger: more than 1 in 6 people worldwide and morethan at any other time in recorded history. Unsurprisinglythe vast majority of these people come from Asia andsub-Saharan Africa with just 15 million living in thedeveloped world.

But this is a neglected problem rather than a new one.

The latest Millennium Development Goals’ (MDGs)Progress Reports for 2008/9 show that movementtowards reducing hunger by half in sub-Saharan Africa isnot only insufficient to reach the target on current trends;but that it is also being eroded by the global recessionas the declining incomes of the poorest cannot competewith escalating food prices on global markets, leavingthe livelihoods of millions of families’ in jeopardy. For 1billion people in the developing world who spend 70% oftheir budget on food, compared to just 15% of theaverage budget in the UK dedicated to food, thedoubling or tripling of grain prices means a threat totheir very existence.

The Global Situation Today: A Hungry World

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“Half the people we provide food aid to in the world arepoor farmers who cannot even produce enough tosustain their families…we want to get these farmersoff food aid…our goal is to figure out how we aregoing to get out.”

Josette Sheeran, Executive Director, UN World FoodProgramme

The recent fall in commodity prices has bucked a trendwhich: saw food prices rise 83% between 2005 and2008 and; saw more than 20 countries succumb tofood riots; and indirectly led to the fall of two heads ofstate – the Madagascan and Haitian Presidents. Yet theunderlying causes remain unaddressed.

The result has been that in the second half of 2009some 105 million additional people were forced intochronic hunger and malnutrition, with the situationlikely only to get worse in 2010 as the developing worldremains firmly in the grip of the economic crises.

“WFP is voluntarily funded – we have 10% of ourmoney this year – we have no idea next month whatwe can do or can’t do – less than 2% of our money ismultiple-year predictable funding – we have no corebudget, no assured funds from anywhere – what thisdoes is force us to be spot buyers and panic shippers– we urge not to lose the focus on emergency actioneven as we try to invest in the longer-term solutions.”


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While food aid can help mitigate these pressures in theshort term, it cannot pull 100 million people per year outof hunger for the next six years. This is what must beachieved if MDG 1 is to be delivered on time, though thisin turn is only half of the global hunger problem.

No developed economy in the world has achievedprolonged growth without developing its agriculturalindustry first. This is why the Gleneagles Communiqué ofthe 2005 meeting of the G8 stated that “Investment isneeded in sustainable agriculture, which is the mostimportant economic sector for most Africans. Africangovernments have made a commitment to invest 10% oftheir budgets in agriculture. We will strengthen oursupport for the commitment” – a sentiment reflected byDFID’s 2005 policy paper which extolled agriculture as“the key to poverty reduction”.

“The central focus needs to be on the small-farmeconomy in developing countries.”

Joachim von Braun, Director General of the InternationalFood Policy Research Institute

“We are part of the 2 billion worldwide who are producingfood on small family farms and increasingly the evidenceshows that all of the models of large-scale farming havenot been able to solve the problems of world foodsupply and ensuring people get it.”

Renwick Rose, Co-ordinator, Windward Islands NationalFarmers’ Association

Agriculture forms the basis of rural economies throughoutthe developing world, indeed, the World DevelopmentReport 2008 stated that “improving the productivity,profitability and sustainability of smallholder farming isthe main pathway out of poverty in using agriculture fordevelopment.”

Investment and the provision of skills – which are crucialto any sustainable outcome - are the key to utilizingagriculture and food as drivers for poverty relief in thelonger term, whilst helping to reach the 1.3 billion peoplein the developing world who work in the sector and whoconstitute the vast majority of the poor, living on less than$1 a day.

With the average farm in Africa under 2 hectares in size,many farmers are in fact net buyers of food who struggleto secure adequate livelihoods from other sources tocomplement their own yield to feed their families. Of the1.2 billion people living on less than $1 a day,approximately 500 million are smallholder farmers, farmlabourers and their dependants struggling, on a dailybasis, to secure their families’ livelihoods; many of theothers have given up on agriculture and a rural life to

pursue the dream of a better existence in the cities – a dream which remains unfulfilled for most.

When seen alongside the pressures on the finiteavailability of arable land, a lack of formal land rights,displacement as a result of increasing foreigninvestments in fertile land, an absence of extensionservices, limited access to water and the effects ofclimate change, it seems certain that business-as-usualwill do nothing more than accelerate the number ofpeople suffering chronic hunger worldwide.

“Fundamentally it is a woman’s issue more than aman’s issue...but smallholder agriculture systemshave to get support...and more capacity in theinternational community is required to respond tocountries’ needs.”

David Nabarro, Special Representative of the UNSecretary General for Food Security and Nutrition;Senior UN System Coordinator for Avian and PandemicInfluenza

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Many of the challenges facing smallholder farmers havea particular and targeted impact on womensmallholders. Indeed, in some sub-Saharan Africancountries women make up to 80% of the economicallyactive labour force in agriculture, provide up to 80% ofall food produced and undertake up to 90% of certainagricultural activities.

Daughters often farm for their fathers, wives for theirhusbands and sisters for their brothers on land to whichthey have no legal right and with little or no access tothe final harvested crop. Those women fortunate to haveaccess to land of their own are often forced to cultivateland that is smaller, more marginal and notably lessfertile than that of their male peers meaning that they areoften the first in their community forced to adoptdamaging coping strategies to maintain staple foodconsumption, with long-term implications for poverty,vulnerability and malnutrition.

“For the first time in its history the WFP is now askingnot only is the cup full for children, but what is in it.”


“About 6% of GDP can be lost with high rates ofmalnutrition: this is a huge cost to the developing worldeconomies.”


Beyond production, malnutrition and hidden hunger tooare key concerns which must be addressed. The numberof undernourished people in the world has increased by115 million in the last two years due to higher foodprices; while the total cost of under-nutrition to nationaleconomies is estimated to be between $20-30 billion per year.

Some 6 million children worldwide die every year fromtreatable diseases and infections resulting frommalnutrition, roughly one every six seconds, yetestimates show 684,000 could be saved by increasingaccess to vitamin A and zinc. Similarly, iodine deficiencythreatens 1.9 million people worldwide and yet is easilycountered by adding iodine to salt. Investing incombating malnutrition not only saves lives, but alsoaccelerates development. For example, eliminating irondeficiency would help 2 million people and improvenational productivity levels by as much as 20%.

“Starvation is the characteristic of some people nothaving enough food to eat. It is not the characteristic ofthere being not enough food to eat.”

Amartya Sen, Recipient of the 1998 Nobel MemorialPrize in Economic Sciences

“We will fail entirely in our task if we do not also increaseaccessibility to food for those who are hungry...if wedouble the volume of food produced but we don’ttackle the issues of inequality, lack of purchasing powerfor the poor, we will simply not do anything to combathunger effectively...the right to food is hugely importantas it can guide us to making the right choices...itobliges us to focus on the plight of the mostvulnerable.”


The concept of a Right to Food as a human right is abinding obligation defined as “the right of every man,woman and child, alone or in community with others, tohave physical and economic access at all times toadequate food or means for its procurement in waysconsistent with human dignity.” Although well-establishedunder international law, and recognized in the UniversalDeclaration on Human Rights and the InternationalCovenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, theobligation is not currently enforced. There is a need forstates to be pro-actively engaged in strengtheningpeople’s access to, and their utilization of, resources aswell as the means to ensure their livelihood and therebyfood security in the longer term. States also have theobligation to provide that right directly, on pain ofpenalties for those that do not. It should also be notedhere that the Right to Water is also fundamentallyrelevant to the Right to Food.

“If we react to the challenge of having to produce morefood without taking into account the social andenvironmental dimensions, we will fail.”


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“Agriculture has served as a basis for growth andreduced poverty in many countries, but morecountries could benefit if governments and donorswere to reverse years of policy neglect and remedytheir underinvestment and misinvestment inagriculture.”

World Bank Development Report 2008

“Today the small farmers are not being supported…The critical issue is that international developmentinstitutions and multilateral finance institutions havepursued policies of abandonment over the last 20/30years and what we need today are policies of supportfor farmers.”

Akin Adesina, Vice-President of the Alliance for aGreen Revolution in Africa

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Rural hunger and poverty decline dramatically wheneducation, investment, and suitable technologies reallyreach farmers and provide them with new options andtechniques to improve their productivity.

“It’s not about the quantity of aid but the quality.”Christie Peacock, Chief Executive, FARM-Africa

Economists widely accept that a 1% increase in percapita agricultural output leads to a 1.6% increase inthe income of the poorest 20% of society while theWorld Bank estimates that economic growth fromagriculture is at least twice as effective in reducingpoverty as growth in any other sector. Statisticalrelationships have been demonstrated betweenagricultural productivity and poverty reduction with a10% increase in agricultural yields leading to areduction of up to 12% in the number of people livingon less than a dollar a day. This has led theInternational Food Policy Research Institute toconclude that an additional annual contribution of $2.9billion to agricultural research and development by2013 would lift 144 million people out of less than adollar-a-day poverty by 2020.

“Food is politics at its most raw.”Hilary Benn, Secretary of State for the Department ofthe Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

“The Green Revolution essentially grew on the sciencesystems of the US, UK, Germany, France and Japan.”

Joachim von Braun, Director General of theInternational Food Policy Research Institute

The Green Revolution in Asia brought about somedramatic and long lasting achievements. Yet someargue, and with good evidence, that in somecircumstances it may have bypassed the poorest offarmers and led to considerable long-termenvironmental damage. Despite this, the deemed‘success’ of the Green Revolution together with thethen growing food mountains in Europe and NorthAmerica gave the international community (includingDFID) a false belief that the world’s food insecurity andassociated agricultural problems were a thing of thepast and that they had been solved in much of theworld by a solitary ‘silver bullet’. In the years thatfollowed, despite constituting over 75% of farms inAfrica and Asia, international assistance for smallholderagriculture diminished, particularly as the idea ofmarket-driven development took over the developmentagenda in the 1980s. Over the intervening years,agriculture continued to slip down the internationalagenda, the culmination of which saw no explicitreference to the need to sustainably support agriculturein the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2000.

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“Up until the early 1980s, the UK was one of theoutstanding countries in the world with knowledge and experience of smallholder agriculture in Africa.”

Guy Poulter, Director of the Natural Resources Instituteat the University of Greenwich

“We need to address these long term goals and the UK science system needs to invest domestically and abroad.”

Joachim Von Braun, Director General of the InternationalFood Policy Research Institute

“Built on an understanding of livelihoods, this papershows why DFID believes agriculture should be placedat the heart of efforts to reduce poverty.”

DFID Policy Paper 2003

DFID has neglected agriculture for many years withbilateral spending on agriculture programmes in Sub-Saharan Africa amounting to little more than £20 million,or 0.35% of the total DFID budget of £5.7 billion, in2008/09. Of this just £13.7 million is spent on the LeastDeveloped Countries (LDCs).

Attempts were made to rectify the situation and, forexample, in 2003, DFID produced its own strategic paperon agriculture which, using the livelihoods approach todevelopment that was in vogue at the time, explainedwhy DFID should place agriculture at the heart of itsefforts to reduce poverty worldwide. The GleneaglesCommuniqué of the G8 in 2005 even stated that,“Investment is needed in sustainable agriculture, which isthe most important economic sector for most Africans.”

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But alas there was no marked change in DFID’s practicesnor was there in that of any other major internationalagency. Instead there was a continuation of the previoustrend which had witnessed the volume of assistancespent on agriculture fall from $6.2 billion in 1980 to $2.3billion in 2002, however during this period global ODAlevels increased by 65% meaning that not only has theinternational assistance for agriculture from donors suchas DFID fallen sharply in real terms, but that it has alsofallen even more devastatingly as a proportion of totalglobal ODA from 17% of total ODA in 1982 to just 3.7%in 2002.

Even following the publication of the World DevelopmentReport on Agriculture in late 2007, which stated that“agriculture continues to be a fundamental instrument forsustainable development and poverty reduction” and “itis time to place agriculture afresh at the center of thedevelopment agenda”, DFID’s support to sustainableagricultural development has remained lukewarm.Fundamentally, it is not because the UK cannot help orbecause there is no recognition of the problem at hand,but because – simply put – DFID does not feel it iscurrently high enough on its list of priorities. At theAPPG’s final inquiry session, then DFID Minister IvanLewis said, “DFID cannot specialize in everything, it hasto pick and choose where it will take a lead”.

“UK science has been quite internally focused…we needto become much more global in our approach if we wantto remain at the forefront of global science.”


“The challenge is how you take that technology to thefarmers on the ground to make sure they increase theirproductivity – this is where there is a missing link.”

Richard Mkandwire, Head, Comprehensive AfricanAgriculture Development Programme (CAADP), at theNew Partnership for African Development (NEPAD)

At the DFID ‘country office’ level, there has been agradual decline in agricultural ‘livelihood specialists’ as aresult – as Prospect (the scientists’ and otherprofessionals’ trade union) stated in its evidence to theScience and Technology Committee Inquiry into DFID’sManagement of Science, “DFID’s capacity to act as anintelligent customer has been weakened”. Alongsidethis, there has also been an almost total collapse ofagricultural extension services in many African countries,leading to calls for the development of new innovativeinitiatives to ensure that agricultural knowledge andexperience can be spread. Without the complementaryinvestment in extension services and in the adaptationand translation of frontline, blue sky, high-level scienceinto resources, tools and techniques that are readilyavailable to smallholders on the ground, investment inresearch will never realise its true potential in terms ofreturns on investment.

Meanwhile, centrally in DFID, experts with a backgroundin agricultural science are now severely under-represented at senior levels whilst, for those who are stillpresent, it is no longer clear whether they are employedfor their specific agricultural skill sets.

“The two best contraceptive methods for worldpopulation are education of girls and a bit of economicgrowth. If you put those together you have somechance of slowing down population growth.”

Tom Arnold, CEO, Concern Worldwide

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During his meeting with the inquiry, former DFID MinisterIvan Lewis developed his argument for DFID “not doingeverything” further, arguing that “money was not the onlymeasure of success” and that the UK Government couldinstead “exert considerable pressure” on otherGovernments in areas where DFID could not take a lead.Yet investment is the key to utilizing agriculture as a driverfor poverty relief – helping to reach the 700 million ruralpoor worldwide who either work directly in agriculture orare dependent upon it. A ten-year evaluation of theConsultative Group on International Agricultural Researchshowed that for every dollar spent on internationalagricultural research $9 were returned in benefits to poorcommunities and that rates of return of between 40% and80% are typical for high-quality agricultural research.

“Cooperation here is clearly the watchword in trying toimprove science.”


Decades of neglect have led to stagnation in agriculturalproductivity with the average growth in cereal yields fallingfrom 6% to 1.5% in the developing world. According tothe FAO, $30 billion of additional funds will be neededannually to rectify this situation in order to meet MDG 1on time. With some European governments now disputingtheir ability to afford such provisions, the UK – a countrywith unrivalled expertise in this area – must take a lead onhunger and help to put agri-food priorities back at the topof the international development agenda, since few othersare either willing or able to do so.

Indeed, during the course of this inquiry it has becomeevident that a renewed UK leadership in the agricultureand food security sector is very much desired in largeparts of anglophone Africa as well as at the very highestechelons of the multilateral institutions involved.

“We need even more investment in agriculture, inresearch and in irrigation.”

Hilary Benn, Secretary of State for the Department of theEnvironment, Food and Rural Affairs

“You need to capacity-build right at the highest level,down at the primary school level, and all the way in-between.”


DFID’s continued unwillingness to direct additionalbudgetary resources towards global food security sendsout a clear message to African Governments. To date only8 African countries have met the 2003 MaputoDeclaration of directing 10% of total. It is difficult tobelieve that it is a coincidence that the 2008 World BankReport recorded that a mere 4% of official ODA, onaverage, went to agriculture while also noting that in sub-Saharan Africa public spending for agriculture, onaverage, stood at 4% of total Government spending.Economic models have shown that a budgetarycommitment from African Governments of 14% toagricultural investments would lead to economic growthable to reduce poverty rates by more than 25% by 2015.

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“There is no question at all – we are seeing a decline ofthe highly technical scientists...the numbers are simplynot there: you look for soil scientists in Africa and theremay be only fou.r”


“We are not going to get the effectiveness that we needuntil you can also support the capacity of developmentacross a whole string of disciplines in Africa.”

Brian Baldwin, Vice Chair of the Global Donor Platformfor Rural Development (GDPRD)

With more or less a monopoly over the funding ofagricultural science for international development and itsassociated skills, DFID seems to have made a consciousdecision in 2002, at the time of the untying of aid, toscale back its support for the UK science base, in theface of a continued demand from the developing worldand global recognition that the UK led the world in manyof these disciplines. It is clear from our inquiry that thedeveloping world did not, and does not, share DFID’snegative view of its obligations to ensure the health ofthe British science base to compete on the internationalstage: nor has any evidence since been produced tocondone this arbitrary decision. Subsequently, the UKhas decided to redirect the majority of its fundingthrough multilateral institutions such as the CGIAR at atime when it was very critical of the institution andpublicly calling for its reform, thereby prioritizing thesupport of a flawed system very much to the detrimentof UK Science.

“25 years ago the world came together to try to feedAfrica, in 25 years time Africa could feed the world.”


DFID can point to some positive developments inagriculture and food security, such as its sustainedsupport for the UN World Food Programme althoughaccording to WFP figures this fell by nearly a quarter lastyear from $169 in 2008 to $128 million in 2009. Still thisis in sharp contrast to its commitment in 2007 whichstood at almost half this total, $67 million. It has alsomade a welcome signal that it plans to double itsspending on international agricultural research over thenext five years. However, UK institutions look set to beleft behind, as the entirety of this money has been tied tomultilateral institutions. DFID’s bold decision to untie itsaid was, and is, fundamentally right. It is just that aidmoney should be spent to meet the needs of recipientcountries alone, and not used for the purpose ofsupporting the donors’ own enterprises and therebyforcing developed-world solutions onto the developingworld. However, such a move could not have beenintended to positively discriminate against UK researchorganizations as it has done, not least because a clausein the 2002 International Development Act specificallyexempts not-for-profit research organization.

“There is a serious skill constraint – you cannot quicklymobilize if you do not have agriculture, agronomic,animal production, natural resource management andtechnical skills – you cannot run agriculture at thefrontiers with generalists, and to rebuild that requires astrong effort.”

Jacques Diouf, Director-General of the UN Food andAgriculture Organization

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“In the fragile states of Afghanistan and parts of Africayou can count the agriculture expertise from outsideon one or two hands – they are far outnumbered bymilitary experts, and I think agriculture and foodsecurity as security issues has only dawned onpolitical leadership very recently.”


In the last couple of years, and under considerablepressure, DFID has begun making modest researchfunds available jointly with UK Research Councils forcompetitive calls funding up up to 80% of fulleconomic costs for inputs from UK organisations.Similarly, DFID has been at the forefront of verycomplex processes to reform the CGIAR. However,there has still not been any recognition from DFID thatthey themselves have any need for, and hence aresponsibility to maintain, the knowledge andunderstanding of smallholder farming in the developingworld built up in UK universities and research institutesover the past 100 years (or more in some cases).

Failure to properly publicly fund the UK science anddevelopment infrastructure over the last decade has ledto a catastrophic decrease in the ability of Britishscientists to assist within the wider developmentalcontext. When speaking to the 2003/04 House ofCommons Science and Technology Committee’s Inquiryon The Use of Science in UK International DevelopmentPolicy, Sir David King, then Government Chief Scientist,warned the Government of the consequences of itsnew policy of untying of aid:

“DFID’s untying of research may well compromise thesustainability of the UK research base operating inareas of particular relevance to the developing world,and may serve to distance DFID from the ResearchCouncils even further. Untying research may alsoresult in a disengagement of other potential UKplayers in capacity building exercises with developingcountries […and…] may further undermine the UKresearch base in international development – in naturaland social sciences – and thus our own capacity inthis area. This would be contrary to global calls forglobal action – especially given that the UK has strongtechnical experience and leadership in criticaldevelopment areas, e.g. agricultural R&D,biotechnology and medical research. Untying researchis likely to further distance policy interests betweenDFID and much of the rest of Government – whoseinterests are predominantly UK-centric, and wouldreinforce the arguably artificial division between Britishinterests (and influence) and international developmentinterests.”

The Science and Technology Committee wasunwavering in its support for Sir David King’scomments and the way untied aid was introduced, andstated, “DFID should not have chosen to pursue apolicy that the Government’s Chief Scientist nowbelieves could be so damaging, without considerationof measures that could be taken if not by DFID then byother Government departments, to minimise thenegative impact of this policy on the UK. It is certainthat the contribution that is being made to aid qualityby Britain’s highly regarded agricultural scientists hasbeen shrunken by the past and present policies onagriculture.”

“Farming populations all across the world are ageingpopulations, young people are no longer interested insimply hoe and cutlass and fork and hard labour, wehave found they are very interested when you start totalk about irrigation and greenhouses and forms ofappropriate technology...they get excited about thesethings and if we are not making that investment andconnecting them to that then I don’t think we aregoing to be successful.”

Renwick Rose, Co-ordinator, Windward IslandsNational Farmers’ Association

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It is difficult to justify the neglect of the UK skills base:where it has a disciplinary comparative advantage overmultilateral institutions; where UK and developing worldinterests converge, such as with pest vectors; whenbuilding collaboration between scientists in thedeveloping and developed world is the most productiveway forward; or, as in cases highlighted to us, whereUK expertise is requested by the developing countriesthemselves. Developing-world capacity is crucial infood security and agricultural research. However, theUK is quickly becoming little more than a cashierwriting cheques which others can cash, unable even toevaluate the impact of its work because of the dearthof internal expertise in this area.

“We need to work with developing countries tosignificantly and sustainably raise their agriculturalproductivity.”


“British agriculture has led the world on manyoccasions in the past, and we need it to do so againon sustainable agriculture.”


“We are concerned that some of the technical peoplewho used to be in the DFID offices at the country levelare no longer there...and very few DFID agriculturalscientists at the country level, which is of extremeconcern.”


It has been particularly serious that very few youngscientists have been recruited, as evidenced by thediminishing number of UK students applying for workexperience overseas through the Tropical AgricultureAward Fund scheme. Similarly, there are also very fewskilled agricultural project managers available to Britishconsultancy firms working overseas. As aconsequence, the UK work force has aged anddiminished. Unless serious and early action is taken,there is a real risk that an important asset for the UK –one which could help DFID to meet its ever-growinginternational commitments, including its promises onthe MDGs, whilst at the same time ensuring valure formoney for the UK taxpayer – will continue to decline instrength.

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“I want to see an agricultural revolution that helps poorfarmers in developing countries to grow more and weneed to ensure more of the food they produce gets tomarket rather than being left to rot, as more than half isat present.”

Prime Minister Gordon Brown, April 2008

“We need to be looking at very serious internationalcooperation in trying to work together to solve some ofthese scientific problems.”


“Scientists themselves are very keen to work together:it’s the funding systems that preclude them from doing so.”


“There is no insurance against that [food insecurity],other than heavy investment in science.”

Jacques Diouf, Director-General of the UN Food andAgricultural Association

“We urge the international community to support Africa’seffort to increase investment and innovation inagriculture, by funding a major growth in research andextension services in Africa over the next ten years. Thesupport should be channelled through regional researchorganisations, universities and centres of excellence.”

Commission for Africa

As prospect (the scientists’ and other professionals’trade union) stated in its evidence to the Science andTechnology Committee Inquiry into DFID’s Managementof Science:

“In an era when so many members of a burgeoningworld community are forced to live in poverty, and indegraded and degrading environments, policies basedon sound science administered by governments thatunderstand the requirement for improving the quality oflife in urban and rural communities are essential.”

Andrée Carter of the UK Collaborative on DevelopmentSciences (UKCDS) predicts that the sector needs500–1000 new agricultural science staff to operate asrequired, or less than 0.3% of the pool of new entrantsto the job market between now and 2020. In a period ofeconomic recession, when more people are looking foremployment than at any other time in the past 10 years,it makes sense to invest in a sector which can not onlyreadily absorb new staff members, but that actually hasan underlying need for a replenished workforce.

Andrew Natsios, former head of USAID, said at Montereyin 2002 that he regretted that agriculture had been“basically defunded by virtually all of the donor aidagencies and all of the international banks.” He calledthis “perhaps the most devastating mistake made by thenorthern countries and the international financialinstitutions in the past fifteen years”.

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Recommendation 1: Re-establish Agriculture and Food at theCentre of DFID’s Fight Against Poverty

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Overall the UK remains a pace-setter in internationaldevelopment to whom other countries look for a lead.Thus it is even more important that DFID must act firstand act strongly in its support for agriculture if the globalslide towards hunger is to be reversed.

Aim: Provide political leadership at the highest level,both nationally and internationally, to address theserious threats posed by food insecurity.

“For 20-30 years, Parliamentarians have been able toslip a bit out of the driving seat on food and we thinkthat has to stop, because if they don’t get engagedthen we won’t get the kind of necessary energy behindthis issue that it now really badly needs.”

David Nabarro, Special Representative of the UNSecretary General for Food Security and Nutrition;Senior UN System Coordinator for Avian and PandemicInfluenza

“I’d like the UK government to come out with aninternational policy on research.”

Andrée Carter, Director, UK Collaborative onDevelopment Sciences

“There has been an erosion of capacity in agriculturalresearch, not just in the UK but also in Africa, andthere is a severe brain drain…out of Africa. There hasalso been a sad decline in a lot of African institutionsand maybe in this country as well...a short-termismand lack of agricultural research.”


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DFID should:

1. Recognize the importance of MDG 1 to eradicateextreme poverty and hunger, reducing by half theproportion of people who suffer from hunger byrectifying the imbalance in its country offices due tothe lack of in-house agricultural expertise;

2. Commit 10% of UK Overseas Aid to Food Securityand Sustainable Agriculture, thereby doublingcurrent commitments – a symbolic pledge to matchthe Maputo Declaration, which committed Africannations to commit 10% of their budget to agriculture,to help contribute towards the additional $30bn ayear required to tackle chronic hunger globally;

3. Ensure that the follow up to the Copenhagen ClimateChange Conference (COP15) gives high priority tothe needs of the poorest farmers in the developingworld in adapting to climate change;

4. Ensure that the existing international pledges for$20bn to tackle food security, made sinceJune 2008, are urgently delivered and disbursed. Inline with this, DFID should release information on thestatus of current pledges outlining what has beencommitted, when it was committed, what has beendelivered , and when it has been delivered;

5. Build on the remaining strength of British science todevelop capacity with developing and emergingnations, with both the public and private sectors,ensuring that the untying of aid does not inhibit theUK from making a valuable contribution in thisrespect. In order to achieve this, DFID mustundertake a review of UK skills and expertise onInternational Development and AgriculturalDevelopment, and use this as a basis to restock UKexpertise and address current skill gaps;

6. Support African governments to deliver on theMaputo Declaration and commit 10% of their GDP toagriculture and rural development (MaputoDeclaration, 2003) and to develop national strategieswhich integrate adaptation and disaster riskreduction (DRR) approaches for food security with afocus on smallholder based agricultural systems;

7. Enhance cooperation and availability of internationalnetworks of co-operation and surveillance amongstresearchers to combat the spread of plant pests andlivestock diseases – preventing outbreaks at sourcerather than at the UK border;

8. Encourage the UKCDS’s individual members and UKGovernment as a whole to pay particular attention tohow they can contribute to a cross-disciplinaryapproach to increasing food security.

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Recommendation 2: Re-focus on Agricultural Education and Extension

Aim: Provide farmers in the developing world withadequate education and training to lift themselves outof poverty and fill the gap left by the crumblingextension services.

“You discount the knowledge of rural people and smallfarmers: there is a huge problem in the way we do oureducation.”


“Stop focusing simply on primary school education,which is set out in MDG1, but look at educationholistically…you have to look at the whole chain ofeducation and support it.”


“The central part of the comprehensive agenda isinvestment in innovation and science andtechnology...all which increase agriculture productivityacross the whole food value chain.”


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DFID should:

1. Look beyond primary education and, as theCommission for Africa advised, develop severalAfrican Centres of Excellence for Science,Technology and Agriculture;

2. Encourage and support partnerships between UKUniversities and those in the global South – includingsupport for increased student exchanges and fundedPhD scholarships undertaken in developingcountries on projects rooted in food security;

3. Look very seriously at the poor condition ofextension services in Africa, given that it is crucialthat advances in agricultural science andproductivity should be made available to all farmers;

4. Establish a pairing programme for Parliamentariansand Policy Makers with Farmers, NGO Techniciansand Agricultural Scientists in order to garner greaterunderstanding and communication of key issues andconstraints, enabling policy makers to makeinformed decisions;

5. Re-focus its efforts on women farmers who, in manyparts of Africa, form up to 70% of the totalagricultural workforce, and 60–80% of the labour toproduce food for households and for sale,safeguarding them from unfair land tenure andinheritance, and giving them access to microcreditfacilities;

6. Help improve trade literacy amongst developingworld farmers, opening new market access forfarmers through a wider understanding of theincreasing number of standards and qualityrequirements which need to be met in order tosupply international markets;

7. Step up its efforts to translate science into practicethrough initiatives such as the Research into Useprogramme to help extend the dissemination andavailability of ‘off the shelf’ agricultural research andtechnology to African farmers;

8. Strengthen the implementation of the Committee onWorld Food Security (CFS) reform process at the UNFAO following the recent agreement at the 35thsession of the CFS;

9. Implement the findings of the comprehensiveInternational Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge,Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD)approved by Ministers in June 2008.

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Recommendation 3: Legislate for Change

Aim: Ensure that UK Policy Makers actively promote theindividual’s right to food in domestic legislation whilstalso presenting suitable policy options internationallyand to other Governments.

“If the rules don’t lead you where you want to go, thereis no other route than to change the rules. We have nochoice but to reinvent farming and agriculture and therules under which it operates. The only question is: dowe do this in a reasonably well thought out way or, aswe saw in the response to the food price hikes, ithappens chaotically and to everyone’s disadvantage.”


“Any national leader is neglecting their duty to notmake it their most urgent priority…to figure out how toprocure, produce and provide access to enough food.”


“Hunger is not simply a problem of food availability – itis also a problem of accessibility and thereforeproducing more will not serve to combat hunger if wedo not tackle inequalities and the mechanisms whichproduce exclusion and marginalization...the right tofood is a counterweight to the marginalization ofsmall-scale farmers in the political process where theyare often unrepresented and unable to influence.”


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DFID should:

1. Support the World Food Programme (WFP) in itsdrive to become more efficient by providing longer-term, more predictable funding for the WFP,encouraging and enabling it to continue to increaseits local procurement policies and helping to buildlocal capacities via longer term production contracts;

2. Move to end trade-distorting subsidies and policiesby completing a pro-poor agreement at the Doharound of talks at the World Trade Organization andensure that policies cease to discriminate againstthe poorest countries in the world;

3. Take every possible opportunity to support ethicalsourcing by UK companies in the developing world,safeguarding the poorest farmers in the poorestcountries;

4. Provide a lead in regulating UK companies’investment in overseas land to ensure that suchdeals do not act to the detriment of local foodsecurity;

5. Respond to the adverse consequences for healthand education in neglecting food security. It shouldpay particular attention to ensuring that mothers andyoung children receive access to healthy andsustainable diets to ensure they enjoy a healthy andfulfilling life;

6. Support investments and social protection schemesthat provide poor farmers with the services andsupport they need to build resilience and reducevulnerability now and in the future;

7. Encourage a revival of World Bank lending foragricultural infrastructure, in consultation with allactors in the agriculture sector, including: lending fortransport corridors, rural energy, clean water,irrigation, and farm-to-market roads; rebuilding keygovernment departments like agriculture; agriculturalR&D, extension and education; unlocking creditsystems for small farmers; and use of smartsubsidies to increase access to fertilizers;

8. Undertake, with other donors, Parliamentary-strengthening work with agricultural selectcommittees given the crucial importance of goodgovernance in establishing a supportive environmentfor agricultural productivity.

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“We have a current responsibility because we stillcommand the world through our economic power –we put the world in our mouths and we assume wehave the right to do that.”


“We must move forward with available technologies –we need every tool in the bag.”


“Promoting vibrant rural communities by increasingfood productivity of smallholder farmers, raising ruralincomes and expanding rural access to foodproductivity of smallholder farmers, raising ruralincomes and expanding rural access to essentialpublic services and infrastructure… the globalepicentre of extreme poverty is the smallholder farm.

Of the roughly 850 million living in chronic hunger,smallholder farmers constitute half. Remember thatthese farmers also constitute the bulk of the privatesector economic activity in many developingcountries, so improving their economic lot will make ahuge difference to the countries’ prospects for long-term economic growth… Addressing rural povertyrequires making farms more productive, raisingfarmers’ incomes, improving the lives of the rurallandless and expanding essential services.”

Jeffrey Sachs, leader of the Millennium Project

2010 presents a historic opportunity for the UK to seizethe initiative, mark a break with past DFID policy, andhelp set the agenda for the coming decades in the fightagainst hunger. Currently 500 million smallholderfarmers face a daily struggle to meet the needs of the 2billion people who are dependent upon them, that isnearly one-third of humanity. The magnitude of thischallenge cannot be underestimated, however;

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the public mood for change is growing as peoplecontinue to feel the twin effects of rising prices anduncertain livelihoods from the economic crisis, andempathize with those in the developing world who goto sleep hungry. Now is the time for the UK to act.

“The food-price related rise in conflict and thedestabilizing of governments is a pervasivephenomenon.”


“I think we have to start by using to much greater effectmany of the technologies we have, and get inputs intothe hands of small farmers.”


Between now and 2050, any workable solution aimedat avoiding the very real threat of the ‘Perfect Storm’scenario will need to be able to access and utilize awide range and combination of all or some of thestrategies listed above. This will also require that thoseinvolved and responsible for political leadership andthose tasked with managing food security strategieshave a general understanding of the wider context andissues at stake.

In view of the complexity of the scenario set out byJohn Beddington, as outlined at the beginning of thisreport, no one single-issue approach is likely to providea workable solution which can address the problem ofglobal food security on its own, nor will a simpleincrease in the financial assistance for agriculture actas a magic-bullet to solve the problems caused bydecades of neglect. While it would undoubtedly helpthe situation there is an overarching need to choose theright policies and implement them in a high quality andsustainable manner. The solution will involveunderstanding and implementation of a wide range ofpolitical, managerial, social, scientific and ecologicalfactors. Fundamentally, there will be a basic need for anew generation of multiskilled and multidisciplinarypractitioners capable of integrating well with everyoneelse involved.

“The international division of labour leads to certaincountries specializing in gaining while other countriesspecialize in losing.”


To date, much of the world has benefited fromagricultural development, yet Africa continues to missout: 22 of the 30 least developed countries in the world

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are found in Africa. This is the greatest challenge facingthe continent and the scale of the task ahead isdaunting. Sustained attention to the issues highlightedabove is required if Africa is to feed itself by 2050 andbecome a bread basket once more.

“Our global governance procedures emerged after theSecond World War to meet a totally separate set ofchallenges to those we face now...this is going torequire a massive improvement in global governanceso that we begin to manage these things in the run-upto 2050 and not after a series of disasters.”


“How can we reduce the cost of research procurement,research design – on how we put projects togetherand how we deliver them so that they are high qualityfor HEFCE assessment but also of direct benefit to thetarget audience and stakeholders involved...We don’tnecessarily need more research – we want to be ableto talk to each other, exchange experiences and addvalue to what has already been funded.”

Andrée Carter, Director, UK Collaborative onDevelopment Sciences

The UK must help the developing world by providingopportunities to lift itself out of hunger and poverty –be it via education and extension, infrastructure andtrade, or research and development. If countries likethe UK do not take a lead, another decade will be lostand progress towards MDG1 will be lost. The UK mustalso encourage African Governments to meet theircommitments under the Maputo Agreement and build a climate of cooperation with Southern Governments to ensure that the needs of their citizens are heard and met.

It is only right and proper that this issue is identified asone for Parliamentarians in Africa, and their colleagueshere, to address. As the World Bank DevelopmentReport in 2008 stated:

“Without social peace, adequate governance, andsound macro-fundamentals, few parts of anagricultural agenda can be effectively implemented.This basic premise was all too often missing inagriculture-based countries until the mid-1990s,particularly in sub-Saharan Africa...To pursueagriculture-for-development agendas, local, national,and global governance for agriculture need to beimproved.”

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“In order to begin any of this, good governance isabsolutely important.”

Guy Poulter, Director of the Natural Resources Instituteat the University of Greenwich

“We need to move towards a triangular model ofaccountability in which both donors and recipientgovernments are responsible to the beneficiaries.”


Ultimately, Parliamentarians can do much to ensurethat donor policies and the needs of the very poorestare matched, helping to ensure that the hungry don’tgo unfed. Informed and empowered parliamentariansare crucial, both for seeing that appropriate budgetsand legislation are in place and by scrutinizing thedelivery of targets and policies – Parliamentarians arethe only body of stakeholders able to exert thenecessary levels of oversight and pressure.

“Investing in agriculture, where you can do that, canhelp to resolve conflict.”

Matthew Wyatt, Assistant President for External AffairsInternational Fund for Agricultural Development

“Unless we manage these holistically – and there is thereal challenge – we are going to be faced with conflict,as we move forward in time, the order of which wehaven’t seen before.”


“There is a risk that the current crisis will both makethings worse and take the eye off the ball of the foodcrisis...the costs of not getting it right, in terms of losthuman potential and early deaths are enormous.”

Tom Arnold, CEO, Concern Worldwide

“The silent hunger crisis, affecting one-sixth of all ofhumanity, poses a serious risk for world peace andsecurity.”


“Hunger is a moral challenge to each one of us as globalcitizens, but it is also a threat to the political andeconomic stability of poor nations around the world.”

Prime Minister Gordon Brown, April 2008

Hunger is not only a moral issue; it is an economic andsocial issue; it is a diplomatic issue; it is a securityissue; and it is one that requires the developed world toact now if this global slide towards hunger is to bestopped. As a country with unrivalled expertise in thisarea, and to which others look for a lead in the field ofinternational development, the UK must act first andact now to help set the agenda.

Given our dependency on food imports, the UK is notimmune to the potential impacts of its declininginvestment in agricultural research and development athome and abroad. Indeed in a world where many of thetechnical skills needed for agriculture and climatechange adaptation cut across both the developed anddeveloping world – an increased investment inagriculture is an increased both directly and in-directlyfor the UK’s benefit.

As former Defra Minister Jane Kennedy told thisinquiry:

“There can be no UK food security, without global food security.”

“The time to act differently is now.”Geoff Tansey, Author, Consultant and Joseph RowntreeCharitable Trust Visionary

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Sponsors

The publication of this report could not have been possible without the support ofthe following organizations

This report was written and compiled by James Birch with assistance from PatriciaConstant, Chris Haines, Peter Simpson, Scott Smyth and Tony Worthington.

The APPG would also like to thank the Associate Parliamentary Food and Health Forumand; The Parliamentary and Scientific Committee for their assistance during this inquiry

The All Party Parliamentary Group on Agriculture and Food for DevelopmentRoom 311 Star Chamber Court

Houses of ParliamentLondon

SW1A 0AATelephone: 020 7219 5472Email: [email protected]

Website: www.agricultureandfoodfordevelopment.org

This Report is printed on paper from a sustainable source.

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