Grim statistics are indicative of the magnitude of the global problem: some 820 million people suffer from severe malnutrition. Another 2 billion suffer from hunger. Some 700 million people live in extreme poverty, on less than US $2.15 a day, while nearly half of the world’s 8 billion inhabitants suffer in poverty on less than what the rest spend on a trip to Starbucks each morning.
This is happening on the same planet that, in six decades, has been able to increase the availability of calories and protein by 40%, despite an alarming increase in the global population, a global pandemic, and climate challenges. The knowledge and ability exist, if we are willing, to face these issues head-on.
While there are multiple causes of food insecurity on the planet, one is predominant: armed conflict. This year, with 20 countries or territories plunged into violence or war, nearly 140 million people are made vulnerable to food crisis.
Hunger is a weapon of mass destruction that threatens global political instability.
Nearly 300 million people in 60 countries – most of them suffering from armed conflict – suffered acute hunger last year. This as the world’s governments together spent more than $2.4 trillion on weapons, equipment and military personnel.
The increase in hunger also reflects disruptions in the fertilizer trade following the outbreak of war in Eastern Europe, which accelerated cost increases to both farmers and consumers almost everywhere. Conflicts disrupted critical farming and food systems supply chains extending suffering beyond directly impacted borders.
In addition to families and lives, armed conflicts wipe out livelihoods and agri-food systems, driving people from their homes and into situations of increased vulnerability. Wars and armed conflicts turn nations into failures. They erase progress in protecting biodiversity and the climate.
Along with the weakening or collapse of government, they destroy agriculture, trust and social cooperation; make rural areas more insecure; trigger the cultivation of illicit crops; promote extortion, violence, forced migration and unbridled competition for natural resources.
They also wipe out farming communities, with the consequent loss of knowledge and know-how, generating dependence on international aid.
Two decades ago, the multilateral system called on the world to move decisively to replace the culture of imposition, domination and violence with a culture of encounter, dialogue, conciliation, partnership and peace.
With conflicts raging, this call must be renewed again, with fresh recognition of the role of agrifood systems as essential for social and political stability, as well as human development, within a framework of sustainability and global cooperation.
Agriculture is the cornerstone of this system, whose performance is strategic for rural and territorial development and the well-being of both urban and rural populations.
Achievement of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by world leaders to eradicate poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity are challenged. They can only be achieved by placing agriculture at the top of public agendas and strengthening its weakest link – small farmers – by increasing their incomes and facilitating their productive and commerce through access to knowledge and technology.
Eighty percent of the poor live in rural areas and depend largely on agriculture for their livelihoods. Most produce food on small farms, many with degraded soils. Their role is crucial to world agriculture and especially relevant to the livelihoods of millions of people in developing countries.
It is these smallhold farmers – men and women – who produce 65% of the world’s rice, as well as most of the world’s cocoa, coffee, tea, rubber and palm. Despite their importance, their economic viability is in the balance. They have little selling power and low social mobility.
This vulnerability feeds back into conflict and instability. For this reason, efforts to eradicate poverty and hunger require strategies to maintain and strengthen the adaptive capacity of small farmers to extreme weather events and to work resolutely to recover and maintain peace.
It is time to look at rural territories as areas of opportunity and social progress. This requires appropriate institutional designs, a new generation of public policies for family farming and the facilitation of access to digital technologies and other advancements so farmers have better yields and incomes.
The time is now. Words on paper are insufficient.
To make progress, we need global leaders to turn away from armed conflict. We need instead to provide resources and solutions through global cooperative efforts to the problems associated with small-scale agriculture, such as low yields, infrastructure deficits and poor links to the market and financing.
Agriculture holds the key to building a prosperous and peaceful world.
Written By: Rattan Lal – World Food Prize Nobel Laureate and Manuel Otero – Director General, Inter American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture
Loading ...
