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2008 has been a year of shocks: the price of oil jumped to extraordinary levels, food prices dramatically spiked and interest rates rose. Australians were ‘doing it tough’ the media screamed. Then the world suddenly found itself in a global financial crisis. Media attention and government action here and elsewhere shifted to fear of a global economic slow-down and possible recession. Interest rates were cut and economic stimulus packages rolled out. Oil and food prices declined sharply.
However the potentially devastating long-term food crisis did not go away. It simply ceased to be a problem in the rich world. But for the poor in developing countries, who may spend up to 80 per cent of their incomes on food, the price of food is always a concern that will grow worse unless decisive action is taken.
The nub of the long-term problem is that demand for food will double within the next 50 years. The global population is projected to increase by from two to three billion to about nine billion. Demand for a wider variety of more nutritious foods will increase as incomes rise in middle income countries. Conversion of food to alcohol fuels will further push up prices.
Food prices trended down over the past 30 years. We were living off the fruits of the scientific advances of earlier decades. These were the foundation for the Green Revolution that enabled the massive increase in cereal production in much of Asia, where population grew rapidly, diets improved and fear of famine ended.
But, as is their way, governments lost sight of the reality that the foundation of economic development in poor countries remains a sustained rise in agricultural productivity. Investment in agriculture in developing countries fell away, including support for agricultural research.
Overall productivity in agriculture continued to increase, but at a diminishing rate, including here. We too have been living off accumulated scientific research.
Official foreign aid, including Australia’s, to the agricultural sector fell drastically, declining from about 18 per cent of total aid in 1979 to about 3.5 per cent in 2004.
What can Australia do to prevent a hunger catastrophe in the years ahead? We can respond in two ways: first, by increasing our food exports and second by helping developing countries that share some of our geographical handicaps to create productive, sustainable farming systems backed by policies appropriate to their particular circumstances.
The value of Australian exports of food and fibre is some four times as much as the value of our consumption. Our goal should be to at least maintain that ratio. Though the continent is not well-endowed climatically and lacks large expanses of fertile soil, the history of agriculture in Australia shows that enterprising farmers, backed by first-class research and good policies, can overcome those disadvantages.
The hotter, drier climate likely to emerge in much of Australia may impede our ability to take full advantage of our potential to help ourselves and others unless we step up appropriate research, stimulate its rapid dissemination and invest in necessary infrastructure.
Precisely because we stand to benefit economically from the likely long-term rise in agricultural export prices, much will be expected of us. Even more than now, in a more crowded world, Australia will be seen as privileged, enjoying advantages not shared by more densely populated countries in Asia and Africa.
The climate changes that affect food production here are already doing so in parts of Africa and Asia. It will be increasingly important that Australia gives special attention to helping developing countries steadily increase agricultural production and gain access to developed country markets.
The UN’s Millennium Development Goals commit the international community to progressively eliminate poverty and its surrogate, hunger. The danger is that world leaders, notwithstanding their good intentions, will be distracted by more immediate problems affecting the finances of their constituents. The current global financial system crisis is an extreme example, but in years to come there will inevitably be other crises demanding urgent attention. As is frequently stated, the world’s poor have no votes in rich countries.
The long-term hunger challenge is not just a challenge to our altruism. Dealing with it successfully is in our national interest. Failure to significantly reduce poverty could eventually destabilise world peace and security, to say nothing of the impact of global famine on movement of peoples.
James Ingram AO, is the leader of the Crawford Fund Food Crisis Task Force appointed to analyse the underlying causes of the recent sharp peak in world food prices, to consider their long-term implications for global food security and to formulate policy options open to Australia. He is a former Australian Ambassador, head of Australia’s overseas aid organisation and Executive Director of the UN World Food Program, the world’s largest humanitarian aid organisation.
Editor's Note: This article was first published in Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering's (ATSE) Focus Magazine issue 153 (River Health and Water). This article is under copyright; permission must be sought from ATSE to reproduce it.
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