Famine: strategies required now for long term global food security

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warns of a worldwide food crisis, as early as next year.

Dr. Mark Hearn of the Department of Modern History and Politics at Macquarie University, writing in Canberra Times (October 29, 2012) says global grain reserves are at critically low levels, warning that 2013 may herald a time of worldwide famine. Due to extreme weather events, food supply may no longer be reliable.

However, he states that famines throughout history have not always been unlucky accidents. In recent years, grain has been increasingly converted to biofuels, which FAO maintains has exacerbated the food supply problem. Politics, too, has influenced famines. World War II triggered starvation that claimed nearly 20 million lives as global conflict heightened. Hearn cites Lizzie Collingham’s The Taste of War which argued that the demand for food was a central cause of the war.

Currently, the world will face shortages of potable (drinking) water, clean air, and affordable energy. Hearn says wealthy nations are increasingly seeking arable land to feed their citizens. Strategies and decisions are needed to deal with extreme weather events which impose droughts and floods (such as the drought in the Horn of Africa and the floods in Pakistan’s Indus Valley in 2010). Even the United States is suffering an unprecedented drought, consequently reducing grain stocks.

United Nations agencies, such as FAO, are currently alerting member states to the challenges of food shortages and climate conditions. Hearn suggests that as Australia has gained a seat on the UN Security Council, it should use the opportunity to help shape a strategy to secure global food supplies to prevent catastrophic famines, not just in the near future but as a long term preventative and sustainable solution.

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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