Country Life's Aslet weighs in on Attenborough debate

Broadcaster David Attenborough is wrong to say repeated famines in East Africa are caused by high birth rates, wrote Clive Aslet in Britain’s Daily Telegraph today.

The Country Life editor-at-large argued that the problem is not of the world failing to produce enough food, but “the absence of it in the right places”.

Admitting in his column that Attenborough’s concerns are shared by many experts, Aslet was emphatic that the challenge of feeding nine billion people by the middle of the century could be met by scientists, industry and farmers, and even drive world economic growth.

The advances in mechanization and information technology now common in British farms, not to mention developments in GM crops, ‘would fill the breadbaskets of the world to overflowing’ if exported to India, Africa and South America. Aslet went on to quote a 2011 Oxfam report arguing that a wholesale rejection of technological improvements in favour of small-scale “peasant” agriculture could “lock farmers into poverty”.

He ended with a note of warning to British readers. The UK is not isolated from worldwide migration, and populations suffering from food shortages “will come knocking at our door”.  

While The Global Miller prefers to strike a less parochial tone, we share Aslet’s feeling that agricultural science and technology can and must prove David Attenborough’s concerns to be unfounded. 

Children have walked for weeks across the desert to get to Dadaab, and many perish on the way. Others have died shortly after arrival. On the edge of the camp, a young girl stands amid the freshly made graves of 70 children, many of whom died of malnutrition. Photo: Andy Hall/Oxfam (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

France's proposal to reduce food prices gets backing from China and India and Brazil

India Brazil and China were among the G20 countries to back the French proposal on new rules for global agriculture at the meeting in Paris. Agriculture ministers from the United States, United Kingdom, Australia and Argentina have yet to make their decision public.

The proposals to limit export curbs and start a database would be “especially sensitive,” Le Maire said. Sarkozy said, World leaders risked making this “the century of hunger” unless they could agree to new rules on food supply. He also said that “Volatility is a plague on farmers and consumers,” Sarkozy said in a speech to the ministers yesterday. Surging commodity prices “can plunge entire populations into famine and poverty”. Read more ...

This blog is written by Martin Little, The Global Miller, published and supported by the GFMT Magazine and the International Milling Directory from Perendale Publishers

Report calls for government to expedite trade agreements

The Global Harvest Initiative has published a report titled, "Removing Barriers to Global and Regional Trade in Agriculture."  This is the second of five issue briefs outlining policies to sustainably increase the rate of agricultural productivity and address hunger and food security in anticipation of a global population surge to over nine billion people by 2050.

The report highlights the critical importance of improving food and agricultural trade flows to counter the impact on agricultural supply resulting from changing weather patterns, urban population shifts, and limitations of water, land and inputs, among other factors. Read more ...

This blog is written by Martin Little, The Global Miller, which is published and supported by the GFMT Magazine and International Milling Directory from Perendale Publishers

1.2 billion people in the World starving

According to new figures from the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) one in six people of the world are starving. Compared with last year, there are 100 million more people who are hungry meaning they receive less than 1,800 calories a day. Director General Jacques Diouf of the FAO talked to journalists saying this is a historic high due largely to the global economic crisis and stubbornly high food prices.

Almost all of the of the worlds undernourished live in developing countries, where food prices have decreased at a slower rate than in the richer nations. The FAO report went on to say that the poor countries need more aid and agricultural investment to cope. The global economic crisis has compounded the problem for people dealing with pay cuts and job losses, in the developed world there are estimated to be about 15 million now hungry. Read more...