Food crisis
From HFA-PEDIA
The world food situation is rapidly being redefined. Most obviously, the recent trend of unprecedented increases in the price of food and overall import bills for the poorest countries, coupled with diminishing food stocks and difficulties accessing food by some communities, has created a host of humanitarian, socio-economic, developmental, political and security-related challenges and most notably immediate hunger needs.
Given the complexity of the issue, policymakers face a tricky balancing act between the urgency of responding to the immediate problems, and taking enough time to adequately understand and analyze the challenges involved and the potential consequences of their actions. In some instances, further clarity and system-wide agreement are necessary on the most appropriate way forward. We need to review the demand and supply drivers of higher food prices, the impacts and challenges that are already evident, and the predicted (likely) threats and opportunities that high food prices present.
According to an April 25, 2008 UN/ISDR Press Release:
Drought and unsustainable water management have been key contributing factors to the global food crisis. In turn, managing drought risk to prepare for the increasing drought impact of climate change, is a crucial part of addressing the food crisis long term.
The effects of drought that we are now seeing on major food exporters like Australia and Ukraine is just a taste of how climate-change could contribute to a future of ongoing global food crises. Water scarcity will contribute to food scarcity. Drought has already disrupted food production and exports, most markedly Australian rice, contributing to higher global prices of staples for those who can least afford it, and reducing the supply of food relief to the world’s poorest people. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has already observed that the currently raised levels of drought will increase, placing billions of people at risk of water stress by the end of the century, unless there are deep cuts in carbon emissions and urgent action is taken on adaptation.
More attention must be focused on disaster risk management, which has already developed practical ways for adapting to increased drought predicted to come with climate change. Because drought is a slow-building phenomenon, communities and nations can build their defences against rising temperatures and dryer seasons with good planning – such as better water management and scaled-up use of available risk-reduction tools and programmes to combat drought and desertification.
“Drought creeps,” says UN/ISDR secretariat Director Salvano Briceño, “so we can outrun it. But this will take a genuine mindset and policy shift towards the ethos that prevention is better than cure, and serious political and economic commitment to saving harvests and lives on a global economic level.”
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