In Bangladesh, dramatic reductions in open defecation contributed to large declines in the number of stunted children. Credit: Mahmuddun Rashed Manik/IPS

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 18 2015 (IPS)

Nearly half of the world’s hungry, amounting to about 363 million people, live in some of the rising middle income countries, including Brazil, China, India, Indonesia and Mexico, according to a new report released Wednesday by the Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).

The 2014–2015 Global Food Policy Report (GFPR) calls on these developing nations, described as “rising economic powerhouses,” to reshape their food systems to focus on nutrition and health, close the gender gap in agriculture, and improve rural infrastructure to ensure food security for all.“It has become clear that the factors that influence people’s nutrition go well beyond food and agriculture to include drinking water and sanitation, the role of women, the quality of caregiving, among others.” -- Shenggen Fan

“It may seem counterintuitive, but these growing economies play a key role in our ability to adequately and nutritiously feed the world,” said Shenggen Fan, director general of IFPRI.

The report traces the link between sanitation and nutrition, with findings in Bangladesh that show “dramatic reductions in open defecation contributed to large declines in the number of stunted children.”

The research also found that “Bangladeshi children living in places where open defecation had been reduced were taller than children in neighboring West Bengal, India, where open defecation is still common, even at the same levels of economic wealth.”

“It has become clear that the factors that influence people’s nutrition go well beyond food and agriculture to include drinking water and sanitation, the role of women, the qual­ity of caregiving, among others,” Fan said.

The study also finds strong evidence that food insecurity was a contributing factor to instability in the Middle East.

Additionally, it draws attention to the pressing need to regulate food production to prevent food-borne diseases, help small family farmers move up by increasing their incomes or move out to non-farm employment, improve social protection for the rural poor, and support the role of small-scale fishers in satisfying the global demand for fish.

Asked specifically about the impact of Middle East conflicts on food security, Clemens Breisinger, a senior research fellow in the Development Strategy and Governance division at IFPRI, told IPS food insecurity is quite obviously often a consequence of political instability and conflict.

As such, he said, the number of food insecure people has risen in many Arab countries since 2011, especially in Syria, Iraq and Yemen (three countries ravaged by political turmoil).

“But new research shows that food insecurity can also fuel conflicts, particularly in countries that are net food importing countries and thus vulnerable to global food price shocks,” Breisinger said.

He pointed out Arab countries import about 50 percent of their food and were thus hard hit by the global food price spikes in 2008 and 2011.

Meanwhile, Imed Drine, a senior economist at the Islamic Development Bank, says the slump in oil prices continues to upend the global economy and experts believe this is likely to last for several years.

Oil prices dropped by about 50 percent from the fourth quarter of 2014 to the first month of 2015, the second largest annual decline ever where the falling oil prices have helped to push food prices down, according to the Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Of the regions affected by these declining oil prices, said Drine in a blog post, the MENA region (Middle East and North Africa) is affected the most.

That is due to the fact that the majority of its countries depend on oil revenues for growth and because it is the most food imports-dependent region where food dependency ratios exceed 50 percent on average.

Drine says the strong relationship between oil and food prices may be explained by a key fact: “Our modern global food system is highly oil-dependent.”

Oil is the key fuel for production and for transporting food from field to market, and fuel costs, he said, make up as much as 50 to 60 per cent of total shipping costs.

In addition, energy related costs such as fertilisers, chemicals, lubricants and fuel account for close to 50 percent of the production costs for crops such as corn and wheat in some developed countries.

“As a result, declining oil prices will have a direct influence on production costs,” he added.

Furthermore, grain prices have become increasingly linked to the movement of oil markets since more corn is being diverted to biofuel production.

Generally, as demand for these alternative fuels decreases, crop prices are forced down, making food more affordable, Drine added.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@aol.com

Gabriel Kimwaki on his coffee farm in Nyeri County, central Kenya. Agriculture is still the backbone of the economy even when many small-scale farmers continue to receive minimal returns. Credit: Miriam Gathigah/IPS

By Miriam Gathigah
NAIROBI, Nov 4 2014 (IPS)

Coffee farmer Gabriel Kimwaki from Nyeri County, in central Kenya, is considering “giving up farming altogether”.

He told IPS that the returns are too low “and with every harvesting season, I am making less and less profit.”

His is not a unique story. Francis Njuguna, an agricultural extension officer in the area, told IPS that while it is still difficult to quantify, “more farmers are shifting to food crops. The cash crop business is proving to be too risky for small-scale farmers.”

Kenya was reclassified as a middle-income country in early October, but as this East African comes to terms with its new ranking, it is becoming clear that status alone will not result in fewer people going to sleep hungry.

There is still a great need to address the plight of Kenya’s poor, as agriculture remains the backbone of the economy.

According to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, based on a five-year average from 2009 to 2013, the agricultural sector’s contribution to the GDP is now estimated at 25.4 percent — up from 24.1 percent.

The contribution that small-scale farmers like Kimwaki make cannot be overemphasised with government statistics showing that small-scale production accounts for at least 75 percent of the total agricultural output and 70 percent of marketed agricultural produce.

Economic analyst Jason Braganza told IPS that “the move to middle-income status was as a result of using better data from high-performing sectors.”

The sectors include agriculture, telecommunication, real estate and manufacturing — the latter sector’s contribution to GDP has risen from 9.5 percent to 11.3 percent, according to Braganza.

What the revised GDP revealed, Braganza said, “is that the country is worth much more than what was previously recorded.”

The country’s GDP is now estimated at 53.4 billion dollars compared to 42.6 billion dollars before the revision, making Kenya the ninth-largest economy in Africa, up from the 12^th position.

Kenya’s gross national income rose to 1,160 dollars, up from an estimated 840 dollars before the revision. According to the World Bank, a country is classified as middle income if its gross national income per capita — a nation’s GDP plus net income received from overseas — surpasses 1,036 dollars.

While this has been hailed as a move in the right direction for a country that remains East Africa’s strongest economy, policy analyst Ted Ndebu told IPS that this does not mean that Kenya is “rich and that it has risen above its social economic challenges.”

World Bank statistics show that more than four out of 10 Kenyans live in poverty. The country has a population of 44.3 million. With an economic growth rate of 5.7 percent, Ndebu said that the country “is still a long way off from a double-digit growth rate of at least 10 percent as outlined in the Vision 2030, the country’s economic blueprint.”

Braganza explained that revising the GDP or rebasing the economy is a purely “statistical exercise. It provides a better understanding of the economy but in itself, it does not change people’s poverty status.”

But he added that based on the new statistics, “the government has a better understanding of which sectors are driving the growth of the economy. But it does not mean that fewer people are sleeping hungry.”

He said that economic growth alone would not eliminate poverty.

“Growth must be accompanied by development. It is development that reduces poverty because it addresses issues like access to education, health services, jobs and so on,” Braganza said.

He explained that there were many factors that were not captured in statistics and income bracketing is not always a true representation of the people’s well being. “That is why household surveys are important. They show you the conditions under which people are living.”

Braganza added that this did not mean that rebasing the economy was not important. “It is very significant because the findings can be used to boost development and improve people’s living standards.”

The government would also be able to see which sectors can potentially bring in revenue, and tax them accordingly, thereby exploiting the potential that each sector has to the fullest.

But Ndebu said this could have a downside effect if the sectors are taxed too heavily and could discourage investment and innovation particularly in the telecommunication industry which pioneered mobile payments technology.

But this is not the only implication. Kenya could also be overlooked by donors.

Jason Lakin, the country manager at International Budget Partnership Kenya, told IPS that donors have in recent years focused on the poorest countries and a middle-income country may not be prioritised for funding.

He said that low-income countries generally qualify for more generous assistance.

“Take the World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA) credits, which are loans given to countries on very concessional terms [low interest and long repayment periods]. Middle-income countries will not qualify for these terms,” he explained, adding that middle-income countries may still get loans at  higher rates or over shorter repayment periods.

“Kenya may not find donor financing as attractive when the interest rates are higher and repayment periods shorter because it has now shown that it can borrow internationally,” said Lakin.

While market rate borrowing may still have higher rates than donor financing, experts say that donor funding usually has other conditions, making it less attractive for a country with other options.

Lakin said that international bond markets for instance “only want to be repaid and do not impose any conditions.”

Although Kenya is not an aid-dependent country since aid accounts for only seven to 10 percent of the national budget, Braganza said that “we still cannot undermine the importance of [aid] because it finances key sectors such as health, agriculture and education.”

“Donor aid is very significant because it is used in social sectors where people are in very severe poverty conditions,” he said.

Ndebu added that there was also aid that does not go through the national budget but through non-government organisations, which significantly complemented government projects.

Edited by: Nalisha Adams