Credit crunch, caused by international financial turmoil, prevents accelerated capital flow to long-term investments in sectors like agriculture despite their urgent needs, undermining growth towards a more resilient global food system, says a global report.
The burgeoning global financial crisis has pushed aside policymakers’ attention from the threat of rising food prices though the global food crisis is far from over, observes the International Food Policy Research Institute in its analysis.
“It continues to threaten the food and nutrition security of poor people around the globe.”
The pattern of low global investment in agricultural research and development has contributed to slower growth in agricultural productivity, reads the report, styled “Responding to the twin global crises of food and financial markets: Best bets for reducing poverty and hunger”.
The Washington-based research organisation in the report released on Friday cautioned that the livelihoods and food security of millions of poor people as well as the economic, ecological, and political situation in many developing countries would remain at risk if the world did not addresses these challenges.
It also acknowledged that the financial crisis had reduced demand and speculative activity, leading to lower food prices and it might provide some relief to the poor consumers.
However, the number of hungry people actually increased by at least 75 million from 2004 to 2007, and probably increased by even more in 2008, said the report adding that progress in achieving development goals “such as halving global poverty and hunger by 2015” is slipping.
Referring to studies the IFPRI mentioned that investments in agricultural research had extremely high rates of return in terms of growth and poverty reduction.
Also, it said doubling spending on public agricultural research over five years would significantly raise agricultural output and reduce poverty. “Spending more in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia would have less impact on agricultural growth, but would lift more people ‘about 282 million’ out of poverty by 2020,” the report pointed out.
The IFPRI research further suggested investment in creating farm productivity and production of healthy food for the poor, sustainable use of natural resources and biodiversity for improving their livelihoods and mobilisation of science and technology for stimulating institutional innovation targeting pro-poor agricultural growth.
Author: Khawaza Main Uddin, New age
