Austerity in Sudan

A dramatic increase in the price of medication, fuel and electricity in Sudan has spurred discontent across the country. Over the past two weeks, protests and strikes have been calling for the government to reinstate subsidies, which were removed earlier this month. The cuts are reportedly part of wider austerity measures that have been implemented to address the country's foreign currency crisis and fiscal deficit. The Central Bank of Sudan (CBOS) stopped providing foreign currency for the import of medicine. Medication prices increased between 150 and 300 percent

"The new decision, which caused the increase, is a huge disaster," local pharmacist Hatim Aldaak told Al Jazeera. "This will affect many citizens, especially the poor, because, as you know, the percentage of the poor in Sudan is very large. You cannot imagine the reaction and emotional effect it has on us, when someone comes into the pharmacy to buy medicine and asks for the price and tells us they can't afford it and they then leave with the medicine still on the shelves," said Aldaak.

The end of subsidies was also implemented on fuel and electricity.

Amna Sayed, a 42-year-old mother and tea lady says she is struggling in every way. "It is not just the medications; I can barely send my two children to school. Transport alone is too expensive now and so is food. I sell tea, and even before these increases I hardly managed to get by."

Shop owners, such as Mohammed al-Amin, are similarly struggling. "A 50kg of sugar went up from 510 Sudanese pounds [$78] to 580 [$89], and a 10kg packet of flour went up from 65 Sudanese pounds [$10] to 85 [$13]. Most notably, 100kg of beans went up from 1700 Sudanese pounds [$262] to 2100 [$324], beans – which is the most consumed meal,"

Sudanese citizens responded to a call for three-days of civil disobedience. Some neighbourhoods in the capital saw limited movement of vehicles and pedestrians. Universities and schools were largely effected by the strike, as the majority of students stayed home, forcing some schools to cancel the school day.

Since 2011, following the split of South Sudan, Sudan has been struggling to recover from the loss of three-quarters of the country's oil exports. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) recommended that the Sudanese government gradually introduce such measures to address its crippling economy.  Prior to the split, Sudan experienced substantial economic growth driven by oil exports and foreign direct investment, with nominal gross domestic product (GDP) per capita more than quadrupling between 1999 and 2010. But Sudan's growth was too heavily reliant on oil. When oil export revenues dropped and austerity measures introduced, the country entered a depression, losing more than 15 percent of its GDP in 18 months.

Casino Capitalism - 'Profiting From Hunger'

France's biggest banks have failed to make good on a promise to stop speculative agricultural commodity trading — a practice Oxfam, the anti-poverty NGO, says has pushed up food prices and led to food insecurity in developing countries. The practice of crop market speculation involves betting on the future prices of agricultural commodities — such as wheat or corn — in order to turn a profit. By considering food crops as nothing more than a financial asset, Oxfam says, the banks are driving up the prices of food for profit, with no concern for the human impact. Several financial institutions — including French banking giants BNP Paribas, Société Générale, and Crédit Agricole/LCL — have backpedalled on an earlier commitment to stop gambling on food prices.

"Unfortunately, it's obvious that these promises were outweighed by the desire to make a profit," the report's author, Clara Jamart, a food security advocacy officer for Oxfam France, said.

According to Jamart, the funds assigned to agricultural speculation have increased significantly over the last two years, climbing from 2.5 million euros ($2.9 million) in 2013 to 3.5 million euros ($4 million) in 2015.

"Excessive speculation in crop markets is exacerbating food price volatility, and is depriving the world's poor of access to basic foodstuffs," the latest report says.

After the dot-com bubble burst in 2001 and the 2007 housing market crash, these investors started turning to agriculture as a safe investment. During the G20 Agriculture Summit in June 2011, then French President Nicolas Sarkozy called for a crackdown on commodity speculators, likening them to the "mafia." In 2007 and 2008, dramatic spikes in food prices — including an 87 percent increase in the price of cereal in 2008 — triggered a global food crisis, leading to political instability and unrest in many nations. Rising food costs sparked riots in Senegal, Indonesia, Egypt and Haiti, where violent protests over the soaring cost of staple foods precipitated the fall of the government in April 2008.

Oxfam explains that crops are often subject to "forward buying; a process in which future harvests are traded." This practice allows farmers who are at the mercy of crop prices to protect themselves from price fluctuation on the futures markets. To do this, a farmer will agree to a future price and delivery date for his crop, known as "futures," through an agreement brokered by an intermediary, known as a "hedger." The hedger insures the farmers against a potential price drop for the crop, but stands to gain if prices increase. Many believe that this practice, which supersedes the law of supply and demand, causes artificial spikes in food prices, which can have a devastating impact on the world's poorest nations. For both Alessandro Stanziani, a professor and economic historian at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences in Paris and Oxfam, the blame lies with outside speculators — such as banks — that have jumped into the agricultural markets to gamble on the future prices of staple food crops, causing prices to increase.

805 million people — about one out of every nine individuals worldwide — do not have enough food.

Expensive Angola

Sub-Saharan Africa’s second-largest oil producer, Angola’s capital Luanda already ranks as the world’s most expensive city for expatriates, with the presence of thousands of foreign workers, many involved in the oil industry, helping to drive up prices.

In Luanda’s Jumbo supermarket, a half-litre tub of imported vanilla ice-cream used to cost $25 (£15), testament to the Angolan capital’s rank as one of the world’s most expensive cities.
With new import tariffs imposed last month, that price has jumped to $31, enough to make even wealthy locals and expatriates pause and putting the treat even further beyond the reach of millions of poor Angolans struggling to feed their families. Angola imports three quarters of the goods it consumes.  The south-west African nation’s agriculture and industry are relatively undeveloped. They make up 17 percent of gross domestic product, compared with oil’s 41 percent.

“The tariff increases will create inflation, at least in the short term, and affect consumption, especially for those with low incomes,” says Salim Valimamade, an economist at Luanda’s Catholic University. Shopkeepers say the import tariff hikes have forced them to hike prices by up to 20 percent.

Dos Santos, one of Africa’s longest-ruling leaders, has been accused by critics of widening a dangerous gap between the rich and the poor that risks causing social unrest.  Santos estimated last year that 36 percent of Angola’s 18 million people live in poverty, but dismissed the risk of income inequalities causing social upheaval, saying most people supported the government’s policies.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, had a different view, urging Mr Dos Santos to reduce the inequality gap and warning about the high cost of living.

The average national salary in 2010, the latest year for which official data is available, was around $260 per month. In the finance sector the average was 10 times higher and in the oil business over 20 times higher, or around $5,400.

importing food instead of growing it

Rising food prices have been found to be the top-most household worry for most Ghanaians who spend more than half of their earnings on food.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in its latest study has found that Ghanaians spend about 62 percent of their incomes on sourcing food, and the situation has been exacerbated in some areas of the country where the cost of such things as rent, and commuting are higher. Ghanaian household expenses on food is 30 times more than what pertains in developed and other western countries.

Ironically, people living in rural Ghana where almost all of the country’s food crops are produced spend more on food than their urban counterparts. Smallholder farmers devoted most of their resources to growing food but their farm productivity is too low to meet all their food needs -- so much of their cash income goes more toward food rather than to other goods.

According to the UNDP, the erosion of the purchasing power of the poor can be severe during spikes in food prices since poor people devote a larger share of their total consumption to food than do wealthier people.

Ghana imports about 500,000 tonnes of tomato-paste a year yet one of the best places to produce tomatoes.

No Money - No Food

 Just 15 per cent of its land is good enough to produce food or raise animals and now, for the third time in the past decade, drought has returned to Niger.

Aid agencies earlier this year revealed that tens of thousands of people died needlessly last year in the Horn of Africa because aid donors waited until people started dying to respond. Now agencies hoping to prevent a similar famine in the landlocked West African nation of Niger are having trouble getting aid donors to take notice. More than 5 million people in the Sahel region are facing famine and aid agencies want to move early before the dire situation becomes a crisis. Signs of the looming famine in the Sahel were first detected late last year - that is when aid organisations started issuing pleas for help.But selling the prevention message is never easy when there are not corpses to go with it.

 Denise Gibson, the World Food Program's country director in Niger, says the situation is urgent.
"What we've seen in over the past couple of months is a steady deterioration in the food security situation. The poorest people ... their situation is not getting any better, it's getting worse. People are still eating, they are eating wild leaves, they are eating wild berries, we don't want them to be eating that, but they are still eating," Ms Gibson said.

And when they run out of wild leaves and berries?

 Once again it is reported that there here is food in the markets in Niger, but people do not have the money to buy it.

In the predominantly rural economy, where 80 per cent of people rely on subsistence agriculture to survive, a succession of droughts has sapped the funds of most people. Oil has recently been discovered in the Niger and it is set to become the world's second-largest uranium exporter, but for the moment many of its people are struggling to survive.

Look out for ourselves

Africa is the only region in the world where agricultural production per inhabitant has fallen in the past 20 years, with productivity per hectare two times lower than the average for developing countries. Fertiliser use is only 13kg/ha, compared to 190kg/ha in East Asia, according to the FAO. Despite Africa's huge rivers and water resources, only 3% of the land is irrigated, compared to more than 20% in the rest of the world. Both the quality and quantity of food are wanting, with sub-Saharan Africa home to 239 million of the world's 925 million undernourished people in 2010.  Zimbabwe's agriculture minister Joseph Made announced in early March that 500,000ha of this season's maize crop – about one-third of the total area planted – has been written off because of erratic rainfall.

African governments have failed to keep to a pledge made in 2003 in Maputo to spend 10% of their budgets on agriculture. Spending hovers around 4%, compared to 11-14% in Asia.

International aid has also failed to materialise. In  2009, the G8 meeting at L'Aquila in Italy launched a three-year food security initiative with a $21.5bn pledge. Amid the sovereign debt crisis that followed, the money has not all materialised and the pledge will soon expire. Indian scientist M. S. Swaminathan – known as the father of Asia's green revolution – has lost faith in these global initiatives. "They've gone on making and making declarations. None of them really fulfil their promise. Countries, if they are going to depend upon assurances of this kind, will never make any progress. They must look out for themselves."

At the next G8 summit at Camp David on 19-20 May, aid agencies are mounting another campaign to prevent a looming crisis in the Sahel where 13 million people are at severe risk of malnutrition. Farmers are also sounding early warnings about failed harvests in the breadbasket of southern Africa.

According to the FAO's food price index of 55 commodities, the price of foodstuffs rose 127% between 2001 and 2011. For the urban and peri-urban poor living near the poverty line, price volatility in local markets injects a harsh uncertainly about where the next meal will come from. Urban families can spend 60-80% of their income on food, according to the FAO. Attempts to fix this problem have brought their own contradictions and imbalances. "The powers that be have deliberately privileged urban populations, and so imports, to the detriment of rural populations," says Mamadou Cissoko, honorary president of the Network of West African Farmer and Producer Organisations.

http://theafricareport.com/index.php/20120504501810768/frontline/how-to-feed-africa-s-two-billion-501810768.html

Growth goes up - so does hunger

You wouldn't know there's a food crisis in this country, one of Africa's wealthiest and most stable countries, because it's a silent one. This is not the doom and gloom Africa that we often hear sensationalised in the media as a place of coups, famines and corruption. No, Botswana is a model African state which has lived carefully within its means, had democratically elected governments since independence, and is the world's leading exporter of precious diamonds. Africa's resource rich economies continue to grow. In some regards, Botswana is a shining example of successful resource-financed development. It has carefully husbanded a valuable natural resource, diamonds, and invested the proceeds in infrastructure development and education. Botswana's literacy rate of 86 per cent is one of the highest in the world, and its road and hospital infrastructure is admirable. Its government is ranked as one of the least corrupt by Transparency International, it exports high quality, grass-fed beef and its high-end eco-tourism business is booming.

Yet food prices are up here dramatically since 2011, and the rural and urban poor are hurting badly. "Growth with hunger" could be the rest of continent's conundrum in 25 years time. Botswana imports 90 per cent of its food, which has made it particularly vulnerable to rising global food prices. In 2011, global food prices were the highest on average at any time since they began to be systematically recorded in 1990.

Despite consistent growth, the problem is that Botswana also has one of the most inequitable income distributions in the world, second only to Namibia. Resource-based economies are often undiversified and produce deep inequalities. As such, while Botswana is a prosperous middle income country, the median per capita household income in the capital city, Gaborone, is only $2 per day. With two-thirds of the city's population spending nearly half its income on food, rising food prices present a particular problem. Recent surveys suggest that 63 per cent of households in the capital are severely food insecure, and 21 per cent of households in rural areas sometimes go for a day without eating. Botswana does have ample amounts of food, it's just increasingly expensive.

Botswana, while largely rural at independence in 1966, has been urbanising at a phenomenal rate and now has 60 per cent of its population residing in cities and towns. Although Botswana is ahead of its neighbours on this front, the continent as a whole is the most rapidly urbanising region in the world. The poor are disproportionately dependent on agricultural activity. Even the urban poor often depend on food shared with them by relatives in the rural areas. Climate change, the changing macroeconomic structure of the country and liberalised food markets are killing subsistence, dryland agriculture, the long time safety net of the poor. No amount of good governance and welfare payments to the poor can seem to solve the resulting hunger if the price of imported food continues to rise.

The combination of expensive food and deepening inequality means that hunger will persist even if Africa's leaders do everything "right".

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/05/201254115536921635.html

EARLY WARNINGS AGAIN

Eastern and northern Uganda could be staring at famine. The worst hit districts are Bulambuli and the region of Karamoja where 1.2 million people are facing food shortage. Following the persistent drought that reduced pasture and food production, Karimojong cattle keepers are selling their few remaining cows and goats in order to survive. Others who lost their animals to cattle rustlers have resorted to breaking stones and selling them to Tororo Cement Industries while some gather wild fruits to survive. As food scarcity worsens in many districts of northern Uganda, many households have resorted to rationing the available foodstuffs they have in their family stores. To survive, some families have resorted to borrowing food from friends, hunting, selling their land and animals.

"We are just selling off our animals to survive but traditionally cows in Karamoja are only meant for marriage," said Timothy Koryang, an elder in Moroto.

Ms Anastasia Among, a 40 year-old widow in Ocorai village in Serere and her family, depend on farming for survival but for the last three months, there has been no rain in her area and the crops have withered. "I depend on growing crops for sale and consumption at home. This year the harvest is very poor and we fear there is going to be a serious food shortage," Ms Among said.

In West Nile region, families have one meal a day as a result of food shortage that has pushed prices up. Mr Clement Adrabo, a resident of Ediofe, said: "We now take one meal per day because food is expensive and there is no money. I have even stopped drinking alcohol and the money should rather be used for feeding my family," the father of four said.

http://allafrica.com/stories/201108190282.html

food prices

Low- and middle-income earners across eastern and central Africa are reeling from the mounting cost of living brought on by a sharp increase in commodity prices in the past few months. Protests and demonstrations against the rising cost of food and fuel have swept across several towns in Kenya and Uganda; violent clashes between demonstrators and security forces have been reported on several occasions in Uganda.

Ethiopia

According to Ethiopia's Central Statistical Agency, the annual inflation rate reached 39.2 percent in July, from 16.5 percent in February 2011. Food prices rose by 47.4 percent in July against 12.8 percent in February.

"Buying meat and butter is unthinkable; meat has gone up from 40 to 45 birr [US$2.60] a kilo four months ago to 90 birr [$5.20] a kilo now," said Solomon Bekele, 55, who supports a family of five in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. "Butter is now around 120 birr [$6.95] a kilo from just 60 birr [$3.47] in October 2010." - Solomon, who makes 4,000 birr [$231] a month, says he spends about 60 percent of his income on food.

Somalia

"We eat one or two of the usual three meals every day because of the high price of food; two months ago, half a kilo of rice cost 20,000 shillings [$0.66], but now it costs 40,000 shillings [$1.32]," said Fadumo Hassan Abdi, a mother of six in the Somali capital, Mogadishu. "Until two months ago, I had a small business in Bakara Market in Mogadishu, but it was lost during the war between the Transitional Federal Government and Al-Shabab militia."

Mustafe Mohamed, a father of three in Hargeisa, capital of the self-declared republic of Somaliland, said: "Four months ago one 50kg sack of rice was only $28, compared with $34.50 now, while a 50kg sack of sugar that cost $40 now costs $50. Before, $90 was enough feed the family, but now you can't even buy food for $200 - we don't know what to do."

Shaqlan Jama Ismail, a grandmother, says food prices have never been so high in her lifetime. "We used to buy food with cash, but now we have to borrow money," she said. "We are waiting for the almighty Allah to help us."

"In late July 2011, a litre of petrol was 5,800 Somaliland shillings [$0.96] but now it is about 7,200 shillings [$1.20] - if the situation continues like this we may stop driving," said Mohamed Abdalla, a taxi driver in Hargeisa.

Tanzania

According to Tanzania's National Bureau of Statistics, the annual headline inflation rate for June 2011 was 10.9 percent, against 9.7 percent the previous month.

"We used to buy rice for 1,200 shillings [$0.74] for a kilo but now, you have to pay 1,500 shillings [$0.92]," said Sitti Pilula, a resident of Kariakoo, a suburb of Tanzania's commercial capital, Dar es Salaam.

Kenya

"I could not eat ugali (maize meal) without meat; even when I had it with vegetables, it had to be mixed with beef," said Francis Muruli, a teacher in Nakuru, in Kenya's Rift Valley Province. Muruli and his family now eat vegetables with their ugali, saving an average of 80 shillings [$0.83] on every meal.

A 90kg bag, which cost about KSh1,200 [$12.50], now costs as much as KSh4,000 [$41.70]. According to government officials

Wanjiku Kamau, a resident of the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, says the high prices of food and other commodities means she is unable to save any money.

"I am paid 10,000 shillings [$104] per month; my rent is 3,000 [$31.30] while almost all the rest goes to feeding my children," said the single mother of three. "Everything has increased in price; two litres of cooking oil which I used to buy for 280 shillings [$2.90] is now 470 shillings [$4.90]."

Francis Kamunya, a secondary school teacher, now goes directly to producers and buys in bulk to reduce the cost of running his household. "Rather than buy maize in single packets, I now prefer taking about 5kg of maize to the posho mill, leaving me with at least some savings," he said. "I buy at least 20kg of rice from the Mwea (rice scheme) traders. It is enough to last three months."

Abdi Ndenge, a night-watchman at a guest house in Isiolo town, works as a porter during the day yet he can barely make enough to feed his two children. "I was comfortable until December last year; I used to work at night, sleep during the day and could afford to feed my family; this is not possible now with the food prices having gone so high."

The pump price of petrol in Nairobi is about KSh115 ($1.20) against KSh97.1 (about $1) in January 2011. The shilling has dropped 18 percent against the dollar in 2011, trading at a new low of 95.10 on 9 August.

Uganda

According to the Uganda Bureau of Statistics, headline inflation reached 18.7 percent in July from 15.7 percent in June.

"Life is becoming unbearable because I have to struggle every day to be able to put food on the table for my family. Today, the largest bunch of matooke (plantain) costs up to 20,000 shillings [$7.30]; I used to pay half the price in January but my income has remained the same from that time," said James Mukwaya, a father of four with a household of eight people. "We would resort to maize flour but that too has risen to 3,200 shillings [$1.16] per kilo instead of the 1,500 shillings [$0.54] we used to pay."

A sugar shortage - caused by drought and the temporary closure of a major sugar factory for maintenance - has seen prices soar: 1kg is retailing at about 5,800 shillings [$2.11] in urban areas, and costs up to 10,000 shillings [$3.65] in rural areas.

"Prices are rising night after night; I have to hold my breath when entering the market because of the rising food prices," said Sara Lamunu, a resident of Gulu, northern Uganda. "Last Wednesday a kilo of sugar was 6,000 shillings [$2.19] but this morning the price has risen to 9,000 shillings [$3.30]."

"I no longer fry food because a litre of cooking oil costs 4,500 shillings [$1.64]," said Alice Atto, another Gulu resident.

Rwanda

According to the National Institute of Statistics, the increase in the consumer price index of 1.54 percent is attributable primarily to the increase in prices of food and non-alcoholic beverages (2.41 percent), housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels (0.95 percent) and transport (3.08 percent). The cost of local goods increased by 5.12 percent, according to the institute, attributed to a 1.7 percent price increase in vegetables and a 6.12 percent increase in bread and cereals prices.

Burundi

According to a first-quarter report by Burundi's Central Bank, "The rise in food inflation is mainly due to the increase in rice prices (8.7 percent); fresh fish (17.3 percent); dried fish (9.6 percent), palm oil (29.7 percent) and dry beans (14.1 percent)." Antoine Gahiru, a communication officer for the Institute of Economic Studies of Burundi, said annual inflation in June was 8.6 percent

"We fear we could have a famine like the one in Somalia," said Aminata, a banana vendor in the capital, Bujumbura. "I take care of a family of five children and I am spending at least five times more than what I spent in 2005 to feed them. Today, beans cost 1,300 francs [$1.03] whereas it was only 600 francs [$0.50] in 2005."

Ciza Leocadia, 29, a mother of twins, said: "I came to Bujumbura in search of food because I was not able to raise my twins in my rural home; I have nothing to eat." She said her husband had gone to neighbouring Tanzania in search of food.

Why They Starve

Drought has certainly contributed to the current crisis, but more fundamental causes are at play. Drought is not a new environmental condition for much of Africa but a recurring one. The semi-arid Horn of Africa and the entire Sahelian region — running just south of the Sahara Desert across the continent — have long experienced erratic rainfall. While climate change may be exacerbating rainfall variability, traditional livelihoods in the region are adaptable to deal with situations when rainfall is not dependable. Just as death from exposure is not an inherent result of a cold winter, famine is not a natural consequence of drought. Simply put, the structure of human society often determines who is affected and to what degree.

In anticipation of years of poor rainfall, farming households and communities historically stored surplus crop production. Sadly, this traditional strategy for mitigating the risk of drought was undermined from the colonial period, beginning in the late 19th century, as households were encouraged (if not coerced by taxation) to grow cash crops for the market and store less and less excess grain for potential bad years. This increasing market orientation has also been encouraged by development banks. Growing crops for market worked fine as long as cheap and plentiful grain was available for purchase, a trend that began to erode in 2000 as global food prices gradually rose.

The dominant livelihood in the Horn of Africa has long been herding. Traditionally, herders ranged widely across the landscape in search of better pasture, focusing on areas as meteorological conditions dictated. The approach worked because, unlike fenced-in pastures in North America, it was incredibly flexible and adapted to variable rainfall. As farming has expanded, including in some instances to large-scale commercial farms, the routes of herders have become more concentrated. In Ethiopia, large land leases (or “land grabs”) to foreign governments and companies for export crops (such as palm oil, rice and sugar) have further exacerbated this problem. Ethiopia should be strongly discouraged from granting long-term leases of its farmland to foreign entities when it struggles to feed its own people in years of poor rainfall.

Finally, the crisis in the Horn of Africa has been aggravated by high food prices worldwide. Global food prices reached a historic high in February, surpassing the spikes of 2007-08, which had been the highest recorded in 20 years. While current prices are related, in part, to bad weather, other significant factors include high energy prices, the increasing diversion of grain for the production of biofuels, and export restrictions. With energy and food prices likely to remain high for months to come, Africa can no longer count on cheap imported food or afford to shift to energy-intensive crop production strategies. The path to improved food security lies in improving time-tested local approaches, which are attuned to local environmental conditions.

William G. Moseley,
Professor of geography and African studies at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minn.
Adapted from here

no money - no eat

This year at least 20 million people are suffering hunger in east Africa. From 2008-2010, the Red Cross launched four international appeals to respond to hunger in the Horn of Africa. However, a Red Cross review, highlights how such repeated large-scale appeals and relief operations are not the answer to addressing people’s food needs in the region. Hunger is a chronic and ongoing humanitarian issue in the Horn of Africa.

Distributing food aid, that is often purchased from abroad, is not usually the best option. Not only does this destabilise local markets, but is also costly and takes time to purchase and distribute. Repeated large-scale emergency appeals have failed to generate significant funds and in the current global financial situation it’s unlikely this will change any time soon.Repeated distributions of food aid every year do not help families get out of poverty – instead they lock them into dependency.

Socialist Banner reads that Mary Atkinson, British Red Cross economic security adviser, says “Most people living in hunger, even farmers, rely on purchasing most of their food. Food is usually available in the market but they cannot afford it, particularly now that food prices are so high. If they had more reliable sources of income, they often wouldn’t need to rely on food aid.” (our emphasis)
Cash is increasingly used as an alternative to food aid as it is easier and quicker to distribute and allows people to buy what they really need while supporting local markets.

biofuel ban

To overcome two of Africa's most urgent problems, food insecurity and hunger, some are arguing for a ban on the production of food crops for bio fuel.

"Yes, there are droughts and floods, and yes, war and civil unrest have had a big impact on Africa's food security...," said Peter Brabeck-Letmanthe, chairman of the board at Nestle, during the World Economic Forum on Africa being held in Cape Town. "But bio fuel also has an important role to play when it comes to Africa's and the world's situation with food insecurity and hunger, as a large part of the world's agricultural production is used for the manufacturing of bio fuel," he explained. "Currently, 15% of the global maize production is turned into bio fuel. The same counts for 21.4% of the world's sugar and 45% of rapeseed. In the meantime, millions go hungry."

Food prices are higher now than at any time since 1984. Higher prices make life even more difficult for Africa's poorest, who already spend between 60 to 80 per cent of their income on food. Faced with reduced access to food and increased vulnerability to the seasonality of local food prices and markets, households are forced into unavoidable compromises, such as choosing cheaper (often less nutritious) food, selling productive assets, withdrawing children from school, forgoing healthcare, or simply eating less than they need.

The gap between the continent's domestic food supply and demand will widen as global consumption patterns continue to shift towards more profitable bio-fuels which supplant food crops.

can't pay , can't have

"Finding food to put on the table for the whole family is becoming a nightmare. Commodities are unaffordable as prices increase day by day. People in Kony Paco [a slum] are cutting their meals and staying hungry because the money can’t buy adequate food. I have four children and we live in Kony Paco. We have one meal of cassava and beans every day in the evening and even then the food isn’t enough. There is no breakfast and lunch for my children because I cannot afford to buy food for three meals.Even house rents have shot up. I don’t know if I will raise the rent of USh20,000 [$8.30] for next month. There is no money even to pay my children’s fees next term.” explained Christine Amony who ekes out a living by selling bananas in Gulu Town Street.

Mozambique news

Protesters staged a second day of strikes and demonstrations Thursday over food price increases in Mozambique, one of the poorest countries in the world. The violence has so far left seven people dead and 288 wounded, the government says. Clashes between police and protesters broke out Wednesday and Thursday, as crowds in impoverished neighbourhoods on the outskirts of Maputo took to the streets.

They were protesting a 17-percent increase in the price of bread, as well as fuel, water and electricity rises. Mozambique has a per capita income of just 794 dollars (620 euros) a year. Prices in the import-dependent country have risen on the back of a South African rand whose value has appreciated 43 percent against the Mozambican metical since this time last year. In January there were 4 meticais to the South African Rand and 29.3 to the US dollar. Today the official rate is 4.9 and 36.3, a 25% devaluation in just eight months.

Domestic worker Mercela Manuel says she still has to go to work so she can feed her three children. "The cost of life is expensive. Very expensive. It’s difficult to live," she says. Her wage of 54 dollars (42 euros) already makes it difficult to afford the 12 dollars (9 euros) she pays for the family’s bread each month.

About half of Mozambique's 20 million people live below the poverty line, despite an average economic growth rate of 8 percent for the past 15 years, but in 2009 this slowed to five percent. Official unemployment is around 21 percent, but in Maputo, a city of about 1.5 million, the poverty level is estimated as high as 60 percent.

The prices of staple foods, such as maize and rice, have come under increasing pressure, despite "satisfactory" cereal production of maize, sorghum, millet and paddy rice - projected at 2.49 million tons, five percent lower than the record 2008/09 harvest

The Editorial Director of O Pais, Jeremias Langa, talks of the “enormous disenchantment with the widening gap between those who have an those who do not have”. It is said that Mozambique is a world example of economic growth but this is not reflected in the quality of live of most citizens. It is said the Mozambique has the most agricultural potential in SADC but agriculture has been left to subsistence production. “Instead of offering solutions of the citizens, we offer magician’s tricks to distract the citizens,” he concludes. Thus, “there is a class that manifestly feels itself excluded from the distribution of income, that feels that the state has broken the social contract, that does not see that state as a source of solutions but of problems – because its promotes accumulation by a few to the detriment of the majority.”

No Green Revolution for Africa

the push to privatize government functions and insistence upon "free trade" that is too often unfair has caused declining food production, increased poverty and a hunger crisis for millions of people in many African nations, researchers conclude in a new study.Market reforms that began in the mid-1980s and were supposed to aid economic growth have actually backfired in some of the poorest nations in the world, and just in recent years led to multiple food riots, scientists report Feb 15 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.The sophisticated techniques and cash-crop emphasis of the "Green Revolution" may have caused more harm than help in many locations, the study concluded.

Poor farmers who had no land security, made $1 a day and had their life savings of $600 hidden under a mattress. "These people were then asked to compete with some of the most efficient agricultural systems in the world, and they simply couldn't do it," said Laurence Becker, an associate professor of geosciences at Oregon State University. "With tariff barriers removed, less expensive imported food flooded into countries, some of which at one point were nearly self-sufficient in agriculture. Many people quit farming and abandoned systems that had worked in their cultures for centuries."

Many people in African nations, Becker said, farm local land communally, as they have been doing for generations, without title to it or expensive equipment -- and have developed systems that may not be advanced, but are functional. They are often not prepared to compete with multinational corporations or sophisticated trade systems. The loss of local agricultural production puts them at the mercy of sudden spikes in food costs around the world. And some of the farmers they compete with in the U.S., East Asia and other nations receive crop supports or subsidies of various types, while they are told they must embrace completely free trade with no assistance.

"A truly free market does not exist in this world," Becker said. "We don't have one, but we tell hungry people in Africa that they are supposed to."

Historically corrupt governments continue to be a problem, the researchers said."In many African nations people think of the government as looters, not as helpers or protectors of rights,"

The Real Pirates

Further developments from the previous post has been reported in the press .

South Korea's Daewoo Logistics this week announced it had negotiated a 99-year lease on some 3.2 million acres of farmland on Madagascar ,about half the size of Belgium , That's nearly half of Madagascar's arable land, according to the U.N.'s Food and Agricultural Organization, and Daewoo plans to put about three quarters of it under corn. The remainder will be used to produce palm oil — a key commodity for the global biofuels market.

In Madagascar, where about 70% of the country's 20 million people live below the poverty line.

The island's residents also rely on WFP emergency food relief programs because of the frequency with which they're struck by cyclones and droughts. Given those hardships, the prospect of a corporate giant growing hundreds of tons of food to be consumed by people and animals in Korea raises "ethical concerns," says David Hallam, head of the FAO'S Trade Policy Service in Rome. "If we have another world food crisis, and you have a poor country where food is produced by foreign investors, and then repatriated, that is ethically and political tricky," Hallam warns.

Al-Qudra Holding, an investment company based in Abu Dhabi, said in August it planned to buy 400,000 hectares of arable land in countries in Africa and Asia by the end of the first quarter of 2009.

It's a modern day version of the 19th-century scramble for Africa, an unsustainable land grab. Along with agribusiness, corporations and food traders, investment banks and private equity funds have been jumping on board, seeing land as a safe haven from the financial storm.

It is difficult to see how such investments can deliver long-term food security. The investors will want a quick return. They will practise an industrial model of agriculture that in many parts of the world has already produced poverty and environmental destruction, as well as farm-chemical pollution. Furthermore, many local communities will be evicted to make way for the foreign takeover. The governments and investors will argue that jobs will be created and some of the food produced will be made available for local communities, but this does not disguise what is essentially a process of dispossession. Lands will be taken away from smallholders or forest dwellers and converted into large industrial estates connected to distant markets.

The politics of markets

Socialist Banner is not innocent or naive enough to not suspect that the following story is one purposefully planted in the media by American propaganda psy-ops to discredit Sudan .

However, we know that many nations find that the world market for food-stuffs is more profitable than the the home domestic market and that the export of food while people starve is a well-documented phenomena and therefore feel that the essential elements of the story is more than probably true .

Even as it receives a billion pounds of free food from international donors, Sudan is growing and selling vast quantities of its own crops to other countries, capitalizing on high global food prices at a time when millions of people in its war-riddled region of Darfur barely have enough to eat.

Sudan is growing wheat for Saudi Arabia, sorghum for camels in the United Arab Emirates and vine-ripened tomatoes for the Jordanian Army.
Last year, the United States government, as part of its response to the emergency in Darfur, shipped in 283,000 tons of sorghum, and that is about the same amount that Sudan exported. This year, Sudanese companies are on track to ship out twice that amount, even as the United Nations is being forced to cut rations to Darfur. Many European countries which can buy relief food locally bought 117,000 tons of Sudanese sorghum last year but United Nations officials said they would like to buy more , however Sudanese suppliers could make more money with exports.

Professor Eric Reeves, an outspoken activist who has written frequently on the Darfur crisis, called this anomaly described Sudanese government’s strategy as one to manipulate “national wealth and power to further enrich itself and its cronies, while the marginalized regions of the country suffer from terrible poverty.”

Sudan has 208 million acres of arable land, with less than a quarter being cultivated.

“Sudan could be self-sufficient,” said Kenro Oshidari, the director of the United Nations World Food Program in Sudan. “It does have the potential to be the breadbasket of Africa.”

Food for thought

As a result of the protests reported here Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo has cancelled custom duties after a second day of violent protests against rising food costs. Mr Gbagbo also cut taxes on basic household products .

But let no-one be under the mis-comprehension that tampering with the effects locally will solve the problem .

The head of the World Food Programme warned rising food prices had helped create a "perfect storm", leaving more people hungry than ever before. "The cost of our food has doubled in just the last nine months," said WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran. "We're very concerned about our operations."

Sheeran also confirmed what Socialist Banner keeps repeating - that capitalism is a "can't pay, can't have" system of society regardless of need .

"We are seeing more urban hunger than ever before," she said. "Often we are seeing food on the shelves but people being unable to afford it."

Food Price Protests

People across West Africa, and elsewhere in the world, have taken to the streets to protest price hikes in fuel, staple foods and other basic necessities.

A crackdown by police against Senegalese citizens who gathered in the capital Dakar on 30 March to protest the high cost of living was “brutal”, say human rights groups. Police used tear gas and batons to disperse a demonstration organised by the national consumers' union to protest recent hikes in the prices of rice, oil and soap. Security forces also allegedly brutalised journalists and confiscated cameramen’s video.

The Dakar-based African human rights coalition RADDHO (Rencontre Africaine pour la Défense des Droits de l’Homme) said in a statement on 30 March that it firmly condemns "unspeakable" acts by security forces which "violate" people's rights. It likened alleged beatings with electric prods to "torture" and called for an investigation into "all acts of violence and poor treatment suffered by demonstrators".

"The interior ministry or at least the police force believe that maintaining order means stepping up repression," Leonard Vincent, Africa director of the Paris-based group Reporters Without Borders

Opposition political leader Abdoulaye Bathily recently told reporters that rising poverty and a disregard for human rights has made Senegal "a bomb that could explode at any moment."

Meantime

At least a dozen protestors in COTE D'IVOIRE were wounded during several hours of clashes with police on 31 March as they demanded government action to curb food prices.

The demonstrations took place in Cocody, where Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo has a residence, and in Yopougon, a thriving area for shopping and nightlife. Ivorian police used tear gas and batons to disperse protestors who were burning tires and overturning parked cars.

At the height of the demonstration, before riot police started firing tear gas, IRIN saw around 1,500 protestors chanting “we are hungry” and “life is too expensive, you are going to kill us.”

A kilo of beef has increased from 700 CFA (US$1.68) to 900 CFA (US$2.16) in just three days One litre of oil has increased from 600 CFA (US$1.44) to 850 CFA (US$2.04) in the same time.

“We only eat once during the day now,” said another protestor, Alimata Camara. “If food prices increase more, what will we give our children to eat and how will they go to school?”

Elsewhere , in Cameroon protests against food prices in late February turned violent and in Burkina Faso this year there have been food riots in all the major towns in the country in which hundreds of protestors have been arrested. In Mauritania the high price of imported wheat and rice products brought people onto the streets in late 2007.

Short of money = Short of food

At the risk of being seen as the boy who cried wolf once too often , another article about the pending effects of rising food prices has come to our attention and one distinctive feature of the article is its mention of the influence on the middle classes , another example of the proletarianisation of them .

“Everything is very expensive - we are now living on borrowed money,” Towela Ngwira, a shopper at a market in Zambia’s capital, Lusaka, told IRIN. “For us it is no longer hand-to-mouth but hand-to-hand because all the money we get has to be given to someone else [from whom we borrowed]...We are now surviving on dry foods such as Kapenta [sardines], dry fish, and dry beans, because fresh foods are very expensive. We have even stopped buying bread for breakfast - it’s too expensive for us.”

This week South Africa, the regional economic giant, released figures showing the annual consumer price index for food, a measure of food price inflation, had increased to 14.1 percent. According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation , the global picture is even bleaker: FAO’s global food price index rose 40 percent in 2007 compared to 9 percent in 2006. The causes are global. Worldwide food stocks have hit historic lows, while demand has never been higher. The combination has resulted in prices of basic staples such as wheat, corn and rice hitting record highs, up 50 percent or more in the past six months.

According to André Jooste, senior manager of market and economic research at South Africa’s National Agricultural Marketing Council, although the poor are inevitably the hardest hit, even professional urbanites are beginning to feel the squeeze. “The middle-class will start changing their buying patterns, moving away from special products to cheaper alternatives. They will have to” he said.

In Malawi’s southern town of Zomba, Harrison Kumwenda has seen the produce from his one and a half acre plot fall by more than half. He blames a combination of expensive fertiliser, and the weather.
“We were buying a bag of 50kg of maize at the price of K800 (US$ 5.8) in December but the vendors are selling a bag of 50kg at K3,000 (US$ 22) which is very high”.

In Zambia, the authorities “have decided to restrict the export of maize only to countries that have active contracts with us until we ascertain the quantity of maize stocks in the country,” Sara Sayifwanda, Zambia’s minister of agriculture, told IRIN. “It is important for us to take precautions because we don’t know as yet how exactly this harvest season will be; we may have maize shortages in certain places.”

Peter Cottan, vice president of the Millers Association of Zambia, said some millers had started hoarding their maize stocks in anticipation of a shortage. “We expect the prices to even go higher,” he said.

The Basic Needs Basket, an index of market prices compiled monthly by a local faith-based think-tank, the Jesuit Centre for Theological Reflections (JCTR) in Zambia, has shown an unprecedented increase in the cost of basic food items: the average monthly cost rose by 10 percent from January to February.
“The obvious and common underlying factor... has to do with how much is available on the market,” JCTR spokesperson, Miniva Chibuye, explained. “The current upward trends in food prices pose serious challenges to human development and require that strategic planning and responses begin now.”

Of course , the position of Socialist Banner is that the capitalist system is inadequate to plan or respond to its own inherent failings of supply and distribution , an explanation which can be summed up as "Those who can't pay , can't have "