Agriculture and food security

Left aside by decision-makers and totally neglected by the investors after the independences, agriculture and the farmers of developing countries have since been considered as playing a minor role in the development of their country. However, 75% of the poor inhabitants of developing countries are rural populations making their living from agriculture. Thus, they are the first victims of the political decisions which left agriculture to the benefit of the secondary and tertiary sectors, whereas they could be the real driving forces of social and economical development.
The fluctuation in crop prices is the main factor of this phenomenon: when prices go down, the poorest farmers must sell all their means of production. Forced to drift from the land, they feed urban poverty. When prices go up, the wealthiest farmers can invest to improve their means of production. But this increase, especially when it is important, is harmful for the other economic activities, and dramatic for those who have already sold everything.
Therefore, it is up to decision-makers to imagine mechanisms in order to reach the right balance: a sufficient level of prices for farmers to be more profitable, to produce more, and for farmers income to energize local economies, without excess not to starve urban populations and lead to hunger riots as it was the case in around thirty countries in 2007 and 2008.

In Yemen, some 150 km away South of Sana’a, the good harvest and high prices of 2008 enabled Ali to buy a small motorcycle and to keep all his lambs to extend his flock. A very good year for him and his relatives.

Food security is not only related to these agricultural and technical issues, but it is more and more linked with a broader economical and social context.
The major stake, which is the link between food security and agriculture, is a worry in all countries, in the North and in the South, as attested by the importance of the agricultural policies intended to ensure food sovereignty in Europe or in the United States.

In order to reach a satisfactory balance again, it is necessary to invest in agriculture, and the room to progress incontestably exists, only the will lacked. The positioning of many countries and international institutions have evolved today, in the image of the world bank who recognized having wrongly discouraged the primary sector.

Only a global strategy can have a significant lasting influence on world food security. If the coordination of all the actors at the local level is necessary to bring technical improvements and to find the right balance between the increase in productivity and the preservation of the ecosystems, it is not enough. Wide-ranging political actions at the national and international levels are imperative. Expectations are high concerning the conclusions of the World Conference of the State and Government Leaders on Food Security that will take place in Roma from November 16th to 18th 2009.

¹ Josette Sheeran, executiver director of the World Food Programme. Press conference in London, on 09/16/2009.
² Objective n°1.9: Go bellow the number of 400 million people suffering from hunger in order to satisfy their everyday needs in energy.