If you look at the top 30 donors to the East African Famine, number one is the US. It is one of the richest countries in the world, although donations as a percentage of per capita income are nowhere near the highest.
But the US is also pretty good when it comes to land grabbing. This time it's Tanzania, where a substantial deal is being questioned by opposition MPs. But recently, it came to light that big, wealthy US educational institutions were snapping up land in various African countries that are, or have had, shortages of affordable food.
An estimated 162,000 Tanzanian smallholders stand to lose their land if the deal goes through. This means that more than half a million people would be impoverished as a result. And all so that some US energy company can produce what they refer to as food crops, but are much more likely to be used for biofuels.
'Affordable' food is the key term. There isn't a shortage of food in Tanzania as a whole (nor in Kenya or several other countries where people are starving). Indeed, some of Ethiopia's most productive land is also being grabbed, as millions there face starvation. Famines typically involve lack of access to affordable food, not lack of food.
One of the culprits mentioned in relation to Ethiopia is Italy, which also appears in the top 30 donor list, albeit at number 19. (The EC, number 2 in the list, is busy trying to ensure that India will no longer produce affordable drugs for HIV positive people by pressing them to sign an 'Economic Partnership Agreement'.)
The most generous also stand to reap far more than they sow. The UK is number 5 on the list and their history of land grabbing, which is still a huge contributor to the country's wealth, is legendary. They are one of the biggest grabbers in Africa, though they are more likely to boast about how much they 'contribute' in aid. Another big and long running land grabbing incident in Tanzania involves a British company called Sudeco.
It's interesting how a lot of the land being grabbed is being used for sugar cane. This can conveniently be referred to as a food crop but is far more likely to be used these days for biofuels. Western powers spend decades driving African sugar producers out of business by subsidizing their own producers and dumping their surplus on African markets. But now they seem to want African sugar again.
Canada is number 6 on the list. Much of Tanzania's gold, much of Africa's gold, is extracted by a Canadian company, which pays little or nothing in taxes or royalties. The US, UK and even South Africa, number 28 on the list, also extract gold at massive cost to ordinary Africans. Gold extraction puts huge tracts of land out of use, though direct contamination, water contamination and through forcibly excluding indigenous people, often people who once made a living from the gold.
Make no mistake, famines like the one currently developing in East Africa, are generally not 'natural' disasters. They occur and last because they are a consequence of large scale theft, government sponsored, multinational sponsored, philanthropic institution sponsored, even international institution sponsored, theft.
I don't wish to suggest that contributing money to the current famine is wrong, I would encourage people to contribute. But, bearing in mind what we are 'contributing' to next year's famine, giving money is not the only thing we can do. We can also ask public representatives tough questions about things that are often presented as 'business' or 'aid' or 'partnership', especially when they involve land and water use.
The majority of people in all East African countries depend very directly on land for their food and income. If that land is taken from them, or even if its use is dictated by those whose sole aim is profit, their lives and livelihoods are threatened. A famine is not an 'act of God', it's a consequence of human activities.
Showing posts with label famine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label famine. Show all posts
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Friday, February 5, 2010
Predicting the Predictable
Often in natural disasters, it's not the disaster itself that causes widespread injury, loss of life and damage to property. Where people are well off enough to protect themselves and their property against whatever disasters may occur, far fewer people suffer. Therefore, the magnitude of natural disasters in developing countries is often measured in people killed, injured or displaced. But in developed countries, the magnitude is usually measured by insurance claims for damage to property.
There are exceptions, of course, but generally where people are vulnerable, natural disasters have a high human cost. Where people are less vulnerable, property is more likely to be the main loss. Developed countries, such as Japan and the US, experience natural disasters without anything like the human costs experienced by developing countries, such as Haiti. The hurricane that devastated New Orleans is not an exception just because it happened in the US. A lot of the people most affected were poor, vulnerable and marginalised.
When a natural disaster hits a vulnerable country, the disaster itself may not have been entirely predictable, at least, not by people in that country who were able to do anything about it. But it is pretty predictable that, when a country has little infrastructure (especially water and sanitation), minimal health services, low levels of food security and the rest, most disasters will have a huge human cost. Insurance claims may well be negligible for people who have very little to insure and no money to insure with.
Kenya and most other Sub-Saharan African countries are like Haiti in many ways. They have been treated as pawns in the political and commercial games of various Western countries; they have few social services of any kind and little or no resilience to any kind of disaster; they have huge debts and widespread poverty, poor health and malnutrition. We don't know what disasters await them, we just know that there will be disasters and that the consequences will be severe. Perhaps when some disaster strikes, there will be massive press attention, pledges of money, influxes of aid agencies driving white four wheel drives and resolutions to cancel debts.
But all these pledges and other post disaster phenomena won't reduce the immediate impact of the disaster. The human cost will be high. The press will bemoan the fact that the country is so poor and infrastructure is so bad and debts are so high and politicians are so corrupt and whatever else they tend to bemoan in developing countries when it's too late. The amounts of money that are pledged, and even the amounts that actually reach the country, may be far higher than the amounts that were previously needed to strengthen the country's capacity. But that doesn't result in money being spent on increasing the capacity of developing countries to increase their resilience.
Kenya has what could turn out to be a pathological attachment to maize, a non-indigenous crop introduced by the colonials because it's cheap and it's easy to grow large amounts on small areas of land, it fills you up, although it has little nutritional value. This pathological attachment could be compared to Ireland's staple food in the decades before the Great Famine, though I suspect the potato may be a bit more nourishing (or perhaps I'm biased). The potato is not indigenous to Ireland and eventually the inevitable happened. The ideal conditions came together for potato blight that wiped out most of the country's crop.
Much of the currently used agricultural land in Kenya is covered with crops that can not be used for sustenance, such as tea, sugar or coffee. Much is used for non-food crops, such as sisal or flowers. And much of the food that is grown is maize. For many years, maize crops have been threatened or have even failed because of the dependence on rain fed crop growing. But the country still plants mostly maize and it's still mainly rain fed.
The question is not whether disaster will strike in Kenya, it is when and how bad it will be. If the crops just fail in places where there is not much rain, several million people will be affected. If places that usually get a lot of rain have problems, several million more will be affected. Some countries around Kenya, even many areas in Kenya, have recently seen army worms attack, and they can obliterate entire fields. And there are other pests and factors that can take a large area by surprise. Maybe this year most people will survive, maybe not.
But one thing is certain: millions of people are vulnerable. And they are vulnerable in more than one way. If a crop fails, they risk starvation. If the aid agencies come in, the food may not get to people in time because of the infrastructure problems or because of widespread corruption. Or people may die of whatever diseases start spreading, unchecked because of the terrible health service. There's a hair's breadth between Haiti's circumstances and Kenya's circumstances.
It's now that the press should be clamoring for education, health, infrastructure and other social services to be improved, now that pressure needs to be put on the government to deal with corruption, now that individual people need to stop depending on rain fed agriculture, now that they should grow (and consume) things other than maize. And now is the best time to cancel the huge debts that developing countries have been arm-twisted into amassing for decades. Recognition that these circumstances make people vulnerable to inevitable disasters doesn't need to wait until it's too late.
There are exceptions, of course, but generally where people are vulnerable, natural disasters have a high human cost. Where people are less vulnerable, property is more likely to be the main loss. Developed countries, such as Japan and the US, experience natural disasters without anything like the human costs experienced by developing countries, such as Haiti. The hurricane that devastated New Orleans is not an exception just because it happened in the US. A lot of the people most affected were poor, vulnerable and marginalised.
When a natural disaster hits a vulnerable country, the disaster itself may not have been entirely predictable, at least, not by people in that country who were able to do anything about it. But it is pretty predictable that, when a country has little infrastructure (especially water and sanitation), minimal health services, low levels of food security and the rest, most disasters will have a huge human cost. Insurance claims may well be negligible for people who have very little to insure and no money to insure with.
Kenya and most other Sub-Saharan African countries are like Haiti in many ways. They have been treated as pawns in the political and commercial games of various Western countries; they have few social services of any kind and little or no resilience to any kind of disaster; they have huge debts and widespread poverty, poor health and malnutrition. We don't know what disasters await them, we just know that there will be disasters and that the consequences will be severe. Perhaps when some disaster strikes, there will be massive press attention, pledges of money, influxes of aid agencies driving white four wheel drives and resolutions to cancel debts.
But all these pledges and other post disaster phenomena won't reduce the immediate impact of the disaster. The human cost will be high. The press will bemoan the fact that the country is so poor and infrastructure is so bad and debts are so high and politicians are so corrupt and whatever else they tend to bemoan in developing countries when it's too late. The amounts of money that are pledged, and even the amounts that actually reach the country, may be far higher than the amounts that were previously needed to strengthen the country's capacity. But that doesn't result in money being spent on increasing the capacity of developing countries to increase their resilience.
Kenya has what could turn out to be a pathological attachment to maize, a non-indigenous crop introduced by the colonials because it's cheap and it's easy to grow large amounts on small areas of land, it fills you up, although it has little nutritional value. This pathological attachment could be compared to Ireland's staple food in the decades before the Great Famine, though I suspect the potato may be a bit more nourishing (or perhaps I'm biased). The potato is not indigenous to Ireland and eventually the inevitable happened. The ideal conditions came together for potato blight that wiped out most of the country's crop.
Much of the currently used agricultural land in Kenya is covered with crops that can not be used for sustenance, such as tea, sugar or coffee. Much is used for non-food crops, such as sisal or flowers. And much of the food that is grown is maize. For many years, maize crops have been threatened or have even failed because of the dependence on rain fed crop growing. But the country still plants mostly maize and it's still mainly rain fed.
The question is not whether disaster will strike in Kenya, it is when and how bad it will be. If the crops just fail in places where there is not much rain, several million people will be affected. If places that usually get a lot of rain have problems, several million more will be affected. Some countries around Kenya, even many areas in Kenya, have recently seen army worms attack, and they can obliterate entire fields. And there are other pests and factors that can take a large area by surprise. Maybe this year most people will survive, maybe not.
But one thing is certain: millions of people are vulnerable. And they are vulnerable in more than one way. If a crop fails, they risk starvation. If the aid agencies come in, the food may not get to people in time because of the infrastructure problems or because of widespread corruption. Or people may die of whatever diseases start spreading, unchecked because of the terrible health service. There's a hair's breadth between Haiti's circumstances and Kenya's circumstances.
It's now that the press should be clamoring for education, health, infrastructure and other social services to be improved, now that pressure needs to be put on the government to deal with corruption, now that individual people need to stop depending on rain fed agriculture, now that they should grow (and consume) things other than maize. And now is the best time to cancel the huge debts that developing countries have been arm-twisted into amassing for decades. Recognition that these circumstances make people vulnerable to inevitable disasters doesn't need to wait until it's too late.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Deciding Who Gets to Eat and Who Gets to Starve
A curious feature of some of the big famines in history is that the countries experiencing the famine were not necessarily short of food. Likely as not, the majority of people were very poor and did not have the money to buy food, but food was being produced and exported.
Many millions of people in a number of developing countries currently face food shortages, malnutrition and probably famine at a time when the world is producing record crops. The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) estimates that 2008 saw the highest recorded cereal crop production figure ever. It is predicted that 2009 will see the second highest figure.
Wikipedia is a great source of information but their bald statement that "[f]amine is caused by a human overpopulation relative to the available food supply" is in need of qualification. It is estimated that as many as 10 million Kenyans face serious food shortages, but this is not clearly because the country is overpopulated. There are several other significant pressures on food production and access to food.
For example, many people are extremely poor, have always been poor and have little prospect of ever becoming less poor. Food prices have been driven up over the past few years by market speculation and by the use of productive land for growing biofuels. So poorer people, who could barely afford enough food before these trends began, are now facing starvation.
Other pressures include droughts, often followed by serious floods, which result in poor harvests and destroy large tracts of arable land. There was also widespread unrest in Kenya in 2008 and people abandoned their land. A number of these internally displaced persons (IDP; the Kenyan government is not keen on releasing figures for just how many are still displaced) now have little means to feed themselves and no chance of returning to where they came from. And the majority of people have only a tenuous hold on land, renting it from unscrupulous landlords, who can treat tenants as they wish and sell their land at the drop of a hat.
In addition to growing biofuels in Kenya, there are other trends that result in less land being used for affordable food. Land is bought up by natural resource prospectors, such as those in search of oil around Isiolo and those in search of gold in the Mara. This land will not be used to benefit any Kenyans and certainly won't be used to grow food. And much of Kenya's land is used for non food crops or for food products intended for export, such as coffee, tea, flowers, fruit and vegetables. Controversially, a lot of land comprises national parklands, preserved for use by those who can afford to visit it. Most can't.
Despite all these pressures, there is a lot of food being produced in Kenya for export and a lot of arable land available for food production. The reasons people face food shortages and poor nutrition are the same as they have always been: widespread poverty and increasing levels of impoverishment along with rising food prices that mean the poorest will lose out.
When things get really bad and people are dying of starvation, maybe other countries will start shipping in relief food, but this will not improve food security in Kenya. Food security refers to access to food, as well as its production. As with other countries that experienced famines throughout history, resilience will continue to be low, there will be widespread disease, many people will have abandoned rural areas and moved to cities; there will be no remaining seed to grow the next season's crops, no fertilizer, no chance of resisting whatever new pressures arise.
The more I read about famine, the more it seems like a process whereby the rich systematically deny food to the poor in order to increase their profits. But that couldn't be correct, could it?
Many millions of people in a number of developing countries currently face food shortages, malnutrition and probably famine at a time when the world is producing record crops. The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) estimates that 2008 saw the highest recorded cereal crop production figure ever. It is predicted that 2009 will see the second highest figure.
Wikipedia is a great source of information but their bald statement that "[f]amine is caused by a human overpopulation relative to the available food supply" is in need of qualification. It is estimated that as many as 10 million Kenyans face serious food shortages, but this is not clearly because the country is overpopulated. There are several other significant pressures on food production and access to food.
For example, many people are extremely poor, have always been poor and have little prospect of ever becoming less poor. Food prices have been driven up over the past few years by market speculation and by the use of productive land for growing biofuels. So poorer people, who could barely afford enough food before these trends began, are now facing starvation.
Other pressures include droughts, often followed by serious floods, which result in poor harvests and destroy large tracts of arable land. There was also widespread unrest in Kenya in 2008 and people abandoned their land. A number of these internally displaced persons (IDP; the Kenyan government is not keen on releasing figures for just how many are still displaced) now have little means to feed themselves and no chance of returning to where they came from. And the majority of people have only a tenuous hold on land, renting it from unscrupulous landlords, who can treat tenants as they wish and sell their land at the drop of a hat.
In addition to growing biofuels in Kenya, there are other trends that result in less land being used for affordable food. Land is bought up by natural resource prospectors, such as those in search of oil around Isiolo and those in search of gold in the Mara. This land will not be used to benefit any Kenyans and certainly won't be used to grow food. And much of Kenya's land is used for non food crops or for food products intended for export, such as coffee, tea, flowers, fruit and vegetables. Controversially, a lot of land comprises national parklands, preserved for use by those who can afford to visit it. Most can't.
Despite all these pressures, there is a lot of food being produced in Kenya for export and a lot of arable land available for food production. The reasons people face food shortages and poor nutrition are the same as they have always been: widespread poverty and increasing levels of impoverishment along with rising food prices that mean the poorest will lose out.
When things get really bad and people are dying of starvation, maybe other countries will start shipping in relief food, but this will not improve food security in Kenya. Food security refers to access to food, as well as its production. As with other countries that experienced famines throughout history, resilience will continue to be low, there will be widespread disease, many people will have abandoned rural areas and moved to cities; there will be no remaining seed to grow the next season's crops, no fertilizer, no chance of resisting whatever new pressures arise.
The more I read about famine, the more it seems like a process whereby the rich systematically deny food to the poor in order to increase their profits. But that couldn't be correct, could it?
Saturday, January 17, 2009
The Right to Trivia
On Friday the 9th of January, newspapers announced that the government was warning that up to 3 million people faced starvation because of growing food shortages. That's more than 10% of the population. By the following monday, the number had risen to 10 million, in excess of 25% of the population. There was no analysis of why the figures had changed so profoundly.
Yesterday, Friday the 16th, famine was not to be found, unless you count passing references in articles on unrelated matters. There is mention of millions facing starvation on page 6 of The Nation in an article on senior politicians spending large amounts of public money on a trip to the inauguration of the president of a foreign country. These politicians were not invited so taxpayers (which doesn't include politicians, because they don't pay tax) are going to pay for an expensive trip to watch the event on TV.
Perhaps they don't trust their own media to cover the event adequately. Their own media is far more interested in signs of disagreement in the coalition government. That's front page news today. After all, these signs of disagreement are so hard to discern, right? There is a a small amount of interest in various scandals that involve various politicians and other senior public figures but interest in these is currently waning.
But there is little interest in the matters that affect individual people, especially poor people. For example, why do water supplies only reach wealthier neighbourhoods and where does the water sold to poorer people at such high prices come from? Where did all the recently imported maize, intended to avert famine, go to? What has been happening to fuel that has been distributed to outlets, allegedly, but doesn't seem to have reached them?
One quarter of the country's population facing starvation didn't make the front page today. Nor did the fact that child death rates are up, again. Child death rates have been rising almost constantly since the 1980s, so this is not a recent trend. It's a trend that cannot be blamed on the HIV epidemic, the water, fuel or food crisis, global warming or any other issue. There is a long running crisis in health, education and other social services.
Of course, it's difficult to assess figures like those from the UN 2009 State of the World's Children report, showing that 121 out of every 1000 live births recorded result in death, mostly in the first year of a child's life. Difficult to assess because an estimated 40% of births are not recorded. The figure could higher or lower but it's difficult to know how many births have not been recorded!
It's not that political wranglings are not important or that the coalition shouldn't be urged to settle their differences and start running the country, these are important. But it's because of their failure to run the country that child mortality and maternal mortality figures, to name but a few, are so high. It's because of the government's failures that people are starving, have no water, are dying of preventable diseases.
Behind the shortage of maize, in addition to the cartels that may or may not exist, there are government plans to sell and/or lease land so that foreign countries can grow sugar for biofuels and food crops for their own people. This is land that is currently farmed by Kenyans or, at least, owned by Kenyans. It could be used to grow food.
The government says it is building a port in Lamu with the money they make from the land. This port will take many years to build, as Raila Odinga reminded us when he gave a figure of five years for enhancements to Mombasa Port.
So what's wrong with using the land to grow food that should be available after one season? In five years time, if the port is really built, will Kenya have any money left to import anything through a new port in Lamu?
More importantly, how many people will have died, unnecessarily, by the time this 'vital' port is built? Water and food cannot wait till political wranglings are sorted out. These wranglings, in many cases, date back to the earliest days of the Kenyan Republic. Death from lack of water and food is very fast. Some will already have died by the time the politicians who went, uninvited to party in the US, have returned.
It's not politicians who die in civil unrest, famine or epidemics; politicians children don't die of preventable diseases and their wives don't usually die in childbirth. They are completely divorced from the pain, although they may see it all on TV. That's if the media bothers to cover it. And if they are not watching US TV, in the US.
The press who appealed so recently to the electorate to protect them from government excesses is now little moved by the plight of ordinary Kenyans. Millions of people facing starvation and children dying in large numbers should be front page news, so should reportage covering what the government intends to do about it. And when the government says what they intend to do, their actions need to be followed until they show some result. Why is the press so obsessed with triviality?
Of course, government wranglings can turn to riots and many lives can be lost. But far more people die from malnutrition, starvation, water shortage, preventable disease and various other things than from civil distrubances. When these issues have been resolved there will be time enough to cover the many political farces but meantime, perhaps the press will reconsider its priorities.
Yesterday, Friday the 16th, famine was not to be found, unless you count passing references in articles on unrelated matters. There is mention of millions facing starvation on page 6 of The Nation in an article on senior politicians spending large amounts of public money on a trip to the inauguration of the president of a foreign country. These politicians were not invited so taxpayers (which doesn't include politicians, because they don't pay tax) are going to pay for an expensive trip to watch the event on TV.
Perhaps they don't trust their own media to cover the event adequately. Their own media is far more interested in signs of disagreement in the coalition government. That's front page news today. After all, these signs of disagreement are so hard to discern, right? There is a a small amount of interest in various scandals that involve various politicians and other senior public figures but interest in these is currently waning.
But there is little interest in the matters that affect individual people, especially poor people. For example, why do water supplies only reach wealthier neighbourhoods and where does the water sold to poorer people at such high prices come from? Where did all the recently imported maize, intended to avert famine, go to? What has been happening to fuel that has been distributed to outlets, allegedly, but doesn't seem to have reached them?
One quarter of the country's population facing starvation didn't make the front page today. Nor did the fact that child death rates are up, again. Child death rates have been rising almost constantly since the 1980s, so this is not a recent trend. It's a trend that cannot be blamed on the HIV epidemic, the water, fuel or food crisis, global warming or any other issue. There is a long running crisis in health, education and other social services.
Of course, it's difficult to assess figures like those from the UN 2009 State of the World's Children report, showing that 121 out of every 1000 live births recorded result in death, mostly in the first year of a child's life. Difficult to assess because an estimated 40% of births are not recorded. The figure could higher or lower but it's difficult to know how many births have not been recorded!
It's not that political wranglings are not important or that the coalition shouldn't be urged to settle their differences and start running the country, these are important. But it's because of their failure to run the country that child mortality and maternal mortality figures, to name but a few, are so high. It's because of the government's failures that people are starving, have no water, are dying of preventable diseases.
Behind the shortage of maize, in addition to the cartels that may or may not exist, there are government plans to sell and/or lease land so that foreign countries can grow sugar for biofuels and food crops for their own people. This is land that is currently farmed by Kenyans or, at least, owned by Kenyans. It could be used to grow food.
The government says it is building a port in Lamu with the money they make from the land. This port will take many years to build, as Raila Odinga reminded us when he gave a figure of five years for enhancements to Mombasa Port.
So what's wrong with using the land to grow food that should be available after one season? In five years time, if the port is really built, will Kenya have any money left to import anything through a new port in Lamu?
More importantly, how many people will have died, unnecessarily, by the time this 'vital' port is built? Water and food cannot wait till political wranglings are sorted out. These wranglings, in many cases, date back to the earliest days of the Kenyan Republic. Death from lack of water and food is very fast. Some will already have died by the time the politicians who went, uninvited to party in the US, have returned.
It's not politicians who die in civil unrest, famine or epidemics; politicians children don't die of preventable diseases and their wives don't usually die in childbirth. They are completely divorced from the pain, although they may see it all on TV. That's if the media bothers to cover it. And if they are not watching US TV, in the US.
The press who appealed so recently to the electorate to protect them from government excesses is now little moved by the plight of ordinary Kenyans. Millions of people facing starvation and children dying in large numbers should be front page news, so should reportage covering what the government intends to do about it. And when the government says what they intend to do, their actions need to be followed until they show some result. Why is the press so obsessed with triviality?
Of course, government wranglings can turn to riots and many lives can be lost. But far more people die from malnutrition, starvation, water shortage, preventable disease and various other things than from civil distrubances. When these issues have been resolved there will be time enough to cover the many political farces but meantime, perhaps the press will reconsider its priorities.
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