Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
in the world, about 1.7% per year until 2015. The number of people in the region liv-
ing on less than a $1 per day rose from 227 million to 303 million between 1990 and
2002, the largest increase in the world (World Bank Development data, 2007). This
trend is projected to continue but at a slower rate. Moreover, the region's absolute
poverty number is projected to surpass that of South Asia, the region that has always
had the largest number of poor people. In SSA, nearly 40% of the region's population
is projected to fall below the poverty line by 2015. The region's poverty, in addition
to low level of per capita income, is largely due to the region's highly skewed income
distribution. Regionally, after Latin America, SSA has the highest income inequality
in the world. The poorest 20% of the region's population hold less than 6% of total
income, while the wealthiest 20% hold over 50%.
USDA Economic Research Service (ERS) medium-term (2016) projections of
the number of hungry people and food gaps show a similar path to the World Bank
poverty projections, which indicate improvements in Asia but some deterioration in
SSA (USDA, ERS, 2007). These results indicate that the food security situation is
projected to remain precarious or even worsen in 17 of the 37 SSA countries. In more
than half of these countries, population growth is projected to be among the highest
in the world, ranging from a low of 2.9% per year in the Democratic Republic of
the Congo and Mauritania to a high of 3.8% in Somalia. These countries simply do
not have the resources to raise food supplies at rates adequate to compensate for the
large increases in population. In addition, the harsh climate in many countries leads
to frequent drought, which is a chronic problem with respect to domestic production
in many countries. Production shortfalls in SSA are problematic because most coun-
tries have limited financial capacity to import food. Exacerbating the situation is
civil strife and political instability, which disrupt agricultural activities and discour-
age investment. Civil unrest and border conflicts in countries such as the Democratic
Republic of Congo, Sudan, Somalia, and Ethiopia for the last several decades have
no clear end in sight.
An important cross-country issue is the growing obesity epidemic stemming
from increasing consumption of high energy-dense foods such as oils and sugar
(Popkin, 2001). Historically, this issue was limited to developed countries, but it has
now expanded to developing countries, including the LDCs. This trend is disturb-
ing because obesity-related health issues such as heart disease and diabetes will put
additional financial pressure on already-taxed health care systems in these countries.
In developing countries, annual per capita health expenditures are only 5% of those
in developed countries, and in the LDCs it amounts to less than 1% (World Bank
Development data, 2007).
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Growth in food demand will be slow due to lower population growth rates as well as
the fact that diets in several highly populated emerging markets such as China and
Brazil have transitioned to the point at which their food consumption is now similar
to that of developed countries. While per capita income is projected to grow, higher
food prices may offset that potential impact. By all accounts, the growing interest in
biofuels is expected to result in higher staple food prices, representing a departure
