Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
1990.hereportconcludesthatifcurrenttrendscontinue,anextra11.7millionchildren
willbestuntedinsub-SaharanAfricain2025(comparedto2010),andthelivesofmore
than450millionchildrengloballywillbeafectedbystuntinginthenext15years(Save
theChildren2012,xiii).InJanuary2008, he Lancet —oneofthemostrespectedmedi-
caljournalsintheworld—publishedaive-partseriesontheirreversibleefectsofearly
childhoodmalnutrition(citedinBreadfortheWorld2010).Whenallissaidanddone,
it is a damning record on virtually every front.
AsI writeinlate2012,theUNiscallingforamassivefood-aidmobilizationinview
of a looming subsistence crisis in the Sahel; according to the World Food Program, over
8 millionpeople,inthewakeofthepoor2011rains,willrequire“life-savingfoodassis-
tance”(WorldFoodProgram2012).heWorldFoodProgramnotesthatwhiletheear-
lierfoodcrisesof2005and2010weresevereinChadandNiger,theloomingcurrent
crisis is affecting a broad swathe of countries across the region. Output is down by at
leastathird,foodpricesareconsiderablyhigherthanin2010,andmanyhouseholds
have not recovered from the food shortage and high prices of the previous year. Here is
theassessmentoftheSahelfortyyearsaterI irstsawfaminerefugeecampsandterrible
hardship in the region:
he 2009-10 food crisis highlighted a host of long term policy failures, includ-
ing adapting to climate change and controlling volatile prices of food in the mar-
kets . . . linked to state fragility and governance, and the ineffectiveness of aid. The
2010crisismadevisiblethedeepstructuralfoodandnutritionsecurityproblems
that have persisted for decades. Most strikingly, the severe food deficit situation of
households, combined with structural factors such as gender inequality and poor
access to healthcare, have been generating catastrophic rates of child under-nutri-
tionintheSahelianzoneofChadformanyyears.
(Gubbels2011,41)
The structural hunger problem is now located on a yet bleaker landscape. The Sahel
has emerged as a new front in the prosecution of a counterinsurgency against radical
Islam.hedonorcommunity'sSahelian“successstory”—namelyMali—hasrecently
descended into civil war. The Sahel is also one of the regions in which, according to the
IntergovernmentalPanelonClimateChange(2007),thedeadweightofglobalwarming
isabouttofall.Insomequarters—ChristianParenti(2011)fromthelet,USDepartment
ofDefense(2011)ontheright—thisnewconjunctureofviolence,poverty,andclimate
changedeinesthecomingapocalypse—the“tropicofchaos,”asParenticallsit.he
awful reality is that one can plausibly claim that large swaths of Africa suffer from some-
thing close to “permanent famine,” due to serial crises that have become the new nor-
mal.ItisalifeofwhatPaulFarmer(2003)calls“extremesufering.”
To see durability in the world hunger picture is not to infer that nothing has changed
overthelastityyearsintheWestAfricanSahel,orforthatmatterinthecircumstances
in which the poor across the African continent and the Global South find themselves as
net buyers or sellers of food. The dynamics of food provisioning have changed, and the
centrality of grain markets, and their operations, in the lives of the poor has deepened.
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