AND THEN THE SHELVES WERE EMPTY!

For most of us (on these islands) the significance of Wednesday August 14th probably passed largely unnoticed – this was the day that food supplies (for the year) would have run out today if the UK was reliant solely on domestic production. The National Farmers’ Union have suggested (and they should know) that falling self-sufficiency means that we produce less than two-thirds (62%) of the food the country consumes, this figure is down from 75% in 1991.

And then the cupboard was bare...

What this means is that if all the food produced in the UK in a year were stored and eaten from January 1st then our cupboard would be bare by August 14th. Farmers in Wales (and England) are right to call for support from politicians, the public and food industry to back farming and help them produce more food. We currently import around £ 37.6 billion pounds worth of food and drink often at the expense of home grown foodstuffs.

In times of political and economic uncertainty it is essential that we have a vibrant domestic food-producing industry. With world food prices remaining high and the demand for food supplies from India, China and Brazil continuing to grow it’s not sustainable or sensible to carry on relaying in imported foodstuffs. The transportation system we rely on to deliver our food supplies is over complex, increasingly last minute and reliant on vulnerable long distance distribution systems, which are dependent on increasingly expensive oil based fuels. 

The problems of the recent past have been the result of long, overly complex supply chains, something which farmers warned about and which led to the horsemeat scandal. Here in Wales we have a rich natural capacity to produce more quality foodstuffs, which with investment and local purchasing could give both our farmers and their customers real opportunities.

We need to an environment where farmers can benefit from invest and new opportunities to sell their produce, at the same time we can strengthen the food chain bringing much needed food security. Our farmers already regularly produce award winning quality foodstuffs, the next step should to develop our domestic markets for their produce, with more local public procurement.

Buying local is the next significant step, this will reduce food miles and give consumers access to quality Welsh beef or lamb and other produce. Our farming sector needs to be strong and confident, something that will give us both food security and access to quality local produce.  If we do this right then we can ensure that more of money remains in local economies longer, benefiting local firms and local food suppliers and the rest of us. 

FEEDING OUR FUEL AND FOOD INSECURITIES

As UK householders brace themselves for increased energy bills, they are also going to take a hit from increased world food prices.  The UN's Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO)World food prices has revealed that world food prices rose 1.4% in September (in July food prices went up by 10%), driven up by higher meat, dairy and cereals prices. The rise follows two months of relative stability when food prices remained steady.

Here in the UK, we will end up paying higher prices for the food on the shelves. Elsewhere on the planet there are real concerns about possible food shortages as drought hit grain crops in the US Midwest, Brazil, Russia, Europe and central Asia. The UN has also forecast a decline in global cereal production this year.

The FAO is predicting that 2.286 billion tonnes of cereal are likely to be produced, this is slightly down from the 2.295 billion tonnes that had been estimated a month earlier. This forecast would mean a 2.6% fall in cereal production from 2011's yield, which was a record crop. This would result in a significant reduction in world cereal stocks by the end of 2013, yet there may be some light at the end of the tunnel as the early indicators for wheat crops in 2013 are said to be good.

The UN and the US Department of Agriculture says that  around one third of all food goes to waste and that consumers in rich countries waste almost as much food as the entire net food production of sub-Saharan Africa. To feed the worlds expanding population basically we will need to produce 70% more food by 2050 and this despite the fact that Global corn stocks (reserves) have basically halved since 1998.

More than 100 million more people across the world now suffer from hunger due to recent food price rises. Of all the humans on the planet, one in eight not have enough food. The situation is being made worse because we are turning food into fuel. The UN food agency (aback in August) called on the United States to suspend its production of biofuel ethanol.

US law requires that 40% of the US corn harvest be used to make biofuel, the UN says that this quota could contribute to a food crisis around the world. The harsh drought and heatwave across the US has made the situation worse by destroying much of the country's corn crop, and driving up prices. The US is not alone in relentlessly chasing biofuel, many countries are increasingly exploring the possibility of growing some of their fuel rather than importing it.

The FAO's Food Price Index rose 3 points to 216 in September, but this is still below the record 238 reached back in February 2011. Cereal prices rose 1% from August, wheat and rice offset a decline in maize. Meat prices were up 2.1%. Dairy prices rose 7%, the sharpest monthly increase since January 2011.

Sugar prices fell 4.2%, reflecting an improved sugarcane harvest in Brazil, the world's largest sugar exporter. Oil prices fell by 0.4% in September and the International Energy Agency is predicting a fall in oil and gas prices. This no doubt explains why the energy companies are going to charge us more for our energy over the winter – or perhaps not!

OUR DAILY BREAD?

As fuel prices creep upwards, as we are waiting to get hit by price rises from the energy cartel, the next hard blow to our wallets will come in the form of rising food prices. The poor summer across the northern hemisphere (either too wet or too dry) is impacting on global food prices which have risen by 10% in the month of July, which has raised the fears of soaring prices for the planet's poorest, as noted by the World Bank.

Oxfam has noted that when extreme weather events drive local or regional price spikes, the people living in poverty face a double shock as they have to cope with higher prices, just like the rest of us. The difference between the developed and developing world is that this often comes at a time when the direct effects of extreme weather events have often already depleted their assets, destroyed their crops and stripped them of their livelihoods.

Back in 2011 the emergency in the Horn of Africa and the 2012 Sahel food crisis clearly showed how this combination can lead to hunger on a mass scale. The small-scale subsistence farmers and the pastoralists ended up getting hit hard in both regions, where the loss of livestock and crops reduced available food stocks and also reduced the value of people’s assets so that they were unable to afford to buy food

The World Bank has warned that the affects of the US heat wave and drought in parts of Eastern Europe were partly to blame for the rising food costs. Key grains such as corn, wheat and soybean saw the most dramatic price increases, something that will hit those countries that import grains particularly badly. Between June to July (2012), corn and wheat prices rose by 25% and soybean prices increased by 17%. The World Bank noted that only rice prices fell by some 4%.

In the USA, the worst (and widespread) drought for fifty years has wrought havoc on the corn and soybean crops while simultaneously in Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, the wheat crops have been badly damaged. To make matters worse, the World Bank noted that the continued use of corn to produce ethanol biofuels (which absorbs around 40% of US corn production) played a key role in the sharp rise in the price of US maize.

While we (the food consumers) will all loses out, the impact on developing countries in North and Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East who will be the most exposed to price rises because significant quantities of their food is imported and food bills make up a large proportion of average household spending, will be harsher. .

Already maize prices had increased by 113% over the past quarter in Mozambique, and the price of sorghum had risen 220% in South Sudan. Last time this happened (back in 2008) there was widespread unrest. Other potential factors could make a potentially bad situation worse and force grain prices still higher. The World Bank is concerned about a combination of food exporters pursuing panic policies, a severe El Nino, poor Southern hemisphere harvests and strong increases in energy prices.

The World Bank's Food Price Index (which tracks the price of internationally traded food commodities) was six percent higher than in July 2011 and one percent up from the previous peak, which was back in February 2011. Why is this important? Well aside from the fact that the most vulnerable in poorer countries will lose out? While we won’t starve, in the developed world as food (and fuel) prices go up, our purchasing power goes down (and we spend less), something that will hit the wider economy.

FOOD INSECURITY?

Grain Traders are looking East at Russia where a commission on food security been set up in response to dry weather that has halved grain yields in some areas. The worlds food markets are awash with talk that Russia may respond to the developing crisis by limiting or stopping exports (as it did some two years ago). The United States is already facing one of the worst droughts for 50 years, and the prices of many grains and food crops have soared on world commodity markets.

The recent rise in food prices will have a major impact on food security, it will affect all of us as individuals and whole countries in the developed and the developing world. Many of the world’s poorest peoples spend over half their income on food. So the recent price rises for cereals and other staple food stuffs will force them to cut back on the quantity or quality of their primary foodstuffs. This will result in food insecurity and malnutrition, with potentially tragic implications in the short and long term.

Undernourishment increases disease and mortality, lowers productivity and can have severe lifelong effects, particularly for children. Price spikes also hit poorer households when it comes to meeting important non-food expenses, e.g. education and health care. Global food price hikes affect low-income, food importing countries, and put pressure on their limited financial resources. High food prices have a very negative impact on food security when prices spike suddenly or reach extremely high levels.

Yet food security issues can affect both food producers and food purchasers - high prices send an important message to food producers. Half the world’s undernourished people, are small farmers, livestock producers and fishermen. For them, high prices are an opportunity and a threat. They can act as an incentive to produce more for the market and make more food available while improving access to richer foodstuffs, as poor farmers’ incomes rise.

That said, higher prices are also a threat, as many poor farmers are net food buyers e.g. they spend more on food than they make by selling their produce, Also many of them face serious obstacles when it comes to producing more food and getting more of their produce to the marketplace.

The World Bank stated that the 2010 to 2011 food price spike pushed approximately 44 million people into poverty. Yet for some 24 million food producers, rising food process have actually been a ticket out of poverty – admittedly potentially a relatively short-term one, as their numbers were swamped by the 68 million that have fallen below the extreme poverty line.

Now food security or food insecurity is not new, back in 1996, the World Food Summit defined food security as existing “when all people at all times have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life”. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has acknowledge that the concept of food security is defined as including both physical and economic access to food that meets people's dietary needs as well as their food preferences. All very fine and dandy you may say, but, what does that have to do with us?

Well, a quite a lot , the UK produces 73% of ‘indigenous-type foods’, and is around 60% self-sufficient when exports and local consumption are set against production. UK consumers spend an average of £420 per household on food each year and then throw away some 4.1M tonnes of food nationally (2011). Each day we bin some 4.4 Million apples, 5.1 Million potatoes, 2.8 Million tomatoes and 1.6 Million bananas. Back in 2009 Wrap data suggested some £12 Billion pounds worth of food was binned every year in the UK, or around £680 for the average family when drinks and liquid food is included.

At the end of the day, rising food prices will bring little real benefit to our own or more distant food producers when they are being short changed by the Supermarkets (and some of their suppliers). Food producers are important and they need a fair deal and so do we (the food consumers) which is something to think about as we are confronted by the increased cost of our basic foodstuffs on the supermarket shelves.

FOOD SOVEREIGNTY

We need to spare some thoughts to ways of developing medium to long term sustainable farming practices both here in Wales and elsewhere on the planet. We are overdependent on oil based chemical fertilizers and a world trade network that is fueled by increasingly  expensive oil products.

There are plenty of people around the world who don't subscribe to or support the efforts of the European Union, the World Trade Organisation, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the multinationals and some governments who are busy trying to continue to globalize food production at the expense of local self sufficiency.

The concept of 'Food Sovereignty' focuses on 'national' control of food policy, and self sufficiency rather than the production of cash crops for export. More locally these efforts could focus on promoting regional and local foodstuffs and developing local markets. Opponents of  this idea have suggested that this idea hampers free trade, which in turn lowers prices and makes food more accessible to all.

In truth some countries cannot grow enough food to feed themselves so there will always be some trade in foodstuffs. The real questions that should be asked  are what kind of trade in food is taking place? Who controls it? And who benefits from it? Not to mention who does this trade in food fit into the larger picture of local and regional agriculture?

FOOD FOR THOUGHT?

Oxfam Cymru claim half of Welsh people have changed their eating habits in the last two years, with 39% having to do so because food prices have rocketed.They suggest that more people in financial distress are approaching food banks for free, short-term supplies (as previously blogged by Leanne Wood AM). The OXFAM survey, which is part of a global study into eating habits in the last two years, comes after the Office for National Statistics revealed rising food inflation was escalating the cost of living.

The hard statistics reveal that a range of foods have undergone sharp rises, with prices of meat up 5.1%, fish up 11.4%, bread and cereals up 5.8%, mineral waters, juices and soft drinks up by 10.3% and jams by 7.5%. Oxfam Cymru says only 60% of Welsh respondents reported having enough to eat on a daily basis – with 39% saying they got enough, most or some of the time. They pointed to global figures, which showed an average 61% getting enough to eat all the time, indicating the Welsh statistics were part of a global problem.

A number of issues are going to impact on food prices, here and in the rest of the world. There is Climate Change, which as temperatures rise, will lead to a fall in crop yields – potentially we are talking of up-to half of their current levels in some African countries. At the same time, extreme weather events like heat waves, droughts and floods will get worse and become more frequent, and the seasons that people rely on to grow crops will get even more unpredictable.

Across the world governments have dragged their feet for too long. We need to start dealing with a situation that's only going to get more urgent. The food price spikes of 2008 are partially related to and being aggravated by land grabs, as wealthy companies have invested heavily in cheap agricultural land in poor countries, often for commercial use. The land that is sold is actually being used by poor families to grow food in many cases.

Poor farmers and their families are often forcibly evicted with little or no warning or compensation, and to make things worse often the land is either left idle by investors who know it will only grow in value, or actually used in ways that reduce food production. So it's time for effective global rules to get land grabs under control – rules which ensure local communities see the benefits of investments and which help make sure that governments provide secure access to land for smallholder farmers, and especially women.

After decades of progress, the number of people without enough to eat is actually increasing, and food price spikes are a big part of the problem. That's because, when you spend up to 75% of your weekly income on food – as many poor families are forced to do – sudden rises have an especially destructive effect. Price spikes have many causes including the changing climate, oil prices, dysfunctional commodities markets, biofuels policies that turn potentially productive crop-lands into fuel for cars rather than fuel for people. Oxfam and a number of other agencies conclusions is that we are facing a whole new challenge.

It's time for governments to actually work together to deal with food price crises effectively and to tackle the problems that mean millions of people can't afford enough to eat. After the best part of one hundred years of so of crop yield increases, crop yields are beginning to flat-line partially because intensive farming can only go so far. We need to focus on the huge untapped potential of small-scale farmers in developing countries and especially of women, who often do most of the work for often scant reward.

The reality is that some 500 million small farms put the food on the plates of some two billion people (one in three of our planets population). With effective government support and a focus on sustainable techniques, productivity can soar. In Vietnam, for instance, the number of hungry people has halved in just 12 years – a transformation which was kick-started by government investment in small farmers previously disadvantaged by the old Soviet style collective farms. It's time to change the way that we in Wales and the rest of the world thinks about growing food.

FOOD SECURITY

We should spare a thought or three to the matter of 'food security' - food security you may ask? Yes, not energy security, but Food security which is nothing new, in 1996, the World Food Summit defined food security as existing “when all people at all times have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life”. The World Health Organisation (WHO) acknowledge that the concept of food security is defined as including both physical and economic access to food that meets people's dietary needs as well as their food preferences. All very fine and day you may say, but, what does that have to do with us?

Well, a lot actually, especially as the UK produces 73% of ‘indigenous-type foods’, and is about 60% self-sufficient when exports and local consumption are set against production. UK consumers spend an average of £420 per household on food each year that they then throw away, or 4.1M tonnes of food nationally. Every day we bin 4.4 Million apples, 5.1 Million potatoes, 2.8 Million tomatoes and 1.6 Million bananas. 2009 Wrap data suggests £12 Billion pounds worth is binned every year in the UK, or around £680 for the average family when drinks and liquid food is included. In Wales as previously noted by Leanne Wood Plaid AM, South Wales Central, serious efforts are being made to cut waste.

We need to think about locally sourced food stuffs and to take a long hard look at the way the market for food in the UK operates. In the UK, we are when compared with 10 years ago, now importing nearly half our butter from abroad, cheese imports are also up, around 60 percent over the last ten years. We are importing those products that have added-value and are exporting the low-value milk products which are then ironically turned back into butter, yoghurt, etc and sold back to us.

This is madness; this is what happens in the Third World, where countries export their raw commodities cheaply and then have little choice but to buy back the manufactured products that are made from their own raw materials. Successive UK Governments both Conservative and New Labour have sat back and quietly allowed this to happen.

The rise in global food prices will have an impact on the cost of living and the prices we pay for our food. The cost of Global food prices quietly rose to a new high in December last year, according to the UN's Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO). Its Food Price Index went above the previous record of 2008 that saw prices spark riots in several countries. Soaring sugar, cereal and oil prices had driven the rise, the report said.

The index (produced by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) measures monthly price changes for a food basket composed of dairy, meat and sugar, cereals and oilseeds, averaged 214.7 points last month, up from 206 points in November and also noted that prices had risen for six consecutive months.

At the end of the day, ever rising food prices (and ever rising transportation costs) will bring little benefit to our own or more distant food producers because they are being short changed by the Supermarkets (and some of their suppliers).