GROWING A SECURE FOOD FUTURE

A talk by Warwick alumnus, Tim Gore, International Policy Adviser on Climate Change for Oxfam UK

It’s ten years since Tim Gore was a fresher at Warwick studying International Politics. Now he's putting the theory he learned into practice. Speaking ahead of today's launch of the United Nations’ Climate Change Conference in Durban, Gore told the Warwick International Development Summit about GROW, Oxfam’s latest campaign to highlight an impending world food crisis.

Listen to a podcast of the talk below:

“A key question for development in the 21st century,” Tim Gore told conference attendees “is: Will food supply meet increasing demand? If not, what are the implications for the poorest people on this planet? Are they going to be squeezed out?”

Academic research and statistics are clear. The world faces huge demands for natural resources in the decades ahead. Demand for food is likely to rise by 50 per cent by 2030 and a staggering 70 per cent by 2050. Demand for energy is predicted to rise by 50 per cent by 2030. Also by 2030, fresh water demand looks set to rise by 30 per cent. One commentator described this situation as a perfect storm. What’s causing it?

“A growing global population,” says Gore. There are currently seven billion people on the planet and projections show that there will be two billion more of us by 2050. And yet, Gore points out, the situation “can’t just be explained by population because big population growth happens in the poorest countries in the world. Much of the extra demand is coming from increasing affluence in China and other emerging economies where people are shifting to more Western, developed lifestyles." This means an increase in meat consumption and calorific fast foods as communities move away from their traditional diets.

After decades of slow but steady progress in the right direction, the number of people going to bed hungry every night has taken a sharp turn for the worse.

Warning signs have alerted us to the coming resource crunch. “After decades of slow but steady progress in the right direction, the number of people going to bed hungry every night has taken a sharp turn for the worse in the last ten years. For the first time this peaked past the one billion mark in the food crisis of 2008. Although the number has come down a bit since then, we’re projecting it’s going to go up," says Gore.

There are a number of reasons for this, with climate change leading the field. Food prices on local and global markets are increasingly volatile, not helped by financial speculation. Rising energy prices have led to more land being used to grow bio fuel components, reducing the area available to grow food. Insecure land tenure and an historic underinvestment in smallholder agriculture have also played their part.

Lack of public investment in agriculture in developing countries is in part explained by structural adjustment policies promoted by international finance institutions in the 1980s. Developing countries were encouraged (if not forced) to scale back on public investment including research and development into new seeds and technology. Instead, says Gore, the economic model for agriculture shifted to one which was private-sector led. This was a resource-intensive model concentrated on industrial farms at the expense of smallholders in developing countries.

As Gore mentions we need to grow more food in the land we already have. This is not a simple solution because climate change is acting as a drag on the yields of key crops. A study has shown that developing countries could experience yield declines of around 15 to 26 per cent by the second half of this century, with that percentage being as high as 50 in some developing countries such as Senegal and Sudan. The numbers show big regional disparities. The picture, says Gore, is really scary. It “indicates the decline in the length of growing periods for key crops in Africa in a world which has warmed by four degrees above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century". The shortening of the growing period is up to 20 per cent or more in some areas. Only a few tiny patches around the horn of Africa are forecasted to see an increase.

Studies suggest that rising temperatures and changing rainfall patterns due to climate change make the biggest difference to yield decline. They have been responsible for an increase in world food prices by about six per cent for two food commodities, meaning that the world is already spending an additional 50 billion dollars a year due to climate change. “It may not sound like that much”, says Gore, “but this is already starting to bite."

Oxfam’s new global GROW initiative, a campaign for food justice in a resource-restrained world, is tackling this issue head on. Gore is leading on the climate change aspects of the programme, examining the reasons behind resource scarcity, how these relate to hunger and what we can do to try and tackle them.

GROW commissioned the Institute of Development Studies to look ahead to 2030 and project the impact that climate change could have on food prices. The findings reported that productivity and output of key crops will decline with maize being particularly susceptible to increases in temperature. Brazilian wheat will also be hugely affected. So what can we do to mitigate this crisis?

“We need to invest in appropriate adaptation strategies for farmers,” concludes Gore. Food prices will still rise but to a lesser extent than they would if we did nothing. Oxfam has found during its work with farmers in developing countries that climate change is causing an increasing unpredictability in the seasons. Rains start at different times than the norm and also have a tendency to fall in heavier outbursts. These factors can critically affect farmers’ livelihoods and influence their crop planting schedule. If the rains come at a different time than expected, seeds can die before they germinate. If rain showers are unusually heavy they can destroy young seedlings.

At the heart of GROW are gender issues. According to Gore, research shows that women often have the least resources to adapt to these types of changes and have a lack of social protection. Women will be the first to go without food in a family. They may be forced financially to sell off critical assets to their livelihoods such as livestock, or take their children out of school and into work. These short-term coping strategies can have long-term effects across the generations.

Oxfam’s work is not just dealing with ‘knowns’ but has the built-in flexibility and agility to deal with unexpected events and hazards. The charity is working with local communities to find solutions; ideed answers can come from traditional indigenous knowledge. Communities know what they need to do to adapt to a changing climate and GROW aims to empower them to do just that.

Tim Gore gained a first class honours degree in International Politics from the University of Warwick. He went on to study for an MA in European Politics at the College of Europe in Belgium.

Prior to joining Oxfam he worked at Climate Action Network - Europe where he co-ordinated work on the EU Climate and Energy Package, with a particular focus on the EU Emissions Trading Scheme directive. This led to a role leading Oxfam Great Britain's European advocacy on climate change, food and agriculture policy in the lead up to the Copenhagen climate conference.

Currently Tim is based in the UK, leading the development of Oxfam's advocacy and research on international climate change policy.

By Penelope Jenkins