Earth 1 : Humans 7,000,000,000

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has released its annual State of the World Population report for 2011. Here are a few samplers from the mass of analysis and data:

Our record population size can be viewed in many ways as a success for humanity. But not everyone has benefited from this achievement or the higher quality of life that this implies. Great disparities exist between and within countries. Disparities in rights and opportunities also exist between men and women, girls and boys. Charting a path now to development that promotes equality, rather than exacerbates or reinforces inequalities, is more important than ever.

The Population Division of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, in its World Population Prospects: The 2010 Revision (published in May 2011), foresees a global population of 9.3 billion people in 2050, and more than 10 billion by the end of this century. Much of this increase is expected to come from high-fertility countries, which comprise 39 in Africa, nine in Asia, six in Oceania and four in Latin America.

Asia will remain the most populous major area in the world in the 21st century, but Africa will gain ground as its population more than triples, increasing from 1 billion in 2011 to 3.6 billion in 2100. In 2011, 60 per cent of the world population lives in Asia and 15 per cent in Africa. But Africa’s population is growing about 2.3 per cent a year, a rate more than double that of Asia (1 per cent). Asia’s population, which is currently 4.2 billion, is expected to peak around the middle of the century (5.2 billion in 2052) and to start a slow decline thereafter.

The populations of all other major areas combined (the Americas, Europe and Oceania) amount to 1.7 billion in 2011 and are projected to rise to nearly 2 billion by 2060 and then decline very slowly, remaining still near 2 billion by the turn of the century. Among the regions, the population of Europe is projected to peak around 2025 at 0.74 billion and decline thereafter.

[See What’s Your Number – Population Action International]
[See Population Reference Bureau – features, video, interactive world map, reference data sheets]

This report makes the case that with planning and the right investments in people now—to empower them to make choices that are not only good for themselves but for our global commons—our world of 7 billion and beyond can have thriving, sustainable cities, productive labour forces that can fuel economic growth, youth populations that contribute to the well-being of economies and societies, and a generation of older people who are healthy and actively engaged in the social and economic affairs of their communities.

In many parts of the developing world, where population growth is outpacing economic growth, the unmet need for reproductive health care, especially voluntary family planning, remains great. The attainment of a stable population is a sine qua non for accelerated economic growth and development. Governments that are serious about eradicating poverty should also be serious about providing the services, supplies, information that women, men and young people need to exercise their reproductive rights.

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The Great Nepal-India-Pakistan Spinal Beetle Rally

That's Kanak with a cuppa 'chai' behind the wheel of his powder blue 1973 VW Beetle

Kanak Dixit of Kathmandu will embark on a fundraising drive across South Asia – from Kathmandu to Lucknow to Delhi to Amritsar to Lahore to Rawalpindi to Peshawar, to raise funds for spinal injury centres in all three countries at the rate of USD 100 per mile for a journey of 1,100 miles (EUR 45 per kilometre, GBP 62 per mile, INR 3,089/km) or 1,760 kilometres.

Here’s what his campaign flyer says:

The Journey: Our 1973 model VW Beetle will start its journey from Kathmandu Valley on 4 of November 2011. Coming down to the plains, it will enter Uttar Pradesh and reach Lucknow. Westward to Delhi, it will arrive at the Indian Spinal Injuries Centre (ISIC). Travelling along the Grand Trunk Road, it will pass Amritsar and the Wagah-Atari border to Lahore and its Mayo Hospital. We will then take the M-1 motorway to Rawalpindi / Islamabad, and end our journey at the Paraplegic Centre in Hayatabad Peshawar on 16 November 2011.

Why the Adventure: The sudden rise of the number of patients over the last year has forced us to raise our service from 39 beds to 51. This has led to an unexpected financial crunch. The rally will help meet the challenge of growth even as we make plans for sustainability.

One More Reason: The Spinal Beetle Rally is also an effort to raise awareness of spinal injury prevention, rescue, care and rehabilitation in the Subcontinent. In this effort, the Spinal Centre is assisted by ISIC-Delhi and the Paraplegic Centre-Peshawar.

The Rallyists: The Spinal Beetle will be driven by journalist and civil rights activist Kanak Mani Dixit, Founder Chairman of the Spinal Centre Nepal. He will be accompanied by Shanta Dixit, board member and educationist. It was Kanak’s trekking accident a decade ago, resulting in a broken spine, which led to the establishment of the Spinal Centre.

That's the route plan for the Spinal Beetle, parathas and chicken tikka not included.

Done it Before, Twice: Kanak has driven the Spinal Beetle Kathmandu-Dhaka, in 2002 and 2005, to generous response.

Support and Sponsorship: The Indian Spinal Injuries Centre in Delhi is 540 miles from Kathmandu. The final destination, the Paraplegic Centre in Peshawar is 1100 miles away. Supporters are asked to sponsor the drive at the rate of USD 100 per mile, or any fraction or multiple of that amount. Payment details are given below. If you find the payment procedure cumbersome, please just pledge and we will revert.

About the Spinal Centre Nepal: Inaugurated by Sir Edmund Hillary [the mountaineer, think ‘Everest’] on April 2002, the Spinal Centre will be ten years old in 2012. Originally catering to patients from traditional accidents such as fall from trees and cliff-sides, spinal injury victims of ‘modern-day accidents’ related to construction, rock mining and traffic events are more and more filling our wards. We offer physiotherapy, occupational therapy, nursing, medical care, counselling and home rehabilitation. We are also involved in prevention. The Spinal Centre is run by the non-profit Spinal Injury Sangha Nepal.

Jump in and donate your MILE! Send us the equivalent of USD 100, or more or less!

Three ways to support the Spinal Beetle Rally:
1. Donate online on our webpage www.sirc.org.np : through our project partner Livability Ireland at the Biggive – free of charge!
2. Contact us: (if you want to hand over the money personally) kanakd@himalmag@.com or spinalinju@wlink.com.np
3. Transfer money to our account: Spinal Injury Rehabilitation Centre, Current Account No. 00501030250429 – Nepal Investment Bank Ltd., Banepa Branch, Kavre, Nepal (Swift Code: NIBL NPKT)

More information: Contact Ms Esha Thapa, Director, Spinal Centre Nepal | Tel: +977 11 660847/48 | spinalinju@wlink.com.np | eshthapa@hotmail.com

Floodwaters surround Bangkok

Update 2011-10-26 – Bangkok is braced for its zero hour which will be 0730 local time on 27 October 2011. That is when a high tide will coincide with a new surge of water coming down the Chao Phraya from central Thailand.

People wade through a flooded street in Bangkok October 25, 2011. Photo: AlertNet / Reuters / Sukree Sukplang

Reuters Alertnet has reported that floods swamped a new area of Thailand’s capital on Wednesday as some shops rationed food and Bangkok’s governor warned of “massive water” on the way that could put many parts of the sprawling city in danger by the end of the week. Large-scale evacuation was underway in Bang Phlad, a riverside area some way from Bangkok’s inundated northern districts, as floods hit the capital on a second front, deepening anxiety in the city of 12 million people, many of whom were expected to flee before a special five-day holiday.

“Now we’re at a critical moment, we need to monitor the situation closely from 28-31 October, when many areas might be critical,” Bangkok Governor Sukhumbhand Paribatra told reporters on Wednesday. “Massive water is coming.” Sukhumbhand said 90 percent of the northern Don Muang district was under water and Bang Phlad was in a critical situation. Fourteen city districts were threatened by floods and two more could be hit on Thursday, he said.

Bangkok residents scrambled to stock up on food, but bottled water was nowhere to be seen and some shops restricted customers to small quantities of food to prevent hoarding. Bus stations were packed as thousands prepared to leave the city. With high tide approaching in the Gulf of Thailand, Seri Supharatid, director of Rangsit University’s Centre on Climate Change and Disaster, said the city’s fate rested with river dykes holding.

“In the worst-case scenario, if all the dykes break, all parts of Bangkok would be more or less flooded,” Seri said. Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, who said two weeks ago that Bangkok was likely to escape the floodwaters, said on Wednesday that it could be flooded for as long as a month. “But we shouldn’t face water as high as two or three metres or staying for two or three months as we’ve seen in other provinces,” she told reporters.

Residents talk to a policeman as floods advance into central Bangkok, Thailand, October 26, 2011. Photo: Reuters

The rising tide could complicate efforts to drive water from the swelling Chao Phraya river out to the sea, putting more pressure on a city that accounts for 41 percent of Thailand’s gross domestic product. Three northern districts of Bangkok have been under water since Saturday, with army vehicles driving at a snail’s pace through 1.5 metres of water, ferrying evacuees away on roads shared by cars and boats.

Some people were being evacuated for a second time, with 4,000 sheltering in Don Muang moving to the province of Chon Buri. Evacuees at a university in Pathum Thani province also had to move on as floodwater engulfed the campus. To tackle the flooding, the authorities have pumped an estimated 8 billion cubic metres of water daily through canals and a river around Bangkok’s east and west towards the sea. But the large volume of water flowing through the city remains a concern, with the vast Chao Phraya river at record levels and running past high-end hotels, embassies and the Sathorn and Silom areas of the city’s business district.

Water has engulfed two areas, with levels climbing higher than half a metre in the densely populated Bang Phlad district near to the Chao Phraya and closer to the commercial heart. Overloaded trucks shuttled out evacuees from Bang Phlad, gas stations were inundated and shop owners pulled down shutters and added sandbags to makeshift defence walls. “My shop is damaged. I’ve prepared for this, but it’s not enough — there’s too much water,” said grocery store owner Vichit Pookmaitree. As panic grew, shoppers at a central Bangkok hypermarket run by Big C Supercenter Pcl were being restricted to one packet of rice and one tray of eggs. Toilet paper was also being rationed. Bottled water had run out.

The Voice of America reported that authorities in Thailand are turning to desperate measures as they try to prevent the Chao Phraya River from overflowing its banks and inundating central Bangkok. The Thai navy has deployed a fleet of ships to the Chao Phraya and other rivers, where they are using their propellers to try to speed the flow of water through the city to the sea.

Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra said she is no more than 50 percent certain that the city will be spared, despite the navy efforts and constant reinforcement of the embankments. In an address to the nation Tuesday evening, she said that if the embankments fail, the city could be flooded to a depth of 1.5 meters in places. “The flood water levels in Bangkok, due to variation of the plains’ altitude, could range from 10 centimeters to 1.5 meters. We will control the runoff to allow only the least water to enter Bangkok, to flood for the least number of days, and will stop the flow of water in the quickest possible way, by using all the drainage means we have,” said Yingluck.

Update 2011-10-23 – The Chao Phraya River has burst its banks and water levels have risen in some of Bangkok’s northern suburbs.

Despite assurances by Flood Relief Operations Command that the river’s spillover could be drained off, reported by The Associated Press, Thai troops raced to fortify defense walls Sunday to protect two key industrial zones. Bangkok authorities said city residents should brace for more high tides in the coming week, which could cause rivers to back up.

Floodwaters had spilled onto highways north of the capital, including near Bangkok’s second airport in the Don Muang district, the AP reports, adding that the situation was “dire” away from the highways. Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra said: “Water is coming from different places and headed in the same direction. We’re trying to build walls but there will be some impact on Bangkok.” High tide in the Gulf of Thailand by the end of the week could complicate the situation.

Thailand’s worst flooding in half a century has affected a third of the country and has been bearing down on Bangkok since early last week. Twenty-eight of 77 provinces and 2.46 million people are affected, with water covering an area the size of Kuwait. Yingluck said on Saturday it could take as long as six weeks for the water to subside. Since late July, 356 people have been killed and at least 113,000 moved to more than 1,700 makeshift shelters.

The full force of the flooding has hit central provinces and those on the edge of Bangkok, where water levels have reached as high as three meters, with vehicles completely submerged and some residents believed to be stranded in their homes. The northern Bangkok districts of Don Muang and Lak Si were inundated on Sunday after floodwater spilled out of the Prapa canal. Boats and cars were seen side by side on a main road, with people seen wading through water or boarding trucks for evacuation as water levels were up to two meters in some parts. Thai television showed footage of a two-meter long crocodile caught by authorities in a residential area.

An aerial view of a flooded area in Nonthaburi province October 12, 2011. Photo: Reuters / Sukree Sukplang

Update 20111021 – Thailand battled to protect the capital Bangkok from being swamped by water on Friday, with canals full to the brim after devastating floods across the region that sources in neighboring Myanmar said had killed at least 100 people there. Reuters has reported that after trying to hold the line for a week, the Thai government opened some canals on Thursday to allow water to run through the inner city, carrying the risk of inundating some districts but relieving pressure on dikes.

At least 100 bodies had been found in the low-lying parts of central Myanmar along the Irrawaddy River, with at least 100 more missing after floods and torrential rains since Wednesday, according to a reliable source in Pakokku, about 450 km (280 miles) north of the biggest city, Yangon. The source requested anonymity and cited information provided by a local administration official. Residents contacted by Reuters in Monywa and Kyaukse towns said there was damage to property and crops, but could not confirm casualties.

Villagers built a wooden bridge in a flooded temple complex in Nonthaburi province, on the outskirts of Bangkok October 16, 2011. Photo: Reuters / Chaiwat Subprasom

Government officials in Thailand were not available for comment and state-controlled media made no mention of the rains and floods. The floods have also killed at least 247 in Cambodia and displaced tens of thousands of people. The floods are the worst in Thailand in five decades and have killed at least 342 people since July and devastated industrialized areas to the north of Bangkok.

The crisis is the first real test for politically inexperienced Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, whose government has had to form uneasy alliances with the military and political rivals to coordinate the relief effort. Bangkok’s metropolitan authority is controlled by the opposition Democrat Party, while the military has a frosty relationship with the ruling Puea Thai Party because of its de facto leader and Yingluck’s brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, the self-exiled former premier overthrown by the army in 2006.

The flood problem was building even before she took office in early August and looks set to cost industry more than $3 billion, slashing economic growth this year. The 44-year-old former businesswoman is resisting calls to declare a state of emergency, saying authorities are able to manage.

A man carries his daughter through flooded streets in Pathum Thani province, on the outskirts of Bangkok Oct 18, 2011. Photo: China Daily/Agencies

20111020 – The floods across South-East Asia have hit Thailand particularly hard and floodwaters are now threatening Bangkok, home to more than 9 million people.

The region expects monsoon rains at this time of year, but not of the intensity of the past few weeks, as The Economist has pointed out. Over 270 people have been killed, about 700,000 homes destroyed or damaged and large areas of the central plains region have been inundated.

Prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra has been touring the flooded areas. But her government’s response has been criticised as tardy and ineffective. The longer-term economic consequences of the floods have been estimated by the University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce (UTCC) at as high as 150 billion baht ($4.8 billion), and that total will rise significantly if Bangkok is badly affected. The rice-growing areas of the rural north have been hardest hit; more than 3.4m acres (1.4m hectares) of farmland are already under water.

Residents walk through flooded streets in Pathum Thani province, on the outskirts of Bangkok Oct 18, 2011. Photo: China Daily/Agencies

Here is a set of reports by The Nation, Thailand’s leading English newspaper, which helps explain the calamity:

A close aide to former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra yesterday suggested that the government immediately revise its flood-prevention plan to protect the inner city areas from severe flooding. Sudarat Keyuraphan, in her capacity as an adviser to the government’s Flood Relief Operation Centre (FROC), said her plan calls for releasing floodwater from upstream provinces into Nakhon Nayok and Chachoengsao to the east of Bangkok, and allowing some areas of the city to be flooded. “Bangkok has to accept part of the water in order to help reduce the burden,” Sudarat said. She added that FROC chief Pracha Promnok has agreed to her idea and that she would later raise the matter with Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra.

UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) situation map of Bangkok floods, 17 October 2011

She warned that the government’s current plan of blocking the floodwater in upstream provinces would only help increase the water pressure. Any leak in the temporary flood walls could lead to severe flooding in Bangkok’s central areas, including the Victory Monument. “We now need to brainstorm to release the 10,000-plus million cubic metres of water into the sea as soon as possible. We can’t allow the water to mass up and attack Bangkok,” the banned politician said.

A woman sells rubber boots in a flooded street in Rangsit near Bangkok Oct 18, 2011. Thailand's cabinet met on Tuesday to discuss the mounting economic cost of floods that have killed 315 people, and residents of Bangkok were told not to drop their guard even if the immediate danger to the capital had passed. Photo: China Daily/Agencies

Kohlak Charoenruk, deputy chairman of the National Disaster Warning Committee, yesterday called on the prime minister to decide whether to allow floodwaters from upstream provinces to naturally pass Bangkok’s Chao Phraya River and canals into the sea. He said that the government’s attempt to keep the massive floodwater in provinces north of Bangkok would only help increase the water pressure. “It’s the nature of water to flow downstream into the sea. When you block a lot of water, it will mass up to become a tsunami and could finally hit Bangkok,” he said. He added that Bangkok is on a natural channel for the water from upstream to flow into the sea.

About 1.2 billion cubic metres of water are expected to sweep around Rangsit Canal. A massive run-off from the North is bearing down on Bangkok faster than expected and should reach Rangsit Canal tonight, Governor Sukhumbhand Paribatra said yesterday.

Cartoon in The Nation expressing the frustration of flood-affected residents with their government. The woman in Burberry boots is prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra.

He said all the sluice gates of Canals 1-12 were opened. The water from submerged Nava Nakorn Industrial Estate would arrive first followed by the water from Rapeepat Canal. The flood is expected to surge into Canal 2 and Hok Wa Canal, the frontline defence of the capital, tomorrow.

Sukhumbhand earlier urged 200 households along Hok Wa Canal to seek shelter at Ritthiyawannalai 2 School, which could accommodate 1,000 people.  He also told residents in seven at-risk districts to move their belongings and electric sockets to higher elevations and prepare for evacuation. The seven districts are Sai Mai, Bang Khen, Khlong Sam Wa, Nong Chok, Min Buri, Lat Krabang and Khan Na Yao. He said 1.2 billion cubic metres of water were expected to sweep over areas around Rangsit Canal, which could handle only 400 million cubic metres. Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra said construction of flood barriers along Rangsit-Pathum Thani Road north of Bangkok has almost been completed.

The situation in Nonthaburi’s Bang Bua Thong and Pak Kret districts was critical yesterday, as a massive volume of water suddenly flowed into the municipality area and markets, inundating hundreds of vehicles and causing residents to flee their homes. Most of the six districts in the province were being hit by huge run-offs from provinces to the north such as Ayutthaya and Pathum Thani, said Nonthaburi Governor Wichian Phuttiwinyu.

Thai soldiers try to protect the highway as floods advance into Rangsit near Bangkok Oct 18, 2011. Photo: China Daily/Agencies

“The problem is that we cannot estimate how much water will enter our area. We are familiar with the levels of the Chao Phraya River, but this time it’s very abnormal, as we don’t know when and where it will arrive,” he said. The inundated area in Nonthaburi was expanding to Bang Yai and Bang Kruay districts yesterday.

Much of the province was turned from agricultural land into residential areas during the boom years of the real-estate business. Many areas, notably along the western bank of the Chao Phraya, have been connected by canals, resulting in a speedy flow of water. Bang Bua Thong was in fact first hit last week, but the authorities built barricades to keep water from flowing into municipality areas and markets.

However, the sandbag barrier failed to prevent water breaking through yesterday and a massive volume flowed into the inner part of the district, notably the area near Wat Lahan and Bang Bua Thong Hospital. As of yesterday, almost 100 per cent of Bang Bua Thong district was inundated, said Somchit Chandaen, former chief of the Tambon Bang Bua Thong Administration Organisation. The deepest water was as high as 2.5 metres above ground, he said.

The UN has a number of agencies coordinating flood relief efforts in Thailand. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) told reporters in Geneva that a UN Disaster Assessment and Coordination (UNDAC) team was on standby to deploy in the stricken countries if requested. The UN Development Programme (UNDP) offered support to the Thai Government to deal with the floods that have killed more than 280 people and affected more than two million since July. More than 80 per cent of the country’s 76 provinces have been affected, and in excess of 900 industrial plants and farmland inundated.

Residents and a dog make their way through floods as they leave Nava Nakorn industrial estate in Pathum Thani province, suburb of Bangkok Oct 18, 2011. Photo: China Daily/Agencies

The UN has been in regular contact with the authorities, including the Thai Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation, and has been monitoring the humanitarian and development impacts of the floods. According to the country’s irrigation authorities, 11 out of the 26 major dams in Thailand currently hold more water than their established capacity, while others are between 82 and 99 per cent full and the excess water needs to be released, which must in turn necessitate more evacuations of people downstream.

UNDP has boosted its capacity to assist the people of Thailand, setting aside both financial and technical emergency resources, and will continue to work with the Government to support the country’s longer-term recovery and rehabilitation. At the weekend, the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Valerie Amos, warned that the flood disaster in South-East Asia could worsen with river levels still rising and heavy rainfall forecast. Some 700 lives have been lost in Cambodia and Thailand, while in Laos, the Philippines and Viet Nam, homes, crops and vital infrastructure have been destroyed. Millions of people living in low-lying areas remain vulnerable to further destruction, a UNDP spokesperson said.

Food speculation – 450 economists tell the G20 to take action, now

The World Development Movement has been bringing to public attention, and to policymakers in Britain, the effects of financial market speculation in food. Recently, a WDM campaign group circulated a letter amongst economists in all countries addressed to the finance ministers of the countries that make up the G20. They met in Paris, France, on 15 October.

I am honoured to be amongst the 450 who have signed the statement. Those who have lent their names to the statement are amongst a group of economists, social scientists, academics and activists who are witnessing – every day no matter where they live – the impacts of relentless food inflation on the lives of poor households whether urban or rural. This statement is one way to remind the G20 powers of their social responsibilities.

Here follows the text of the letter, which is available on the original site here:

11 October 2011

Dear G20 Finance Ministers,

We write to you ahead of the October meeting of the G20 Finance Ministers to urge you to commit with your counterparts to take effective action to curb excessive speculation on food commodities. Excessive financial speculation is contributing to increasing volatility and record high food prices, exacerbating global hunger and poverty.

While there are many pressures on food prices, fundamental changes in supply and demand cannot fully account for the dramatic price fluctuations that have occurred in recent years.

In June, a report for the G20 by international organisations including the IMF and the OECD noted that “too much speculation can cause frequent and erratic price changes” in futures markets.

Evidence suggests that financial speculators are less likely to make trading decisions based on information regarding supply and demand and are more prone to herding behaviours than commercial traders. Excessive speculation undermines the price discovery function of futures markets, driving real prices away from levels determined by supply and demand.

The High Level Panel of Experts on food security for the Committee on World Food Security at the FAO reported in July that “tighter regulation of speculation is necessary.” The panel suggested that “Increasing transparency, by requiring exchange trading and clearing of most agricultural commodity contracts, and setting lower limits for noncommercial actors could be the first set of measures taken by the countries that house major commodity exchanges.”

Increasing market transparency is vital, but will not go far enough to tackle excessive financial speculation. We therefore urge you to support the establishment of position limits to cap the proportion of agricultural commodity derivatives markets that can be  held by financial speculators.

Limits could be set at a level that would maintain sufficient liquidity in the markets while preventing an excessive concentration of purely financial actors. The US has already passed legislation including provisions to introduce such limits and the G20 should act to prevent regulatory arbitrage between exchanges.

Position limits would be more effective in tackling excessive speculation than position management powers, which rely on the use of judgement by exchanges and provide little assurance that powers will be exercised effectively. Clear limits would provide regulatory certainty, promoting stable and sustainable derivatives markets to the benefit of food producers, consumers and broader economic stability.

With around 1 billion people enduring chronic hunger worldwide, action is urgently needed to curb excessive speculation and its effects on global food prices.

Yours sincerely,

FAO’s World Food Day sermon, well balanced with a few blind spots

This is worth a close read for it reflects, in my view, the pull and tug of various opinions and convictions inside the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the single entity that we rely on the most to inform us about the state of cultivators, what they’re growing in our world, and who isn’t getting enough of those crops as food.

I have extracted some important paragraphs of this publication [get it here as a pdf], and commented on them. Here goes:

“At the level of individuals, people living on less than US$1.25 a day may need to skip a meal when food prices rise. Farmers are hurt too because they badly need to know the price their crops are going to fetch at harvest time, months away. If high prices are likely they plant more. If low prices are forecast they plant less and cut costs.”

Yes and no. The one-dollar-a-day global poverty line really ought to be done away with. It means nothing at national level and less within countries. Trying to equate real prices and actual consumption (in grams or hundred grams a day) with purchasing power parity-adjusted international dollars is generally a pointless exercise that generates lists and rankings that distract rather than inform. Anyway, the important part of what FAO said here is that when they’re under a certain daily income line, people can’t buy food to eat what they need to. The comment on farmers making decisions based on expected prices is a good one, something that most people miss, assuming that farmers are as interested in food security as academics are – which is quite untrue. For a farming household, sowing a field is a cost, and that cost needs to be more than recouped in order to make the decision to sow a good one.

“Rapid price swings make that calculation much more difficult. Farmers can easily end up producing too much or too little. In stable markets they can make a living. Volatile ones can ruin them while also generally discouraging much-needed investment in agriculture. Recognizing the major threat that food price swings pose to the world’s poorest countries and people, the international community, led by the G20, moved in 2011 to find ways of managing volatility on international food commodity markets. Under the presidency of France’s Nicolas Sarkozy, the world’s 20 largest economies agreed that any strategy directed to that purpose should have the protection of vulnerable countries and groups as its main priority.”

Now here’s the FAO getting to grips with today’s problem. Rapid price swings is what we tend to call volatility – this can be volatility in retail food prices, or in input prices for farmers, or in offtake (purchase at the farm gate or local market) prices of harvested crops. I don’t see any stable markets the FAO is referring to here. Under Europe’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) the stability is constructed by coordinating a monstrous array of incentives and subventions – causing instability elsewhere in the world and particularly when that ‘elsewhere’ is importing (under duress) European agri products and processed food. But that’s another though related story.

The idea of “much-needed investment in agriculture” is an ill-defined one. The best investment a farmer can make, so goes an old Indian proverb, is that she walks the soil of her field every day with her bare feet – and that means for the farmer to till her land and come face to face with her natural resources and biodiversity. It is not the sort of investment the ‘market’ can understand. But FAO ought to, especially since it also has a Save And Grow programme aimed at addressing the organic, low input, community side of cultivation. This is an example of the contradictions in this FAO document. The “international community” is a tired and non-existent label, describing nothing while pretending to be collegial. Mediocre editorial writers still use it but no realists do. The G20 statement this time around may be a little less wishy-washy than it was last year, but that is scant comfort to the hungry or to the cultivators of small plots.

“Today’s turbulent commodities markets contrast sharply with the situation that characterized the last 25 years of the twentieth century. Between 1975 and 2000 cereal prices remained substantially stable on a month-to-month basis, although trending downwards over the longer term. For despite rapid population growth – world population doubled between 1960 and 2000 – the Green Revolution launched by Dr Norman Borlaug in the 1960s helped food supply to meet and even exceed demand in many countries, including India, thanks to the work of M. S. Swaminathan, then Director of the Indian Agricultural Research Institute.”

Oh dear. This is one step forward and three back for the FAO. It should not – not – go looking at Green Revolution history in an attempt to encourage beleaguered small farmers and consumers battered by food price inflation. Yes, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and CIMMYT (the CGIAR International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre) will establish the Borlaug Institute for South Asia in India. This institute will be at the forefront of the so-called Second Green Revolution in eastern India (and thereafter sub-Saharan and East Africa). The kind of infrastructure demanded by the first Green Revolution by way of irrigation canals, dams with extensive command areas, provision of rural electricity to run pumpsets with, heavily subsidised inorganic fertilisers produced by a monolithic industry closely allied to the petro-chemicals industry and fossil fuel suppliers – all these were overlooked in the rush to raise yield per hectare. We do not want to see that being attempted again with public monies. It is this investment – rather this big fat public money pipe – which kept cereal prices “substantially stable on a month-to-month basis” in what used to be called the First World. It is not possible there now, it is not possible here (Asia and Africa) now. And that’s what FAO should have said, clearly and bluntly.

“In fact there was, in the Western Hemisphere at least, an over-abundance of food, caused in no small part by the generous subsidies which OECD countries paid to their farmers. But the picture today is a very different one. The global market is tight, with supply struggling to keep pace with demand and stocks are at or near historical lows. It is a delicate balance that can easily be upset by shocks such as droughts or floods in key producing regions.”

So it does try to say this, in a push-me-pull-you sort of way, but the truth is there is no delicate balance. Markets do not tolerate delicate balances because investors have no time for such niceties.

“In order to decide how, and how far, we can manage volatile food prices we need to be clear about why, in the space of a few years, a world food market offering stability and low prices became a turbulent marketplace battered by sudden price spikes and troughs.”

Hear, hear.

“The seeds of today’s volatility were sown last century when decision-makers failed to grasp that the production boom then enjoyed by many countries might not last forever and that continuing investment was needed in research, technology, equipment and infrastructure. In the 30 years from 1980 to date the share of official development assistance which OECD countries earmarked for agriculture dropped 43 percent. Continued under-funding of agriculture by rich and poor countries alike is probably the main single cause of the problems we face today.”

Why does the FAO continue stubbornly to see “investment” as an output of only, and exclusively, national agricultural research systems that are in the vast majority of countries government departments with little real connection to growers and household consumers, or are adjuncts of industrial agriculture multinationals? The seeds of volatility (FAO’s pun, not mine) were planted when commodity exchanges invented commodity futures in collusion with banks and investment consulting companies – production booms were not, in the ecological economics framework of measuring things, booms of any kind, nor were they seen in many countries other than the subvention-drunk OECD of the 1970s and 1980s. In this para, FAO has blundered clumsily by now apportioining some blame to “continued under-funding” while having already mentioned the “generous subsidies” years in the West.

“Contributing to today’s tight markets is rapid economic growth in emerging economies, which means more people are eating more meat and dairy produce with the need for feedgrains increasing rapidly as a result. Global trade in soymeal, the world’s leading protein feed for animals, has grown 67 percent over the past 10 years.”

Hear, hear. Type 2 diabetes and the burden of non-communicable diseases (see the WHO’s recent campaign) have also increased dramatically as a result of the wanton carpet-bombing of “emerging economies” (another revolting label) by the food-agbiotech-retail MNCs.

“Population growth, with almost 80 million new mouths to feed every year, is another important element. Population pressure is compounded by the erratic and often extreme meteorological phenomena produced by global warming and climate change. A further contributing factor may be the recent entry of institutional investors with very large sums of money into food commodity futures markets. There is evidence to suggest that food prices may have surged partly as a result of speculation. But there is considerable debate over the issue.”

Yes and no. FAO is right about the impact of population growth, about climate change (it has an enormous amount of documentation on the subject), about institutional investors and how they distort prices and about food speculation and its effects on street prices. There is plenty of evidence. There is not “considerable debate”, unless the FAO thinks that the angry bleatings of bankers to the contrary is some sort of debate. If so, it should consult its fellow UN agency, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), which this year released a study titled ‘Price Formation in Financialized Commodity Markets: The Role of Information’. The UNCTAD experts who wrote this paper concluded that the commodities market isn’t functioning properly, or at least not the way a market is supposed to function in economic models, where prices are shaped by supply and demand. But the activities of financial participants, according to the study, “drive commodity prices away from levels justified by market fundamentals”. This leads to massively distorted prices, which are not influenced by real factors but by the expectation that economic developments will improve or worsen.

“Lastly, distortive agricultural and protectionist trade policies bear a significant part of the blame. In addition, with agriculture now substantially part of the wider energy market, any shock to the latter – such as unrest in a producing country – can have immediate repercussions on food prices. Responding to food price volatility therefore involves two different kinds of measures. The first group addresses volatility itself, aiming to reduce price swings through specific interventions while the other seeks to mitigate the negative effects of price swings on countries and individuals. One measure frequently invoked under the first heading is the setting up of an internationally held food stock able to intervene on markets to stabilize prices. But FAO’s view is that such a stock would be of dubious value, as well as expensive and difficult to operate. Also, government intervention in food markets discourages the private sector and hinders competition.”

Again the FAO push-me-pull-you is at work here, but the premier food agency has made some important points. The connection between agriculture and energy is one – and that means biofuels, which has a para to itself in the FAO document. Conflict is also brought in as a factor affecting prices – in how many food-producing and exporting countries is there now war or armed conflict? The idea of ‘strategic food reserves’ – which countries in South-east Asia and in the Persian Gulf region are pursuing – has been given short shrift, rightly in my view. But once again the FAO makes a tired attempt to placate the pro-WTO groups by bemoaning protectionist trade policies – which in WTO-speak means no barriers to entry for OECD food products anywhere so that all that accumulated legacy subsidy can pay back a little. Not acceptable, FAO folks. And to round off the contradictory para, the FAO statement again criticises “government intervention” as hindering competition. Governments have to serve their citizens according to constitutions and charters – these are internal matters and this is where sovereignty and self-determination come before market. Better believe it FAO. At least, for now.

World food insecurity report 2011 – expect more of the same

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the World Food Programme (WFP) have released ‘The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2011’ (SOFI).

This year’s report focuses on high and volatile food prices, identified as major contributing factors in food insecurity at global level and a source of grave concern to the international community. “Demand from consumers in rapidly growing economies will increase, the population continues to grow, and further growth in biofuels will place additional demands on the food system,” the report said.

Moreover, food price volatility may increase over the next decade due to stronger linkages between agricultural and energy markets and more frequent extreme weather events.

Price volatility makes both smallholder farmers and poor consumers increasingly vulnerable to poverty while short-term price changes can have long-term impacts on development, the report found. Changes in income due to price swings that lead to decreased food consumption can reduce children’s intake of key nutrients during the first 1000 days of life from conception, leading to a permanent reduction of their future earning capacity and an increased likelihood of future poverty, with negative impacts on entire economies.

Key Messages

Small import-dependent countries, especially in Africa, were deeply affected by the food and economic crises. Some large countries were able to insulate themselves from the crisis through restrictive trade policies and functioning safety nets, but trade restrictions increased prices and volatility on international markets.

High and volatile food prices are likely to continue. Demand from consumers in rapidly growing economies will increase, population will continue to grow, and further growth in biofuels will place additional demands on the food system. On the supply side, there are challenges due to increasingly scarce natural resources in some regions, as well as declining rates of yield growth for some commodities. Food price volatility may increase due to stronger linkages between agricultural and energy markets, as well as an increased frequency of weather shocks.

Price volatility makes both smallholder farmers and poor consumers increasingly vulnerable to poverty. Because food represents a large share of farmer income and the budget of poor consumers, large price changes have large effects on real incomes. Thus, even short episodes of high prices for consumers or low prices for farmers can cause productive assets – land and livestock, for example – to be sold at low prices, leading to potential poverty traps. In addition, smallholder farmers are less likely to invest in measures to raise productivity when price changes are unpredictable.

Large short-term price changes can have long-term impacts on development. Changes in income due to price swings can reduce children’s consumption of key nutrients during the first 1,000 days of life from conception, leading to a permanent reduction of their future earning capacity, increasing the likelihood of future poverty and thus slowing the economic development process.

High food prices worsen food insecurity in the short term. The benefits go primarily to farmers with access to sufficient land and other resources, while the poorest of the poor buy more food than they produce. In addition to harming the urban poor, high food prices also hurt many of the rural poor, who are typically net food buyers. The diversity of impacts within countries also points to a need for improved data and policy analysis.

High food prices present incentives for increased long-term investment in the agriculture sector, which can contribute to improved food security in the longer term. Domestic food prices increased substantially in most countries during the 2006–08 world food crisis at both retail and farmgate levels. Despite higher fertilizer prices, this led to a strong supply response in many countries. It is essential to build upon this short-term supply response with increased investment in agriculture, including initiatives that target smallholder farmers and help them to access markets, such as Purchase for Progress (P4P).

Safety nets are crucial for alleviating food insecurity in the short term, as well as for providing a foundation for long-term development. In order to be effective at reducing the negative consequences of price volatility, targeted safety-net mechanisms must be designed in advance and in consultation with the most vulnerable people.

A food-security strategy that relies on a combination of increased productivity in agriculture, greater policy predictability and general openness to trade will be more effective than other strategies. Restrictive trade policies can protect domestic prices from world market volatility, but these policies can also result in increased domestic price volatility as a result of domestic supply shocks, especially if government policies are unpredictable and erratic. Government policies that are more predictable and that promote participation by the private sector in trade will generally decrease price volatility.

Investment in agriculture remains critical to sustainable long-term food security. For example, cost-effective irrigation and improved practices and seeds developed through agricultural research can reduce the production risks facing farmers, especially smallholders, and reduce price volatility. Private investment will form the bulk of the needed investment, but public investment has a catalytic role to play in supplying public goods that the private sector will not provide. These investments should consider the rights of existing users of land and related natural resources.

Occupy Everywhere

The Occupy Wall St movement is spreading quickly across the USA. Mother Jones magazine has put together an interactive map on where the protests are spreading to, and at last count there were over 60 locations!

An Occupy Wall Street protester yells at police officers as they make arrests in New York, Wednesday, Oct. 5, 2011. Protesters in suits and T-shirts with union slogans left work early to march with activists who have been camped out in Zuccotti Park for days. Photo: Seth Wenig

The ‘Occupy’ demonstrations are the blowback – long overdue – of the foreign-plus-financial policy of a great power which has for long dampened criticsm and fair a representative politics at home.

The ‘Occupy’ demonstrations express a broader public understanding that the basic source of the crisis facing millions of people lies in the social interests of the sprawling and powerful global financial system – of which Wall St is one symbol; a powerful symbol but nevertheless one amongst many similar symbols.

Dogged by debt and haunted by ever newer forms of deprivation, the American protesters have ‘taken’ Wall St to call and end to the reign of the giant banks that dominate the US and world economy. Their politics is determined not by the popular will, but by the interests of a cunning financial aristocracy ruthlessly absorbed with defending its wealth by impoverishing the majority of their fellow citizens.

The answer – Occupy Everywhere!

Mother Jones has provided a very useful timeline of the Occupy Wall Street movement:

• July 13: The Canadian magazine Adbusters makes a call to Occupy Wall Street.
• August 30: The hacktivist collective known as Anonymous releases a video answering the call and encouraging others to follow suit.
• September 17: Nearly 1,000 gather to protest corporate greed and begin occupying the financial district in New York City.
• September 19: Roseanne Barr is the first celebrity to lend support to the so-called NYC General Assembly.
• September 20: The NYPD starts arresting protestors for wearing masks, citing an arcane law that prohibits masked gatherings of two or more people with an exception: “a masquerade party or like entertainment.”  The police soon become more forceful.
• September 22: Demonstrators interrupt a Sotheby’s Auction, “in a show of solidarity with the art handler’s union that had been locked out.” This is the first instance of labor unions and the movement locking step.
• September 24: 80 protestors are arrested during a peaceful march; a video of a police officer pepper-spraying a nonthreatening woman goes viral.
• September 26: Anonymous allegedly leaks the name and details of the police officer who wielded the pepper spray.
• September 27: The Occupy Wall Street campaign comes out in support of postal workers who are protesting their reduced five-day work week.
• September 28: Transport Workers Union votes to support Occupy Wall Street; over 700 Continental and United Airline pilots demonstrate in front of Wall Street.
• September 30: More than 1,000 demonstrators march on NYPD headquarters, protesting the police response against the demonstrators.
• October 1: Over 700 demonstrators are arrested for marching across the Brooklyn Bridge and blocking traffic.
• October 5: Major labor unions endorse the movement and join in a march on New York’s financial district. According to ABC News, as many as 15,000 participate in the march.

The New York Observer has 50 portraits of people who have been in on the action in New York City. The Nation‘s Greg Mitchell is blogging “Occupy USA” developments daily. The Guardian is also producing ongoing coverage.

How the Occupy Wall Street movement uses social media:

• Live footage of Zuccotti Park can be found at the protest epicenter’s viral webstream, Global Revolution.
• The #occupywallstreet hashtag (as well as #ows and #occupywallst) has been the main engine on Twitter.
• OccupyTogether.org supplies a range of DIY downloadable posters.
• There is an Occupy Wall Street social app called The Vibe, which allows demonstrators to communicate anonymously.
• An Occupy Wall Street publication was launched on Kickstarter, originally asking for $12,000 in seed money to get the publication rolling. The project surpassed its funding goal and has now raised over $40,000.
• A Tumblr account, We Are the 99%, allows users to post personal anecdotes and stories about why they consider themselves part of the economically disaffected majority.

Why the global consultants want to see more Asian megacities

The urbanisation-mongers say that more than 20 of the world’s top 50 cities ranked by GDP will be located in Asia by the year 2025, up from 8 in 2007.

The mantra of urbanisation has been at the forefront of the exploitative and socially destructive economics of the last 20 years.

In recent years it has been chanted loudest by the global consulting firms – the same ones which audit the books of the banks that collapse, taking small savers’ money with them, and the books of the Wall Street firms, which destroy jobs and abet the plunder of resources the world over.

Why are they saying this? Let’s look at what one of these firms, McKinsey, has been saying about urbanisation (this firm has concentrated heavily on pushing urban finance, and is lobbying hard with Asian governments to do as it recommends).

“Asia’s growing economic power manifests itself in many ways,” McKinsey has said. “Back in 2007, for example, only 8 of the top 50 urban areas (by GDP) were located there. Half of global GDP came from the developed world’s top 380 cities, with 20-plus percent from just 190 North American ones.”

The urbanisation-mongers say that in this new landscape of urban economic power, Shanghai and Beijing will outrank Los Angeles and London, while Mumbai and Doha will surpass Munich and Denver.

Over the next 15 years, McKinsey has said, the urban centre of gravity will move south and east. In the geography of globalisation, South means South Asia and India, East means China.

By 2025, this forecast posits that Asia will have upward of 20 of the top 50 cities, and Shanghai and Beijing will have GDPs higher than those of Los Angeles and London, according to this city-obsessed firm.

Why are they saying this? Pushing urbanisation means getting into one administrative unit more workers and more consumers at once. It means markets for goods and services (think finance, insurance, health, education) that are easier to reach and easier to shoehorn into uniform regulations.

The urbanisation-mongers say that the implications for companies’ growth priorities, countries’ economic relationships, and the world’s sustainability strategy are profound. They're right, and we must beware.

It also means creating nuclei for rural migrants, who will be gradually but inexorably pushed out of their villages as the costs and burdens of smallholder farming become more unbearable, and as the levels of rural food and fuel inflation become more unendurable.

The success of the urbanisation that McKinsey and its peers and the collaborators in government want depends on the steady depopulating of the rural districts of our countries, the abandoning of land that will then be taken over by corporate and industrial agriculture which will then supply crop monocultures to the food processing industries and retail systems designed to feed the miserable millions in crammed, unlivable cities.

World Risk Report 2011 – which world and whose risk?

This is a document which does much to ensure that there is a North-South development divide and which also ensures that the flow of ‘aid’, of ‘development’ theory and of ‘development’ competence is one way only – North to South.

In the World Risk Report 2011, the philosophy of this view of the world is as much political as it is racially biased. I’m sorry for having to say that as bluntly as that, but there’s no getting around it or away from it. You can’t dress it up in pseudo-scientific gibberish and expect readers in the Brown and Black Two-Thirds World not to notice.

This philosophy is contained in the six maps that describe, in this strange way, ‘risk’ to the countries of the world. As you can see, the pinks which represent risk are overwhelmingly in Africa and Asia and in general in countries of the South. The green hues represent little or no ‘risk’ and are used to shade the countries of the North – USA, western Europe, the OECD countries.

I have extracted the maps and provide their titles so as to better understand why ‘aid’, ‘development’, ‘technical assistance’ and ‘knowledge’ flows the way it does, helped along its magnetic North-to-South channels by arm-twisting, by WTO, by the World bank and International Monetary Fund and their lesser lending cousins in all continents, and particularly by the thousands of economists who have been installed in the countries of the South, who have been trained and programmed by these institutions, and who are the purveyors of disastrous neo-liberal economics and social destruction from Manila to Morocco.

Internationial aid agencies and their partners large and small will use documents such as this and indices of misery such as this to deepen the dependencies of the poor, the marginalised, the vulnerable and the voiceless in the South, photographs of whom in poster size will nevertheless adorn the walls of Northern exhibitions and collaborationist Southern conclaves.

On to the maps. These are captioned with their titles and followed by short commentaries guided by the experiences of our ‘developing’ peoples and their tribal roots.

Map 1 – “susceptibility, dependent on public infrastructure, nutrition, income and the general economic framework”. What we say: True, true, public infrastructure in the Brown and Black Two-Thirds World is lousy, fly-ridden and stinks. But, comrades, have you noticed how the working classes of the First World have, for well over a decade now, been complaining mightily about privatisation and its ills? Susceptibility to nutrition? Why, now, we didn’t invent Starbucks and KFC did we? We’re the ones who like our indigenous millets and tasteful tubers to be untouched by GM. Income? No we’re flat broke. But listen to the moanings of the European Central Bank these days and you’ll notice we’ve plenty of company.

Map 2 – “lack of coping capacities, dependent on governance, medical care and material security”. What we say: Let’s take this governance thing first shall we. You comrades in the First World long ago, for reasons unknown to us but risky in the extreme, ditched your tribal roots and turned to markets and finance and supermarket shopping carts. Shame you did, for that was the abandoning, the throwing away, of the original caring sharing wise governance that’s brought humans through generations. Coping capacities is a good one. We hereby solemnly invite all friendly First World comrades to come and spend a week in our shanty towns, our barrios and our favelas where they can learn what coping is and how to go about it. For medical care we recommend to you a journey to Havana, Cuba. For material security we recommend to you a rereading of any holy book of your choice.

Map 3 – “lack of adaptive capacities, related to future natural events and climate change”. What we say: Comrades and friends, we don’t sadly have as many shamans, diviners and ancient wise folk as we used to, but we can surely tell you this: future natural events and climate change is not going to choose between us and you, and you and them. We’re all in this together, you with your food coupons and us with our kitchen gardens. Adaptive? I do think we’ve got that covered good and proper.

Map 4 – “exposure, of the population to the natural hazards, earthquakes, storms, floods, droughts and sea level rise”. What we say: Friends and fellow inhabitants of Gaia, if we stop making Mother Earth angry every single day, She may relent. It’s up to you too. Oh and as for exposure, we’re used to it, you’re not, sad but true.

Map 5 – “vulnerability, of society as the sum of susceptibility, lack of coping capacities and lack of adaptive capacities”. What we say: Well, we’ve had quite enough of these colour combinations now. Our sincere and heartfelt advice is that you turn us all the same shade of pink, or turn us all the same shade of green. But that will ruin the difference between Us and Those Danged Others, you protest. Dear comrades, we do share the same air, water and sky. It’s about time you stopped seeing people coloured differently and started seeing people.

Map 6 – “world risk index as the result of exposure and vulnerability”. What we say: We must correct you. The real risk is to your perception, friends, which you can remedy by coming to live with us and learning our ways.

More about the World Risk Report 2011 – “The Bündnis Entwicklung Hilft (Alliance Development Works) publishes the World Risk Report to examine these issues at the global level and to draw conclusions for future actions in assistance, policy and reporting. The core of the World Risk Report is the World Risk Index, which was developed on behalf of the Bündnis Entwicklung Hilft by the United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security in Bonn, Germany. The World Risk Index indicates the probability that a country or region will be affected by a disaster. The index is the result of close cooperation between scientists and practitioners. Experts in the analysis of natural hazards and vulnerability research as well as practitioners of development cooperation and humanitarian aid have discussed and developed the concept of the index. Globally available data are used to represent the disaster risk for the countries concerned.”

“In the framework of the World Risk Index, disaster risk is analysed as a complex interplay of natural hazards and social, political and environmental factors. Unlike current approaches that focus strongly on the analysis of the various natural hazards, the World Risk Index, in addition to exposure analysis, focuses on the vulnerability of the population, i.e. its susceptibility, its capacities to cope with and to adapt to future natural events as well as the consequences of climate change. Disaster risk is seen as a function of exposure and vulnerability. The national states are the frame of reference for the analysis.”

[World Risk Report 2011, Published by Bündnis Entwicklung Hilft (Alliance Development Works) of Germany in cooperation with: United Nations University, Institute for Environment and Human Security, Bonn (UNU-EHS)]