The Power of Food Insecurity
BY MOLLY MCGREGOR
When the Arab Spring movements in the Middle East began suddenly in late 2010, observers pointed to a myriad of influential factors. These ranged from dictatorial rule to human rights violations, unemployment, and economic decline. Increasingly, however, observers are emphasizing the role of skyrocketing food prices as a major catalyst preceding the political protests. Mohamed Bouazizi, the man whose self-immolation in 2011 catalyzed the Tunisian revolution, was a food vendor. The price of wheat may have been as much of a factor in the toppling of then President Hosni Mubarak in Egypt as the political corruption and oppression of his regime. In the Middle East, future food prices and related issues of food security are destined to play a crucial role in politics.
The term “food security” is dually defined by the availability and access to food. More specifically, according to Oxford Bibliographies, the term refers to “a state in which adequate amounts of nutritious, safe, and culturally appropriate food to support a healthful diet are available, accessible in a socially acceptable manner, and expected to remain accessible.” Currently, the world is on a dangerous path towards increasing food insecurity. This trend is spreading across the entire globe, but not surprisingly, the developing world is feeling the effects of food insecurity most acutely. Many factors contribute to this problem, but rising costs of food (“agflation”) are the major force behind food insecurity.
Food prices have been on the rise for decades, but in 2007 and 2008, the world saw a massive spike in commodity food prices. Basic staples such as corn and wheat saw as much as 40% increases. Though the global recession slowed the rise in food prices temporarily, by 2011, the elevated trend returned. In developing countries, where citizens are already spending 25% and greater of their total income to purchase food, this global food crisis has been devastating on personal as well as societal levels. In contrast, citizens in developed nations typically spend less than 10% of their income on food consumption. Globally, Oxfam estimates that a 1% increase in food prices could lead to as many as 16 million people falling below the poverty line.
The immediate causes of this recent global food crisis included a combination of droughts and crop failures in grain-exporting countries, a rise in oil prices, and increased production of biofuels in developing nations. In 2006, Australia, the world’s second largest wheat exporter after the United States, dropped its wheat exports from 25 to 10 million tons in the wake of a severe drought. Additionally, the rise in oil prices in the mid-2000s affected food production by increasing the cost of transportation, industrial agriculture, and petroleum products like fertilizer.
In the face of rising oil prices, many nations in Europe and the United States increased their production of biofuels. In doing this, however, these countries reduced the food available for consumption or export on the global market, and contributed to price increases. Not only do these market pressures disproportionately affect poorer nations, but the “food for fuel” policies themselves also reflect a more significant disparity between developed and developing nations: the amount of biofuel it takes to fill an average car’s tank amounts to as much maize (a key food staple in Africa) as an African consumes in an entire year.
While the Middle East is not necessarily the most food insecure region of the world, this region is severely affected by multiple dimensions of food insecurity. The top nine importers of wheat are all Middle Eastern countries, and these nations are less insulated from increases in food prices and inflation because of their dependence on these imports. Because many Middle Eastern nations rely heavily on oil exports for state income, the prospect of reducing oil costs is difficult. According to the International Monetary Fund, as much as one fifth of some Arab state budgets go to subsidizing gasoline and cooking fuel—amounting to more than $200 billion a year overall. This staggering figure, which represents money that could otherwise be used to invest in much needed health, education, and public infrastructure, does not include additional subsidies on food staples themselves.
These dimensions of food security are not new, but they have been worsening, putting significant pressure on societies and their governments. In the Middle East, a prime region for the convergence of food insecurity and political instability, these factors acted as stressors on already strained and politically oppressed populations. The Arab Spring protests unleashed decades-long frustration and anger at ineffective and corrupt regimes; but moving forward, food security and political stability are still problematically intertwined. Variously reformed but weak governments such as those in Libya or Egypt do not have the capacity to address the issues of food security sufficiently. Even as political reforms take place, the food security issue is not going to go away. The political pressure of food will continue.