“We’re in an era where the world and nations ignore the food issue at their peril,” Josette Sheeran (WFP) said in an interview yesterday at the agency’s Rome headquarters.

The global recession has eroded government aid that helped people in poorer countries afford bread, cooking oils and other staples. The trend raises the odds of unrest even though prices have improved in many nations from 2007-2009, Sheeran said. During that period, more than 60 food riots occurred worldwide, according to the U.S. State Department.

The U.N.’s Food Price Index surged to 214.8 in December, exceeding the previous record in 2008 when rising costs and fears of shortages sparked riots from Haiti to Egypt. More than 100 people have died this month in protests in Tunisia against food inflation, unemployment and alleged corruption, according to the U.N., and at least three were killed in Algeria.

Global output of all cereals, including rice, wheat and corn, will drop 1.4 percent to 2.23 billion metric tons this season, while demand will rise 1.8 percent to 2.26 billion tons, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said in December. That will push global stockpiles 6 percent lower to 525 million tons, and mark the first cereal deficit since the 2008 food crisis, according to the U.N. agency data.

The Philippines, the world’s biggest rice importer, will curb sales of the grain from state stockpiles this year and will reduce the size of the inventory to about 30-days worth of consumption, Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala said Dec. 17. Stockpiles were equal to 52 days of consumption in October.

“Many of the world’s subsidy regimes and support regimes have shrunk,” Sheeran said.

Bolivia experienced protests last month over cuts in fuel subsidies that increased gasoline prices as much as 82 percent. The government pledged to use $380 million saved to boost farmers’ incomes.

Malaysia’s inflation rate rose to a 19-month high in December after it reduced subsidies on fuel and sugar in an effort to narrow the budget deficit by more than half in the next five years. The government spends about 73 billion ringgit ($24 billion) a year keeping prices of gasoline, flour, sugar and other essential goods artificially low.

Global food costs jumped 25 percent last year to an all- time high in December because of record sugar and meat prices, according to the UN. Countries probably spent at least $1 trillion on imports, with the poorest paying as much as 20 percent more than in 2009, the UN says.

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The connection between climate and hunger was made abundantly clear this summer when torrential rain lashed Pakistan, causing devastating flooding that submerged farmland, obliterated crops and left 10 million people in need of food aid.

So, one of the reasons why WFP is interested in Cancun is that climate and climate change affect us directly — if there are more floods, droughts and other climate-related disasters in the future, our work load will expand.Another demonstration was this year’s drought in parts of Russia, which caused a significant reduction in the wheat crop. That in turn contributed to higher wheat prices on international markets and the danger that more people in poor countries will find they are struggling to buy the food they need for themselves and their families.

In fact, climate change is expected to add another 10-20% to the total of hungry people by 2050.

Whatever the outcome of the talks in Cancun, climate and weather-related disasters will continue to be a fact of life for many of the world’s poorest.

But one thing that the world can do is to help people adapt to changing weather patterns, help governments prepare strategies to deal with the shocks that climate can cause.

WFP can help because it has sophisticated tools to help governments and communities watch for early signs of natural hazards, prepare for them and take measures to cushion their impact.

Here are three examples of what we’re already doing:

Ethiopia

Working with the Ethiopian government, WFP showed poor farmer Tonkollu Letu and his neighbours how to reverse the vicious cycle of soil erosion and deforestation to make their farms productive again. Thanks to the MERET project, he and his family are now self reliant for food. 

Central America

In Central America, one of the world’s most disaster prone regions, WFP has taken the lead in developing an early warning system. The SATCA system enables humanitarian agencies and national authorities to anticipate and better respond to natural hazards. 

Bangladesh

It’s hard for poor people to build livelihoods that will allow them to escape hunger if their houses keep getting washed away by floods. Julekha, a poor Bangladeshi woman, has finally raised her house out of the reach of floodwaters thanks to a course run by the government and WFP. 

The announcement followed a meeting between Egypt’s First Lady, Suzanne Mubarak, and WFP’s Deputy Executive Director, Sheila Sisulu, in Cairo.

 “Feeding Minds: 1,000 Days Plus” will take place in Alexandria from 21 to 22 February 2011 at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, hosted by Mubarak and co-led by WFP Executive Director, Josette Sheeran.  

The forum takes its name from the critical 1,000 day window in the life of a child during which undernutrition can create lasting damage, as well as the awareness that to prevent the malady persisting from one generation to another, good nutrition must continue throughout a child’s life: through pre-school and school years, with special attention given to the nutritional needs of adolescent girls. 

Hunger tops the world’s health risks, killing more people every year than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined. A third of all deaths in children under the age of 5 in developing countries are linked to undernutrition. 

The two-day event will begin with a session chaired by Mubarak and Sheeran  and will feature keynote addresses from a number of high-level speakers and other First Ladies, including Jeannette Kagame from Rwanda.

World experts in nutrition will lead interactive plenary debates before a concluding session that will outline the next steps and consensus areas on child nutrition from conception through school years.

The Alexandria forum is part of a comprehensive plan to end child malnutrition, which the UN Summit on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) outlined last September in New York and follows the “1,000 Days: Change A Life, Change The Future” conference that was held on the sidelines of  the summit. 

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Large tracts of Pakistan are still submerged and hundreds of thousands of people are living onbunds, or embankments, without any regular access to food supplies. Food must be flown in, or sent by boat or hovercraft. 

This is the situation right now in many parts of the southern province Sindh, where large areas of land – particularly in Dadu and Jamshoro districts – may remain under water for up to three months more. About a million people here are living in camps.

In October WFP delivered life-saving rations to 6.2 million people spread over a huge area. This month they are aiming to reach 7.5 million people.

Some of these will be the people living on the ‘bunds’ in Sindh and other areas still underwater. But we’ll also be scaling up assistance to the many Pakistanis who are now looking to start rebuilding and recovering the lives that were shattered by the floods.

Meanwhile, winter is approaching. Positioning food supplies in northern areas of the country before the snows come and cut off access is a priority. Some 133,000 people have already received winter rations and more will be getting them this month in the KPK region. 

111 days after the floods, the huge scale of the disaster is now clear – and so too is the scale of the response needed.

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“At a time when concerns are growing about the impact that volatility on global food markets is having on the lives of the hungry, this latest  Swedish pledge means that the vulnerable will not be forgotten,” said WFP Executive Director, Josette Sheeran.  “Earthquakes, floods and droughts this year have threatened the livelihoods of people living in Haiti, Pakistan and Niger.  Swedish support for WFP means that we can respond quickly and help communities in distress to recover and rebuild their lives in the aftermath of natural disasters.”

Sweden’s support for WFP has been used for high-profile, humanitarian life-saving operations and to help the roll-out of the innovative tools that WFP is deploying to help small-scale farmers and connect them to markets.  Hungry people benefited from the Swedish contribution to WFP in the recent devastating floods in Pakistan– where WFP is currently feeding an average of 6 million people each month - in the emergency relief operation in Haiti after the earthquake earlier this year, and in the emergency response to the recent drought in Niger.  In all these cases, swift action by WFP, and the early delivery of food assistance saved lives.

“Sweden has shown outstanding support as a donor and the fact that it allows WFP to use its contributions where hunger is most acute, helps us to tailor our response in the most efficient and effective way.” Sheeran added.

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