Ethiopia is not yet food self-sufficient, however, but it is slowly edging to that point. In 2004, for example, Ethiopia required 965,000 tons of food to help prevent hunger among 7 million people who lacked enough food. This year it will only require about 387,500 tons of food to aid 2.2 million people who are at risk of not having enough food.

In part, that food aid is needed due to drought in the eastern and southern parts of the country. But in the northern and western country — with Ethiopia’s war with Eritrea over for the moment — farmers were able to concentrate on improving yields with better seeds and fertilizer.

Source:

Ethiopia’s crop production up 24%. The BBC, February 2, 2005.

Ethiopia Still Requires Food Aid, But Situation Is Improving is a post from: Overpopulation.Com

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Mauritania was the worst hit by the 2004 locust plague, with much of the country’s crops for the year lost to the insects and lower-than-expected rainfall. The World Food Program estimated earlier this year that 60 percent of Mauritanians will not have enough to eat without emergency aid due to the locust swarms. It is trying to raise $31 million to fund food aid and other projects in Mauritania in 2005 and 2006.

World Food Program director for Mauritania, Sory Ouane, told The BBC,

Entire harvests where people have invested their money, time and toil for so long, are simply gone. We must act now. The right assistance now for the people of Mauritania will go a long way — not only to save lives today but also to help people avoid falling into a cycle of food crises that could last for years to come.

Coming up with aid might prove difficult. The WFP reported that almost all aid to Africa disappeared as donor nations focused their aid attention on the nations ravaged by December’s tsunami.

Sources:

Appeal for locust-hit Mauritania. The BBC, January 17, 2005.

Living With Locusts – The Bitter Irony Of Mauritania’s Food Crisis. Press Release, World Food Program, March 7, 2005.

Crops Cold Comfort For Hungry Refugees. Reuters, February 3, 2005.

Africa Fights Locust Plagues. Brian Handwerk, National Geographic Channel, January 7, 2005.

Locust Swarms Diminished, But Effects Remain for West Africa is a post from: Overpopulation.Com

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Morris told the BBC,

Our job is to feed the hungriest, poorest people, wherever they are in the world. We are very focused on those countries that would be the least developed, that would have the greatest food security problem, and the least per capita income. China is no longer one of those countries.

Morris went on to add that, “China now has this extraordinary experience of how to move a large number of people out of hunger and poverty.”

Just don’t tell Lester Brown.

Back in 1995, Lester Brown wrote one in a long line of prophetic books about overpopulation, “Who Will Feed China? A Wake-Up Call for a Small Planet.” Published as a WorldWatch book, the plot was simple — China’s rapid growth in industrialization combined with its sky high population meant that China would soon need levels of grain imports that were simply impossible. After all, according to WorldWatch

Within a span of two years (1992-1994), China has gone from being a net grain exporter of 8 million tons to being a net importer of 16 million tons. China’s overnight emergence as a leading importer of grain, second only to Japan, is driving up world grain prices, promising to raise food prices everywhere, the Worldwatch Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based environmental research institute, said in a study released today.

Brown projected massive, unbelievable grain import demands from China. He suggested that simply to feed all of the chickens necessary to meet China’s demands for eggs by 2000 would require the equivalent in grain imports of the entire Australian production.

The reality, of course, was a bit different. China’s brief period as a net importer of grain turned out to be an anomaly. For example, other than 1994-95 and 1995-96 when it as a net importer of corn, China has been the second leading exporter of corn, behind only the United States.

Brown and others, as they always do, vastly underestimated the ability of China’s grain production capabilities.

Rather than China’s rapid industrialization and economic growth outstripping its ability to produce food, China, as Morris noted, “has built its capacity to address its own problems, it doesn’t need us any more.”

Brown made two fundamental errors of the type commonly made by prophets of doom. First, he assumed that very short trends — in this case, just over two years (!!) — represented long-term trends. Second, he assumed that the development model that Japan followed — rapid industrialization and population expansion that quickly created land shortages — would also be applicable to China, despite the obvious dissimilarities between the two (Brown might want to locate Japan and China on a map someday and compare and contrast the respective land mass of the two countries).

Source:

China ‘ no longer needs food aid’. The BBC, December 13, 2004.

UN Agency to Halt Food Aid to China. Benjamin Sand, NewsVOA.Com, December 14, 2004.

Future Directions for China’s Food Demand. Robert Wisner, AgDM Newsletter, November 2000.

Who Will Feed China:
Wake-Up Call for a Small Planet. Press Release, WorldWatch Institute, November 3, 1995.

WFP to Wean China Off Food Aid — Another Lester Brown Prophecy of Doom Bites the Dust is a post from: Overpopulation.Com

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Just a few days later, Amnesty International released a report claiming that North Korea had used food as a political weapon. According to Amnesty International, North Korea strictly circumscribes where humanitarian workers can visit and distribute food,

The continued restrictions on access for independent monitors, food donors, inter-governmental organizations and NGOs impede efforts to assess needs and fulfill these obligations. They appear to be a playing a significant role in the continuing food shortages. About 20 percent of North Korea’s land-mass, containing some 13 percent of its population, is not accessible to international humanitarian agencies. In 2003 NGOs complained that the government had “placed real limits on where and when NGO representatives could travel, what type of activities they could pursue, and with whom they could interact…NGO representatives quickly became frustrated as DPRK officials blocked some [of] the most common monitoring devices, including morbidity tracking, nutritional surveys, market surveys, and price surveys…”(59)

Humanitarian NGOs such as Médicins Sans Frontières (MSF),(60) Oxfam,(61) Action Contra La Faim (ACF), the Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere, Inc. (CARE),(62) the U.S. Private Voluntary Organization Consortium (PVOC) and Médicins Du Monde (MDM) have withdrawn from North Korea, citing inadequate access and their consequent inability to account for the eventual use of their aid supplies. MSF stated that restrictions on access had made it impossible to deliver aid in a “principled and effective” manner. It called on donor governments to review their aid policies towards North Korea, to exact greater accountability and to ensure that agencies were able to assess needs impartially and have direct access to the population. Several sources claim that international aid has been distributed by the North Korean authorities to those who are economically active and loyal to the state, while some of the most vulnerable groups have been neglected.

According to Amnesty International, North Korea also uses public execution to punish those who steal food or leave the country looking to escape the famine in China,

There are reports that people have executed in public for famine-related crimes such as stealing crops or livestock for food. There have also reportedly been executions of North Koreans repatriated from China who had crossed the border in search of food. Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all instances as the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment. As a State Party to the ICCPR the North Korean government is obliged to uphold Article 6(2) which states: “In countries which have not abolished the death penalty, sentence of death may be imposed only for the most serious crimes…”(75) Other UN safeguards stipulate this should not go beyond intentional crimes with lethal or other extremely grave consequences.”(76) The Human Rights Committee has also determined that public executions are “incompatible with human dignity”.(77)

The United States, Australia and the European Union have all agreed to send more aid to North Korea, though as the WFP notes that can take up to three months to arrive in North Korea. Those countries should follow the lead of MSF, Oxfam and others and withdraw aid from North Korea until it corrects the problems that Amnesty International outlines. Continuing to feed and clothe the North Korean dictatorship is simply prolonging the pain of the North Korean people.

Sources:

Donor shortfall forces WFP to cut North Korea’s food aid. UNWire, January 20, 2004.

Group says North Korea Used Food as Political Weapon. UNWire, January 21, 2004.

Starved of Rights: Human Rights and the Food Crisis in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea). Amnesty International, January 20, 2004.

Food Aid to North Korea Begins to Dry Up — Should the World Give Food to States like North Korea? is a post from: Overpopulation.Com

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Morris told the Security Council,

Commitments to humanitarian aid are political choices and this council is the most important political forum in the world. There is so much each of you can do to focus the attention and resources on the food crises now engulfing much of sub-Saharan Africa.

Morris contrasted the situation in Iraq, where the $1.3 billion will be spent over the next six months although Iraq doesn’t have anywhere near the food problems that sub-Saharan Africa suffers from (and is likely to even with the disruption caused by war).

Morris suggested there was a racial double standard at work,

As much as I don’t like it, I cannot escape the thought that we have a double standard. How is it that we routinely accept a level of suffering and hopelessness in Africa we would never accept in any part of the world? We simply cannot let this stand.

The key word there, though, is “routine.” Spending $1 billion or so on Iraq once in the last 30 years is something the world community will step up to the plate over. Hearing that Ethiopia or some other African nation needs massive food aid year after year will obviously erode support for aid to such countries.

Source:

40 million Africans on brink of starvation, Security Council told. Press Release, United Nations, April 7, 2003.

World Food Program: 40 Million Africans Still on Brink of Starvation is a post from: Overpopulation.Com

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James Morris, head of the World Food Program, told The New York Times,

A serious humanitarian disaster has been averted. Food has been put in place over the last several months in such a way that mass starvation and death has not occurred. We’re seeing significant progress in Malawi and Zambia. We don’t have that same optimism in Zimbabwe.

In Zimbabwe, the WFP’s estimate of the numbers of people facing food shortages jumped to 7.2 million in December, up from 6.7 million in August.

Source:

African food shortages ending everywhere except in Zimbabwe. Rachel L. Swarns, The New York Times, January 31, 2003.

Food Shortages Abate — Except In Zimbabwe is a post from: Overpopulation.Com

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The Times dispatched reporters to Zambia and could find little evidence of the famine that threatened three million people there according to the WFP. While Zambians are poor, they didn’t appear to be starving.

The Times quotes former Zambian Agriculture Minister Guy Scott as saying, “It looks to me as if the international donor community wanted to see a disaster without being critical enough.”

This is brought into focus by looking at the consequences of Zambia’s much-publicized refusal of food aid from the United States because of concerns over genetically modified organisms. Despite that refusal, however, the mass starvation forecast for Zambia simply never happened. As Scott told The Times,

I thought that the Government’s refusal to accept GM maize was going to lead to a large number of deaths. But it hasn’t. Of course you want to err on the side of caution. But the GM ban, and the lack of any consequences, has raised questions about the severity of the crisis.

Scott tells the Times that he believes aid agencies probably focused on areas worst hit by drought and so overestimated the extent of food shortages.

Source:

Southern Africa famine is ‘exaggerated’. Michael Dynes, The Times (UK), January 22, 2003.

Did Aid Agencies Exaggerate African Famine Threat? is a post from: Overpopulation.Com

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“If that was a nightmare,” Zenawi told The Scotsman, “then this will be too ghastly to contemplate. We can’t cope on our own with the requirements of the current drought.”

United Nations World Food Program spokesman Wagdi Othman told The Scotsman,

There are six million people in need of food aid now and we think hat number will increase dramatically next year to ten to 14 million. A lot of people are already hungry and they are threatened by starvation. We will have a clearer picture by next year, but we can’t wait for those figures to come and we have been ringing alarm bells since June. No-one can say that they weren’t aware of this.

Neighboring Eritrea is also hard hit by the droughts, poverty, and continued hostilities between the two countries. At the moment the Eritrean government says that 1.4 million people will face food shortages through the end of next year, and that number is likely to climb to 2.3 million in a country of around 4 million people.

Interestingly, The Scotsman highlights a main problem with international relief efforts, quoting officials who admit that the 1984-inspired relief efforts didn’t even make a dent at long term structural changes in Ethiopia. The Band Aid and Live Aid fund raising efforts raised more than Pounds 110 million, most of which was spent on basic technology,

. . . and Penny Jenden, the former Band Aid chief executive, has since admitted that Africa is littered with the remains of tractors or drilling rigs that nobody knew how to mend.

Current aid efforts aren’t likely to do any better. Until Ethiopia and Eritrea decide to end all hostilities, reform their governments, and tackle poverty and other issues in earnest, the best donor nations can do is simply feed people who would otherwise starve and forget grandiose notions about preventing future famines.

Sources:

Threat to 15 million as new famine hits Ethiopia. Gethin Chamberlain, The Scotsman, November 12, 2002.

Eritrea: Fear of hunger sets in. UN Integrated Regional Information Networks, November 10, 2002.

More Warnings about Hunger in Ethiopia and Eritrea is a post from: Overpopulation.Com

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In the Horn of Africa alone, 14 million people face starvation unless the World Food Program begins receiving donor aid soon. Ten million of those at risk are in Ethiopia which, like other countries in the region, has been hit hard by drought. According to WFP executive director James Morris,

At least 10 million people will need food aid just in Ethiopia. But if this month’s rains stop early, up to 14 million people there will require urgent assistance.

These figures are large and dramatic and the international community should take notice. Unless we come to grips with this problem very soon we face the real possibility of witnessing a devastating wave of human suffering and death as early as next year.

Morris chalked up the Horn’s problems simply to drought, conveniently ignoring the destabilizing effect of ongoing hostilities between Ethiopia and Eritrea which has made it difficult to sustain an agricultural industry in either country.

Source:

Aid please as Horn of Africa raises hungry to 40m. James Astill, The Guardian, October 29, 2002.

Forty Million in Danger of Starvation is a post from: Overpopulation.Com

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At the same time that the World Food Program and other agencies are having difficulties obtaining food aid for starving millions in sub-Saharan Africa, the United Nations is sponsoring the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development which will cost a rather unsustainable $55 million mainly to provide a stage for world leaders to make promises and pledges that will never be followed through.

Adelman writes,

It’s another massive waste of money. Another diversion from the real needs of the poor. Another boondoggle for the rich to jet somewhere exotic to gush over their concern for the poor.

Apparently the United Nations’ theory is that if they get enough blowhard politicians on a single stage they can talk world poverty to death.

Source:

A Summit Hard to Stomach. Kenneth Adelman, FoxNews.Com, August 28, 2002.

Cost of Johannesburg Summit is a post from: Overpopulation.Com

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