Biofuels and Grain Prices: Impacts and Policy Responses
On May 7, 2008, Mark W. Rosegrant, Director of IFPRI's Environment and Production Technology Division, testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs on the impact of biofuels on grain prices and its policy implications. Dr. Rosegrant’s analysis focused on three potential scenarios:
- Recent food price evolution with and without high biofuel demand
- Impact of a freeze on biofuel production from all crops at 2007 levels
- Impact of a moratorium (elimination) on biofuel production after 2007.
From the conclusion: "It is therefore important to find ways to keep biofuels from worsening the food-price crisis. In the short run, removal of ethanol blending mandates and subsidies and ethanol import tariffs, and in the United States—together with removal of policies in Europe promoting biofuels—would contribute to lower food prices. But for the longer term, it is even more critical to focus on increasing agricultural productivity growth and improving developing-country policies and infrastructure related to the storage, distribution, and marketing of food. These factors will continue to drive the future health of the agricultural sector and will play the largest role in determining the food security and human well-being of the world's poorer and more vulnerable populations." Read full testimony.
Going hungry more often: Food prices and the poor
© 2008, Augustine A. NdaghuDomitila Revilla Romero, 56, lives in a shantytown on the outskirts of Lima and works as a laundress to help support her three children, her nephew, and her daughter-in-law, all of whom earn increasingly precarious livings. But as food prices rise, Ms. Revilla is not only finding it harder to make ends meet, sometimes she cannot even put food on the table. It is a predicament that has left her in tears.
Ms. Revilla said that in March alone, the price of the cooking oil she buys increased 75 percent, from the equivalent of US$1.43 to US$2.50, while the price of rice rose by more than 50 percent, from US$0.64 to US$1.00. For someone who earns US$1.80 per dozen items laundered, and who already spends a disproportionate amount of her income on food, these increases mean that Ms. Revilla and her family will be going hungry far more often.
For more on how rising food prices are affecting the poorest and most vulnerable, and on emerging solutions to this crisis, see IFPRI's Food Prices page…
Interview with R. K. Pachauri, Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
FORUM: In your Nobel lecture, you emphasized the impact of climate change on the poor. What are the most immediate climate-related problems facing the rural poor?
Pachauri: The rural poor are facing a range of climate-related problems. First, changes in precipitation patterns and increases in the intensity and frequency of floods and droughts have major implications for agriculture, water availability, and human health. For instance, whenever a flood occurs, health officials face a major challenge in preventing and minimizing the outbreak of diseases. The impacts of climate change on agricultural yield also directly affect the livelihoods of the poor. In a study carried out by my institute, TERI, we carefully studied the effects of two sets of influences on agriculture. The first relates to globalization and international trade in agricultural produce, and the second assesses the impacts of climate change on agriculture. Poor farmers are often not able to compete against subsidized food coming from developed countries and are therefore suffering the unfavorable effects of globalization on their livelihoods. Climate change only exacerbates some of these stresses. In fact, during the World Summit on Sustainable Development held in Johannesburg in 2002, several African farmers demonstrated against agricultural subsidies in the developed countries because they found themselves unable to compete with prices of imports as a result. The relevant issue to be considered in this context is the fact that the rural poor are already subjected to several stresses for a variety of reasons. Climate change would only add to these stresses.
The poor are also unable to adapt to the impacts of climate change because often they do not have the technical or financial capacity to be able to take essential measures—for instance, creating infrastructure for storage of water.
<< MORE >>
Rising Food Prices: What Should Be Done?
Toward a New Global Governance System for Agriculture, Food, and Nutrition
What Goes Down Must Come Up: Global Food Prices Reach New Heights
Call for concept notes
Agriculture and Health Research Platform
Bound by complex two-way linkages, agriculture and health are essential for reducing poverty, food insecurity and malnutrition. In April 2006, the Alliance Executive of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) endorsed the Agriculture and Health Research Platform (AHRP) as a basis for further research, capacity strengthening, and communications within and beyond the CGIAR. << MORE >>Cobbling a path toward independence
 © 2008, Augustine A. NdaghuUntil recently, being disabled in Yola, Nigeria, meant living on the streets. But a project to improve the livelihood of those who live and work in the country’s flood plains and low-lying areas (fadamas) has helped turned beggars into cobblers. “After God, Fadama II is the next most important thing to us,” says Mallam Abubakar Hosere, chairperson of a group of 20 disabled men and women who have gone into shoemaking with help from the Fadama II project. The project—a joint collaboration between the federal government of Nigeria and the World Bank—provides loans to members of its user groups. IFPRI recently completed an evaluation of the project and found that the incomes of its beneficiaries increased by about 60 percent and the value of group-owned productive assets increased by 590 percent. It concluded that the project’s broad-based approach contributed to its significant impact. “Before Fadama II, we were all beggars—that was all we thought cripples could do,” says Hosere. “When we heard of Fadama II project on the local radio, and that it is opened to all including the vulnerable and the physically challenged like us, we decided to take advantage. We registered and applied [for funds] to go into shoemaking, but we were asked to contribute 30 percent of the sum. Initially, we suffered to raise it, but thank God for some people who assisted us. We are now ‘big men and women’ as we earn money on daily basis; our shoes are very marketable.” In addition to acquiring new skills and assets, the group also has a new goal. “We want to reduce the number of beggars on the street of Yola to the barest minimum,” says Hosere. For more about the Fadama II project and IFPRI’s involvement in it, visit: http://www.ifpri.org/pubs/dp/ifpridp00756.asp |
Strength in numbers
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But for the members of the Kalagala Twezimbe Association, located outside Kampala, Uganda, working together enables them to cope better when such “shocks” occur. By pooling their time and talents, and by contributing funds to the Association, all members stand to benefit in times of need. When a member dies, the Association assists the family with costly burial expenses and helps them purchase and prepare food during the bereavement period. For those without close relatives in the community, such as orphans, the Association pays for their burial expenses. With more than 370 men and women members, working together also offers a way out of poverty. The Association has expanded its activities beyond assisting members with burial arrangements. As a registered community-based organization, it is involved in several income-generating activities, such as renting out their cooking pans, plates, tables and other catering equipment for use at weddings, birthday celebrations, and graduations. The profits earned are used to further along the Association’s work, which includes constructing fuel-saving cooking stoves, providing entrepreneurship development, raising awareness of HIV/AIDS, and offering grief counseling. The Kalagala Twezimbe Association is just one example among many of how poor people and other disadvantaged groups throughout the developing world are banding together to build social networks that can help improve their livelihoods. To learn more about IFPRI research on the linkages between collective action and poverty reduction, visit http://www.capri.cgiar.org/res_poverty.asp |
Fisherwomen bring prosperity to their families
 © 2007, Lauren Pandolfelli In the poor rural communities of Bangladesh, many women are entirely dependent on their husband’s often meager incomes and frequently have very little say in how the money is spent. Widows, divorced women, and deserted women fare even worse, since most do not have the skills, education, or resources with which to support themselves and their children. But in Jessore, a communal fish pond has given 30 women an income, a voice, and the chance to provide a better life for their children. A local women’s NGO, Banchte Shekha (Learning to Survive), helped the women to excavate the pond and then provided training on how to raise carp and several other species of fish. The women now manage the pond on their own, though the NGO helps to monitor and supervise the project. The women have used the money they have earned from selling the fish to buy livestock, build better homes, buy land that is in their name as well as in their husband’s, and educate their children. But the benefits aren’t purely financial—by generating their own incomes and contributing to their families’ well-being, the women have gained confidence, control over their own affairs, and the respect of others in their community. To learn more about this project, contact: To learn more about other gender-related research at IFPRI, go to http://www.ifpri.org/themes/gender/gender.htm . |