Crisis Behind Closed Doors: Global Food Crisis and Local Hunger

Abstract

The high and volatile food prices in 2007–8 triggered estimates of massive increases in poverty and hunger. However, hunger and volatile food prices have long been a feature of developing economies. This paper examines the impact of high global food prices on domestic terms‐of‐trade, food consumption and child undernutrition in the Central African Republic, Ethiopia, Liberia and Sierra Leone, comparing findings with the impacts of ‘seasonality’. As high international food prices permeated domestic markets, households in all the case study areas resorted to coping strategies common in the annual hunger season. Though acute malnutrition has not risen as consistently as in a seasonal hunger crisis, reduced micronutrient intake threatens to have severe long‐term consequences for health and poverty reduction. The similar impacts of seasonal and global food price rises on households provide an opportunity to design appropriate interventions to protect livelihoods.

Adaptive lives. Navigating the global food crisis in a changing climate

“…In the north of the country approximately 50 per cent of the stable food (millet) is purchased (FEWS NET, 2010, p. 71). Even though Burkina Faso is not a net food importing country, millet prices increased by 43 per cent between November 2007 and November 2008 (Swan et al, 2010). Moreover, the conundrum of continued high food prices in much of the developing world despite falling global prices (Ghosh, 2010) is also seen in Burkina Faso (FEWS NET, 2011a,b).…”

Does Government Intervention Matter? Revisiting Recent Rice Price Increases in Bangladesh

“…The report identifijies multiple secondary factors contributing to the disruption of this balance: low food stock levels due to production shortfalls, high petroleum prices, rising bio-fuel demands, changing consumption patterns in some countries, national and international trade policies, and volatile fijinancial markets. Ghosh (2010), and Swan, Hadley and Cichon (2010) appropriately argue that the impact of global price hikes on the domestic markets of developing countries have had varying patterns. Ghosh (2010) particularly claims that the crisis in developing countries is "created" (p. 85) and is deepened by market deregulation.…”

Wild Food, Prices, Diets and Development: Sustainability and Food Security in Urban Cameroon

“…Evidence from Swan et al suggest that vulnerability to high food prices is likely to be associated with the type of staple food consumed, the ability to substitute cheaper foods, trends in income and the degree to which households rely on the market for food [92]. When food prices increased in 2008, Swan et al learned from the Central African Republic, that households adopted damaging coping strategies.…”

“…People in their study were reported purchasing less expensive foods with limited nutritional value, eating less preferred foods and reducing the diversity of their diets. Their findings suggest that food price shocks increase the risk of micronutrient deficiencies ( [92], p. 111). Many urban poor people have little room to maneuver as coping mechanisms decrease food security.…”