STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

A food emergency is when a food supply is in jeopardy and can arise from different kinds of situations. They can result from natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods, and tsunamis, as well as man-made problems, like political unrest, armed conflict, and forced displacement of people. Food emergencies can also occur when food is found to be the source of a disease or illness that is spreading.

DISCUSSION OF THE PROBLEM

Natural Disasters

Natural disasters have a huge impact on a country’s food supply. In fact, environmental disasters in a number of the world’s top wheat growing nations have had a serious global impact: severe droughts in China in 2010, record high temperatures in India and Russia, extreme cold weather and drought in France, and flooding in Australia and Pakistan, have all reduced the quantity of crops being produced. This, in turn has created a great deal of instability in the global food supply.[i]

Sudden Natural Disasters

When natural disasters strike, they leave a path of devastation. This usually means that the people are often left without homes or food to eat. Hunger is a major issue after a sudden disaster because usually roads and other ways of accessing food are destroyed along with houses and buildings. Also, the buildings that store food, particularly grain storage facilities, can also be ruined as well. This destroys long-term supplies of food.

Slow-Onset Natural Disasters

Slow-onset natural disasters are types of events like droughts and famines[1] that take a long time to dramatically affect an area. This means that when there isn’t any rain, then it becomes very difficult to grow crops or collect drinking water. Many parts of the world are greatly affected by droughts and famines. There is no way of preventing slow-onset natural disasters. If a government has a well-developed infrastructure[2] they can, however, prevent widespread suffering. The food supply of a country depends on the government helping out farmers to make sure that they are able to grow crops. It is up to the government to help provide water, also known as irrigation, for the farms. When the government is not stable enough to care for its citizens because of war or corruption, then the people often go hungry.

Complex Emergencies

One of the main concerns of the World Health Program revolves around complex emergency situations. These are usually a combination of ethnic conflict or war, social and economic disruption, and large population displacement. Similarly to natural disasters, armed conflicts force civilians to flee, and they are consequently cut off from food markets and humanitarian aid. However, the rebel groups and armed forces deliberately destroy harvests and livestock, as opposed to situations where the environment itself attacks crops. Nevertheless, the results are the same: the disruption of agricultural production, the displacement of farmers and workers as well as isolation of large portions of the population that would both buy and sell in food markets.

With a combination of all of these things, it is oftentimes the case that people do not have access to food and clean drinking water. During complex emergencies, it is often the case that roads are blocked or do not exist in order to get food to people. When basic infrastructure breaks down during complex emergencies, people suffer severely because they cannot gain access to their basic needs. Also, ruling groups will sometimes use food as a tool for terrorism, especially during a time of ethnic or social conflict. This is done by cutting off the supply of food certain people have access to food supplies or clean drinking water. This is a tricky situation for the World Food Program, because they only want to help people and do not want to get involved in a conflict. When they assist in these types of situations, it makes it look like they are taking sides, and it puts the aid workers in harm’s way. Also, other aid organizations are fearful that their workers will be caught up in violent situations, and might be hesitant to send people in to help the needy.

Case study: Democratic Republic of the Congo

The Democratic Republic of the Congo is an example of a country that has had one of the worst ongoing complex emergency situations. It is a very large country in the middle of Africa, with a large border shared with the major water sources of the continent - the Congo River and the Great African Lakes. Over 400,000 people have been displaced due to civil warfare that has taken place in the entire country. Since this country has focused all of its money on the war, creation and upkeep of the infrastructure has been completely ignored. All of these factors combined made the Democratic Republic of the Congo one of the most complex countries for the World Food Program.

Another issue with the Democratic Republic of the Congo is that so many people are sick and dying of HIV/AIDS. When most of the population of working-aged people is too sick to work or participating in the war efforts, there is no labor force to grow crops to feed the people. The World Food Program works with other United Nations organizations to help get the right kind of aid to those who need it the most.

Past International Actions

Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and its partner organizations have worked to provide relief and reconstruction to areas affected by sudden and slow-onset natural disasters, conflicts and other food and agricultural crises.

The FAO works to bring relief by assessing crisis situations and working within the country to rehabilitate food production industries. FAO work is often focused on capacity building to address the problems with sustainability of food sources and production levels that contribute to malnourishment in a given region[ii]. With the overall objective of eliminating reliance upon food aid, the FAO works in cooperation with other agencies to help individuals, groups and governments strengthen agriculture in challenged areas.

Individuals in crisis-affected areas are offered support in the form of seeds, equipment, livestock, education and training. Working with national policy makers as well as with farmers, through Field Schools, for instance, FAO experts try to help communities and countries find ways to meet their own needs and remove reliance on food aid. As much as possible, the FAO works with local NGOs to develop projects that respect existing local knowledge and practices.[iii]

Citations and Photo Credits

[1] Famine: extreme and general scarcity of food

[2] Infrastructure: basic framework of a society, including roads, hospitals, schools, etc.

[i]http://documents.wfp.org/stellent/groups/public/documents/manual_guide_proced/wfp142691.pdf

http://www.wfp.org/food-security/assessments/emergency-food-security-assessment

BBC News. “Q&A: Why food prices and fuel costs are going up.” BBC News Business. 3 Feb. 2011. Web. 3 Feb. 2011.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11177214>.

[ii] Food, Energy and Climate: A new equation, FAO: 2008 ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/011/i0330e/i0330e00.pdf

[iii] FAO and Emergencies, FAO: 2009 http://www.fao.org/emergencies/home0/emergency-relief-and-rehabilitation/emergency-operations/en/