High and volatile food prices are one of the biggest political issues of 2011. The pressure points map can be embedded directly into any website to give audiences an easy way to raise their voice and take action on the food price crisis. The tool is part of Oxfam’s global GROW campaign to fix the broken food system.

“The poorest people from Kansas to Yemen are suffering the impacts of high and volatile food prices,” said Raymond C. Offenheiser, President of Oxfam America. “Food price volatility has pushed tens of millions of people into poverty and contributed to violence and instability that is dangerous for global security and costly to American taxpayers. Meanwhile Congress has its head in the sand hoping for it all to go away.”

Food prices have hovered near an all time peak since late 2010 sending tens of millions of people into poverty. After decades of steady progress in the fight against hunger, the number of people without enough to eat is again rising and could soon again top one billion. Leaders from the US and other G-20 nations have delivered little more than band-aid solutions giving little hope to struggling communities.

The map displays countries that are highly vulnerable to price spikes, have seen price spikes contribute to violence or unrest, or have suffered extreme weather events that have contributed to price hikes. Some examples of the impacts the map reveals include:

• Yemen: One-third of the population—7.2 million people—suffers from acute hunger. In the capital city, imported wheat flour prices were 117% higher in May of 2011 than the previous year contributing to unrest in the country.
• Tanzania: Despite a strong economic performance, more than half the population lives in extreme poverty and is vulnerable to increasing food prices.
• Mozambique: In 2010, after record harvests, Mozambique was still slated to import almost a quarter of its food. Food prices are volatile because of both domestic production and import dependence.
• Russia: In most of Russia’s regions, the price of the average food basket went up by 20-30 percent between July 2010 and March 2011. Russian food prices remained high even after the Russian government introduced a grain export ban that led to a surge in prices on the international markets.
• Guatemala: Nearly half of children under 5 in Guatemala are chronically undernourished, and the proportion of the population suffering from malnutrition has been rising. In rural areas, up to 70 percent of children are malnourished.

/ENDS

Notes to editors

The map can be found here: http://www.oxfamamerica.org/articles/food-price-spikes

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To shed more light on the impacts of food price spikes, Oxfam has created an interactive map of Food Price Volatility Pressure Points. This map shows the impacts of price spikes in some of the countries where food prices have complicated the lives of poor people and offers a chance to take action on to help address price volatility.

The map shows are areas that are highly vulnerable to price spikes, countries that have had extreme weather events contribute to global price hikes and places that have seen price spikes contribute to violence or unrest that has shaken the foundation of global stability. While this map alone does not tell the full story of how price spikes have impacted our world, it offers a global snapshot to give us a better understanding of what is happening in communities near and far.

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What causes food price spikes?

Failed crops—often caused by our changing climate—hit food prices hard. So does the rising cost of oil—used to grow, fertilize and transport food.

Short-sighted biofuels strategies play a part too—taking food off of people's plates and putting it into car tanks. And dysfunctional commodities markets mean that food prices go up faster and higher than they should.

But despite all these complex causes, the effects on poor people are painfully simple. Parents choose between feeding their children and feeding themselves.

Whole communities face an uncertain future, because all anyone can think about is where their next meal will come from.

It's time to grow out of food price spikes.

The way to grow

Food price spikes happen because of things like climate change and rising oil prices—so a major part of the solution involves getting those root causes under control.

But what's also needed is more effective global handling of food price crises when they do happen. That way, the poorest families have somewhere to turn even when things do get desperate—and when they suddenly can't afford even the meager amount they could afford a week earlier.

For our world to grow together, we need to get food price spikes under control.

Millions of people in the region—including Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso-- have confronted food shortages as a consequence of erratic rains in 2008 and 2009 that led to poor harvests, withered pastures, and a lack of water. Widespread poverty has compounded those challenges.

For many, the difficulty in the weeks leading up to the this year’s harvest in October and November is particularly acute as they have exhausted not only their food supplies but have sold off assets, such as livestock, in an effort to feed their families.

While Niger has been at the epicenter of the crisis, with about seven million people facing hunger—almost half its population--forecasters are now predicting a solid harvest for the country, even as flooding wiped out some fields and killed many heads of livestock. And a good distribution of rains in Burkina Faso has meant the crops are growing well there, also.

But robust harvests won’t ease the strain for many families who have gone deep into debt trying to feed themselves. One good harvest will not be enough for them to recover.

Additionally, some families have not been able to plant at all: They had no choice but to eat the seeds they intended to sow.

For herders who rely mostly on their animals for food and income, the rains have restored the grass in their pastures, which in turn has improved the health of their livestock. As cattle and goats grow stronger again, their value goes up, giving owners more purchasing power in the local markets.

Families who earn their living from crops grown in rain-fed fields, however, continue to struggle.

“For non-pastoralist communities who depend on a good harvest, we have not yet seen the end,” said Oxfam’s West Africa emergency coordinator, Philippe Conraud, speaking to the IRIN news agency about Mali. “We are still in the peak of crisis, and emergency activities need to continue.”

Trouble in Chad

The problems in Chad are particularly worrisome. About 60 percent of the households, or 1.6 million people, in the western part of the country are grappling with a severe food crisis. For those suffering from malnutrition, access to care can be a challenge: Some patients have to travel more than 120 miles to reach health facilities.

The prices of basic commodities in the markets continue to rise and overall food prices are at least 35 percent higher than the five-year average. Additionally, with the arrival of the rainy season, floods have affected more than 100,000 people in nine regions of Chad, destroying homes and wrecking crops. And now there is a new threat: cholera. Hundreds of cases have been reported.

Looking ahead

Oxfam, which has helped more than 600,000 people snared by the crisis, is calling for a scaled-up response now—and over the long-term.

“Many people have lost everything due to the severity of the crisis. They have lost their livestock, their livelihoods and are now in excessive debt,” says Dawit Beyene, Oxfam America’s deputy director of humanitarian response. “We need flexible and predictable funding to support the development of national social protection systems and sustainable livelihoods, and to increase the provision of essential services to prevent future crises.”

In Chad, Oxfam has been helping people in the Sila and Guéra regions by distributing food and running agricultural and livelihood support projects. In Niger, the ganecy has organized the distribution of food and fodder, provided cereals at subsidized prices, distributed seeds, and bought weakened livestock from herders at above-market prices, distributing the meat for free to the poorest families. And in Mali Oxfam has been distributing food and animal feed as well.

 “The situation in West Africa may seem impossibly complex and difficult to solve but if only the international community would invest in long-term predictable development work we could make sure families are a lot less vulnerable to shocks in the future,” says Raphael Sindaye, Oxfam’s deputy regional director in West Africa.

We know some aid, including from Oxfam, has been getting through in recent weeks and months. But we also know the international aid effort has been too slow – funds from donors have been committed late, and aid on the ground isn’t coming through fast enough. As the people here face their toughest three months until harvest time in October, there’s a desperate need for international political engagement to ramp up the speed and the scale of the response.

In Niger’s capital Niamey, a gentle-seeming city of  sandy-mud colored low houses and a population of around 800,000 people, there are few immediate signs of the food crisis. There are small food stalls along many of the tree-lined, dusty streets and the  “petit marche” – or small market – is crammed with stalls selling food and other items. But even in the capital, many people are too poor to pay for sufficient food and the picture in the countryside is much much worse.

Hunger in the countryside

We  drove two hours from Niamey, along a rough dirt track through the semi-arid, mostly flat and desolate landscape. It’s stony and sandy with a few short dry-looking trees and bushes, though some are turning green where a bit of rain has started to fall. We see painfully thin cattle, goats and donkeys, their ribs visible as we drive by. Men, women and children are hard at work in some patches of land, planting seeds by hand to take advantage of any rain that has fallen.  It’s hard work, and often undone again by sudden harsh desert winds.

We stop briefly in the main town in the area, Ouallam, and talk to a serious, welcoming official there, who explains that more than 200 of the 300 or so villages in this area are facing severe food shortages. Due to the drought, thousands of animals have died or are too thin to be sold for a decent price or even to provide a good meal for the herders.

The situation is as bad as the deep crisis of 2005, our host tells us—and worse, even, because people have less money now than they did then. But at least speculators have not managed to drive the prices as high as they did five years ago. And, importantly, this time around the new Nigerien government has recognized the crisis and invited donors and aid organizations like Oxfam to support them in tackling the problem. Now, some aid has arrived – but much more will be needed in the coming months.

Rains bring relief and new problems

Driving on to the nearby village of Tondi Kiwindi, we find a small muddy river flooding the road into the village. Our driver wades across to make sure our vehicle won’t get stuck and we plow through. Tondi Kiwindi is a small community of mud-brick rectangular houses, quiet in the midday heat. The local village leader welcomes us and tells us about the difficulties here and in the surrounding villages.

He talks about how many animals have died, about how little food villagers have, about the difficulties of surviving the next three months until the harvest. The rains here are a month late, though further north they have started.

The village leader thanks us for the work we’ve done with a local aid group to buy sick and thin animals at better prices than villagers can get in the markets, and to provide animal feed and other support such as cash for work programs. He tells us that the women, especially,  have taken advantage of the opportunity to earn some income through the programs as many of the men have migrated away to towns to look for work. They’ll return to till and plant the fields when the rains start.

But when the rain really comes, says our host, the river we crossed to get into the village will rise and there will be no access to the community. Can we help, he asks us.
 
It’s a story across a lot of the region:  rains are desperately needed to ensure a good harvest this year, but until October when the crops are ripe, rains can block access and make delivery of aid much harder or impossible. And the rains lower the temperature a little—bringing death to thousands of weakened animals.

‘We are weak and dying like our animals’

In a five-mile ride across the desert from Tondi Kiwindi, we come to a smaller village called Ko Kaina. The situation we find here is utterly desperate: The villagers talk to us of famine and question whether they can survive to the autumn.

We sit with four women who tell us they have nothing left to eat at all. They say that this year is especially bad. Last year at least the animals had enough to eat, but now the cows and goats are dead or dying. In hard times, their tradition is to share—neighbors helping neighbors—but  now no one has anything to share.

“Everyone is down, down, down,” they say. “Our stomachs are empty.”

Their last source of food is a small, hard round green pea called  “wanza.” It has a bitter taste, but villagers eat it when there is nothing else to consume. To find the wanza,  the women set out from the village at 5 a.m. walking miles in their hunt. They ask me to taste one of the peas to see how bitter and sour it is; the unpleasant taste stays in my mouth for an hour. The peas first need drying in the sun then soaking several times in water before they become at all possible to digest.

They show us their only other food – a small bowl of cooked leaves from short small trees that grow in the dry earth nearer to the village. A woman puts a small amount in her mouth and mimics being sick, to show me how ill and malnourished they are on this diet. A short distance away, a small group of children stares at us hoping, I think, that we have brought relief. They are thin and listless.

The women explain that their animals have been weak and dying for months now and no longer produce milk. Some are even too thin to slaughter for food. A few days back, the women tell us, the villagers killed one weak calf before it died. They needed it for food. But four children became ill from eating the meat and had to be taken to a larger village nearby for medical attention. That cost money the families didn’t had and had to borrow—leaving them in debt, too.

People are so weak, the women explain to us, that after a few minutes working in the fields – vital work – they are already too tired to keep going.

“We are weak and dying like our animals,” they tell us.  “If it goes on like this, some of us will die and some God will keep alive ‘til the next harvest.”

Oxfam has launched an emergency program to provide support to 800,000 people across Niger, Mali, and Chad. In Niger, the organization is helping 400,000 people by distributing food and supplies to the poorest households. Oxfam is also buying weak livestock at above-market rates to help herders who need to sell some of their animals. Meat from the livestock is being distributed to some of the most vulnerable households. In Mali, the organization will help 200,000 people by distributing food as well as fodder for livestock.  And in Chad, distributions of food and seeds are accompanying agriculture support projects, with a goal of helping 200,000 people.

But a hungry child exists in a larger context: if we nourish communities, they can nourish their own children.

The woman on our cover, Fatou Doumbia, and other women in her village in Mali, pooled their resources last year. They set aside nearly a ton of millet as a defense against the hunger they’d seen as food prices spiked. Hers is another face of hunger: determined, resourceful.

After the last harvest, Oxfam reached out to supporters to respond to the food crisis. We’ve devoted much of this issue to looking at what communities have done to avoid the kinds of hardships they confronted. When people living in poverty are hit by a food crisis or natural disaster, they lack resources to tide them over.

Oxfam works to help people build their resilience. Let respect and hope fuel your efforts to support women like Doumbia.

"Resuscitating Doha is essential to right the rigged rules of trade, but what's been simmering on the WTO stove will simply not deliver for poor countries, said Oxfam America president Raymond C. Offenheiser. "The financial crisis, which started in developed countries but is taking its worst toll on developing countries, should be the impetus for a change in course."

In a new report released today called "Empty Promises," Oxfam details how the Doha Round has become an exercise in prying open developing country markets rather than an effort to rebalance decades of unfair agricultural and industrial trade rules. In the midst of a global economic crisis, a food crisis, and a climate crisis, nations with the least blame and with the least capacity to cope with the consequent effects must not have to pay even more to enable their economies to develop, according to the report.

Over 50 million people stand to lose their jobs, remittances are collapsing, and growth in sub-Saharan Africa is predicted to fall by 70 percent this year trapping 90 million more people in poverty, because of the crisis. Food prices meanwhile remain high for poor consumers: by the end of 2008 a further 109 million people had been added to the ranks of hungry, topping 1 billion people worldwide. As the world experiences the sharpest drop in trade in 80 years, a "development" trade deal—as originally promised—remains crucial, according to Oxfam.

"Now is the time for WTO members to come back to the negotiating table, recognize that the current crisis provides an opportunity to address urgent development needs, and change the course of negotiations, much as they did nearly eight years ago in Doha," said Offenheiser. "At this time of desperate need for a change of course, the Doha Round has to step up to deliver on its development promise. There is little credit left for another failure."

The welcome political commitment from the G8 could lead to a fresh start to negotiations, but it cannot be business as usual. In the past eight years, developed countries have used the talks to continue to push to open up new export markets. Developing countries have resisted, saying they were promised a deal that would give them space to protect their farmers and new industries, an end to rich country trade-distorting agricultural subsidies, and more access to rich markets for their farmers and industries.

The widespread food price crisis has shown that food and livelihood security cannot depend solely on market forces. Development, rather than liberalization, has to be the central objective of negotiations and trade rules must respond to the needs of the most vulnerable people first and foremost, according to Oxfam. It is the responsibility of WTO member states to analyze the role of trade in the recent global crises so that the Doha negotiations take into account the new global context and contribute to a solution, rather than exacerbate the problem.

"What's on the table is no silver bullet since it continues to favor the richest and biggest farmers and industrialists in the US and Europe and sidelines the needs of the poor," said Offenheiser. "We have seen what can be done when countries find the resolve to avert problems at home, and this resolve must be translated to the multilateral trade agenda so that the much-needed conclusion of the Doha Round can be achieved in a manner that addresses developing country needs first and foremost."

It's these experiences that have helped convince us that our current system of international food aid needs to be reformed. It needs to be faster, more flexible and cheaper. Instead of dumping surplus domestic production as "in kind" food aid, donors should provide cash for governments and aid agencies to buy food locally. This is usually more efficient and better for local agriculture.

Here are some examples of how this kind of aid can work during humanitarian crises.

Cereal banks

In the North Bank Division of Gambia food shortages are a constant threat as people struggle to manage the delicate balance between their needs and what the environment can provide. Will there be enough rain to allow crops to grow? Will locusts devour whatever villagers manage to coax from their fields?

A simple solution promoted by Oxfam's local partner, Agency for the Development of Women and Children, or ADWAC, takes the edge off those questions: If villagers had a way to save some of their food and seeds at the end of each harvest, they could have a reserve to fall back on during times of shortage. The trick was to get started.

ADWAC's plan called for building and stocking four cereal "banks"—tidy white structures the size of small houses which can hold up to 30 metric tons of cereals—located at strategic points around the communities. Villagers then formed committees to manage the stored supplies. Those who borrow from the storehouse during a food shortage are obliged to repay the loan and tack on a little extra, too, so that the project can grow.

Now, if drought should shrivel their crops or pests consume them, villagers can turn to that bank of grain, avoiding the need to eke what they can from an overstrained environment. The bank will help them weather tough times.

Inside the Dasilami storehouse one day last year, the sweetness of harvested grains filled the hot dry air. Heavy sacks—they weigh just under 200 pounds—stuffed with corn and millet were stacked nearly to the ceiling. Outside, in the shade of a tree laden with mangoes, Nyima Filly Fofana, a mother of nine children and an organizer for one of the cereal bank management committees, talked about what it was like one year recently when both locusts and drought hit the area.

"We experienced a very bitter time," she said. "The family was hungry." In times of food shortages, Fofana's family manages by selling the salt she harvests from mud flats near her home and by eating whatever vegetables they can grow in their garden. But if such trouble should strike again, this time Dasilami has the seeds of a solution—one that can now spread to other villages, too.

"Our worries will be temporarily solved," said Fofana, clapping her hands at the thought of the white building gleaming there in the sun, stocked with grain. "We'll have food. Therefore our families will not cry. Our stomachs will no longer go empty."

Vouchers revitalize markets

When a catastrophic earthquake hit northern Pakistan in the fall of 2005, it left three million people homeless and more than two million people needing food aid to survive the winter.

Around the devastated town of Balakot in the Northwest Frontier province, Oxfam organized a program that provided families with vouchers to use among a selected group of merchants. Not only did the vouchers offer earthquake survivors the chance to make their own choices about which goods would best meet their needs, they helped to revitalize local markets by boosting commerce and allowing traders to rebuild their businesses.

For one young boy, the program helped restore a sliver of normalcy to his life by allowing him to buy familiar goods.

"My father was killed," he told an Oxfam staffer at a general store in Balakot. "My mother is very ill. She has asked me to buy flour, black tea, and sugar."

The program, which also included the distribution of some cash and building materials, reached more than 48,000 people, giving them a real say in the kind of help they received.

Culling herds, helping traders

Before a lack of rain shriveled the pastureland in Niger and swarms of migratory grasshoppers stripped it clean, Koumba Yacouba's family owned a magnificent herd of cows that was 200 head strong. But drought and pest infestation wiped them out in 2005—a story repeated across Niger where untold numbers of herders all depend on their animals for food. The shortage of fodder was the worst in Niger's history.

High cereal prices and decimated herds combined to create a food crisis for 3.6 million people—nearly one-third of Niger's population.

In response, Oxfam and one of its local partners, the Association de Revigoration d'Élevage au Niger, or AREN, set up a $2 million program in southeastern Niger to help nearly 131,000 people. Their weakened herds figured prominently in the effort. The goal was to help reinvigorate the local economy by stimulating area markets.

For a fair price, Oxfam bought cattle that were too emaciated for herders to sell. Cattle prices had plummeted, falling to 90 percent lower than they had been before the crisis. Even healthy animals were fetching only a fraction of their former value: Strong bulls that once went for $500 were being sold off for as little as $18.

Oxfam began purchasing cows from local breeders for $53 a head. That money allowed people to buy food from local traders to feed both their families and their remaining animals.

In addition, Oxfam had the cows it purchased slaughtered in the villages and the meat inspected by vets to make sure it was fit for consumption. In exchange for some of the meat, village women worked to dry or fry the beef which was then made available to hungry families who traded their vouchers for it. People earned the vouchers by working on community improvement projects such as the construction of small reservoirs to catch and store rainfall.

"Oxfam's response is stimulating the economy by trying to use local markets," said Mike Delaney, Oxfam America's director of humanitarian response.

"We cannot believe that we are now able to eat meat," said Khadydiatou Labarang, whose daily diet had been a single meal of millet before Oxfam initiated the program.

Not far from where the Nyantang Dundula River slips by the village of Dasilami in Gambia, there rises a stand of giant baobab trees. Branches bristle from the tops of their stout trunks and beneath the canopy, pools of shade cool the air and ground. The houses of one of the largest clans in Dasilami once stood here in the stillness of this glade. But now, they cluster near a sun-scorched road, their owners having traded the comforts of the baobabs for the convenience of being close to a major transportation route.

Gambians have a saying about their baobab trees: "If you want to lean, make sure you lean on something strong to avoid being pushed down." It's a bit of wisdom that informs their approach to hard times, too, even as they leave the baobabs behind. What it means is that with some support, people can help themselves overcome hardships.

That's the idea behind a $65,000 grant Oxfam America has provided to help people in 51 villages—including Dasilami—in Gambia's North Bank Division. Here, food shortages are a constant threat as people struggle to manage the delicate balance between their needs and what the environment can provide. Will there be enough rain to allow crops to grow? Will locusts devour whatever villagers manage to coax from their fields?

A simple solution promoted by Oxfam's local partner, Agency for the Development of Women and Children, or ADWAC, takes the edge off those questions: If villagers had a way to save some of their food and seeds at the end of each harvest, they could have a reserve to fall back on during times of shortage. The trick was to get started.

ADWAC's plan called for building and stocking four cereal "banks"—tidy white structures the size of small houses which can hold up to 30 metric tons of cereals—located at strategic points around the communities. Villagers then formed committees to manage the stored supplies. Those who borrow from the storehouse during a food shortage are obliged to repay the loan and tack on a little extra, too, so that the project can grow.

Now, if drought should shrivel their crops or pests consume them, villagers can turn to that bank of grain, avoiding the need to eke what they can—as the woodcutters in Janack do—from an overstrained environment. The bank will help them weather tough times.

Inside the Dasilami storehouse one recent day, the sweetness of harvested grains fills the hot dry air. Heavy sacks—they weigh just under 200 pounds—stuffed with corn and millet are stacked nearly to the ceiling. Outside, in the shade of a tree laden with mangoes, Nyima Filly Fofana, a mother of nine children and an organizer for one of the cereal bank management committees, talks about what it was like one year recently when both locusts and drought hit the area.

"We experienced a very bitter time," she says. "The family was hungry." In times of food shortages, Fofana's family manages by selling the salt she harvests from mud flats near her home and by eating whatever vegetables they can grow in their garden. But if such trouble should strike again, this time Dasilami has the seeds of a solution—one that can now spread to other villages, too.

"Our worries will be temporarily solved," says Fofana, clapping her hands at the thought of the white building gleaming there in the sun, stocked with grain. "We'll have food. Therefore our families will not cry. Our stomachs will no longer go empty."