World Food Programme

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Key. I congratulate the Chairman of the Select Committee, the right hon. Member for Gordon (Malcolm Bruce), not only on his speech and assessment of the current situation, but on this very comprehensive report. His Committee was very prescient in taking up the issue before the crisis erupted last year. Perhaps the best way of opening my speech is to read out in full paragraph 7 of the report, which summarises what was happening in the world last year:""It is in developing countries that people's lives are being endangered by the crisis. A 'perfect storm' of factors has conspired to send wheat prices spiralling by 122 per cent. and rice by 250 per cent. since 2000. The crisis has contributed to the threat of famine in countries such as Ethiopia, where the increasing cost of food imports has combined with drought, crop failure and conflict to double the number of people needing emergency assistance to 4.6 million. Four African countries—Lesotho, Somalia, Swaziland and Zimbabwe—are classified by the FAO"—" the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation—""as having 'exceptional shortfalls' in food production and supplies. There have been food riots in countries as diverse as Egypt, Malaysia and Yemen. In Haiti, where up to 75 per cent. of food is imported, riots during April 2008 forced the resignation of the Prime Minister."" Sadly, that was the context that followed the Select Committee's initial inquiry into this matter, but it is not an entirely new problem. I had a leading Indian human rights lawyer in my office this week, who gave me the shocking statistic that 300 million people in India eat 100 kg less a year now than they did at the time of independence in 1947. The problem has been becoming steadily worse, and DFID needs to be addressing it. A fortnight ago, we were debating millennium development goal 6, relating to HIV/AIDS, and today we are debating MDG 1, which is probably the most important of all the MDGs, because if people do not have adequate food and water, they become, as the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (John Barrett) has made clear, vulnerable to every other disease and pressure on their lives. I need hardly remind hon. Members participating in the debate about MDG 1, but to put my speech in context, I shall put the details of it on the record. The goal is to halve between 1990 and 2015 the proportion of people whose income is less than $1 a day; to achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all, including women and young people; and to halve between 1990 and 2015 the proportion of people who suffer from hunger. As both previous speakers have said, it was commonly assumed that 850 million people were living in hunger; it is now assumed that the figure is more than 1 billion—one sixth of the world's population. That is a very serious statistic. A child dies from malnutrition every five seconds, and 30 per cent. of all children who die, die from malnutrition-related problems. Those are shocking statistics. We all have tremendous sympathy for people in these situations and want to see what we can do about it. Much has been said about the WFP today. I did not wish, in my intervention on the Chairman of the Select Committee, to cast any aspersions on the WFP. I just want to understand why the director of the WFP did not praise Britain in relation to contributions to the WFP, because it seems to me from everything that I have read that we generously support the WFP. Indeed, the agency is held in the highest regard worldwide and its staff deserve due credit for the vital work that they perform. The fact that eradicating hunger features as the first MDG should focus everyone's mind on how serious the matter is. As I have stated, we discussed HIV/AIDS in this Chamber two weeks ago. Although it is right that that and the issue before us are debated separately, we must remember that the challenges that we face are not distinct, but interlinked and part of the web of poverty. The Committee's report noted that 850 million people regularly do not eat enough food—a point graphically made by the Liberal spokesman, the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (John Barrett). The hon. Gentleman quoted Robert Zoellick, who said that MDG 1 is the forgotten MDG. As the Committee reported, Robert Zoellick went on to say that the world food crisis—this is perhaps the most shocking thing in the entire report—""could push 100 million people into poverty, reversing the gains made in poverty reduction over the last seven years."" In other words, a lot of what the international community has achieved will be reversed. That is why we need the Minister to address the problem seriously. If current trends continue, we will miss the target of halving the proportion of underweight children by 30 million children, and that will be largely because of the slow progress in southern Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. As I have said, a child dies from hunger-related causes every five seconds. When the Minister sums up, I hope that he will tell us how the work of the WFP and DFID in tackling hunger and malnutrition ties into the picture of underdevelopment as a whole. As the Chairman has said, unpredictable and volatile world food prices were exacerbated by fluctuations in the oil markets, by increased weather hazards and by an overall growth in demand. Backed by the global recession, that created a perfect storm, as the Committee has said, and incomes fell. All those factors came together to make the situation worse. As I said in the debate on HIV/AIDS, the adverse exchange rate also reduced British aid. The hon. Member for Edinburgh, West quoted the chairman of Nestlé, who said that food prices rose by 60 per cent. last year. Again, that exacerbated the problem. Prices might have dropped back a bit this year, but they are still above trend. The UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, no less, highlighted the simple consequences of such events to the Committee:""When people are that poor and inflation erodes their meagre earnings, they generally do one of two things: they buy less food, or they buy cheaper, less nutritious food. The result is the same—more hunger and less chance of a healthy future."" In response to such concerns, the Committee made the following recommendation:""the safest plan of action is to prepare for relatively higher prices over the next decade, and we encourage the WFP and DFID to make the necessary adjustments to their policies."" When the Minister sums up, I would be interested to hear the Department's view of what the trends in food prices and availability are likely to be over the next few years and what plans it has to adjust budgets, if it feels that we are likely to remain above trend. The WFP has responded to the increased challenges of global hunger by broadening its activities, moving away from simply providing food aid, which Save the Children has described as a blunt instrument, towards providing food assistance through cash and food transfer systems. As a farmer—I have declared that in the Register of Members' Interests—I think that the best long-term solution is to provide development assistance to encourage more farmers in individual countries to grow more of their own food, and DFID needs to pay close attention to that. As has been said, we must recognise the USA as an important partner in tackling these problems. As the Chairman has said, however, the fact that the USA, which is the largest donor to the WFP, gives nearly all its donations in kind—as food—is of concern. It is far better from every point of view—whether we want to increase local capacity, get farmers to produce food themselves or deal with the environmental effects of CO2 emissions—that we do not transport vast quantities of food around the world any more than necessary. At just the time when assistance is needed most, it is of great concern that the USA, as one of the key global players, has adopted such a policy. The Minister will no doubt recognise the concerns that that has raised, and I hope that he will enlighten us as to the dialogue that he has had with his counterparts in the USA about whether assistance should be provided in cash or in kind. I hope that he will tell us what more can be done through the WFP and direct donations by USAID and DFID to shift the emphasis on this issue. I turn now to the work of the WFP. I share the Committee's surprise that""DFID was not more supportive of the wider development activities undertaken by the WFP"." Those comments go in a similar direction to those made by the WFP's chairman, when she explained why she had not praised Britain more. There is something of an underlying agenda here, and it would be helpful if the Minister were to give us a clue as to what this is all about. Clearly, the decisions taken by DFID have not been arbitrary, because the Department has stated that it has concerns over the appropriateness and effectiveness of WFP interventions. I hope that the Minister will be able to enlighten us. I will not criticise the Department's decisions in that respect, because I want the Minister to explain in more detail exactly what DFID's concerns are and what comparative advantage DFID has over the WFP in delivering health and education packages. I now turn to two of the key issues that could feature in more long-term development—nutrition and agriculture. The report notes that donors have ignored nutrition for too long, adding that""Only $250 million is spent on nutrition aid globally, compared with the $3 billion spent on HIV/AIDS"—" in fact, it is more than $3 billion, because DFID spends £1 billion as part of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. The report continues:""Whilst HIV/AIDS led to 380,000 child deaths in 2006, malnutrition is"—" perhaps—""responsible for 1.5-2.5 million children dying annually."" In a way, it is in invidious to compare one budget with another, but DFID's budget should surely be focused on an issue which affects so many people and which causes so many children to die each year. It is therefore welcome to read in the Government response about the establishment of a nutrition task team as part of DFID's policy and research division, and today seems like an excellent opportunity to give us an update on the team's work. The Government response states that more than 50 per cent. of DFID's development assistance is spent on""tackling the underlying causes of…malnutrition by investing in essential public services such as health, water and sanitation, education and social protection."" That is a welcome indication of the Government's recognition of the cross links that exist with other aspects of international development. On the reference to water and sanitation, however, I note that we debated the Committee's report on water and sanitation in this Chamber on 29 April 2008. DFID has admitted that it took its eye off the ball on that issue. Let us not underestimate the importance of water to today's discussion. As the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West has said, world water consumption had tripled over the past 10 years. A shortage of clean water is almost more important than a shortage of food, because so many people are dying as a result of contaminated water. The Committee's report on water and sanitation notes:""water availability decreased substantially between 1975 and 1995"," and that trend is likely to continue as a result of increasing drought, desertification and extreme weather events. That is all part of the pattern of global climate change, which not only affects water supplies, but leads to food shortages. As a farmer, I think that our international development programme has neglected agriculture, and that has been recognised by the Committee and by many in the development community. However, I reiterate the Committee's view that this is not the time for blame, but for looking forward to see how we can redress those issues. That belief was reinforced last summer, when I took part in a project in Rwanda. I met a man who runs a charity called Send a Cow, and he is a real expert in agriculture. He suggested that 80 per cent. of the people in Rwanda gain their living and income from agriculture in one way or another and that one of the quickest ways to help those people, who are so dependent on agriculture, is a free agricultural advisory service. I went away and did a little work on that. I got an institution in my constituency—the Royal Agricultural College—to do a feasibility study. I sent that study to the Minister, who replied that Rwanda's agriculture is improving significantly. However, I believe that there are many poor countries where a free advisory service to farmers could boost agricultural production significantly. The report makes it clear that DFID spends only £400 million on agricultural research. In a world where a lot of good research is going on—indeed, research has helped to give a huge boost to our agriculture and that of other civilised countries since this country was kept alive during the second world war—it is important to carry on such work. I ask the Minister to reflect, without preconceived ideas, on whether his Department is doing enough on agricultural research; I am not sure. The report touches on the issues of GM crops and biofuels—two other subjects that could be better informed by research. The use of GM crops remains a matter of great debate and there are clearly significant and sharp arguments on both sides of the subject, but the correct approach is to enable developing countries to take their own decisions on the use of such crops. I believe, as a farmer, that they can play a significant and useful role in boosting food output, particularly where there are difficult agricultural conditions, such as drought or severe pestilence. As to biofuels, in my conversation with the European Environment Commissioner there was no thought that, in relation to targets for inclusion, we should perhaps lower our aim. Again, the subject is fiercely controversial, but if the west's over-demand for the inclusion of biofuels in the general fuel mix is causing a reduction in food production that would otherwise help to feed poor countries, we need to think seriously about it. In conclusion, I want to consider the future and ask what the Minister sees as the route to achieving MDG 1, and the role of DFID and the WFP. The Select Committee has remarked on greater integration between the WFP, the Food and Agriculture Organisation and the International Fund for Agricultural Development. Alongside that, it makes recommendations for the WFP to be the UN's leading agency on hunger. On both those suggestions, the Government have said that they will be supportive and offer their encouragement. I hope that the Minister will update us on how that encouragement has been taking shape. Let us not overlook the important statement in the report that the problem lies not in a""global lack of food—there is enough food in the world to meet demand—but in a long-term lack of access to food for many people"." We can produce enough food in the world, but it is not being universally distributed, and 1 billion or more people go hungry each night. If international development cannot solve that, then we have failed. I ask the Minister what progress we are making.