The perception that one of the main reasons for the price spikes in major food items, especially food grain, is the increased demand from countries like China and India persists in many parts of the world. Photograph: Diego Giudice/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Ever since the global food crisis of 2007-08, a perception has persisted in many parts of the world that one of the main underlying reasons for the price spikes in major food items – especially food grain – is the increased demand from countries such as China and India. If anything, this perception has become even more widespread since prices started rising again, especially since early 2010.
On the face of it, such a perception seems quite reasonable. After all, China and India both have huge populations, accounting for nearly 40% of the total world population between them. Their economies have both been expanding very rapidly, much faster than most of the rest of the world, so per capita incomes have been rising from relatively low bases. It is well known that as incomes rise from low levels, people tend to consume more food grain – not necessarily directly, but indirectly through the consumption of livestock products that require more grain in the form of food.
So it is only to be expected that the increased incomes in China and India would translate into more demand for food grain, and this could certainly affect the global supply demand balance in ways that would cause food prices to rise. Expected, yes: but did this actually happen?
It turns out that there has been barely any change, and if anything a slowdown, in the rate of grain consumption in these two large countries. And the global consumption of grain for all food purposes has actually decelerated in recent years compared with previous periods.
This is very evident from an important new report from the high level panel of experts set up by the FAO to study commodity price volatility and its relationship to food security. The report contains a careful assessment of both the actual trends and the various attempts to explain the price changes. In the process, it blows the myth about increased consumption from developing countries leading to higher global demand and, therefore, higher grain prices.
Consider the evidence it provides on rates of change of global cereal consumption, as shown in the chart. The growth rate of total cereal consumption was considerably slower in the period since 2000 than it was in the 1960s and 1970s, and only around the same as it was in the 1980s. It did increase relative to the 1990s, but not by very much. And, contrary to the general feeling, feed consumption for livestock actually increased more slowly than direct (or non-feed) consumption.
Source: FAO HLPE report on price volatility and food security, 2011
In fact, the report notes that even the apparent acceleration of feed use in the last decade was essentially because of the recovery of feed use in the former Soviet Union after the 1990s. So, despite all the booming demand for meat in fast-growing Asia, the growth of feed consumption in the rest of the world outside the former Soviet Union was not accelerating. Rather, it has actually been slowing down.
As it happens, FAO food balance sheets show that both direct and indirect demand for grain in China and India barely increased between 2000 and 2007, and cereal imports were actually lower. Why this has been happening, and why the economic growth has not translated into more aggregate demand for grain, is obviously a fascinating question on its own and one that deserves more study. It is likely that the worsening income distribution in both countries may have had something to do with it, so that increased demand from high-income groups is counterbalanced by reduced demand from poorer sections. But this needs to be explored further.
The relevant point is that it is not increased demand from China and India that is driving up grain prices. This does not mean that there are no other demand forces at work, however. Financial speculation in commodity markets is clearly significant, but it is also true that even such speculation must be based on some assessments of changing global balances. What could that be based on?
The report from the FAO has a convincing response to that as well: it notes that the biofuel boom has had a major impact on the evolution of world food demand for cereals and vegetable oils. According to page 32 of the report "there is a real acceleration of non-feed uses boosted by biofuel development. Excluding use for biofuel, the growth rate for non-feed use is stable compared with the 1990s and markedly inferior to its historical performance. Without biofuel, the growth rate of world cereal consumption is equal to 1.3% compared with 1.8% for biofuel".
This massively increased demand from biofuel is largely determined by the very large subsidies provided in many western countries, which have, ironically, been increasing their subsidisation of biofuel at the same time that they have reduced subsidies on food cultivation. Aside from a few producers, such as Brazil and Cuba, biofuel production in most locations would be completely unviable without these large subsidies.
The impact of these on diverting production and affecting price has been even more significant in the case of edible oils. The report shows that "the use of vegetable oils for food slowed down between the 1990s and the 2000s (from 4.4% a year to 3.3%), but industrial use of vegetable oil soared, pushed by the booming European biofuel industry. As a result, the share of industrial use in world consumption of vegetable oils jumped from 11% to 24% between 2000 and 2010".
The surprising conclusion from all this is that, leaving out the impact of the biofuel boom of the 2000s, global consumption of both cereals and edible oils is actually slowing down. All the more tragic, then, that speculative forces are still allowed to run amok in global commodity markets and global food prices are kept so high as to increase the deprivation of the millions of hungry people in the world.
Kamla Devi was Rajasthan's first woman to graduate from Barefoot college as a solar engineer. Photograph: Suzanne Lee/Panos
Securing the end of her bright yellow and orange sari firmly around her head, Santosh Devi climbs up to the rooftop of her house to clean her solar panels. The shining, mirrored panels, which she installed herself last year, are a striking sight against the simple one-storey homes of her village. No less remarkable is that this 19-year-old, semi-literate woman from the backwaters of Rajasthan has broken through India's rigid caste system to become the country's first Dalit solar engineer.
While differences of caste have begun to blur in the cities, in rural India Dalits – also known as "untouchables" – are still impoverished and widely discriminated against.
Growing up, Santosh had to avoid the upper caste people of her village or cover her face in their presence. Nowadays, they seek her help. "For them, I am a solar engineer who can repair and install the light installations," she says. "From looking down on the ground when higher caste people passed to looking them in the eye, I never imagined this would have been possible."
Santosh trained to be a solar engineer at the Barefoot College in Tilonia, 100km from Jaipur. The college was set up in 1972 by Sanjit "Bunker" Roy to teach rural people skills with which they could transform their villages, regardless of gender, caste, ethnicity, age or schooling. The college claims to have trained 15,000 women in skills including solar engineering, healthcare and water testing. Roy, 65, says his approach – low cost, decentralised and community driven – works by "capitalising on the resources already present in the villages".
The college, spread over eight acres, runs entirely on solar energy, maintained by the Barefoot solar engineers. Since the solar course was launched in 2005, more than 300 Barefoot engineers have brought power to more than 13,000 homes across India. A further 6,000 households, in more than 120 villages in 24 countries from Afghanistan to Uganda, have been powered on the same model.
Only villages that are inaccessible, remote and non-electrified are considered for solar power. A drop in the ocean, perhaps – 44% of rural households in India have no electricity – but these women are making an important contribution to the nation's power needs. Rural India, comprising 72% of the population, continues to depend on fossil fuels, which will be a setback for the country's environmental goals unless the government is able to transfer this dependence to renewable sources.
In India, Roy's engineers already save at least 1.5m litres of kerosene a year, which would otherwise have been used to power lamps and stoves, according to Bhagwat Nandan, the co-ordinator of the college's solar division.
Marked by a stick fence, Santosh's predominantly Dalit village, Balaji Ki Dhani, is a hamlet consisting of about 20 mud houses scattered over five acres of semi-arid land. The only incongruous element in what could otherwise pass as an 18th-century rural set-up is the cement-built home – the only one in the village – where Santosh lives with her husband, baby son and in-laws. The house has two bedrooms, two mud huts in the courtyard – one housing goats, the other a kitchen – and a third room that functions as Santosh's workshop. Here she spends around six hours a day repairing solar lanterns.
Santosh built the house with money she made as a solar engineer. Thanks to her, the other households in the village now have solar power too. Under the Barefoot model, they pay a monthly fee based on how much they would have spent on kerosene, batteries, wood and candles. Some of the money goes towards the solar engineer's monthly stipend, while the rest pays for components and spare parts.
Choti Devi, an upper caste Hindu in her late 60s, is Santosh's immediate neighbour. She can't stop gushing about her solar lanterns. "With the light, it is easier to make the beds at night. During the rainy season many poisonous insects roam around, but now that we have light in the night we do not worry as much. The lanterns have also helped us to guard our cattle properly while getting them back to the house in the evenings," she says.
As is the custom in rural India, women do the bulk of the housework and agricultural labour. Although Santosh doesn't work in the fields any more, at home she is endlessly busy. If she is not tending to her 17-month-old son, she is milking the cattle, feeding the livestock, attending to customers at the small grocery store she runs from home and repairing solar lanterns. She is quick-witted and confident, although she admits the first day at college was scary.
"I thought I would never be able to understand anything – let alone be able to do it on my own. I didn't even know that we could use the sunlight to light up our homes at night ... I was as amazed as the other villagers."
Since she became a Barefoot solar engineer, the total income of the family has doubled. "Before, I worked in the fields the whole day and then I had to rush back so that I could cook dinner while there was still daylight. I hardly got a moment to breathe," says Santosh.
At the Barefoot College, the women learn through listening and memorising, using colour-coded charts that help them to remember the permutation and combination of the wires without needing to read or write.
Nomad Santra Banjara poses with a solar lantern made at the Barefoot College. Photograph: Suzanne Lee/Panos
The model is being replicated in Africa, Latin America and south Asia. The first batch of Barefoot engineers from Tanzania, Uganda, Gambia, Malawi, Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, Rwanda and Bhutan completed their six-month residential training at Tilonia between 2008 and 2009, and have since set up solar power in their villages.
Any woman over 35 from a remote, inaccessible, non-electrified area can enrol for the international course, provided she is backed by her village. As Roy says: "It makes sense to choose women, especially older women, as they are more loyal to their roots and less impatient to try out new pastures, which men are wont to do as soon as they are given a certificate."
Precious Molobane Mamogale, 42, a mother of four who lives in a village around 500km from Johannesburg in South Africa, is frowning in concentration at a circuit board in one of the college workshops. She looks uncomfortable. "I didn't expect India to be so hot," she says. However, despite the conditions and the vegetarian diet, she is full of hope for the future. "I want to go back to my country and bring light to my province – and want to open a college like this there so that I can train more women," she explains. Back home, Precious was unemployed and survived on state benefits that she received for her last two children; "not enough to feed a family of six", she says. Her husband sometimes earned money by working as a taxi driver in the nearest town. When she heard about the course, she was immediately attracted by the opportunity to learn something of benefit to her community and to the family coffers.
The class is conducted in a large, rectangular workshop, with a long worktable running through the middle, around which the women sit with their individual colour sheets and panels. Neat rows of solar lanterns line shelves, while charts detailing the colour codes hang on the walls and flutter in the breeze of the fan. The room is airy, but the heat, even at 10am, scorches the ground outside.
Guman Singh, their short, bespectacled teacher, calls the women to the blackboard to read out the colour codes. One of them uses her knowledge of English to help her compatriots learn the words for the colours in their local language. "It is always very difficult in the beginning. Sometimes we feel like tearing our hair in frustration," Singh says. "But once they start getting the colour codes it is easy. We also teach them through sign language and practical demonstrations."
Further down the long table, Matildah Chikwata, 43, from a village in Zimbabwe, grapples with the workings of a solar panel. Back home she was a vegetable seller, earning around $5 a day. "We could afford nothing – not even taking the vegetables to sell at the nearest town, so we depended on the villagers coming to buy from us," she says. "People here are poor too. But they are using their hands to make their lives better. I want to go back home and teach people to use their hands. If I can learn at this age, so can anyone."
Back in Balaji Ki Dhani, Santosh climbs down from her roof and reflects on her modest ambitions for her family: a television, a grinder to make flour, and a motorbike for her husband, who has to walk the 10km to work every day. With her livelihood secure thanks to her training, these small luxuries are now within reach. "I never thought I would be able to do anything worthwhile," she says proudly.
Sudan referendum: President Omar al-Bashir has said he will consolidate north Sudan as an Arab-Islamic state if the south votes for independence in the referendum. Photograph: Philip Dhil/EPA
As southern Sudanese prepare to vote for independence tomorrow, the jubilation at the prospective breakup of Sudan that is so widespread in the south is not shared by everyone in the north.
Particularly concerned are people in the two "contested areas" – South Kordofan and Blue Nile – who fought alongside the southerners in the civil war but have been left in the north by Sudan's comprehensive peace agreement (CPA).
With predominantly African populations of Nuba and Ingessana, who practise Christianity and traditional religions in addition to Islam, the people of the two areas are now being referred to as janubeen jadeed – the new southerners. This reflects their potential future status as marginalised Africans on the southern periphery of an integrated Arab-Islamist state. Precisely the same situation that led to the southerners calling for independence.
To complicate matters, virtually all of north Sudan's current oil production is in South Kordofan. If Southerners vote to secede, Khartoum stands to lose the 80% of its oil supplies currently produced in the south, and is unlikely to countenance losing the rest.
Under the CPA, the two areas are supposed to have "popular consultation" on their future status, but this process – like the referendum for Abyei district – is completely off-track and people are extremely nervous about their future should the south vote to secede and President Omar al-Bashir carry out his threat to amend the constitution to consolidate north Sudan as an Arab-Islamic state with no concessions for racial or religious minorities.
Bashir recently declared: "If south Sudan secedes, we will change the constitution, and at that time there will be no time to speak of diversity of culture and ethnicity … sharia and Islam will be the main source for the constitution, Islam the official religion and Arabic the official language."
This statement – coupled with his defiant stance on Islamic law after international condemnation of a YouTube video of a woman being flogged by laughing policemen – has caused massive unease among north Sudan's minorities. Bashir said those calling for an investigation into the ill-treatment misunderstood Islam, because "sharia law has always stipulated that one must whip, cut, or kill".
Kamal Kambal, of Nuba Mountains Solidarity Abroad, says: "This is the reason why the southerners want to break away, and of course it is also going to be a disaster for those of us who are going to be forced to live with people with this mindset." Pointing out that the Nuba had been fighting alongside the south "to prevent the imposition of sharia law and Arabic culture", Kambal adds: "For us, this statement is a declaration of war."
He says this is an especially sensitive issue for the Nuba because, during a state-sponsored jihad against the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) in the Nuba mountains in the 1990s, the government issued a fatwa proclaiming Muslim rebels to be apostates who had renounced Islam, giving free rein to the pro-government Popular Defence Force militias, who were largely recruited from among Misseriya Arab pastoralists. He points out that the state elections stipulated by the CPA have been postponed in South Kordofan, where the current governor is Ahmed Mohamed Haroun, who has been indicted by the international criminal court for war crimes in Darfur.
He also points out that Bashir has threatened to expel the UN from north Sudan immediately after the referendum, and that now "his plans to rewrite the constitution are going to undermine all the provisions of the CPA in northern Sudan".
"Bashir clearly doesn't recognise the rights of anyone other than Arabs and Muslims," Kambal says. "He allowed cultural and religious freedom for minorities while he wanted to keep the southerners on board, but what rights will Christians and minority people like the Nuba have after the south breaks away?"
He believes that Britain and the CPA's other international guarantors are "currently only concerned about the south and the referendum, and have forgotten about the CPA's protocol on the two contested areas, which stipulates 'popular consultation' on the future status of South Kordofan and Blue Nile".
Ahmed Hussein Adam, spokesman for Darfur's Justice and Equality Movement, says: "This has revealed the true face of President Bashir and gives a clear indication of the type of state we're going to be left with after the separation of the south.
"Bashir is trying to impose one religion, one culture and one ethnicity over Sudan's diverse population. This will unfortunately lead to more violence as there is no way that everybody will accept this. It is a declaration of war against Darfur, the Nuba, the people of Blue Nile and the entire marginalised majority of Sudan."
The UN recently expressed concern about the "uncertain fate" of southerners living in northern Sudan and northern Sudanese in the south. It has made preparations for a worst-case scenario, with contingency plans which anticipate that almost 3 million people could be displaced if fighting breaks out due to disputes over the referendum.
Rabbi David Wax, 49, who was described as a pillar of the community in the
Orthodox enclave of Lakewood, New Jersey, allegedly kicked the victim in the
ribs and showed him a body bag.
The rabbi and his own wife Judy Wax, 47, face kidnapping charges in the US
and appeared in court in New Jersey before being released on $500,000
(f300,000) bail.
The case allegedly began with a dispute in Israel
over the alleged victim Yisrael Briskman's refusal to give his wife a "get,"
an Orthodox Jewish divorce document permitting a wife to remarry.
In 2008 a public notice from the High Rabbinical Court of Jerusalem, placed in
religious publications in Israel and abroad, announced a ruling against him.
The notice, headlined "Wanted," said community members were
forbidden from doing business with Mr Briskman, allowing him to study in a
Jewish seminary, or giving him a place to stay. The notice said: "It is
not permitted to extend to him a kindness or favour in any form."
According to the FBI, Mr Briskman fled Israel but was then lured to the
rabbi's New Jersey home on Oct 16, 2010, under the pretence of collaborating
on a book about the Talmud, a central Jewish text.
He was then said to have been handcuffed, blindfolded and robbed. Under the
blindfold he could allegedly see the rabbi wearing a cowboy hat and kicking
him.
In a sworn statement an FBI agent said: "The victim was shown a body bag
and told that if he did not comply, he would be buried alive in the Pocono
Mountains.
"A dark-coloured body bag was brought into the room and laid on the
victim by Wax, who stated 'for you to get used to the size'." The rabbi
is also accused of phoning Mr Briskman's father in Israel, telling him he
would be killed in Israel if he didn't pay $100,000 to the woman who wanted
a divorce. He allegedly said: "For you there's a special gift. It's
called a bullet."
Both the rabbi and his wife deny kidnapping Mr Briskman. Mitchell Ansell, the
rabbi's lawyer, said: "He has no history of any type of criminal
behaviours or violent behaviours. He's the father of eight children."
The exact connection between the rabbi and the alleged victim’s ex-wife was
unclear. However, according to the FBI, there were five phone calls between
the rabbi and a number associated with the woman’s family in Israel.
Flight records showed the woman herself arrived in New York the day before the
alleged attack, and left the day after. According to Mr Briskman one of his
attacker’s said the assault was his wife’s "revenge," the FBI said.
Inside the delivery ward of Murtala Mohammed specialist hospital in Kano, Nigeria. Photograph: Guardian
The beginning of May marked the International Day of the Midwife, making maternal health a focus of the Global Development site over the last two weeks.
Midwives from across Africa shared their experiences of women's healthcare and the chances of their countries hitting the fifth millennium development goal: to improve maternal health.
On our Talk point, we debated whether the world had a chance of meeting MDG 5, given the global shortage of midwives and the stark statistic from Save the Children that one in three women around the world gives birth without any trained help.
Maggie Fick looked at maternal healthcare in northern Nigeria and Sarah Boseley looked at the situation in Afghanistan, where more women die in childbirth than anywhere else in the world.
Elsewhere on the site
Jonathan Glennie wrote on the Poverty Matters blog about Hugo Chávez's reverse-halo effect and reflected on how some leaders have become so demonised it is difficult to offer a balanced view of their achievements and failures.
Economist Jayati Ghosh argued that the dire impact of the WTO agreement on agriculture and food security in the developing world meant few would mourn the death of the Doha talks.
Madeleine Bunting interviewed Kenyan anti-corruption campaigner John Githongo about his work in the country and his role on the UK government's Independent Commission for Aid Impact.
And we reported on the annual Africa Progress Panel state of the continent report, which specifically looked at the role of the private sector in development.
Coming up on the site
Mark Tran is in Turkey this week to report from the UN's Least Developed Countries conference, which will assess the impact of the UN's 10-year action plan and look at what the next decade will hold. The UN special representative for LDCs believes that halving the number of least developed countries - from 48 to 24 – is achievable over the next 10 years. Watch out for daily reports from Wednesday and a live blog from the conference on Friday.
We shall also be at the conference on Girls and Population: the forgotten drivers of development, in Paris next week. Lawmakers from around the world will discuss the key role girls and women play in development and how they can be offered more support. The outcomes will form a call to action to the upcoming G8/G20 summit.
And we'll have the final gallery of images from our Flickr group set up to collect your thoughts and messages on global health issues. There's still time to send in your photos.
Multimedia
Podcast: What role can tourism play in development?
Responsible tourism, argues the World Tourism Organisation, can play a significant role in eradicating poverty and meeting the millennium development goals. But is it right?
Gallery: Texts from the frontline: disaster reduction in Bangladesh
Mobile phones are being used to gather hard facts about whether the UN's 10-year programme to reduce disasters is working. The Global Network for Disaster Reduction is surveying thousands of people vulnerable to disaster via text
Gallery: Ivory Coast: Displaced families
Displaced families face health "catastrophe" as rainy season approaches. More than 200,000 people have fled recent fighting in western Ivory Coast and Save the Children warns that thousands urgently need proper shelter and sanitation
International development journalism competition
Entries are now open for the Guardian's 2011 International development journalism competition. All you need to do is write an article of between 650 and 1,000 words on an aspect of global poverty. The deadline is 13 June. Shortlisted entrants will get the opportunity to travel overseas to report on a project.
What you said: Some of the best comments from our readers
On Duncan Green's blog on the Doha talks, paulspray wrote:
The danger is that the development is thrown out with the Doha. Instead powerful countries can proceed with bilateral trade agreements, without being challenged, to ensure that small producers and workers in developing countries benefit from trade.
On David Booth's blog on democracy in Africa, kaduuli said:
We should all agree that good governance is a prerequisite for development. However, at the risk of being stoned, I think we in the civil society in Africa are being led to advocate for some solutions which are not workable on the continent by donor finance and 'one [size] fits all' solutions.
On our talk point on whether the world can achieve MDG5, crwilliams, from Women and Children First, wrote:
It is important that we don't get too carried away with one 'need' being more important than others, it's like most 'development themes' and needs a bit of everything.
Highlights from the blogosphere
Shanta Devarajan, the World Bank's chief economist for Africa, looked at the impact of expensive, low-standard transport on the poorest in South Africa.
Oxfam's Duncan Green considered whether the backlash against the Chinese in Africa had begun.
Christian Kingombe explores how infrastructure has crawled back up the international development agenda in the past 10 years.
