WASHINGTON -- Citing the likelihood of volatile harvests and food prices in the future, World Food Program executive director Josette Sheeran Dec. 9 urged world leaders gathering in Copenhagen to establish programs immediately to help developing countries plant trees, save water and take other actions to adapt to climate change.
"Risk is the new normal," Sheeran said in a telephone news conference from London. WFP, which receives commodities from the United States and buys commodities and foodstuffs with money it gets from other countries to distribute to the poor, used to be able to predict prices for five years, but now does its calculations on a monthly basis, she adds.
"For 80 percent of the commodities in the developing world, (prices) are higher than they were a year ago and never went down," she said.
The volatility and high prices could affect consumers and farmers' decision making processes in developed and developing countries, but she emphasized that volatility associated with climate change will make the poor more vulnerable. But the good news, she added, is that WFP and developing countries already have proven that these "real solutions at the community level" can help mitigate climate change and make countries less dependent on food aid.
Aid precedent
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Sheeran, who served in the State Department in the Bush administration, noted that WFP helped China 20 years ago plant a billion trees that have stabilized China's food producing areas and eliminated the need for food aid in that country. She also said the planting of 40,000 trees in Mali has succeeded in protecting rice fields from desert encroachment and produced food surpluses and that Ethiopia's land and water rehabilitation projects have allowed 800,000 people to become food self-reliant.
Sheeran said more countries need to develop food safety nets such as granaries and cash payment programs for people to rely on when either shortages or high prices mean they do not have enough to eat.
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Some critics have said they are worried about more developed countries buying up or leasing land in Africa to assure a food supply for their own citizens, but Sheeran noted that such programs bring investment that is needed for agricultural development. Such programs may be OK if they help the farmers in those African countries make a profit and provide food in the African countries as well as for export, Sheeran said.
Alex Evans of the Center on International Cooperation at New York University, who joined Sheeran in the news conference, said the stage is set for another round of food and energy prices hikes in 2010, but said country leaders should take action now so they avoid the "panic measures" such as embargoes on exports that made the problem worse in 2008.
Sheeran said developed countries should provide money now for the tree planting and water retention if the programs are going to be effective in fighting global warming and assuring a food supply.
"Trees don't grow overnight," Sheeran observed.
