Many people care about the fact that so many are hungry in the developing world. We are shown pictures on TV of emaciated people and are asked to take action by donating. But what we know about the root causes of hunger is usually very limited. In this blog, I will not show any pictures. For right now, I want you to think hard.
If you care about the problem of hunger, I ask you to be patient and walk with me in the muck and mire where this problem is stuck. If there were easy answers, it would have been solved long ago, because many people genuinely care and much money has been spent.
In Tanzania and most of Africa, the problem is not lack of production. Tanzania produces more food than it needs and 40% of it rots every year. I saw a study that claimed that Uganda could by itself feed much of Africa.
(IMPORTANT!) Therefore, when you talk about hunger, you’re talking not about growing more. You’re talking about better delivery of what is there: what is often called the ‘value chain’.
The problems in the food value chain are many and varied in Tanzania and are shared in various forms across much of Africa. The example of this that I have been providing in the previous blogs might be viewed as overly generalized and simplified. However, there are some common threads to these stories and hundreds more that I have seen. Here are some of the aspects we frequently see:
- The incentives for production efficiency are often missing or negative. For example, farmers don’t see any point in growing more because almost half of the food they grow rots. Middlemen benefit from keeping farmers poor (more dependency by farmers) and supplies to factories low (higher prices when delivered). Animal feed companies are few in number or hiding because of a high and inappropriate VAT tax.
- Food production tends to come to market all at once and receive low prices.
- There is very little food preservation. Even simple technologies like hot-water-bath canning, smoked meats, drying are rarely known or used.
- Most of the sourcing and transportation of food is done by very large numbers of middlemen. Their incentives are counterproductive (see above) and there is no reliable source or movement of food in any consistent fashion. They often make a significant portion of their income through money-lending schemes that keep farmers as bond-servants.
- The price of trucking is often based on the value of what is moved not weight/volume/distance. This takes advantage of the producers and is a tax on the high value products.
- The process of sourcing food usually involves negotiating with very large numbers of individually small farmers (thousands). A negotiation may end without a purchase.
- There is very little trust by members of the value chain for each other. This is exacerbated by the middlemen (currently the key value chain link) who are the least trusted of all.
- In the past, farmer cooperatives have failed numerous times and were sources of corruption that stole from the poorest of the poor. They are not trusted today.
- Erratic weather patterns create local droughts and unreliable production.
- Because of the challenges of sourcing local food (and because of national selfishness) famine relief is purchased within the donor nation (say, in the USA) rather than within nearby countries. This practice keeps local farmers poor by flooding local markets with free food.
- Famine relief and aid organizations often keep giving when the problem has ended. Ethiopia used to be a food exporting nation. In the west we don’t know that it is a green, verdant and beautiful place because we see pictures on our TV from the deserts in one corner. After a famine more than a decade ago, aid organizations continued to ship ‘relief’ food from the west because for a variety of reasons, none of them very good. After a few years of unneeded aid, most of the local farmers were put out of business. Now Ethiopia really does need the aid and so that’s why they are still on our TVs.
- The approaches to change are usually not holistic. Many aid and government organizations are focused on ‘dollars of giving’ as the key measure of success rather than ‘income change (profit)’. Development usually fails to address a sufficiently wide part of the value chain to bring change.
- Big business development tends to fail because it is not prepared to deal with the highly fractured nature of local producers or local markets. It also usually leaves most of the most needy out of the value chain.
- Because these problems are so complex, it’s easier to just give donations than to make lasting change.
These are just some of the problems. I want to make it clear that our view of this situation is not simplistic.
But remember where we began: when you talk about the problem of hunger, you’re talking not about growing more. You’re talking about better delivery of what is there: what we call the ‘value chain’.
I will not show you pictures of starving people like you see on TV.
It is degrading. It misses the point. I have even heard it called ‘poverty pornography’. We feel guilty and send $10 and then feel better. But nothing really changes.
In your mind’s eye I want you to see that these people are like you.
They are hopeful. They work hard. They have families. They are smart and resourceful – creating something from seemingly nothing. But they bury too many of their children and too often fail to see their children grow up. No matter how hard they work, fathers too often can’t take care of their families. I think that this is why many abandon their families: out of despair and a sense of failure.
And they are often hungry.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Truly.
Well, OK, here’s one picture.
Next: making a lasting difference. To continue this series go here: http://cheetahdevelopment.blogspot.com/2009/06/food-part-7-from-subsistence-to.html
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