In recent years, several external shocks have disrupted the global food and agricultural system, with the most severe repercussions of those shocks falling on smallholder farmers in developing countries, those with the least capacity to mitigate the impacts. On July 26th, the Farm Journal Foundation released a policy brief it had commissioned from Dr. Jessica Fanzo of Columbia University, which summarized the impact of the current global polycrisis on agricultural supply chains in developing countries and recommended ways in which the U.S. government could help to improve the resiliency of those systems. The event was held in a conference room in the Capitol Visitor Center (CVC) in Washington, DC.
In her paper, Dr. Fanzo utilized the phrase ‘global polycrisis’ as a shorthand description of the collection of recent systemic shocks – specifically COVID-19, widespread conflict, and climate change–and laid out how they have contributed to the chronic stress of food insecurity and malnutrition around the world. While an estimated 32 conflicts persist to this day, including a number of terrorist insurgencies, drug wars, and civil wars within countries, the most serious conflict from a food security viewpoint is Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, launched in February 2022 and continuing today.
Prior to the war, both countries supplied wheat, maize, and sunflower seeds and oil to global markets. In 2020, they together accounted for approximately 29% of global exported wheat (Ukraine 9.0%, $4.6 billion USD; Russia 19.5%, $10.1 billion USD) and produced more than half of the world’s sunflower oil. Nearly 60% of Ukraine’s corn and wheat production is typically destined for export. Most of this production is purchased by lower-income countries, particularly in the Middle East and North Africa, Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa. The reduced flow of fertilizer exports from Russia and Belarus, due to sanctions and other restrictions placed after the invasion, has also led to spikes in fertilizer prices.
These recent shocks have led to high food prices and worsening hunger and malnutrition around the world. This polycrisis has had a disproportionately negative impact on small-scale producers and people living in low-income, food-deficit countries who spend most of their incomes on food. Smallholders generally have low levels of agricultural productivity, high exposure to climate change and other threats, scarce assets, and poor access to information, technology, markets, and services – increasing their vulnerability to shocks.
To help mitigate this polycrisis, Dr. Fanzo recommended that the U.S. seek to strengthen its R&D portfolio by providing additional resources to initiatives such as CGIAR, U.S. Feed the Future Innovation Labs, and the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research (FFAR), and by partnering with institutions with long histories of designing and delivering research for development overseas, such as the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).
Specific areas that Dr. Fanzo found that need to be addressed include:
• Invest in technologies and capacity for climate change adaptation and mitigation
• Develop and scale fertilizer alternatives, as well as soil health and nutrient management
• Consider production methods to promote more on-farm crop diversity that addresses both environmental sustainability and nutrition
• Address barriers and improve access to markets and finance, especially for women
• Invest in innovations to improve supply chain infrastructure
• Include producers in conversations and decisions and build their agency and capacity
The two leaders of the Senate State and Foreign Operations (SFOPS) Appropriations Subcommittee, Senator Chris Coons (D, DE), the subcommittee’s chair, and Senator Lindsey Graham (R, SC), the subcommittee’s ranking member, also spoke briefly at the rollout event.
The Senators conveyed similar messages during their remarks, both characterizing the ongoing food security crisis which has been exacerbated by recent external shocks such as the COVID-19 pandemic as the most serious challenge facing the world that gets relatively little attention from lawmakers. Both of them affirmed their commitment to addressing the issue, and asked the representatives of various stakeholders in the room to support their efforts. Senator Coons specifically thanked the Farm Journal Foundation for commissioning the report.
The main policy focus of their remarks was the concept of establishing some kind of multilateral funding mechanism that could leverage public funding with private dollars to expand investment in international agricultural research and to develop innovations in areas like crop production and soil health aimed at improving the productivity of smallholder farmers in developing countries. The analogies that were mentioned were something like the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and/or the bilateral HIV/AIDS PEPFAR initiative but to increase food production in developing countries. The FY2024 SFOPS bill which was recently marked up in the Senate Appropriations Committee contains modest funding to support such an initiative.
As part of the event, a panel was convened that consisted of Dina Esposito, Assistant to the Administrator of the U.S. Agency of International Development who heads the Bureau of Resilience and Food Security in that agency and is also the Deputy Coordinator of Development for Feed the Future and the agency’s Global Food Crisis Coordinator; Mark Castellino, Senior Vice President of Government Services at Opportunity International, and Dr. Joe Glauber, Senior Research Fellow at CGIAR’s International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and former USDA Chief Economist.
The panelists were asked to talk about their own institutions’ roles in addressing the polycrisis described in Dr. Fanzo’s policy brief. Ms. Esposito spoke about numerous areas where USAID and Feed the Future are contributing, including through the prioritization of agricultural research and innovation. She also highlighted the progress that has been made in reducing stunting and wasting (indicators of children’s nutritional status) in regions in which Feed the Future projects have been operating since the initiative was established in 2011, despite the fact that Congressional appropriations for the initiatives have been largely unchanged for more than a decade, which means a one-third decline over time in inflation-adjusted terms.
Mr. Castellino referenced an important source of risk for smallholder farmers not often recognized by policymakers, which is delays in their access to loan funds. His organization has developed a streamlined lending process with partners in Africa that has reduced the time needed from 60 days on average to four days.
Dr. Glauber, who had just received a prestigious award from the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (AAEA) with his IFPRI colleagues for their ongoing analyses of the food security impacts of the war in Ukraine, mentioned that Ukraine had been able to export more than 30 million tons of grain and oilseeds during the roughly one-year period that the Black Sea grain initiative was in place, but now that Russia has withdrawn from that agreement will put more financial pressure on Ukrainian farmers due to the higher cost of exporting overland through countries like Poland and Romania. Their higher costs and reduced income will likely lead to a reduction in planted acres for the upcoming crop year in Ukraine, which will put additional stress on world grain markets.
