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The world food price is a storm that is hitting with little warning and has plunged an extra 100 million people into poverty. This made the officials of UN world food programme (WFP) to sum up the crisis as a silent tsunami that knows no borders sweeping the world. According to the report released by the WFP, in the last 12 months average food price has risen by 65 percent, with wheat rising by 92 percent, and rice by 96 percent. This has given rise to a severe famine around the world. The crisis has triggered a lot of riots in different countries, such as Haiti, Cameroon, Indonesia, Egypt… and is considered dangerous to stability.
Eritrea, as part of the world, would not escape from the global food shortages. Being situated in the region, which has been in severe socio-economic and political crisis in one hand, and being a country that does not have advanced agricultural technology for food production, on the other hand would probably make the current food crisis worse. The state of ‘no war no peace’ because of the refusal of the government of Ethiopia to the peace process would also be a factor for the country not to fight the food crisis fully. What is to be done then?
The current sky rocketing food price has many reasons. Putting food producing for energy at the top, the annual increase world population, bad weather and the like are among the many reasons. Nowadays, almost half of the cereals produced are used for energy. For example, a large percentage of America’s corn is produced for bio-fuel. Economic experts estimated that this corn produced for bio-fuel would be enough for the people suffering from hunger if America would stop doing it. The worst thing is that when energy price increases, the price of the food does too. This is because the food supply in the market would be decreased as it is being used for energy. Besides, global food prices have surged as major importers are rushing to build stocks due to supply fears, while major exporters have banned shipments to ensure they would not experience shortages.
This may oblige food importers in general, and those that are totally dependent on imported food in particular, to change their food policy. Producing more food, depending on self-reliance would probably be the main policy that they should follow. Though economic analysts conclude that every country couldn’t escape from importing food, it can sure minimize this if it tries to use its own effort to produce them.
Even though much remains to be done, Eritrea has been following the policy of self-reliance, and has been successful. Our development campaign is an example of this. A lot of developmental as well as food security activities have been carried out since the campaign was started.
Because most of our farmers use traditional methods of farming by waiting the seasonal rain, our food supply has been much less than the demand of our people. Therefore, a modern type of agriculture independent of seasonal water is certainly needed to solve the problem. As many researchers say, Eritrea is endowed with a fertile arable land. So, using this land properly, and introducing new agricultural technology along with genetically modified crops would be the primary solutions for the current food crisis, as well as to our long run program for food sustainability. This is done by giving access to farmers to agricultural technology and helping them in getting the modern agricultural facilities easily. The government has been doing its best to enhance it. Construction of dams in different parts of Eritrea to harvest water, and then to increase food production is a practical example. Here, the dam constructed in Gherset-Teseney comes to mind. The dam, which can hold more than 50 million cubic meters, was constructed in the area suitable for crop production. Much of the land around the dam is planted and the rest is prepared to be planted. This hard work for food security would ensure that the current food crisis could hardly influence our country.
One thing that agricultural experts advices for countries that follow the self-reliance policy like Eritrea is, they should plant less land, but cultivate them intensively even if they may have a large arable land. This is because the more land they plant, the more fertilizer they waste. This mechanism minimizes additional expense that goes to fertilizer, as price of fertilizer is doubled parallel to the price of the food.
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