Afghanistan found to be most food insecure in study of 163 countries

The story by Alex Morales and Francesca Angelini for Bloomborg.com reports that Afghanistan is the most food insecure country out of 163 countries ranked. The ranking was done by the UK risk assessment company Maplecroft. The sources of this terrible situation include poverty and conflict, which undermine the nation's ability to distribute food.

Specifically, poverty represents people who cannot afford to buy sufficient quanities of food, or who have insufficient land and resources to produce enough food for themselves, or who cannot sell the food they do produce. These situations are related to inadequate road networks and a weak telecommunications system that are important in the distribution of food, either in the form of aid or for markets. The conflict that pervades the country makes it difficult, even when there are resources, to build or maintain roads and telecommunications.

In addition, Afghanistan is highly dependent on imported foods from countries that are experiencing significant declines in their own food production as a result of severe weather conditions. Thus, they are unable to meet Afghanistan's demands for food.

Below, I include the first sections of the Morales and Angelini report.

Afghanistan's Food Supply Is Least Secure in 163-Nation Ranking
By Alex Morales and Francesca Angelini -
http://www.bloomborg.com/news/2010-08-18/afghanistan-s-food-supply-is-the-least-secure-in-a-ranking-of-163-nations.html
Aug 19, 2010 12:05 PM ET

Afghanistan has the world’s least- secure food supplies because poverty and conflict hamper distribution in the Asian nation, the U.K. risk assessment company Maplecroft said today.
The nation where 142,000 U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization troops are battling the Taliban topped a list of 163 nations published today in Maplecroft’s Food Security Risk Index. The next 11 countries are all in Africa.

“The ongoing conflict in Afghanistan impacts infrastructure readiness, and the capability for distribution of supplies is greatly reduced,” Fiona Place, environmental analyst at Bath, England-based Maplecroft, said in a phone interview. “It’s the impact on the road networks and the telecommunications infrastructure.”

The poorest nations and those with conflicts are those with the greatest difficulties in ensuring their population has access to sufficient food, Maplecroft said. Future supplies are “very uncertain” due to extreme weather that has hit major cereal producers including Russia, Canada and Ukraine, Maplecroft Chief Executive Officer Alyson Warhurst said.

Russia’s worst drought in half a century prompted the country on Aug. 5 to ban grain exports, sending wheat prices to a 23-month high. Production in Canada has been hit by flooding, while extreme temperatures in Ukraine and Kazakhstan have also lowered cereal output, according to Maplecroft.

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Maplecroft produced its ranking using data from 12 indicators, including cereal production, food aid, economic output per capita and inflation.


To contact the reporters on this story: Alex Morales in London at amorales2@bloomberg.net; Francesca Angelini in London at fangelini1@bloomberg.net