Devex Dish: Livestock are dying in Somalia — and ‘humans are next’

The latest U.N. climate report generated barely a ripple amid the (justified) outcry over the war in Ukraine. Today, my colleague Sara Jerving brings us to Puntland, Somalia, as an ongoing drought in the Horn of Africa demonstrates the dire food security consequences of climate change.

The region in northeastern Africa is suffering from one of its most severe droughts in recent history, with three failed rainy seasons in a row. Some parts of Somalia are facing the driest conditions in 40 years, doubling internal displacement in recent months to over half a million people. And projections show that this number could double again, with 30% of the country at risk of not having enough to eat by May.

"The severe drought worsens day by day. People are quite weak, and the livestock are dying. The humans are next if the rains don't come," Faduma Hassan Hussein, a midwife working at a health clinic in the town of Qarxis, tells Sara.

Sara tells me that one of the most striking things she saw on the ground in Somalia is how recurrent droughts, now much closer together, are shaping society. Previously, pastoralist communities might have rehabilitated their flocks after losing livestock during a failed rainy season.

“But now they are pummeled over and over again with dry seasons and end up with nothing,” Sara tells me. “So when you visit internal displacement camps, there are people who were pastoralists or farmers in the past but moved to urban areas during a drought years ago and are now unemployed or underemployed with infrequent, casual labor.”

All eyes are on April, Somalia’s next rainy season. Families are already strained as livestock die off because they have nowhere to graze, and some that remain are too weak to be sold.

If rains don’t come, many families don’t know what they will do.

Drought in Somalia: ‘If our animals die, we might be next’

Real value

A Rockefeller Foundation study has found that in 2019, American consumers spent an estimated $1.1 trillion on food. But this figure only includes the cost of producing, processing, and sales — not the cost of health care for diet-related diseases and the present and future costs of the food system’s contributions to water and air pollution, reduced biodiversity, or greenhouse gas emissions, which bring the cost up to $3.2 trillion per year.

At this week’s annual Forum for the Future of Agriculture, some experts argued for true cost accounting mechanisms that would account for the social, environmental, and health impact of food systems.

But measuring the value of food across these four dimensions is easier said than done, as it requires a lot of accurate data — and even once the numbers are in, there are conflicts about what to do with the information.

Devex Pro: Can true cost accounting lead to sustainable food systems?

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The trickle-down effect

We’re already beginning to see the war in Ukraine having impacts on other fragile states, as the major exporter of wheat and sunflower oil braces for a potentially drawn-out conflict that could also disrupt the next planting season. A few that caught my eye this week:

• Agriculture ministers from the G-7 group of nations met Friday to discuss the potential for the war to severely disrupt global food security. In a presentation, FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu noted Russia’s role as an exporter of not only grain but also fertilizer, with the conflict possibly limiting access to the input for farmers in other countries. FAO’s short-term prediction sees global undernourishment rising by 7.6 million people under a “moderate scenario,” while a “severe scenario” pushes it up by 13.1 million.

• Organizations working in Burkina Faso are fretting over what a diversion of funding could mean for that country, where 1.7 million people are now displaced. “Some donors have already indicated that they would proceed to a 70 per cent cut of our funding to support operations in Ukraine,” says Safia Torche, general director for Médecins du Monde in Burkina Faso, warning that such reductions could become a trend.

• At a press conference this week, U.N. chief António Guterres said “45 African and least developed countries import at least one-third of their wheat from Ukraine and Russia,” with 18 importing at least half. And World Bank President David Malpass warned against countries imposing export bans on key commodities, saying hoarding is “not a proper response for a global community.”

• Meanwhile, humanitarian experts fear that the U.K., under pressure from UAE, might designate Yemen’s Houthi rebels a terrorist group, which could make the country’s current famine even worse. “Proscribing the Houthis risks pouring a great cold chill over the willingness of commercial food providers, shippers, insurers and bankers to bring food into the country,” Mark Lowcock, former U.N. humanitarian chief, tells my colleague Will Worley.

ICYMI: UK mulls blacklisting Houthis as humanitarians predict fallout

From your mouth

Last week, we asked for your thoughts on a new match fund from UNICEF that aims to accelerate national spending on ready-to-use therapeutic foods for treating malnutrition. Thank you to all the members of this Devex Dish community for sharing your thoughts.

Hart Jansson, the president of Malnutrition Matters, wrote to us saying: “Programs for severe/acute malnutrition are trying to prevent loss by closing the barn door after the horse has escaped. We must find ways to prevent chronic malnutrition — this is the most reliable and cost-effective way to prevent wasting and severe acute malnutrition.”

We’re celebrating six months of Devex Dish this week! Thanks so much for being a subscriber, and please share the newsletter with your colleagues who might find it useful for their work. As always, let us know how we’re doing at dish@devex.com.

The future is sustainable

In February, I brought you news of a planned deposit to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in northern Norway. On Tuesday, a new gene bank opened in an entirely different climate: the tropical savanna of Palmira, Colombia.

Future Seeds, managed by CGIAR’s Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture, has the largest collections of beans, cassava, and tropical forages in the world. It includes nearly 70,000 distinct samples and is one of 11 gene banks run globally through the CGIAR network of agricultural research organizations. It's already getting some high-profile attention, with the Bezos Earth Fund pledging $17 million to the facility.

A mouthful

Mitchell says the U.S. budget for fiscal year 2022 — which was signed into law Tuesday — doesn’t prioritize investments around humanitarian and food security needs, with the government’s Food for Peace Title II and Feed the Future mechanisms seeing no funding increases. The global nutrition account and the McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program saw just small increases.

ICYMI: My colleague Adva Saldinger has a full breakdown of what the legislation means for foreign affairs.

Chew on this

Côte d'Ivoire is imposing a price ceiling for goods such as milk, sugar, rice, beef, and pasta in a bid to tamp down inflation in food prices. [The Africa Report]

In Afghanistan, measles cases are rising “precipitously” among malnourished children. [Médecins Sans Frontières]

Bayer says ceasing all operations in Russia and Belarus would violate its “ethical obligation” to provide essential agriculture and health products to civilians. [Bayer]