Food out of reach

The year started grimly with news of the food prices rising to the highest point since 1990, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation. They have surpassed the 2008 prices that led to widespread rioting and unrest across the developing world. Riots have flared in Haiti and Algeria and Tunisia.

The key to alleviating world hunger, poverty and combating climate change may lie in fresh, small-scale approaches to agriculture, according to a report from the Worldwatch Institute.

The US-based institute's annual State of the World report, calls for a move away from industrial agriculture and discusses small-scale initiatives in sub-Saharan Africa that work towards poverty and hunger relief in an environmentally sustainable way.

The authors suggest that instead of producing more food to meet the world's growing population needs, a more effective way to address food security issues and climate change would be to encourage self-sufficiency and waste reduction, in wealthier and poorer nations alike.

True for it is those nations that deemphasized domestic farming that are suffering most. It doesn't take much intelligence that food comes first. Yet, it is not able to compete with industry in most parts of the world in terms of incentives. Time we got that right.