The link between food security and political instability

If past revolutions are anything to go by, food security matters, writes Dwi Andreas Santosa. Professor Faculty of Agriculture, Bogor Agricultural University.

Most people living in low and middle income countries spend much of their household income on food. If developed countries spend on average less than 10 percent of household income on food, people in developing countries spend around 40 to over 50 percent of their income on food.

In much of Africa, people spend close to 50 percent and even more of their household income on food, in Asia it’s around 40 to 45 percent, and in Latin America less than 40 percent. Around 70 percent of developing countries also depend on imports for their staple foods. This makes developing countries more vulnerable to political instability due to food price increases.

Several factors can contribute to food price increases, such as bad weather that results in reduced agricultural production, food scarcity due to governmental policy failure, diminishing public food stocks, and an increase in the international price of food. Many changes in government, including through revolution, began with a food crisis that triggered social unrest and political instability.

The European revolutions of 1848 were themselves triggered by a food crisis. A long period of drought from 1845 to 1847 devastated agricultural production in Europe. Food production declined drastically and food prices skyrocketed. Social unrest and protests were started by poor workers and peasants, which snowballed into a mass movement against the monarchial governments.

Originating in France in February 1848, the movement swept across Europe and more than 50 countries were affected, and it remains the most widespread revolution in European history.

Tens of thousands of people were killed, and governmental reforms were forced in Austria, Hungary, Romania, Denmark, Netherlands, French, Germany, and Italy. Although it is proposed by some historians that several major factors contributed to the revolution, the food crisis was the single most important factor.

From the mid-19th century to the 1970s, agricultural production increased significantly over population growth, which led to a decrease in food prices and the disappearance of food-related social unrest.

In 1972, world food production declined for the first time since World War II, with widespread drought reducing global grain production. In Southeast Asia, especially in Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines, rice production declined. Thailand, the world’s leading rice exporter, banned rice exports, and no rice was marketed worldwide for most of 1973.

During 1973 and 1974, global food prices doubled in just a few months and caused the world food crisis, which ended in 1975. It did not cause a mass movement or government change, but in the late 1970s – following the food crisis – austerity programs did trigger food riots and social unrest in many countries. The riots were not caused by food scarcity but by the reduced capability of people to afford food.

Food Crisis and Governmental Changes in Indonesia

Food security and food crisis has played an important role in the history of Indonesia. Less than a year after gaining its independence, Indonesia exported 0.5 million tons of rice to India to help India overcome famine due to harvest failures in 1946. Food security became one of the important governmental programs following independence.

In the early 1950s, the Indonesian government focused on increasing agricultural production and set food self-sufficiency targets. Several institutions were established and programs launched.

In addition to programs to increase food production, the government launched a program to buy rice during harvest season and distribute it during periods of short supply. The aim of this program was to reduce the potential threat of a food crisis.

Despite such efforts, in late 1959 the rice price was skyrocketing due to a lack of production, and the government could not deliver enough rice to the people. Rice allocations to army personnel and public servants was changed to 25 percent maize and 75 percent rice, but it was difficult to implement and was stopped. From 1958 to 1964 the dependency of Indonesia on rice imports was high.

During this period, Indonesia was the world’s largest rice-importing countriy, with the volume of rice imports between 800.000 and one million tons. A consumer-oriented low rice price policy, enacted to secure political stability, contributed to the low incentive to farmers to increase their production, and the total rice harvested area and production volume declined from 1960 to 1963.

The food crisis triggered food riots and social unrest. From 30 September to 01 October 1965, the Communist Party of Indonesia (Partai Komunis Indonesia, PKI) seized power, and six of Indonesia’s top army generals were killed. On 02 October 1965, General Soeharto took control of the army and put down the abortive coup, and eventually eradicated and banned the PKI.

More than 500.000 people, mostly members of the communist party, were killed and became a dark episode in Indonesia’s history.

In 1967, Soeharto was appointed as acting president, becaming the 2nd President of Indonesia on 27 March 1968.

Rapid and sustained economic growth was achieved during Soeharto’s ‘New Order’ through a focus on agrarian development.

In 1968, the second phase of Mass Guidance (BIMAS) “Gotong Royong” program for increasing food production, was launched in cooperation with several foreign companies from Germany, Switzerland, and Japan, marking a significant departure from the isolationist policies of Soekarno’s Guided Democracy. The program was quite successful, and rice production increased 41 percent between 1967 and 1971.

After 1980, the rate of annual agricultural growth began to steadily decline from 4.3 percent in the years between 1965 and 1980 to 2.8 percent between 1990 and 1996. By contrast, manufacturing, and services enjoyed high growth at 11.1 percent and 7.4 percent per year between 1990 and 1996.

In 1997, drought caused a decline in Indonesia’s rice production. The price of rice and other food commodities rose uncontrollably and led to a food crisis. In an effort to reduce the price of rice, the Indonesian government imported up to 6.4 million tons of rice in 1998, the largest rice import in history. At the same time, Indonesia was hit by the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98.

The food crisis and financial crisis led to a sharp increase in unemployment and poverty across the country, and a wave of riots and social unrest destroyed thousands of buildings and killed over 1,000 people. On 21 May 1998, Soeharto announced his resignation and his power came to an end despite having won 74.5 percent of the vote in 1997.

Food crisis in the 21st century

The end of the 20th century also ends an era of low food prices. After the start of agricultural free trade under the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the introduction of the first genetically modified crops in the mid 1990s, the global agricultural landscape changed. Developing countries had gone from being the most important food producers during the sixties to eighties to becoming net importers of food.

Food insecurity is now a major problem for developing countries. World production and export of cereals is dominated by North America, Europe, and Australia. Around 50.1 percent of global traded cereal was absorbed by Asia, 21.5 percent by Africa and 18.2 percent by Latin America. High dependence on food imports has become a serious problem for developing countries.

In 2007, severe drought hit Australia and parts of the United States. Wheat production in Australia dropped dramatically as did soybean production in the US. The decline of production in these two important exporter countries resulted in a sharp increase in the price of wheat and soybean, which acted as a locomotive pulling the price of other food commodities up.

By early 2008, the FAO food price index surged 2.2 times higher than 2004 figures, and the world entered its first food crisis of the 21st century. Food riots and social unrest spread across 13 countries in Asia, North Africa and the Middle East, resulting in 84 deaths.

From the second quarter of 2008 until 2009 food prices fell sharply, but this didn’t last long. Drought hit the Russian Federation, and US wheat and corn production declined, and the FAO Food Price Index jumped to 240 – its highest point – in February 2011. Widespread food rioting, mass violence, chaos, and regional political instability resulted, particularly so in countries highly dependent on food imports. Tens of thousands of people were killed and government changes occured in North Africa and Middle East in what has become known as the Arab Spring.

Compared to the European revolutions of 1848, the impacts of the Arab Spring were even worse. Millions of people uprooted due to conflict fled to neighboring countries and to Europe, creating the largest refugee crisis since the aftermath of World War II.

Political insecurity in the region became fertile soil for the birth of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

The most recent food crisis occurred in Sudan at the end of 2018 after the Sudanese government increased the price of bread threefold, causing mass riots in Khartoum that spread throughout the country. On 20 December, eight people were killed in the riots. The military ultimately overthrew the embattled administration of President Omar al- Bashir on 11 April.

Shifting Paradigm

It is true that social unrest arising from food crises are not simply about food. Failure to acknowledge this could easily lead interventions to focus only on controlling food price while ignoring political and social drivers.

Historically, widespread unrest is not the result of a long-standing failure in a political system, but rather a sudden failure to maintain security [including food security] to society. During food crises, when the population is unable to access food due to either high price or limited supply, dissatisfaction emerges and popular support to government disappears.

Food crises can also be traced back to the failure of government policies relating to agricultural development. Most countries in the world implement food security as a single concept covering both agricultural development and food policies.

In food security, where the food comes from and how the food is produced does not matter. This is why Singapore in 2018 ranked 1st in the world for its food security index (GFSI, 2019) despite the fact that up to 90 percent of its food supply is imported from other countries.

Food sovereignty is different from food security in both approach and politics. Food security does not distinguish where food comes from, or the conditions under which it is produced and distributed.

Food sovereignty emphasises ecologically appropriate production, distribution and consumption, socialeconomic justice, and local food systems, as ways to tackle hunger and poverty and guarantee sustainable food security for all peoples. It is focused on creating harmony between farmers and farmers with nature.

Protection of local markets, small-scale and family farmers and international fair-trade is another focus of food sovereignty.

Food sovereignty can be an alternative solution for developing countries to reduce their dependency on food imports, increase resilience against international food price volatility, improve livelihoods of smallscale farmers, and create sustainable, environmentally sound agricultural production.

This article is based on a presentation delivered in Rotorua at the Asia Pacific Security and Innovation Summit 2019.