Cities Insecure: Urban Poor in Times of Rising Food Prices

“The only thing left to do is to not eat,” said Von Siphou, a fruit seller in Phnom Penh, Cambodia when describing how she was coping with soaring food prices in 2008. Oxfam’s Marc J. Cohen and James L. Garret argue that Siphou is just one of millions of poor urban dwellers who are disproportionately affected by spikes in food prices. In “The Food Price Crisis and Urban Food (In)Security,” Cohen and Garrett contend that the urban poor bear the brunt of fluctuating food prices and receive the least benefit from international policy, which caters to the needs of rural poor.

While overall levels of extreme poverty have fallen, the number of poor people living in urban communities rose from 247 million in 1993 to 300 million in 2002. Cohen and Garrett note that in many low- and middle-income countries “urban food insecurity equaled or exceeded rural levels.” Urban dwellers in developing countries also spend a relatively high proportion of their income on food, often over 50 percent of their budget.

Consumption patterns, insecure employment, and lack of community make the urban poor more vulnerable to food price increases. Urban dwellers consume more packaged foods, which often use globally traded ingredients like rice and wheat, making them more sensitive to price fluctuations. Additionally, city residents, especially those who have just arrived, lack a community on which they can rely for support when food prices increase.

The consequences of rising food prices are severe. Diets become less varied, leading to malnutrition, which brings “negative health, schooling and productivity consequences over time.” Debt climbs as urban dwellers borrow money to buy food, often taking out loans with high interest rates. Food prices also contribute to political instability, leading to protests like the ones that popped up around the world when food prices rose in 2007-08. The authors note that “almost all demonstrations took place in cities and several turned violent.”

The authors argue that current international policies fail to meet the nearly instantaneous squeeze urban residents feel from spikes in food prices. Most existing policies focus on agriculture production and macroeconomics which may “help lower average prices and improve food system efficiency over time, but have indirect, non-immediate effects in cities.”

Cohen and Garrett suggest several measures to help alleviate the urban poor’s sensitivity to price increases. Included in their plan are strategies to increase food production subsidies, provide direct income supplements, improve efficiencies at urban markets to lower food prices, further develop urban agriculture, and tighten regulations on street vendors, which are often a main source of food for urban dwellers during a crisis.

While many of these strategies would alleviate the impact of price fluctuations on the urban poor, the authors’ recommendations rely on the ability of social programs and governments to respond swiftly, a goal that requires “international cooperation and coordination, to avoid reactive global pledging efforts and delays in action,” which may be asking a lot during a crisis. However, as urban populations continue to grow, it is clear that policymakers must develop strategies better suited to an increasingly urban world.