Articles authored by Smale, Melinda

Hunger has been on the rise since the mid-1990s, due to a variety of factors, including a lack of policy attention and a sense of complacency generated by long-term real declines in food prices. Food prices rose sharply after 2006, and there is considerable controversy over the reasons why. Analysts have pointed to a number of factors as possible causes, including rising fuel prices, diversion of food crops into biofuels, speculation, increased meat consumption in Asia, climate change, and environmental degradation, among others.

This article contrasts the impacts of the global food-price crisis in 2007–08 on three types of farmer in Mali. In the Niger delta, where the government undertook an ‘emergency’ initiative, farmers organised to market their rice collectively, gaining a stronger position vis-à-vis merchants and the state. Vertically integrated into an export value chain, cotton farmers have suffered from stagnating yields, slow organisational reform, and rising input-to-output ratios over the past decade.