LAST November, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) released its annual flagship publication, the Human Development Report, themed "Fighting Climate Change - Human Solidarity in a Divided World".

It positioned climate change as the defining human development challenge of this century.

Beyond escalating environmental risks and human health hazards, the report predicted food scarcity and widespread malnutrition in large parts of the developing world.

It warned about the breakdown of agricultural systems from increased exposure to drought, rising temperatures and more erratic rainfall.

For example, in Indonesia, climate models simulating the impact of temperature changes, soil moisture content and rainfall on agricultural productivity showed a wide dispersion of results, with yields falling by four per cent for rice and 50 per cent for maize.
In January, I talked to a friend about the grouses of flour millers, widely reported in the press. He said, "Imagine if this were about rice!"

Fast forward another three months and we are witnessing the most severe food crisis of this generation, including skyrocketing prices of essential grains. Every international, regional and local news outlet has carried an angle or analysis on the issue consecutively in the last few weeks.

While price spikes are not unusual in agricultural markets, what is unique is the rapid pace and consistency with which prices have risen.

Almost all major food and feed commodities are now much more expensive. It is more worrying that even the record cereal production levels of the last few years are unable to keep up with the sustained high demand.

In Asia, home to two-thirds of the world's poor, the price of rice has more than doubled in the past year. The Asian Development Bank has cautioned that the region will see the worst inflation in a decade.

Of the many factors that have contributed to the world's food woes, at least three are environmental: recurrent bad weather in major food producing countries, environmental degradation and an overdependence on fossil fuels.

But it foretells humanity's common fate should we continue to chalk up carbon debt while dragging our heels on the necessary mitigation and adaptation measures needed to put us on a path to sustainable development, expensive and painful as they may be in the short run.

Most of us in Malaysia will not feel the true emergency of the global food crisis. But what is almost certain is that it will quickly exacerbate inequalities between the haves and have-nots in society.

As the crisis continues to unfold, it would be foolish to expect that Malaysia will be impervious to its various socio-economic, developmental and political impacts.

A couple months ago, I spoke to a young mother in a village in Sabah. Her husband tapped rubber for a living and earned less than RM400 a month.

She told me that when things were tough, she fed her child rice-water instead of milk. At the time, the family had just one main meal a day.

For people living hand to mouth, even a small rise in prices of essential goods leads to a struggle for survival.

For most of us, adjusting to the price hikes may mean temporarily switching to cheaper options or cutting down on eating out.

However, for the two million or so Malaysians living in deprivation, it may mean skipping meals or pulling children out of school. These families will be haunted by the ghost of malnutrition.

Households living below the poverty line in Malaysia are associated with a large number of children. For these households, escaping from the inter-generational poverty trap will become increasingly difficulty if prices continue to rise or persist at higher levels.

According to a UNDP study, a poor household in Sabah, where poverty rates are highest, takes an average of eight years to free itself from poverty, assuming a five per cent increase in income per year.

Food tends to take up a smaller percentage of a family's bills as income levels go up. The Household Expenditure Survey 2004/2005 revealed that for households that spend an average of RM380 a month, food comprised about half of the total consumption basket.

In contrast, households in the RM4,000-RM5,000 expenditure bracket spend about 23 per cent of the total on food.

The international consensus is that our first priority must be to "feed the hungry". Interventions and budgets should be targeted towards these groups.

Our immediate approach to the problem should be to ensure that we take measures to shield the poor, including the urban poor. At current levels, food prices are higher in cities such as Kuala Lumpur and Penang, and in East Malaysia, compared with the rest of the country.

In rural areas, the poor tend to be small-scale farmers. There is no real shortage of food in these areas. The answer lies in improving their livelihoods so that poor farmers can raise their incomes and cope with market fluctuations.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon has warned that the food crisis is threatening to roll back progress to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, which are aimed at creating a better life for millions of people in the developing world.

Given the complexity of the issue, governments face a tricky balancing act between the urgency of responding to the immediate problems and taking enough time to adequately understand and analyse the challenges involved and the potential consequences of their actions.

Nonetheless, policy makers would be wise to spare a thought on how we are going to address the wider issue of increased vulnerability of climate-sensitive sectors such as agriculture and fisheries in the face of climate change.

The food crisis has revealed how, in this interdependent world, a bad harvest in one corner of the globe and persistent diversion of crop land for biofuels on the opposite side can tip the equilibrium of the world's food supply in just a matter of months.

What is often overlooked is that as a result of our past actions, the world is already committed to further global warming for the first half of the 21st century. In our lifetime, we have no choice but to cope with the effects of climate change.

As global temperatures rise, climate shocks such as droughts, floods and storms are forecasted to become more frequent as well as intense. In the short run, climate disasters have been shown to push up food prices, wipe out crops, reduce job opportunities and destroy assets.

In the long term, however, as the UNDP Human Development Report states, climate change could result in fewer opportunities for education, reduced productivity and diminished human capabilities.

The writer is with the United Nations Development Programme and can be reached at lilei.chow@undp.org.