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The 30th World Food Day finds more hungry people on the planet than ever before. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations 1 billion people live in chronic hunger. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s official message on this year’s theme “United against Hunger” reflects today’s global reality. “For many people, today is not World Food Day. It is another No Food Day.”

The future holds a seemingly unceasing series of challenges as food production will have to increase 70 percent by 2050 to feed a looming population of nine billion people. Here in Accra, Ghana, however, the mood is hopeful. The Honourable Kwesi Ahwoi, Minister of Food and Agriculture proclaimed that “a lot is happening here. The country is moving forward and we are not going back.”

Ghana is considered the gateway to Africa based on its strong agrarian roots and stable political environment. Agriculture is the dominant sector in Ghana’s economy. The sector plays a critical role in reducing poverty and achieving economic growth employing about 60% of the labor force and contributing about 40% to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). It also accounts for over 57% of the country’s foreign exchange earnings.

This week at the 2nd National Farm and Agric Show in Accra (FAGRO) the suggestion that some parts of Africa might be turning the corner seems at least conceivable. At the show farmers, associations of farmers and fisherman, agribusinesses from all sectors, and NGO and governmental agricultural development organizations have come together to share Ideas, showcase and promote agriculture products and learn about improved modern and innovative methods of farming.

Farmers at the World Food Day ceremonies and the farm and agric show are confident they are up to the task. A placard carried by a farmer in the audience said as much – Aid Cannot Feed Us For Life. Rather fair prices and ready markets for what we also produce. Talking with farmers and processors who produce everything from nutmeg and tilapia to pineapple juice and dehydrated oyster mushrooms confirmed the prevailing sentiment that farmers are eager to access new technologies and reach new markets.

Linking African producers to markets is not exactly a new idea. International aid and finance organizations have invested significant resources to provide technical assistance to help farmers use good agricultural practices and to shore up supply chains. ACDI/VOCA, for example, is improving Ghana’s agricultural sector by increasing competitiveness in domestic, regional and international markets through the USAID-funded Ghana Agricultural Development and Value Chain Enhancement (ADVANCE) program. Policies and programs like the USA’s African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) offer incentives for Ghana and other African countries to continue their efforts to open their economies and build free markets.

Significant challenges remain of course if Ghana and other African countries are going to truly turn the corner on combating hunger and malnutrition at home while penetrating new markets on the continent and elsewhere on the globe.

Philip Abayori, Chairman of the FAGRO Advisory Board, explains that irrigation systems are vastly underutilized for production while post-harvest storage and distribution systems are entirely inadequate. So much that, in some cases, up to 40 percent of the harvest is lost to spoilage.

At the other end of the market, particularly in foreign markets, there is a lack of information and the necessary infrastructure according to John Dziwurnu, National Secretary for the Ghana National Association of Farmers and Fishermen. Producers need to know what consumers want before they can grow to their requirements; then they must be able to ship them to points of distribution where adequate storage and quality control is in place that will enable products to reach consumers in top condition.

Find out more about Delore's and Colin Clark's visit to Ghana at the AdFarm Blog.

Delore Zimmerman is publisher of NewGeography.com and President of Praxis Strategy Group.

China Daily ran an article on the continuing urbanization of Beijing. In Build upward or outward: City’s growth dilemma, Daniel Garst notes that Beijing is not as centralized as other urban areas, with its multiple business districts and comparatively low density in its inner areas. He indicates a preference for the urbanization of Shanghai, with its stronger center (both Pudong and Puxi), but suggests that it would be a mistake to replace the historic low density development with the high rises that would be necessary to change Beijing's urban form.

Actually, Beijing's form is not that unusual for Asian urban areas. Tokyo has multiple office centers rather than a single dominant center and has comparatively low residential densities, even within the Yamanote Loop. Bangkok, Manila and Jakarta are similarly multi-centric. Chinese urban areas like Shenyang, Xi'an, Wuhan, Suzhou and Changsha are closer (but smaller) replicas of Beijing than Shanghai. Garst also misunderstands the dynamics of traffic congestion in his belief that roads and metros (subways) would be less congested with a more centralized form. In fact, higher densities routinely produce more intense congestion, not only on the roads but also on the rails and buses, a point recently made by Michael Matusik on this site.

However, Garst may be onto something with respect to a suggestion that Beijing's growth should be directed to new satellite towns, in which residents work rather than commuting to Beijing. This is good theory, but there is an important caveat, which we outlined in a comment at China Daily on the article.

Satellite cities are not a reasonable answer unless they are so far from the Beijing urban area that commuting to Beijing is not possible. The idea of self-contained satellite cities, where people live and work in them has not worked anywhere. There are good examples of failure in London, Cairo, Stockholm, etc. So long as the large urban area can be reached, people will commute there.

Cairo provides a useful example. Egyptian planners have long decried the continuing commute pattern into the urban area from the new towns of 6th of October and 10th of Ramadan, which are within commuting distance. On the other hand, the new town of Anwar Sadat, more remote from the urban area, has been more successful in keeping its residents in its labor market.

Locating new satellite towns far enough to make commuting infeasible will be a real problem for Beijing. There just is not enough territory in the provincial level municipality. That means the new towns would have to be in the province Hebei, which along with the province level municipality of Tianjin surrounds Beijing.

Short of remote new towns and forcing population and economic growth away from Beijing, the key to minimizing traffic congestion will be to minimize work trip distances by achieving a dispersion of comparatively lower density employment to match the lower density suburban dispersion. Economists Peter Gordon and Harry W. Richardson have found that "suburbanization has been the dominant and successful mechanism for reducing congestion." in the United States. This applies no less to Beijing.

Photograph: Forbidden City, Beijing (by author)

One of the starkest impacts of smart growth policies is the huge differentials in property prices that occur on virtually adjacent properties on either side of an urban growth boundary.

The extent to which regulatory restrictions can drive up prices is illustrated by the differences between the values of undeveloped lands just a few steps from each other, but across the urban growth boundary. Research from more than a decade ago in Portland indicated that land on which development is permitted inside the urban growth boundary tended to be 10 times as valuable per acre as land immediately outside the urban growth boundary, on which development was not permitted. In Auckland, New Zealand, recent research found virtually adjoining undeveloped land value differences at 10 times or more as well. Research in the London area by Dr. Timothy Leunig of the London School of Economics indicates that this difference can be as much as 500 times.

Recently (February), I examined tax assessment records for all parcels in Portland's Washington County that abut the urban growth boundary to see if value differences exist. The properties had to be 5 or more acres and be undeveloped. Research was conducted based upon Internet information in February 2010. Property along 25 miles of the urban growth boundary from Cedar Hills to Hillsboro to southwest Beaverton was included in the analysis.

A sample was also taken of more remote developable parcels of more than 5 acres, on which development would not be permitted. These parcels, which were from one to five miles outside the urban growth boundary, had a value of approximately $8,500. Thus, the developable land inside the urban growth boundary was 21 times as expensive as the more remote land.

These data indicate the impact of urban growth boundaries on the price of raw land, which is inevitably passed on to buyers of new housing. Without an urban growth boundary, it would be expected that land on both sides of an urban growth boundary would have similar values. Further, land would be expected to drop in value beyond the urban fringe, but not by the drastic amounts indicated in Portland, Auckland and London.

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Photograph: (By Author)

A recent editorial in The New York Times lamented the latest housing market woes, this time resulting from various banks’ disregard for, or inattentiveness to, a legal foreclosure process. As the article correctly states, “It is hard to be shocked.”

Further fueling uncertainty is of immediate concern, adding another layer of doubt to what may end up proving to be a formerly nascent recovery. While President Obama is calling for more thorough analysis to determine if foreclosure or modification is more prudent, and a provision in the Dodd-Frank bill authorizes government aid for troubled homeowners to assist with legal services, neither gets to the heart of the problem.

Homeownership is not an inalienable right, and should be reserved for those who are in the financial position to shoulder the burdens that come with the supposed pride. The banks reviewing loan applications should be the final bastion of culpability in assessing prospective buyers’ financial wherewithal.

This creates a moral conflict in many cases, as banks make money by lending money. In the interest of financial stamina, however, the banks have overlooked the simple fact that they only make money by lending money if the borrowers can pay them back. While there will always be some percentage of borrowers that fail to pay back their loans, it is all too well documented now that those levels are excessively high in today’s economic environment.

Most troubling is the realization that many bank REO departments (for “real estate owned,” the class of property that goes back to lenders upon unsuccessful foreclosure auctions) are not staffed by real estate minds. While it is not fair to make a wholesale categorization of REO departments nationwide as real estate deficient, there are multiple cases where simple real estate fundamentals are unknown.

Examples here include law firms, architecture firms and real estate advisory firms being engaged to teach real estate 101 to national banks’ REO departments. There have been cases where those making the decisions between lending or not lending, or foreclosure or modification, are unable to effectively comprehend sale and purchase agreements, site plans and floor plans, inspection reports or market analysis documents. This is not to suggest that these are bad people. But, as clerks, statisticians and analysts who are not educated or trained in the intricacies, or even general principles of real estate, they simply do not get it. How can such fragile issues with widespread economic and social ramifications be addressed by anything less than experts?

In other words, these last bastions of culpability are unable to perform the simple tasks that even a reasonably responsible borrower should comprehend. Banks are in the business of making money, and that, in and of itself, is not a crime in a capitalist economy. But they should at the very least properly train those who are making decisions on lending millions upon millions of dollars to aspiring, whether ready or not, homeowners.

On election day, the voters of Hillsborough County, Florida (Tampa) will vote on a one-cent sales tax that would fund transit (75%) and roads (25%). Part of the funding would be used to build a new light rail line, which is the focus of campaigns on both sides.

The proponents are the usual well financed coalition of business, rail construction companies and consulting engineers, who could well profit from the program going forward.

The opposition, however, is unusual. It is a direct outgrowth of the growing citizen involvement from the TEA Party and 912 Project. These groups have broken new ground in raising general issues of government waste and public expenditure policy. This could be an important step toward balancing the spending proclivities of special interest groups with taxpayer interests in spending no more than is necessary to provide essential public services.

In Tampa, the rail opposition goes by multiple names, including "No Tax for Tracks" and Smartmoms. The more interesting of the terms is Smartmoms, or "Suburban Moms Against the Rail Tax." They might have just as accurately called themselves "Soccer Moms Against the Rail Tax," reflecting the demographic that has been so important in recent elections.

I recall being told by a disappointed former federal official that one of his greatest disappointments was to learn that there was no constituency for economic efficiency. This may be changing, if the developments in Tampa are any indicator.

I had the privilege of speaking at one of their rallies recently and wonder whether Tampa might represent a new birth of citizen questioning of large spending projects. Their revulsion at the "if we don't take the federal money, Baltimore will" line of thinking was refreshing. One key to restoring a more prosperous America will be to minimize this mutual plunder, by which Washington seduces local areas to buy things they never would with their own money. A new day could be dawning.

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Photo: Downtown Tampa (by the author)