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The global food crisis: a fresh call for sustainable agriculture
Babu George, PhD
Assistant Professor of Business
University of Southern Mississippi, MS, USA
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 001-601-266-6511
Abstract: The world we live in is a complex interconnected system and consequently the
current crises in agriculture and in the economy should be seen as the two sides of a
single coin. Unsustainable practices have led to the occurrence of both of these. Hence,
the solution lies in the implementation and practice of the principles of sustainable
development. To aid this, the present paper proposes a model for sustainable
development based agrarian practice. Public policy implications are also discussed.
Keywords: Food crisis, sustainable development, global interdependence, bottom up
development, public policy, and sympathetic capitalism.
Introduction
Until recently, developed nations cared little about food scarcity (Anderies, Ryan, and
Walker, 2006). This was never a problem even in their remotest imaginations. Whenever
there occurred a famine or food scarcity, the obvious response was to give food aid
(Bardhan, 2005). But, what will happen if the quantum of scarcity is too large and if the
same swallow the entire world? We as a civilization are at the brink of a major crisis, the
crisis of global food scarcity, probably unparalleled in the history of mankind (Cox,
Lowe, and Winter, 2008). The present situation is different compared with the more
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traditional scenario of lingering hunger in the third world despite the ample production of
food grains in the world. According to the United Nations Food and Agricultural
Organization (FAO), world food prices have rise n 45 per cent in the last nine months and
there are serious shortages of rice, wheat, and maize.
In Africa, food riots have swept across the
continent (Nixon, 2006). Recently, Haiti’s
prime minister was overthrown after days of
riots over food prices. In the United States,
unofficial estimates say that there is close to 50
per cent surge in prices for cereals over the past
six months. Due to the spiraling food prices,
Russia anticipated a massive domestic unrest
and has imposed strict retail price controls. If
prices continue to rise, the food riots that
historically marred Africa will spread all across
the world. An FAO report notes that prices of
nearly all food commodities have risen steeply in
the resent years, supported by a tight supply and
demand situation (see the food price index and
food commodity price indices). Surging food
prices is identified to be the prime cause of
inflation and ‘overheating’ in the emerging
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economies such as India and Brazil (Parry and Rosenzweig, 2004). According to many
experts, this is mainly because these countries have almost neglected the agricultural
sector in their excitement with a surging economy. Economists believe that, due to the
particular way in which capitalistic economic relations are structured, the impact of
economic growth upon agriculture is always negative (Ramanjaneyulu and Rao, 2008).
Who is Responsible?
The impending crisis
of
a
global
food
outage is trigged by a
combination of the
following: one, the
decision of the US
government to give
its industrial farming
communities
exorbitant subsidies to grow corn for the production of biofuel; two, climate change;
three, the behemothal consumption patterns of the neo-rich in countries like China
(Gurgel and Reilly, 2007). The coming together of the mortgage crisis, uncontrollable
inflation, natural disasters, food and fuel scarcity, are all likely to be but the resultants of
an ecological overshoot. We have reached the peak of oil production: but, the peak in
food supplies and drinking water resources is not far away.
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International funding agencies like the IMF and the World Bank are equally responsible
for the present crisis. The flow of funds and knowledge in the last decade has mostly
been for the ‘industrialization’ of the developing and the under-developed countries and
agrarian development did not even appear in the agenda of many of these institutions.
The western economic model of markets that builds upon the human proclivity to seek
more and more has not created any real wealth while wreaking havoc upon peoples,
societies and ecosystems. All the derived wealth of industrialization is of any positive
consequence to humanity only so far as the basic wealth, including food, oxygen, and
water, is abundantly available and equitably distributed (Fan and Rosegrant, 2008).
In the past few years, unexpected floods, droughts, and other natural calamities have
increased in the frequency of occurrence across the world. Australia reduced its food
grain export to one third of the previous level; China has drastically cut back its export of
rice; India has almost banned the export of rice and wheat. The paddy fields in the
Kuttanadu region in the State of Kerala in India have been totally devastated by constant
rain in the last month pushing the farmers to utmost misery: many farmers, with no tunnel
of hope ahead, have taken the route of suicide. These happen side by side with the
exponential growth in the meat eating quantity of the Chinese citizens (currently around
100 pounds per month), meaning that increasingly more grain supplies are to be set apart
to feed the animals that are to go the butcher house. It is sad to see China replicating in
the twenty first century the model of development that the United States has followed in
the second half of the twentieth century.
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Increasing Global Inter-Dependence
How strong has become the degree of global interdependence and how the lopsided and
self-centered policies of a national government negatively affect the entire world are very
clear from the corn subsidy case. The decision to subsidize corn has led to the
proliferation of corn farming across millions of acres of arable land across the United
States at the cost of farming rice, wheat, and vegetables. To offset the resulting shortage
of supply, as usual, the US government permitted the free import of food materials from
other countries. This led to escalating prices and scarcity of food in those countries (Le
Roy, Klein, and Arbenser, 2007). Despite the lack of sufficient rationale, it has become
fashionable, in the name of eco-friendliness, to promote corn-based ethanol. For instance,
an order from the government of India reads that gas stations should sell petrol with 10
per cent ethanol with effect from the coming October. The big question is from where
other than the agricultural fields the ethanol will come. Filling tanks is not a bad thing,
but filling stomachs is a far greater necessity.
A Fresh Call for Sustainable Agriculture
A generic set of answers to the above question is available in the sustainable development
literature. Sustainable development is about maintaining and improving the quality of life
while safeguarding the quality of life of generations to come, made possible within a
framework in which environmental, economic and social factors are integrated. It is sad
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that sustainable development has mostly remained as a neo-Marxian elitist concept and
has often been criticized as the main rhetorical weapon of anti-developmental, antiprogress, agitators. As the old saying goes, ‘necessity is the mother of invention’, and
given the graveness of the issues that affect of lives, even the hard-core critics of
sustainable development have begun to turn to it in search of a solution (King and Wang,
2008).
If the present generation has become a parasite upon the limited resources of the mother
earth, sustainable development theory will tell that it is because of our lack of a
comprehensive and holistic philosophy of life (Helleiner, 2001). Whether real or
imagined, scientific or superstitious, people of earlier generations held fairly developed
mental models that encompassed their position upon the cosmic design of things.
In the context of food
security,
sustainability
is
a
multi-fold concept: it
includes,
but
not
limited
to,
the
economic, social, and
environmental
conditions for farmers
to
sustain
their
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agricultural activities; the economic power of everyone to buy the essential food items;
the mechanisms that ensure the timely distribution and storage of the agricultural
produce; a governance system that ensures fair pricing; and so on. We have direct control
over some of these like providing a climate of economic incentives for the farmers to
cultivate. We may not be able to directly control the natural environmental variables like
the climate and the rain for the forthcoming season, but by means of responsible
environmental action, we can definitely harness the benevolence of nature for the best
possible results. The solution is not to try to tame the nature by hook or crook, but to
imbue into our agrarian practices the rhymes and rhythms of nature. Any strategy for
sustainable agriculture must take into account the complex, reciprocal, and ever-changing
relationship between agricultural production and the broader society (Ravallion, 2005).
Sustainability also includes our care and concern for the coming generations: it is both
inter and intra generational. The present day industrial agriculture, in its craze to
maximize the immediate return on investment, forgets the limit to such growth: with this,
we may earn a bit more in the short term, but at the cost of many generations to come
(Reilly and Paltsev, 2007).
Need for a Revamped Policy Framework
From a public policy point of view, tax and credit policies should be modified to
encourage a decentralized and diversified system of family or community farms rather
than to hold up the prevailing dominant system of corporate concentration and the
resultant mono-culture. Conversion of the agricultural land to industrial uses should be
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minimized: wherever the conversion is permitted, it should be only for those industries
that process or market the agricultural produce. The existing price support programs
should be remodeled as incentives for the small and medium scale agriculturalists for
their more sustainable alternative farming and marketing practices. Governments should
commit more grants for research and educational projects aiming at developing
sustainable agricultural practices. There should be regulations in place that ensure
socially just wages and working conditions for agricultural workers. Diversified
agricultural production in small farms is against the principle of economies of scale, but it
can help the farmers offset the unexpected fall of prices associated with particular
commodities. In fact, it is proven to be better for preserving the fertility of the land
(Collier and Dollar, 2001). Also, the responsibility of us as consumers in help providing
global food security should not be underestimated. By means of our purchasing decisions,
we have an opportunity to send positive feelers to those who are involved in sustainable
forms of agriculture (Gordon, 2008).
Concluding Remarks
Instead of depending up on the global distribution of food supply, small administrative
units like villages and districts should strive to have their own self-sufficient agricultural
supply. Self-sufficient grassroots will accelerate bottom up development based on
egalitarian principles. This is probably against the often narrowly defined capitalistic
principles, but very much in accord with the principles of sustainable development.
Capitalism in the present form has inflicted upon us more miseries than it helped us and
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we need no longer be the blind adherents of it just because it is still the dominant voice in
the developmental debate. This is more so when the fountainheads of the present day
capitalism like Bill Gates themselves argue for a new form of capitalism that is broad
based and compassionate. It is high time we fetch forward sympathetic capitalism from
the confines of academic debates to the real life praxis.
References
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