| FOOD SECURITY Food security has important public good aspects, the provision of which may require government intervention. Both domestic production and a predictable and stable trading system are central elements in global and national food security. The basic means of ensuring adequate food is agricultural production. Of course, food security does not depend on farmers and food production alone. Other factors -the distribution of land and access to capital, markets, and labour- all play a significant role. In recent years, most of the research initiatives for food security have focused on four key components of the FAO's definition:
Availability - Providing a sufficient supply of food for all people at all times has historically been a major challenge. Although technical and scientific innovations have made important contributions focused on quantity through intensification of the production, still the sustainability of such practices should be improved.
Accessibility - The equity of access to food is a key dimension of food security. Due to the national and regional gaps in development, inequities have resulted in serious entitlement problems, reflecting class, gender, ethnic, racial, and age differentials. Measures to provide emergency food aid have limited success in overcoming the structural conditions that perpetuate such inequities. The lack of access to food is largely considered as "poverty" related and its alleviation may lie in a combination of policies that also include increased local production. Acceptability - Food and food practices reflect the social and cultural diversity of humanity. Efforts to provide food without paying attention to the cultural role of food in people's lives have failed to solve food-security problems. This dimension of food security is highly important in determining whether information and food-system innovations will be accepted in a country, given the social, cultural and ecological concerns of its citizens. Adequacy - Food security also requires that adequate measures are in place at all levels of the food chain to guarantee the sustainability of production, distribution, consumption, and waste management. A sustainable food system must maintain ecological integrity and integrate conservation and development.
Local food systems offer long-term sustainable solutions, both for the environment and for local and regional economic development. A regional or national network of local food systems does not necessarily diminish the possible advantages of the global food system for food security; rather, it would enhance these advantages. No single solution will solve the problem of food insecurity. Experience have shown that enhancing food security- in developing countries in particular, requires a well-designed and adaptable package of policies that address in an integrated manner the supply, distribution and consumption aspects of the food chain. FOOD TRADE & FOOD SECURITY The economic theory says that a country should concentrate production in the areas where it has a comparative advantage, even if it has an absolute advantage (or disadvantage) in all products. This is because its relative advantage will not be the same for all products, creating an economic gain if it focuses production on its more competitive products. The surplus it produces can be traded for goods produced by others with a different comparative advantage. A first point to remember is that trans-national companies in the food sector, rather than national governments, really drive agricultural economics. A second point is that the global market is a small market for most foods; for some crops there is no global market at all. Only a few commodities, such as coffee and cocoa, are raised primarily for export. Most food is consumed in the country where it is grown. The world trade in most crops is a relatively small proportion of total production -17 percent of total world wheat production, 11 percent of coarse grains (maize, barley, oats and others), and 6 percent of world rice production-. Even soybeans, which are grown largely for processed foods and animal feed, are mostly consumed in the country where they are grown; only 30 percent of production is traded internationally. A third point to note is that the production of many grains is relatively concentrated. The largest single wheat producing country in the world is China, whose annual production over the last five years has averaged 109 million metric tons (mmt) per year. China's average production is equivalent to all the wheat traded in international markets. The European Union averaged production of 99 mmt a year over the past five years, making it the world’s second largest producer. India comes in third with 70 mmt and the United States is fourth with 63 mmt. However, the United States is the largest wheat exporter. The United States is the largest corn producer and exporter (67%) in the world. The second largest producer and exporter is China, with 14 percent of world corn exports, and third exporter is Argentina with 12 percent. Over 90 percent of world rice production is from Asia. Rice provides from 35-80 percent of the calories consumed by some 3.3 billion people in Asia. Rice production also provides a livelihood for an estimated 250 million people there. Only 6 percent of rice production is traded internationally. A handful of large grain companies-among them Cargill, Continental, Louis Dreyfus, Andre and Bunge-play a central role in the food system. The globalized food system, that part of the food system that international trade is about, is largely managed by a few enormous private firms.102 These companies and their practices are at least as significant as the public policies that affect agricultural production and international agricultural trade, not least because of their influence on the public policies in question, yet the multilateral trade rules ignore them. For developing country (... and not only) governments, considering how best to respond to their food security needs and their concern to support sustainable livelihoods for their farmers, it is invaluable to have other marketing models to consider. The debate should not be over public/ private ownership but how best they can realize their objectives for agriculture. Some of the existing options are important but they are not adequate. They fall into four categories: (a) The futures and options markets- common in the United States and now promoted for developing country farmers by donor agencies. Futures and options are the names given to the contracts used to manage commodity price risks. A "future" is a legally binding contract to buy or sell a certain amount of a commodity at a pre-determined price for delivery to a specified port at a specific date. An "option" is a contract that allows its owner to buy or sell a specified amount of a commodity at a pre-determined price within a given time period. Both kinds of contracts lock in prices regardless of the prevailing market price at the time of sale (or purchase). It will remain out of reach for the vast majority of the world's producers. (b) Farmer cooperatives and state mandated marketing. Cooperatives are created to counter the unequal market power that results when a large group of sellers must sell to a relatively small number of buyers, to reduce input costs and to strengthen their position as sellers by increasing the quantity of product available. Collective organizing is important, but cooperatives with a base only in the production side of the agri-food system will continue to face enormous competitive disadvantages against vertically integrated transnational agribusiness. In the longer run, the challenges posed by environmental limits on our resources, especially on land and water, and the need to protect genetic diversity, are providing an incentive for a different model for agriculture. In developed countries, this means a move to create an alternative to the centralized industrial production model that has so many hidden costs. In the developing world, this could be an alternative path for the development of agriculture that avoids the pitfalls of industrial agriculture, and protects a decentralized distribution of the benefits of production. (c) Alternative production and marketing channels. A new wave of interest in agro-ecology, organic production, fair trade initiatives and the preservation of traditional knowledge linked to seeds and food production, offers new challenges to mainstream agriculture for the production of diversity-rich products of high nutritional and harvest quality and promotes the development of niche export markets. (d) Changes to the global trade rules to better capture and regulate the rapidly changing economic context of the agricultural sector. The current negotiations to revise the AoA in addition to tariffs, export subsidies and domestic support, must also include the issues of concentrated market power of agribusiness and the market failures this power entails. These issues affect many of the discussions already on that agenda, including those on food security, rural development and the discussions on elements of special and differential treatment for developing countries. In addition, the "Development Box" reflects the concern, shared by farmer organizations, NGOs, FAO, the South Centre and many developing country governments, that the current rules reduce vital policy flexibility for the majority of countries that cannot afford to support their agricultural sector with direct payments. The proposed measures include an exemption for staple foods from minimum import requirements; the right to maintain, and if necessary increase, tariffs as protection against distorted prices on international markets and to safeguard the livelihoods of low-income producers; and a moratorium on further domestic support reduction commitments until developed countries have made very significant reductions in their support levels. FOOD QUALITY AND SAFETY Issues for consideration: Cross-cutting thematic issues Regulatory Framework - Formulation and implemetation of policies, legislation/regulations, procedures, guidelines, audit Mutual recognition of regulatory system Precautionary principle in practice Equity - sui generis system of IPRs protection IPR - awareness, attitudes and management Capacity building Human resource development - training Promoting research and technology transfer - re local problems Education in Food/Health Relationship Information dissemination on food hygiene and traditional knowledge
Thematic domains Harmonisation of methods Standardisation on analysis and detection New Detection methods - high throughput analytical methods and other innovations Mutual acceptability of data
Risk Assessment Research Post harvest surveillance (monitoring) Predictive Modelling Research on Unintended Effects Public Perception Studies Food attitudes - Toolbox of social science/ethics Transparency - Public Enforcement, involvement, governance
Sustainable Food Systems. Methods of food safety and quality Innovative production methods Integrated Pest management
Market security Market access for local/traditional food/traditional food processing Economic impacts Traceability in practice - infrastructure, monitoring, adverse effects detection
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