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A food policy is a decision, program, or project, endorsed by a government agency, business, or organization, that affects how food is produced, processed, distributed, purchased, protected, and disposed of. Food policy can pertain to local, regional, provincial, national, or within-institution regulations. Food policy is closely related to agricultural policy, which is the process of assessing sectorial performance and providing appropriate and participative policy formulation for the development of the sector. These policies aim to correct market failure, to react to crisis situations, and to promote environmental sustainability. The main objective of the policies is to increase productivity and income growth, to enhance food security and equity, and to ultimately reduce the number of those suffering from hunger.
The World Food Situation
Defining Food Security
To understand the genesis and underlying rationale of most international food policies, one must first examine the endemic global or regional food problems prompting the need for such policy regulation. Problems, such as food security, have become a priority for countries and international organizations that work collectively to alleviate low levels of food security plaguing many nations. Food security means having sufficient amounts of food within a population and is largely measured on a variety of factors including the availability of world supplies of food, accessibility of available supplies, income of the designated population, consumption rate of food, and amount that can be set aside for future use. Although over the past three decades the world has produced more food, and agricultural production has experienced favorable conditions, food insecurity remains a major problem worldwide.
Food security is an important issue that will continue to be faced by policy makers from developing countries and developed countries in this and the next millennium. A clear understanding of the causes of hunger and malnutrition is imperative to enable and challenge policy makers to lay the groundwork at the grassroots level for appropriate policy measures and the development of programs designed to alleviate hunger and its consequences. Due to a lack of reliable worldwide population data, it is difficult to say exactly how many people are undernourished. However, even in the absence of appropriate data collection and analysis, there is general agreement that the number of people severely affected by hunger and malnutrition is extremely large.
Statistics
According to a World Food Programme estimate, the number of undernourished people in the world increased in 2008 to 963 million, an increase by 115 million during the past two years. This increase is due to dramatically rising food and fuel prices aggravated by widespread turmoil among international financial systems. Currently, another 1 billion are at risk of falling into the ranks of the hungry, and if trends continue, this number is expected to grow dramatically. The Food and
Agriculture Organization’s latest estimates show even before the recent surge in food prices, worrisome long-term trends toward increasing hunger were already apparent.
The vast majority of the world’s undernourished people— 907 million—live in developing countries according to the 2008 data reported in the Food and Agriculture Organization’s State of Food Insecurity in the World. Of these, 65 percent live in seven countries: India, China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Ethiopia. Progress in these countries with large populations would have an important impact on global hunger reduction. In sub-Saharan Africa, one in three people—or 236 million—are chronically hungry, the highest proportion of undernourished people in the total population, according to a 2007 World Bank Africa report. The majority of these persons resided in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Due to the widespread and persistent conflict in the country from 2003 to 2005, the number of chronically hungry persons in the Congo rose from 11 million to 43 million, and the proportion of undernourished rose from 29 to 76 percent.
Development Of Food Policy
Historically, food policies have been designed to solve global and regional problems of food security and stimulate economic growth for third world nations. As mentioned previously, in many countries, food policy forms an integral part of agricultural policy. For example, in Germany, agricultural, health, and environmental policies are closely linked to food policy as they are shaped by legal and regulatory policies, financial and commercial policies, and research and educational policies. Furthermore, while independent states have domestic food policies, many food policies as discussed below are created and regulated by collective state efforts to effectively rely on regional resources and international support to relieve a region’s food security problems writ large.
In Africa, the agricultural policy called the Comprehensive Africa Development Programme was developed in 2003 by African heads of state and governments. Its primary objectives are to (a) improve national agricultural policy frameworks; (b) strengthen institutions and governance; (c) enhance agricultural productivity; (d) foster trade, investment, economic growth, and sustainable development; and (e) promote regional integration. The Comprehensive Africa Development Programme is an acknowledgment of the failures of past agricultural policies in Africa, which attempted to bring a green revolution to Africa.
European Union (EU) agricultural policy has its roots in the post–World War II food shortages of the 1950s and early 1960s. The emphasis was on providing enough food for a Europe emerging from a decade of war-induced shortages. Subsidizing production on a large scale and buying up surpluses in the interests of food security are now largely things of the past. EU policy aims to enable producers of all forms of food—from crops and livestock to fruit and vegetables or wine—to survive by themselves in EU and world markets.
In the 1960s, many Asian governments, particularly India’s, created and implemented a favorable policy to support a new agricultural innovation called the green revolution. The green revolution was a response to the emerging Asian food crisis incited by rapid population growth and stagnant grain production. The revolution was driven by a technology revolution comprising a package of modern inputs—irrigation, improved seeds, fertilizers, and pesticides—which would together significantly increase crop production. The speed and scale with which it solved the food problem was remarkable and unprecedented, and it contributed to a substantial reduction in poverty and the launching of broader economic growth in many Asian countries. Today, Asia’s significantly growing populations and state attempts to modernize its agricultural and economic investments to keep pace with global markets limit the lasting effects of the green revolution. However, without the green revolution in the 1960s, analysts claim the food insecurity and poverty in Asia could have been much higher than it is today.
Challenges For Food Policy
The key challenge for food policy is to help agriculture play its role as an engine of growth and poverty reduction. Food policy should provide a useful framework to focus the discussion on food insecurity. Essentially, designing food and agricultural policy that will enable rural populations to pull themselves out of their impoverished conditions remains a challenge in many developing countries. Addressing the political economy of agriculture-for-development agendas will continue to be difficult, particularly in Africa. Due to poor investment in research and development throughout the continent, it will likely be difficult in the short term to establish food policies and a regulatory environment that will promote new waves of technological agricultural innovations in Africa. Last, a major challenge facing the agricultural sector is the effect of global climate change on agriculture. This effect is uncertain. Therefore, a preventive policy and a plan of action have to be elaborated by policy makers not only nationally but also internationally.
Bibliography:
- Food and Agriculture Organization. The State of Food Insecurity in the World: Economic Crises—Impacts and Lessons Learned. Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2009.
- Johnson, D. G. “Food Security and World Trade Prospects.” American Journal of Agricultural Economics 80, no. 5 (1998): 941–947.
- World Bank. Accelerating Development Outcomes in Africa. Progress and Change in the Africa Action Plan. Washington, D.C.:World Bank, 2007.
- Achieving the Millennium Development Goals in Africa: Progress, Prospects, and Policy Implications. Washington, D.C.:World Bank, 2002.
- Africa Development Indicators 2006. Washington, D.C.:World Bank, 2006.
- “Agriculture for Development.” In World Development Report 2008.
- Washington, D.C.:World Bank, 2007.
- Challenges of African Growth: Opportunities, Constraints and Strategic Directions. Washington, D.C.:World Bank, 2007.
- World Bank/International Food Policy Research Institute. Agriculture and Achieving the Millennium Development Goals. Washington, D.C.:World Bank/International Food Policy Research Institute, 2006.
- World Food Programme. Annual Report. Rome:World Food Programme, 2009.
- Zimmermann, Roukayatou, Michael Brüntrup, Shashidhara Kolavalli, and Kathleen Flaherty. Agricultural Policies in Sub-Saharan Africa: Understanding CAADP and APRM Policy Processes. Studies 48. Bonn: Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik/German Development Institute, 2009.
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