Food. Jennifer Clapp

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СКАЧАТЬ sector and has drawn attention to the fact that around one quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions is associated with the food and agriculture sector. As temperatures rise, analysts have stepped up warnings about potential food shortages in the not too distant future. These concerns have prompted calls for change, not just in production methods, but also toward more sustainable diets that move away from consumption of animal protein, such as eggs, dairy, and meat, which place a much higher ecological toll on the planet than plant-based foods. Meanwhile, approximately one third of the world’s food production is lost or wasted.

Uncertainty about the impact of environmental change on food is layered on top of what is seen by many to be unfair conditions for farmers in both rich and poor countries, as corporate actors have become more and more powerful in determining the circumstances of their livelihoods. There are 2.5 billion people – including 350 million indigenous peoples – engaged in small-scale agriculture and food production, who collectively manage approximately 500 million small farms. Estimates vary on the proportion of the world’s food supply that these small-scale farmers produce, ranging from 30–35 percent on the lower end, and up to 70–80 percent on the higher end. While it is difficult to know their precise production levels due to data limitations, there is growing understanding that small-scale and family farming is a major contribution to global food production, especially in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. At the same time, these small-scale producers have access to only around 30 percent of the resources devoted to the sector. Many of these farmers practice sustainable forms of agricultural production, but their livelihoods are under threat.

      At the same time, a “triple burden” of malnutrition has emerged that threatens human wellbeing. These are: (1) chronic undernutrition (inadequate intake of sufficient calories, affecting over 820 million people); (2) overnutrition (excessive intake of calories, affecting over two billion people in the form of overweight and obesity); and (3) micronutrient deficiencies (inadequate intake of vitamins and minerals, affecting over 1.5 billion people). One or more of these categories of malnutrition affect a significant proportion of the world’s population, in rich and poor countries alike.²

Worries about these issues have spurred a small but growing movement that seeks to promote alternative food systems that maximize the ecological, social, and health benefits of food, rather than profits. These movements highlight the fact that there are, in fact, many food systems that operate at local and national levels, many of which have different priorities. These food systems, however, are still dwarfed by the size of the global industrial food system, which affects both producers and consumers in myriad ways, even if they participate almost exclusively in alternative food systems.

      Further impetus for questioning the current global food system came with the sharp increase in food prices on global markets in 2007–2008 and again in 2011–2013. These price spikes served as a stark reminder of the gap in our knowledge about the forces that control outcomes in the global food system. When food prices began to rise quickly and dramatically, there was a great deal of uncertainty, even among experts, as to what exactly caused these major disruptions in global food markets. Some cited a misalignment of supply and demand fundamentals as the principal culprit. But others dismissed those explanations and pointed to other factors, including macroeconomic conditions, biofuel policies, trade practices, and financial speculation on commodity markets.

That food prices could change so abruptly, and immediately affect access to food for people across the world, was remarkable. The impact of these price spikes were felt most intensely in the world’s poorest countries – countries that had once been agricultural exporters, but which had gradually become net importers of food over the previous fifty years. The poorest members of society in developing countries often spend upwards of 50–80 percent of their income on food. When prices shot sky high, many people’s access to food immediately became severely restricted. The food riots that broke out across the developing world in early 2008 – from Haiti to Egypt to the Philippines – illustrated their frustration. Food prices continued to be high and volatile, with prices reaching new record highs in 2011 and 2012, exacerbated by drought in North America, a major grain-producing region. For those affected by this crisis, particularly young children, the impacts are likely to be lifelong, as even short periods of severe malnutrition in the very young (in the first 1,000 days of life) can have a permanently negative impact on human health, wellbeing, and long-term livelihood potential.

      This jarring disruption to the global food system was highly unusual. After all, food prices on world markets had been low and falling for most of the previous thirty years. An earlier sharp spike in food prices occurred in the mid 1970s, but this episode had gradually faded in people’s minds as the problem of low farm incomes persisted for decades. The major concern of the 1980s to early 2000s was with ensuring decent farmer incomes and food security for agricultural producers, especially those in less industrialized countries who, although they produced food, were still net buyers of food and often did not have enough income to secure their own nutrition at adequate levels. To suddenly see such a dramatic new trend of rapidly rising food prices, which so deeply affected many people’s food security, underscores the importance of gaining a better understanding of the way in which the global food system functions and its impact on people around the world. Food prices stabilized somewhat after 2014, but stayed higher than they were before the crisis and the threat of a return to more volatile food prices remains.

More recently, world agricultural markets experienced fresh turmoil in 2018 and 2019, due to growing trade tensions between two of the world’s largest economies – the United States and China. In 2018, US President Donald Trump began to impose tariffs on imports from China, seeking to reduce the US trade deficit with that country. China, which had been importing significant amounts of soybeans from the United States over the past decade, retaliated with its own tariffs against products it imports from the United States, with a particular focus on agricultural goods. As a result, US exports of soybeans plummeted, as did prices for US soybeans on world markets, while China shifted its soy purchases to alternative suppliers – mainly to Brazil and Argentina, which have both been expanding soy production in recent years. Meanwhile, the rapid increase in the spread of the deadly African Swine Fever virus after 2018 resulted in the deaths of a quarter of all pigs globally, including hundreds of millions of pigs in Asia and Europe. The epidemic contributed to an increase in meat prices not seen since 2014 and growing demand for imported meat into affected regions.

      These shifts in the global trade of major commodities in the past several years have had not only economic repercussions – in some cases positive, and in some cases negative – for farmers and agricultural traders, but have also been associated with ecological impacts. For example, pressure for further expansion of soy production in South America has been associated with deforestation, climate change, soil exhaustion, and the heavy use of agricultural chemicals.³

Together, the ecological, economic, and social dynamics of the global food system have profound impacts on both producers and consumers around the world. This book aims to contribute to a fuller understanding of some of the key forces that influence and shape the current global food system. It focuses in particular on the interface between the international political and economic dimensions of the global industrial food system – what I refer to as the “world food economy.” This world food economy is characterized by an increasingly global market for food, with more and more of it traveling through global production, trade, and processing supply chains, influenced by myriad international economic and political forces. Much has been written in recent years on the theme of food systems, particularly on movements that promote alternatives at the local level, as noted above. But the ways in which even alternative food systems are influenced and shaped by the global political and economic forces that have given rise to the dominant global food system are often left unpacked, only partially examined, or are ignored altogether.⁴

      Yet the international economics and politics of food have significant implications for other scales and dimensions of food systems – from access to food for hungry people in specific locations such as a small, remote village in Africa, Latin America, or Asia; to local sustainable food movements in Europe or North America; to diet-related СКАЧАТЬ