FROM FOOD AID TO FOOD SECURITY
Think globally and act locally
We need to re-conceptualise the concept of food security in development policy
in an era of globalisation. Development through models of the free trade
and industrialisation will not address this issue

By Dr. Noor Fatima

There is a traditional saying that we should live as though we are going to die tomorrow, but we should farm as though we are going to live forever. The correlation between international trade and right of food security has led to a discussion and debate on national and international level in the context of food aid, foodstuffs for bio-fuels and low productivity and investment in agriculture sector. At this hour of history we witness food crises and becoming fully aware of just how global we are? How much can we think globally and act locally?

Theodore Levitt (1983) first used the word globalisation in an article “Globalisation of markets,” and it was considered synonym to global business. Globalisation asserted food security to enhance food productivity, trade flexibility and sustainable access to poor. Is that what globalisation has established today? Aren’t we realising that “globalisation” is not merely about internationalisation of tech. information, culture and increasing dependence on free trade but it is also privatisation of public services in all its various forms; but what is more evident is that globalisation in many ways is contradictory and confusing process.

Taking into account of its convergence with local market, it has dismantled tariff regime in agriculture trade liberalisation, asserting that it is optimum resolution of food security that expects markets to be inherently competitive. In the absence of ideal markets it does not produce convergence, and weakens the authority of state intervention. Proponents of liberalisation of agriculture trade argued that globalisation can make good food available globally at lower prices, however, present food crises, not only in Pakistan but also worldwide, price hike is showing the contrary results. Despite greater emphasis at global level, in 1996, in World Food Summit Plan of Action, food security was given prime importance for the developing counties and also it was defined that “all people all time have economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs for an active healthy life”. The concerned governments were also urged to adopt national strategy by linking regional and global markets. As globalisation was inherently linked to such national policy - no purposeful policy was envisaged for food security and the global institutions also did not take it seriously, probably because no one was starving for food in developed countries. Now rocketing food prices have pushed millions of people for food aid and as termed by Joachim von Braun director-general of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), in Washington, "This is a serious security issue", he said, he has been bombarded by calls from officials around the world, all asking one and the same question: How long will the crisis last?

Present food crisis reflects a breakdown in global food system and worsens poverty, hunger, and food insecurity. Global institutions and governments are responding, though their efforts are vastly inadequate. Great Eight, World Food Program, World Bank, IFPRI and other international institutions are proposing measures to counter the problem through different food aid program and research on sustainable food security. Regrettably, in terms of fulfilling the commitments of aid and adequate measures of these global institutions are always suffering with low reliability.

No doubt, there are other problems contributing in food shortage like spike in oil prices, which pressed input of fertilizer prices, as well as transportation cost to market and also demand to produce the biofuels for substituting the hydrocarbons which also put strained on food availability. Moreover, inflation and population growth also played a greater role in supply and demand in food and high food prices. The World Bank and United Nations have also been warning for food security but were not able to define a frame work to deal with the vision of food security. Paradoxically, present crises signalled that agriculture trade liberalisation has not only undermined local food market but unsubsidised input and high inflation led to present food shortage. After 1990s Structural Adjustment (without human face) only in recent years, World Bank is focusing on Global Food Policy and has urged to include safety nets in economic policy for agricultural development; but the question remains, is there any support of farmers themselves available in such rhetoric policies. On the contrary, WB loans are more linked with investment programmes for “public-private partnership,” and for international-corporation that benefits more from expanded trade of agri-goods.

Who benefits? It will help less and harm more to farmers as agribusiness groups will gain more and not poor farmers. Moreover, farmers were used to get subsidised seeds and fertilisers and also it was easy for them to get other input including machinery, but after trade liberalisation, there are markets to provide such inputs through new firms and business groups. This has resulted in privatisation-centred approach but could not facilitate production and reflecting today’s food insecurity world wide. We can see from the table showing the tremendous costy increase in food during last few years. (See Fig-1)

The problem is not only price hike of food but it is agribusiness groups and speculators who start controlling the export markets and gains the most as a winners of such crises. The countries like India, Egypt and Kazakhstan’s had already put restriction on food export to meet their own requirement though stimulated international food price immediately. Speculators also gains by hammering lot of money for food storages which also cause escalation of prices of food. What market strategy failed to comprehend is that the food is not like other many commodities to just build consumerism, it is essential for biological needs thus can not be left to the market impulses. This is a production to be traded strategically, need heavy focus in liberalisation process that what we need to produce, to be self sufficient and what we can rely on just imports. Globalisation, on the one side, brought tremendous beneficiary of such policies but on the other hand, there are more who are getting into poor-bracket. The current crises brought exactly opposite outcome that globalisation advocates claim.

The question is not that global institutions advocating such policies are not aware of such outcome of implementation of their ‘free market’ model, but point is that they are following exactly their schema to accomplish their task of access of free outflow of goods and services and not to help the poor countries like. One need to look into that as pursuing this model is harming the poor, or opposing it. Do we still need such ‘heartless’ policies of agriculture liberalisation? Don’t we need to decide at what point of time we need to welcome such policies and at what stage we need to define its pros and cons along with planned deliberation to reflect the limitation of market strategy to deal with agriculture policies.

Keeping above in view, sovereignty of policies to envisage food and agricultural policies in consideration with our own ground realities is strongly required. Here comes an urge for the public sector to do more to steer globalisation in poor peoples favour. This requires urgent investment in physical and non-physical infrastructure, institution, regulations for efficient markets, infrastructure facilitation farm to market facilities and credit allocation to farmers. Furthermore, low levels of public interest in agriculture research is a major cause that we are not able to exploit the strengths of latest technology for improved per yield production with optimum cost and competitiveness particularly by smaller farmers. Let us not forget that trade liberation as part of structural-policies were envisaged by IFIs for supporting fiscal balance of the developing countries but on the contrary it was hurting poor including poor farmers. WB surveys and assessment shows that many developing countries, farm spending fell from an average of 6.9 per cent of gross domestic product in 1980 to 4 per cent in 2004.

We also need critical analysis on frequently facing trade-off between high food price and poor farmers help. In an interview on food crises, UN food envoy Jean Ziegler, stated that the food shortages are a consequence of globalisation, he made, multinationals, market traders, financial speculators, and other "financial bandits” held responsible for the crisis. While, globalisation hailed from the concept that it will provide food access on lower price in free trade at global level, World Development Report, 2008 reflected that this claim of globalisation to trust market is to be questioned. The report stated “It is generally believed that when an industry’s exceeds 40 per cent, market competitiveness begins to decline, leading to higher spreads between what consumers pay and what producers receive for their produce.”

A crisis without an alternative is a sign of imminent shocks. It is also a reminder that globalisation, driven by the theory of comparative advantage, can also encourage agricultural specialisation, perhaps more promising solution will come from agriculture research and technology. An innovative framework: that how we define the food security need to track the key variables of per capita income, per capita food consumption and per capita agriculture production, which is already on decline as shown in following figure-II.

According to FAO of United Nations about 38 million people are not properly nourished in Pakistan. The analysis required to build strong link of these variables with population increase, purchase power, caloric need per day and the per capita land availability, which is declining with the increase of population. These variables have a dynamic impact on the relationship between those who produce food and who consume it. We also need to focus it just to protect food supply system and need to make it sustainable for people. A framework for public policy has to be tabled recognising the badly governed in agriculture sector and identifying the problems in basic system including feudal system and land reforms. (See Fig-2)

Therefore, only purposeful and innovative framework will promote food security. How far we need to go in liberalisation of agriculture trade and who is going to get benefit – it’s time to think. If public investment lags to assure food security for the people, can food aid reduce the insecurity or make the governance better? Though, investment in agriculture sector can be financed through foreign aid but we are mindful of the fact that aid or financial assistance is always associated with market policy reform and not to just provide public goods and social services by the government. Food aid itself is no solution, the more donors giving food aid, the more need is growing for aid. The main issue with food aid is that it can impact negatively on domestic production. It can displace the poor farmers. So is being recognised that food aid is not longer a development resource. We need to re-conceptualise the concept of food security in development policy in an era of globalisation. Development through models of the free trade and industrialisation will also not address this issue. Will that provide us food security? If we try to transform our agricultural society into fully industrial, then growing food itself will be a greater challenge in few years to come.