• The 2008 World Food Crisis
  Jomo Kwame Sundaram
     
  The causes of the current food crisis have their roots in both long term and short term developments. While the flagging efforts to boost food output and the neglect of agriculture since the eighties have proved to be risky, the newer factors of unilateral trade liberalisation and recent threat to food cultivation from bio-fuels have only compounded this problem. In any case, at an international level, an institutional policy prescription for adequately addressing this issue does not seem to be in view.
     
  
• Knocked-Down Agriculture After De-Industrialization; Another Destructive Influence of Neo-Liberalism
  M. Shafaeddin
    
  The author, in this piece, argues that the agricultural support policies, liberalisation of the agricultural sector by developing countries and contradictions in the design and implementation of GATT/WTO rules, and not just some short term factors, lie at the root of the recent food crisis in developing countries. There is a danger that further pressure on developing countries during the Doha Round may result in an outcome undermining development of the agricultural sector of developing countries further. Therefore, there is a need for a radical change in the trading system, practices of International Financial Institutions (IFIs) and policies of developed countries. While it would not be easy for the developing countries to resist pressures from the developed countries and IFIs, it is, however, necessary for their long-term development and well being of their population.
     
• The Global Food Crisis and What Has Capitalism to Do With It?
  William K. Tabb
     
  The paper explores the links between the current food crisis, generated by galloping food prices, and the inherent nature of capitalism. It discusses the structural issues of an industry built on profit maximization, considers the unique aspects of agribusiness in a global political economy, the role of the power exercised by huge transnationals and the states which support their interests. The paper argues that a look at the causes of this food crisis and the purported solutions has much to tell us about what is wrong with the hegemonic development model of recent decades.
       
• The Accumulation Process in the Period of Globalization
  Prabhat Patnaik
     
  This paper, based on a lecture given in memory of D. D. Kosambi, discusses the current global crises in terms of rising inflation and food shortages, and argues that this situation reflects the inherent nature of capitalism which engages in accumulation through both expansion and encroachment. This squeezes out peasant agriculture and all petty producers, and ultimately leads to a supply constraint on goods produced by these groups. Under the current context of capitalism, these forces are creating a crisis for mankind.
      
• The Global Food Crisis
  Jayati Ghosh
     
  The recent food shortages and rapidly rising prices of food have adversely affected billions of people, especially the poor in the developing world. This is very much a man-made crisis, resulting from the market-oriented and liberalising policies adopted by choice or compulsion in almost all countries, which have either neglected agriculture or allowed shifts in global prices to determine both cropping patterns and the viability of farming, and also generated greater possibilities of speculative activity in food items. This article discusses the features, causes of the current crisis and indicates an alternative policy framework for redressal.

May 22, 2008.