Resolving the Food Crisis:
Assessing Global Policy Reforms Since 2007
GDAE-IATP Policy Report
January 2012
Timothy A. Wise and Sophia Murphy
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the full report.
The spikes in global food prices in 2007-8 served as
a wake-up call to the global community on the inadequacies of our global
food system. Commodity prices doubled, the estimated number of hungry
people topped one billion, and food riots spread through the developing
world. A second price spike in 2010-11, which drove the global food import
bill for 2011 to an estimated $1.3 trillion, only deepened the sense that
the policies and principles guiding agricultural development and food
security were deeply flawed.
How well has the international community responded to these challenges?
In this policy report from the Global
Development and Environment Institute and the Institute
for Agriculture and Trade Policy, Timothy A. Wise and Sophia Murphy
argue that the recent crisis has been a catalyst for important policy
reforms, but they conclude that governments have yet to address its underlying
causes. They warn that the international community is avoiding deeper
structural reforms, leaving the world at risk of another devastating spike
in global food prices. Wise and Murphy call for urgent attention to three
issues:
- Reducing financial speculation on commodities
markets – Reforms have been limited, leaving commodities markets
prone to wide price swings. Proposals to increase the use of food reserves
to limit volatility have been largely rejected.
- Limiting the further expansion of crops and
land dedicated to biofuels – Over 40% of US corn now goes to
ethanol production, backed by a range of government subsidies and incentives.
Similar programs spur biofuel expansion in other industrialized countries,
contributing to the underlying demand-growth that is driving agricultural
prices steadily upward.
- Halting ''land grabs'' – As food-producing resources become more valuable, resource-constrained countries and speculative investors have bought or leased millions of acres of agricultural land in Africa and in other developing regions. This unregulated new market compromises the long-term food-producing capacity of developing countries while dispossessing those who have traditionally worked the land.
The report, ''Resolving
the Food Crisis: Assessing Global Policy Reforms Since 2007,''
is based on a comprehensive assessment of the policies and actions taken
since 2007 by four international groups of actors: the UN, the G-20, the
World Bank and international donors. The authors document the welcome
renewal of attention to agricultural development and to the contributions
of small-scale farmers and women. They also find encouraging signs of
improvement in the attention to environmental issues, including climate
change. But they warn that policy reforms fall well short of what is needed
to meet the world’s current and future food needs in a sustainable way.
Wise and Murphy put the onus on rich-country governments to take responsibility
for their agricultural policies that are contributing to the fragility
and volatility in food systems around the world and to support the renewed
interest in many developing countries to increase agricultural development
and reduce dependence on food imports.
Download ''Resolving
the Food Crisis: Assessing Global Policy Reforms Since 2007''
Download the Executive
Summary
Read "Resolving
the Food Crisis: Global leaders fail to make crucial reforms,"
an op-ed by Wise and Murphy
See an interview with the authors on Real
News Network.
Read more on GDAE’s Globalization
and Sustainable Development Program.
Read more on GDAE's work on the global
food crisis.
Read more on IATP's work on food
and agriculture.