The world food situation: New driving forces and required actions

"The world food situation is currently being rapidly redefined by new driving forces. Income growth, climate change, high energy prices, globalization, and urbanization are transforming food consumption, production, and markets. The influence of the private sector in the world food system, especially the leverage of food retailers, is also rapidly increasing. Changes in food availability, rising commodity prices, and new producer–consumer linkages have crucial implications for the livelihoods of poor and food-insecure people. Analyzing and interpreting recent trends and emerging challenges in the world food situation is essential in order to provide policymakers with the necessary information to mobilize adequate responses at the local, national, regional, and international levels. It is also critical for helping to appropriately adjust research agendas in agriculture, nutrition, and health. Not surprisingly, renewed global attention is being given to the role of agriculture and food in development policy, as can be seen from the World Bank's World Development Report, accelerated public action in African agriculture under the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), and the Asian Development Bank's recent initiatives for more investment in agriculture, to name just a few examples." from TextWorld food situation, Globalization, food security, Agricultural production, Markets, Food prices,

Food and financial crises: Implications for agriculture and the poor

"High food prices from 2007 through mid-2008 had serious implications for food and nutrition security, macroeconomic stability, and political security. The unfolding global financial crisis and economic slowdown have now pushed food prices to lower levels. Yet the financial crunch has also decreased the availability of capital at a time when accelerated investment in agriculture is urgently needed. The food and financial crises will have strong and long-lasting effects on emerging economies and poor people. A synchronized response is needed to ease the burden on the poor and allow agriculture to face new challenges and respond to new opportunities. Three sets of complementary policy actions should be taken: (1) promote pro-poor agricultural growth, (2) reduce market volatility, and (3) expand social protection and child nutrition action. Agriculture requires strategic investment action, and the food-insecure poor need a bailout now." from Textfood security, Nutrition security, Pro-poor growth, Agricultural growth, Food prices, Social protection, Global financial crises,

Physical and virtual global food reserves to protect the poor and prevent market failure:

"The current food crisis has several causes—rising demand for food and feed, biofuels, high oil prices, climate change, stagnant agricultural productivity growth—but there is increasing evidence that the crisis is being made worse by the malfunctioning of world grain markets. Given the thinness of major markets for cereals, the restrictions on grain exports imposed by dozens of countries have resulted in additional price increases. A number of countries have adopted retail price controls, creating perverse incentives for producers. Speculative bubbles have built up, and the gap between cash and futures prices has risen, stimulating overregulation in some countries and causing some commodity exchanges in Africa and Asia to halt grain futures trading. Some food aid donors have defaulted on food aid contracts. The World Food Programme (WFP) has had difficulty getting quick access to grain for its humanitarian operations. Developing countries are urgently rebuilding their national stocks and re-examining the “merits” of self-sufficiency policies for food security despite high costs. These reactions began as consequences, not causes, of the price crisis, but they exacerbate the crisis and increase the risks posed by high prices. By creating a feedback loop with high food prices, they further increase price levels and volatility, with adverse consequences for the poor and for long-term incentives for agricultural production. Because they impede the free flow of food to where it is most needed and undermine the flow of price signals to farmers, these market failures impose enormous efficiency losses on the global food system, hitting the poorest countries and people hardest." from Author's textFood prices, Food policy, Markets,

Time to stop dumping on the world's poor: essay from IFPRI's 2002-2003 Annual Report

What can governments in rich countries do about poverty in poor countries, apart from increasing and improving aid and endorsing ambitious poverty reduction goals? Answer: get serious about reforming their own farm policies and start dismantling the agricultural trade restrictions and subsidies that contribute to mass poverty across the developing world.Globalization, Equality, tariffs, Protectionism, Land tenure, Poverty reduction,

Exploring the Price Spike

Agribusiness, I30, O12, Q18,

Poverty and the globalization of the food and agriculture system:

Poverty reduction, Hunger, Globalization, Food and agriculture, Poverty, Agriculture and trade,

Information and communication technologies for the poor:

This brief is based on Information and Communication Technologies for Development and Poverty Reduction: The Potential of Telecommunications, ed. Maximo Torero and Joachim von Braun (Johns Hopkins University Press and IFPRI, 2006) "The variety of views about ICTs reveals that their role in development is unclear, especially without convincing evidence of their impact—and little research has been conducted on the direct and indirect links between ICTs and poverty reduction. A new book, Information and Communication Technologies for Development and Poverty Reduction: The Potential of Telecommunications, published by the Johns Hopkins University Press for IFPRI, addresses several pressing questions surrounding ICTs. How do ICTs affect economic development in low-income countries? How do they affect poor people in these countries and in rural areas in particular? What policies and programs facilitate their potential to enhance development and the inclusion of poor constituents? The book presents researchers' findings related to five critical questions. (1) What link exists between ICT growth and economic growth? (2) Do weak institutions block effective use of ICTs? (3) Have ICTs been adapted to low-income countries, and have they had an impact on SMEs? (4) Does household access to ICTs remain constrained? (5) Can ICTs play a role in providing pro-poor public goods and services?" from TextICT, Information technology, Poverty reduction, Development, Telecommunications, Economic development Developing countries, rural areas, Institutions,

International co-operation for agricultural development and food and nutrition security: New institutional arrangements for related public goods

Following an overview on the fast changing global context of agriculture, and food and nutrition security, this paper provides a framework for identifying the set of essential international public goods for a well-functioning world agriculture and food system: natural resource management related to biodiversity, water, and soils; climate change adaptation and mitigation; trade and food reserves; competition policy and standards for foreign direct investment; international research and innovation; responding to and preventing food and nutrition emergencies; and trans-boundary food safety and health related investments and standards. The deficiencies of the current institutional arrangements in support of agricultural development and food and nutrition security are reviewed and a perspective for re-design is presented. It comprises three focal clusters of organizational setups under a global platform: a cluster on food and nutrition security for the poor; a second one on protection of natural resources; and a third one on enhanced sustainable intensification and productivity growth. A gradual approach toward re-design based on current building blocks of international organizations is proposed, allowing for more involvement of non-government global actors as well as intensified government-to-government (G-to-G) networking in order to improve international public goods delivery in support of development goals. Some re-design actually occurs already in this direction, but it is rather ad hoc. To move the re-design process forward more strategically, and less ad hoc needs a high-level, broad based, legitimized time-bound dialogue forum that embraces the whole set of international public goods for agricultural development and food and nutrition security, and addresses the organizational implications

Urbanization and Decentralization: The changing urban-rural linkages and opportunities of decentralization of services

"Urbanization and Decentralization: The changing urban-rural linkages and opportunities of decentralization of services" Joachim von Braun, Center for Development Research (ZEF) University of Bonn, Germany This paper explores the relations between urbanization and decentralization. Ever stronger linkages between urban and rural areas represent a challenge for sustainable development. Until now, the widespread view in the economic policy and research, categorizing "rural" as more "remote farming areas" and urban as "crowded cities", has led to their separate treatment, missing important sustainability footprints and poverty-reducing inter-linkages between them. The reality is different. In fact, the farming areas (the very rural) and the megacities (the very urban) co-evolve along a continuum with multiple types of flows and interactions. These dynamics are bringing the two spaces ever closer in space and livelihood patterns, leading to the loss of traditional distinctions between them. This gives an important potential role to decentralization of government, and decentralization of services in particular. Decentralization is an instrument for efficient and participatory governance. It has emerged as one of the most important governance reforms in recent history: Approximately 80 percent of all developing and transition countries have implemented this reform in past three decades. Based on a systematic review of country experiences this paper highlights the need for new attention to the spatial dimensions of development and to urban-rural linkages for sustainable development and reviews the evidence of synergies and pitfalls between urbanization and decentralization with concepts of economic geography, and institutional economics. There is evidence that the poorer segments of societies often do not benefit as much from decentralization as the better-off, and in some cases, decentralization even makes matters worse for them. An important reason for this mixed experience is the fact that the impact of decentralization on poverty depends on design- and context-specific factors. Institutional arrangements that work in one situation may not be appropriate for another, which has led to the appeal to move "from best practice to good fit." Against this context, this paper addresses the specific question: how to guide urban-rural linkages toward sustainable development. Strong linkages enhance people's welfare and growth because they facilitate the flow of resources to where they have the largest net economic and social benefits. However, such linkages cannot be taken for granted in development; they must be optimally invested in to help reduce transaction costs related to the linkages of diverse types and stimulate positive externalities and spillover effects. Urban-rural linkages need more policy attention, which requires that adequate institutional and organizational structures be put in place, necessitating appropriate coordination mechanisms between central and local governments