SSC4604 week 7: Governing for
global food security
M.Juntti@mdx.ac.uk
Learning objectives
• Food security and the prevalent threats (the
problem) and sustainable food
• Food sovereignty as an alternative paradigm
(the critique) and food ethics
• The global agri-food commodity networks (the
context)
• The right to food
• Some potential future scenarios
The four pillars of food security
• Availability
– Supply: production, stocks, trade
• Access
– Incomes, markets, prices
• Utilization
– Ability to benefit from a range of nutrients
– Determined by care, feeding practices, food
preparation methods, dietary diversity, intra
household food distribution
• Stability
– Fluctuation in the above over time
THE PROBLEM
Global food production will need to meet the requirement of a 60% increase
in the production of staple foods to meet the projected increase in demand
over the coming decades to 2050 (FAO, 2013).
The FAO measures food security with the Food Insecurity Index which is based on
household surveys and other secondary data gathered in 140 countries world wide.
So where does sustainability come in?
• Sustaining availability of course…
• Sustaining productive resources
– Land – desertification
– Water – droughts and depletion of ground water
resources
• Sustaining the other functions that these
resources support
– Biodiversity, habitats and ecosystems more broadly
• Mitigating the climate impact of food production
– CO2 and MH4 emmissions
Critique of food secruity: food sovereignty
• “the right of individuals, communities,
peoples and countries to their own
agricultural, labour, fishing, food and land
policies which are ecologically, socially,
culturally and economically appropriate to
their unique circumstances”.
www.foodethicscouncil.org
Food security and sovereignty locally
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Food intake – nutrition, safety and cultural preferences
Food production – who profits, environmental impacts
Trade security – food self-sufficiency, food availability at origin
Agricultural potential – self-sufficiency in domestic foods
• A NORTH-SOUT DIVIDE IN LOCAL LEVEL FOOD SECURITY
GLOBALLY…
• In developed countries: maintaining food production and market
access but also
• Exporting capacity, quality of products and environmental impact of
production are concerns associated with food security
Pressures: prices and productivity
Global agri-food commodity network
• The interdependencies of global food
production
• Large growers > marketing organisations >
export/import agencies > supermarkets >
consumers
• National polices and international food health,
safety and sustainability standards
Agricultural imports form developing countries
(million euros)
• Commodity networks as webs of
interdependence
– Commodity exchange relationships
– Supported by information and technology which
bind in further agents
– Eg. research; development; NGOs; consumer
groups...
• Power in commodity networks
– ‘Core’ establishes guidelines / codes of practice /
demand that is imposed over the ‘periphery’
The HVF network linking the UK and
South Africa
The production sphere
• Sites of import, export and production
• Governed by possible national legislation
– Employees rights, wages, safety etc.
– Health and quality of products
– Environmental
• National and international advocacy and advisory agents
• Export and import standards
– Phytosanitary and sanitary standards
– International retailers’ quality standards
• Export and import levies
• Intermediaries (small scale producers)
– Contracts with ‘distributors’
– Auction houses
– Non-appoinetd agents who offer cash at farm gates...
Source: Grievink 2003 OECD conference presentation
The influence on agricultural practices
• The dis-embeddedness of agriculture
– The immediate relationship with the local ecosystem
• Mutual dependence
• Creating the countryside
– The need to meet societal demands
• From food shortages to
• Consumer trust
– The agrarian question: the needs and prospects of farmers and agricultural labour
• Viable livelihood
• Rural communities
• Shift from the regime of regional farming styles to a sociotechnical regime
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Detachment from the 3 aspects of embeddedness
Logic of disembedded finance capital
The hollowing out of the state
The power of wholesalers and retailers in the food chain
The role of commodity speculation in
food prices
• Soft commodities market based on a system of predicting
stock availability and price
– buying and selling, mainly by large investors, in order to gain
profit.
• Speculative pricing, rather than based on certain
knowledge of harvest and market conditions.
– Based on changes in other market conditions such as price of oil
or speculative buying
• High Frequency (HF) or algorithmic trading
– super-fast computers monitor minuscule movements to interest
rates, prices and other market conditions and execute deals
often with minimal human interference
• Contributes to price increases and increases volatility of
prices which is bad for farmers / a stable production base
Pressures: climate change and land degradation
Projected changes in agricultural productivity to
2080
-50%
+35%
Vulnerability to climate change
Pressures: changes in land use
• Neo-productivism: biofuels
– Many countries subsidise
– Potential conflict with food security
• Climate change mitigation and adaptation
– Rural industries (agriculture) as sources of GHG
– The role of rural ES in adaptation (buffering the
impact of climate change)
Solutions / responses
Solutions and responses I: subsidies
The CAP
• A system of farm support that carries with it a set of standards for
production methods and certain aspects of the quality of production
• Influential for farming, agricultural markets and rural areas within Europe
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Influences farm income through the Single Farm payment (SFP), production quotas, subsidy ceiling
Influences imports and exports
and increasingly, the value of the countryside in terms of the environmental goods it consists of.
• Both objectives and instruments have evolved in its 50+ year lifetime
• The CAP influences the use and management of some 180 million hectares
of land across 27 EU Member States
• Cumbersome decision-making, fraud
The scene at the birth of the CAP (1957)
• Post war Europe (EC6) of food shortages and even famine
• Low levels of production and low income
• Long pre-war traditions of state intervention in agriculture
The 4 motives of the CAP defined in the
Treaty of Rome in 1957
• Food security, in terms of sufficient quantity rather than
quality
• Increasing agricultural productivity through technical progress
• Agricultural market stabilisation
• Reasonable standard of living for European farmers
• Combination of productivist and social motivations justify the
special treatment granted to agriculture
The 5 initial principles of operation
• Free circulation of agricultural commodities within the EU
• Guarantee of single minimum prices for each agricultural commodity within
the Union (the intervention or floor price)
• Preference to products from within the boundaries of the Union (import
taxes)
• Support for exports to compensate for the difference of the EU floor price
and the world price of the product in question (restitution payments)
• ‘Financial solidarity amongst Member States’ – EAGGF (European
Agricultural Guarantee and Guidance Fund) financed from
– The income from levies on imports of agricultural products into the EU and of
– Direct contributions from each Member State, based on each country’s annual
Value-Added-Tax yield.
The CAP instruments today - compulsory
• The Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) – annual lump sum
allocated according to ‘entitlements’ based on previous
production and land area.
• Green direct payments (30% of direct payment envelope)
– conditional on maintenance of grassland; crop diversification and up to
7% under ecological focus (fostering benefits for the environment,
improve biodiversity and maintain attractive landscapes such as
landscape features, buffer strips, afforested areas, fallow land, areas
with nitrogen-fixing crops).
• Young farmers scheme – top up for new starters under 40yrs
• All CAP payments subject to cross compliance: compulsory
compliance with
– food safety, animal health, plant health, the climate, the environment, the
protection of water resources and animal welfare.
– Maintenance of “Good Agricultural and Environmental Condition” of farmland.
Decoupled subsidies
Who is involved in the CAP and how?
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The governments of the Member States
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The European Commission
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The agricultural policy sectors of the individual Member States
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Farm organisations in the Member States and the EU farmers’ union federation
(COPA)
– Make decisions on levels and forms of subsidies in the Agricultural Council of the EU
– Take part in management committees of each CMO
– An administrative body
– Guard the interest of agriculture in the development of the CAP
– Lobby and in many cases hold constitutional rights of consultation
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Environmental agencies and NGOs
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Agricultural buyers, processors and traders
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The consumers / taxpayers
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Individual farmers!
– Lobby and advice on environmental issues
– Profit most from the export subsidies and the price support!
– Fund the CAP through taxes
Diverse interests promoting diverse policy
objectives
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Fostering world trade;
Managing market risks;
Contributing to global food security;
Ensuring food safety;
Providing renewable feedstocks; and
Safeguarding water quality and biodiversity.
Solutions and responses II: Trade agreements
• For example the TTIP: what is this and how
does it potentially impact food security?
• The new alliance on food security is a US led
G8 countries’ commitment to address food
security in Africa with the help of private
companies: you can read the fact sheet here
– What do you know about this alliance?
Solutions and responses III: The right to food
• The obligation to respect existing access to adequate
food requires States parties not to take any measures
that result in preventing such access.
• The obligation to protect requires measures by the
State to ensure that enterprises or individuals do not
deprive individuals of their access to adequate food.
• The obligation to fulfill (facilitate) means the State
must pro-actively engage in activities intended to
strengthen people's access to and utilization of
resources and means to ensure their livelihood,
including food security.
• Mainstreaming the right to food in Africa
The FAO
• Three main goals are:
– the eradication of hunger, food insecurity and
malnutrition;
– the elimination of poverty and the driving forward
of economic and social progress for all; and,
– the sustainable management and utilization of
natural resources, including land, water, air,
climate and genetic resources for the benefit of
present and future generations.
Emerging food governance actors:
indigenous people
• 2015 was the ‘year of soils’ and FAO has initiated
collaborations with indigenous people to mark this
– “Many advances in agriculture, forestry and fisheries
production are born from indigenous practices and the
knowledge of indigenous people” (Director General Da
Silva, FAO)
• A combination of traditional knowledges and knowhow
and new technologies are seen as a key to sustainable
development.
• 3/4 of world’s agricultural holdings are smallholdings
(farms of less than 1 hectares in size)
The responses to increasing global food
insecurity: 3 models for agricutlure
• Productivism
– Technological development and large scale efficient
production as the solution to the increasing demands
for food by an ever growing global population with
increasingly homogeneous tastes.
– This agenda is driven by actors such as the World
Trade Organisation (WTO) where the free movement
of goods in the market is seen as leading to efficiency
maximising wellbeing and food security overall.
• Multifunctional agriculture
– Driven by smaller global actors such as NGOs and
individual governments, which emphasises the
implications this neo-liberal approach has on
smaller and marginal actors such as family and
subsistence farmers, the global poor.
– Promotes a model of agriculture relying on shorter
commodity chains, smaller scale production and
more decision-making power at the operative
level of producers and consumers.
• Sustainable productivism
► The dominant food regime causes negative side-effects.
► Agro-ecological approaches can contribute to meeting
future food demands, especially in developing countries.
► Agro-ecological approaches can contribute to a ‘real green
revolution’; but this requires a move to a new type of agrifood eco-economy.
► Real ecological modernisation can be up-scaled; but this
depends on three major conditions.:
1. developing an understanding of how existing
contextual solutions can be translated into other
environments
2. developing ‘enabling’ policy and building new alliances
3. Building the agri-ecological paradigm through
enhanced and engaging research and development
What should consumers do: ethical food
What lessons for governance?
• Supporting sustainable local food
• Ethical trade agreements
– Fairtrade?
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Transparent commodity networks
Checks on supermarket pricing mechanisms
Food labelling
Checks on biofuel imports
Further reading
• Bergius et al. 2018 Expanding large scale agriculture in the name of the
green economy in Tanzania.
https://greenmentality.org/2018/05/10/expanding-large-scale-agriculturein-the-name-of-the-green-economy-in-tanzania/
• Gallent N., Hamiduddin I., Juntti M., Kidd S. and Shaw D. (2015)
Introduction to Rural Planning. Routledge.
• HLPE 2012 Food security and climate change. A report by the High Level
Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition for the Commission of the
Committee of World Food Security. FAO: Rome.
• Horlings L. and Marsden T. (2011) Towards the real green revolution?
Exploring the conceptual dimensions of a new ecological modernisation of
agriculture that could ‘feed the world’. Global Environmental Change 21:
441-452
• McDonagh J. (2015) Rural Geography II: discourses of food and sustainable
rural futures. Progress in Human Geography 38(6): 838-844