Economic
From IssuesBriefs
Overview
The problem of the global food shortage can be explained in clearly and succinctly in simple economic terms: demand is exceeding supply. To address this disequilibrium, changes need to occur which increase supply or lower demand. Current trends in emerging economies such as China and India are leading to an increase consumption of more food, as well as more input intensive food – such as beef– which requires grain to produce the beef, furthering the shortage of food and increasing the price. This strong increase of demand for food is coupled with supply which has not increased to meet the needs. Supply in fact is decreasing due to urbanisation, incentives for farmers to move away from food production into other arena's such as biofuel and plantation timber and as said above, the diversion of grain to feed more animals. Furthermore civil unrest and bad governance is also perpetuating shortage. Urbanisation is increasing due to low and unpredictable income for farmers, reducing incentives for individuals in the agricultural industry to continue producing where they can otherwise move to cities with more consistent and less tolling employment. Other issues affecting supply include transportation of food, the longevity of produce, unpredictable weather and potentially low crop yields.
Protectionist policies of developed countries which then dump produce on unprotected economies also cause problems by reducing if not entirely destroying the incomes of primary producers in the unprotected economies. An international response is required to address and solve the global food crisis as these issues transcend state boundaries. Despite this, inward looking policies are popular and although may appear to be appropriate in the short term are ultimately damaging and counterproductive.
Contributors
- Richard Hill - Senior Lecturer in the School of Arts and Social Sciences at Southern Cross University, NSW
- Nick Rose - Co-founder and co-ordinator of the Bellingen Local Food Network
- Bill Richmond - Lecturer of Economics at University of Queensland
- Peter Timmer - A Visiting Professor with the Program on Food Security and Environment, Stanford University and non-resident Fellow with the Center for Global Development, Washington, DC
- Fay Helwig - Primary producer in the Granite Belt, Queensland
Articles
