Addressing global food cost woes

The recent surge in global food and oil prices has brought with it increases in social insecurity and political tension.

Unrest in Cameroon, protests in Senegal and riots in Haiti, which led to the resignation of the prime minister — all regarding skyrocketing food costs — have brought new plausibility to Malthusian predictions often considered alarmist. Malthusians posit that human population growth will exceed the Earth’s carrying capacity, bringing massive socioeconomic change marked by suffering, poverty and crime.

Though such an extreme situation is unlikely, the world food scenario is surely bleak.

Within this dilemma lies an opportunity to improve the world agricultural system by assisting farmers in the developing world, an action that would increase world food production while improving the working situation of the developing world’s rural poor.

“The time for re-launching agriculture is now, and the international community should not miss the opportunity,” said Jacques Diouf, the director-general of the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations.

The crisis also provides a prime opportunity to redress some of the more harmful effects of the Green Revolution, an agricultural movement that implemented a series of farming technologies in peripheral countries including fertilizer, pesticides and genetically modified seed. While these measures increased the output of food, they left farmers reliant on externally supplied seeds and chemicals, the purchase of which often led to debt and the eventual purchase and consolidation of smaller farms.

These practices have likewise led to an increase in the energy input in the production of crops — a crucial predicament in a world strained for resources. And while it would be impractical to advocate a return to pre-Green Revolution farming methods, in developments of world agriculture attention must be paid to the constraints affecting food producers.

Credit systems are now a fixed part of farming, but policies protecting the financial security of famers subject to the irregularity of weather and pests should be implemented. Likewise, international organizations and national leaders should encourage government investment in irrigational and transportation infrastructures.

Enabled by greater global prosperity, the populations of India and China are beginning to consume at higher-than-subsistence levels. This trend will only make the relationship between supply and demand of the world food source grow more taut. With social insecurity fueled by food shortages and an increase in food costs, it would be imprudent to leave the issue unaddressed.