Comments on R. Quentin Grafton, John Williams and Qiang Jiang "Food security: Asia’s critical balancing act", 3/02/2016
This post seems to argue the challenges of crop production in Asia, particularly South Asia on the one hand, and the apparently success worldwide in crop production in meeting world demand. If that is the case of regional challenge, then trade will feel the uneven distribution in crop production between regions/countries, unless some countries are so poor that they cannot afford to import grains. So one of the solution/strategy is to boost the income level of poor countries as an alternative to increase their domestic crop production.
Another factor that will exacerbate food security is the change in the family planning policy in China that will shift from one to two children per couple from the past one child per couple. Given China's population size, future population will be greater than most past projections. Higher population means the demand for food will be greater too. That means any baseline population projection needs to be updated.
Another point is generically modified food. Is the issue of safety of generically modified food for human consumption completely settled?
Showing posts with label food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label food. Show all posts
2011-05-02
Food security - not that simple in real world
Comments on Shenggen Fan “Urgent actions needed to prevent recurring food crises”, 1/05/2011, http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2011/05/01/urgent-actions-needed-to-prevent-recurring-food-crises/
While many of the points in Fan's article may sound good in theory, or in a hypothetical world, the reality of the world suggest there may be many problems that may render good purely economic argument in the absence of world reality ineffective or unusable.
For example, when a country starts experiencing some sorts of problems, whether it is inflation, food, energy and so on, there are diverging international political interests regarding to the situation of that particular country.
It would be suffice to look no further than the reactions and actions of different international communities in the recent and ongoing unrests in the Middle East and North Africa.
One could imagine that even the mother nature does not produce causes for concerns to some and possibly many countries, some nations would create problems in some other countries to advance own interests.
That is unfortunately a sad reality in world politics.
Any talks of food security must not be too naïve and must take into account the complex international politics and its implications.
While many of the points in Fan's article may sound good in theory, or in a hypothetical world, the reality of the world suggest there may be many problems that may render good purely economic argument in the absence of world reality ineffective or unusable.
For example, when a country starts experiencing some sorts of problems, whether it is inflation, food, energy and so on, there are diverging international political interests regarding to the situation of that particular country.
It would be suffice to look no further than the reactions and actions of different international communities in the recent and ongoing unrests in the Middle East and North Africa.
One could imagine that even the mother nature does not produce causes for concerns to some and possibly many countries, some nations would create problems in some other countries to advance own interests.
That is unfortunately a sad reality in world politics.
Any talks of food security must not be too naïve and must take into account the complex international politics and its implications.
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