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CIAO DATE: 08/02
Preface
With the increased movement of people and goods around the globe, food security — access to adequate and sustainable food supplies — and food safety have become topics of widespread international interest. What is being done to ensure that reliable and affordable amounts of nutritious food are available to the world’s growing population and how safe is the global food supply?
Only a small percentage of the world’s hungry and malnourished people currently are being reached by food assistance programs, says Congressman Tony Hall, U.S. Ambassador-designate to the United Nations hunger and food organizations, in the lead article in this issue of Economic Perspectives. Hasty, stop-gap measures to address food security, he says, must be replaced by programs that are crafted, in part, by key stakeholders in affected communities to ensure predictable and stable food supplies appropriate to local conditions.
Hall and other experts begin by asking if food insecurity is a symptom or a cause of poverty. Hall suggests that hungry people are so focused on getting their next meal they cannot take advantage of many traditional routes out of poverty, such as education and alternative agricultural techniques that would, over the long term, help them attain food security. These experts recommend some new approaches, such as direct food assistance for families whose children stay in school and legal protection for rural property rights that would encourage farmers to make the types of investments that would boost food productivity. Others argue that food insecurity is not an issue of a shortfall in food production but rather that governments have neglected agricultural development, made ineffective use of food aid, and, through protective trade barriers, made hunger alleviation more difficult to attain.
There are success stories. Bangladesh, once extremely dependent on food imports, has transformed its devastated agricultural sector into one of the most productive farm economies in all of South Asia through a global partnership between foreign aid agencies, international research institutions, and indigenous non-governmental organizations. Greater crop diversification would help further food security in Bangladesh, experts say.
Food security and safety are tightly linked. On one hand, transgenic technology may hold the greatest potential to increase food production, reduce the use of harmful chemical pesticides, and provide nutritional foods. On the other hand, some argue that the technology, rather than being a hope, represents a new threat to both the environment and health. Some argue that the U.S. food safety regulatory structure is the best in the world and ensures the safety of both the domestic and export food supply. Others say that as good as this structure is, even more food product labeling is needed to let consumers know which products include or exclude genetically engineered foods and ingredients.
This issue of Economic Perspectives does not take sides on all of these issues but aims rather to educate foreign audiences on U.S. policy and on the debate in the United States over food security and safety, raising important questions that policy-makers in each country must address in forming future development and environmental policies.