Dear Editor,
With Thomas Malthus’s groundbreaking theory that population growth will outrun food supply, the issue of hunger has hit the front burner again. Today, some three centuries later, debate on this topical issue continues as millions of persons have been added to the acute hunger list in the last two years according to the UN FAO Stats. The World Bank reported that the agricultural price index was 40% higher in June 2022 when compared to January 2021. The current food crises are two-fold first, billions do not have enough money to purchase basic food while those that have the money cannot easily access food as shortages cut deeply into supply. Now that all countries rich and poor alike are faced with unprecedented increases in inflation this has forced them back to the drawing board to address the current food insecurity.
The demand-supply imbalance that began with the COVID lockdown and was later aggravated by the Ukraine war along with declining labour force participation in the agricultural sector are the main reasons for the present global food crises. This untenable situation has forced countries as well multilateral institutions to place food security as a priority on their agenda. Guyana last month hosted a high-level Regional Agri-Investment Forum that underlined the need to reduce the dependence on imported food from outside the region by 25% in 2025.
In the past, the Caribbean destroyed its limited agricultural production by importing subsidized food from rich countries mainly the US and EU while creating barriers to its own intra-regional trade. In 2008, the EU and Cariforum signed the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) the successor to the Cotonou Agreement despite strong protest from Guyana. The EPA was touted as the development framework that promised higher production and greater market access to the EU. In 2018, a decade after the implementation of the EPA a study by the EU found the most chilling result that trade with Cariforum was flat and hovering around 9 billion Euros while exports to the EU were 4.1 billon. This is almost the same level when the EPA agreement was signed ten years ago while conditions in the Carib-bean worsened.
History has shown that countries that have successfully tackled the food security issue were those that had transformed their agriculture sector with domestic policies and initiatives to a modern sector and not those that depended on foreign aid and handouts. Brazil, India, Chile, Indonesia and Ghana are good examples of such success stories. Chengappa (2018) in the Agricultural Economics Research Review argued that the creation of an agricultural value chain (AVC) is the most viable way to improve farmers’ income and provide a stable means of livelihood. The AVC link involves markets, finance, inputs, research, technology, harvesting, reaping, storage and distribution before the final product reaches the consumers. Each actor acts in tandem with one another, if one of those links is broken it affects the entire process. Towards this, several market-based inventions such as value chains are gaining ground that not only facilitate farmers’ entry into remunerative markets, but also serve as a means to fight against the challenges of food insecurity and poverty.
The Consultative Group on Inter-national Agricultural Research pointed out that research that contributed to higher productivity in agriculture will increase income for both consumers and producers. Consumers will benefit from more product at lower cost while producers will reap higher income from better yields. More details on the benefits to adopting new scientific and digital technology in agriculture can be found on the BBC programme Follow the Food.
The current food crisis provides the best opportunity for policymakers to find immediate solutions to the challenges of environmental threats, soil degradation, and sustainable employment in agriculture. This is the most viable means to reduce poverty and hunger since research has shown that agriculture reduced poverty twice as fast compared to other interventions. Finally, higher productivity in agriculture will contribute to reducing the current high unemployment and inflation while sustaining economic growth.
Yours faithfully,
Rajendra Rampersaud
