Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
consumers). Each actor provides a service or function that must be compensated.
The food system involves physical (i.e., physical movement and processing of food
products), economic (e.g., prices), and information (e.g., consumer preferences) ele-
ments that interact to determine overall outcomes. The actors are linked through the
outcomes of their decisions, so that developments or interventions designed to affect
one (or more) actors often have effects throughout the system.
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Figure 23.1 also indicates the need to distinguish between different food-market-
ing channels and types of food consumption. These include direct from farmer, retail
food outlets, and food consumed away from home. The importance of these market
channels and types of food consumption varies between developed and developing
countries. Retail food and food away-from-home consumption are more important
in the higher-income countries and on-farm and direct consumption relatively more
important in the developing world. In addition, factors often considered “external”
to the food sector, such as fuel costs or infrastructure investments, can have signifi-
cant impacts on food consumption and the food supply chain. In what follows, we
distinguish between the food supply chain (food production and food marketing) and
consumer demand. It is important to recognize that although this separation facili-
tates the discussion of the factors influencing their ongoing evolution, each of these
components influences the others.
PRImARy AgRIcultuRAl PRoductIon: tRends And Issues
Food production has been used as a central indicator of global food adequacy for
many years. Many international organizations concerned with food and nutrition use
a calculation such as “global calories produced divided by population” to indicate
whether global food production is adequate (e.g., Pinstrup-Andersen et al., 1999),
although this number does not indicate much at all about the number of people with
adequate food access. However, food production is a necessary if not sufficient condi-
tion for food adequacy. Although food production systems are both diverse and com-
plex, a simple algebraic equation can be used to help focus on key production issues:
Food Production per Year = Land Area × Yield per Crop × Crops per Year
(23.1)
This equation indicates that for food production to increase, either the land area
planted (and harvested) or the intensity of land use through increased yields or more
crops per year must increase.
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A similar equation can be specified for livestock pro-
duction based on animal numbers and the productivity per animal (in producing
either other animals or products like milk). Global land areas planted in grain have
actually declined during the past two decades due to the breakup of the former Soviet
Union (but have been roughly constant in the rest of the world). Crops per year are
often limited by climate and thus are more difficult to modify. The largest impacts
on food production in the past have come from increased yields. Yields for grains
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have increased continuously for the past 40 years, increasing at nearly 3% per year
during the time of the green revolution in the 1960s and 1970s, but more slowly (1 to
2% per year) since then. Although this slowing of yield increases has been a cause for
concern, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO, 2002)
