Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
products efficiently, resulting in cost savings for the whole supply chain. These savings
result in lower food retail prices, assuming that multinational retailers do not exercise
market power in developing countries. The changes in food retailing are producing a
growing centralization of procurement. Therefore, large distribution centers are dis-
placing a large number of smaller centers and intermediaries in developing countries.
Regmi and Gehlhar (2007) indicated that the Carrefour distribution center in Brazil's
São Paulo may serve nearly 50 million consumers, and an Ahold wholesaler in Costa
Rica may control the entire distribution for Central America for Ahold.
The rapid globalization of food retailing can lead to more food trade and to more
prominent global food supply chains. The need for year-round supply of food prod-
ucts has encouraged joint venture partnerships and strategic alliances among firms
in the Northern and the Southern Hemispheres, increasing food trade. Likewise,
alliances with multinational retailers provide untapped export opportunities for both
small and large food producers and manufacturers in both developed and develop-
ing countries. Nonetheless, the presence of large multinational retailers may also
discourage trade. The reason is that food manufacturers have incentives to expand
their manufacturing capacity into the region where multinational retailers make
investments. Consequently, the presence of a global retail firm may promote more
local processing from domestically produced raw products, thus having substantial
impacts on local food supply chains.
food AffoRdAbIlIty And PolIcy: Access to food foR All
As political leaders and governments, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs),
academics, and others interested in the issues of equitable development, food secu-
rity, and nutrition security consider access to food, increasingly the view is through
the rubric of human rights. The human rights view of food security and nutrition
security is rooted in the notion of freedom from want, which was emphasized by
President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1941 and, subsequently, came to form the basis
of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted by the United
Nations in 1948. The four freedoms that Roosevelt detailed were freedom from want,
freedom of worship, freedom of speech and expression, and freedom of fear of physi-
cal aggression.
The understanding of freedom from want in this human rights view is a broad
one, and it emphasizes the nature of the relationship between claim holders and duty
bearers. Claimants and bearers can include governments, international actors (such
as foreign governments and international agencies), NGOs, households, communi-
ties, families, parents, and other individuals. The obligation of the duty bearers is
to “respect, protect, facilitate and fulfill the rights of claim holders” (Haddad and
Orshaug, 1998). Furthermore, the human rights view sees the development agenda
of a process of increasing the recognition of human rights and the strengthening
of the civil processes that allow the full exercise of these rights in a given coun-
try. This broad view does not place all the emphasis on the state or governmen-
tal responsibility to fulfill the specific right that people have to food. Instead, the
emphasis, particularly in the context of development, is on the duty of bearers to
recognize and protect the rights of people with respect to productive resources such
