Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
and India). Some of the more lasting images of the food crisis are those of Haitian
street demonstrations that resulted in the resignation of the country's prime minis-
ter, and those of rioting and repression in West Africa and India. Media represent-
ations of the crisis were, to a large extent, defined less by the hunger it engendered
than by its political implications.
Additional global concerns were raised as governments responded to the popular
uprisings by introducing economic policies - subsidies, wage increases and export
restrictions on food - that contradicted 'best practice' established by World Bank
and International Monetary Fund (IMF) economists. For some countries, this in-
volved increasing government spending to improve access to food; for others, there
was a retreat from the free-market principles instilled by the international commu-
nity. In these cases, suh responses demonstrated the potential for high food prices
and hunger to unsetle the seemingly well-structured and secure process of incor-
porating developing countries within broader understandings of economic normalcy
and best practice. Responding to a crisis, the World Bank and IMF recommended
stop-gap solutions - a response intended to emphasize the necessarily temporary
nature of any deviation from the economic policies and structures that they were
promoting. he food crisis also exposed the error of a false reliance on 'heap food'
as the foundation for continued economic growth. The assumption that inexpensive
food would ensure the low cost of labour in developing economies was a further ele-
ment of the complacency that had taken hold within the global food system.
Our strong conviction that food security was no longer an issue created the need
for a cause, for some villainous agent on whih to pin this calamity. he list of sus-
pects was substantial, providing targets to appeal to a variety of political and eco-
nomic perspectives. The first set of suspects involved the demand side of the global
food system, beginning with the newly emerging demand for grain to feed biofuel
production as a solution to dwindling oil reserves and climate hange. Because the
introduction of incentives to promote biofuel coincided with the surge in food com-
modity prices, they were readily branded as a cause of the crisis. Other demand side
factors identified as contributing to the crisis included rapid population growth and
the escalating middle-class demands for less eiciently produced foods suh as meat
and dairy products, with China and India noted as specific examples. The impact of
population growth was further exacerbated by accelerating urbanization and the in-
creasing demand for imported food commodities in developing countries. These lat-
ter processes were the focus of assessments by neo-Malthusian and 'limits to growth'
