Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
into the termination of consumer food subsidies. The demise of food subsidies dur-
ing a transition to an open market has drastic impacts on the ability of the urban
poor to meet their food and nutritional needs. As a local response, UPA expanded as
an alternative strategy to ensure low-cost urban food supply amidst economic liber-
alization under SAPs. Its practice has been well documented as a response to food
insecurity in countries negatively affected by neoliberal development strategies (Ro-
gerson, 1993; hornton, 2008).
Entering the 21st century, researh on UPA's environmental and socio-economic
impacts and supportive institutions has increased. his increase in researh and sup-
port is testimony to not only the adaptability and resilience of UPA as a distinct pro-
duction system, but also as a local response to cope with recurring crises brought
about from global 'shoks' in the price and supply of food and fuel. Although it is
valuable to reflect on the conditions where UPA has developed and thrived to under-
stand how far it has come, it is more crucial to consider where it is going. The last
decade has seen fewer governments holding onto the view of UPA as a rogue system,
out of step with the post-war devel-opmentalist view of the modern, urban-industri-
al city. Instead, and increasingly, governments are exploring ways to integrate UPA
into official policy planning to mitigate the exploitative tendencies of an unpredict-
able capitalist system of food supply, access and availability.
Factors contributing to vulnerability and risk
Discourses on food security have taken numerous turns that range from supply, price
and consumption; entitlement and access; local production and distribution; live-
lihoods perspectives, and indigenous knowledge. A common thread among these
shifts in thinking is the impact of the commoditization of food on populations in de-
veloping countries that exist on the fringes of the global free market. In 2006, the
world witnessed sharp increases in the cost of food, when the food index grew by
an average 57 per cent above 2006 levels (FAO, 2009). These increases corresponded
with fears of hronic food insecurity and malnutrition in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)
- a region deemed highly unlikely to meet most of the MDG (Millennium Develop-
ment Goal) targets by 2015. In other developing regions, concerns about persistent
poverty in relation to food price inflation are rapidly emerging as a result of the im-
pacts of recent natural disasters and the global financial crisis on food security and
nutrition among populations in small island developing states (SIDS). In this hapter,
these impacts will be explored in the South Pacific.
