Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Real world experiences of the global food system
he second section of the topic shits the focus from cross-cuting themes involving
the context of the food crisis, to case studies that address specific realities of the ex-
isting global food system. Eah of these hapters examines a negative consequence
of the food system as experienced in a specific location. They are also intended,
however, to provide examples of the positive efforts of local food producers and
consumers to overcome the constraints of the misplaced emphases and policies dis-
cussed in the first section.
In
hapter 9
Climate change and the resilience of commodity food production in
Australia
, Geof Lawrence, Carol Rihards, Ian Gray and Naomi Hansar examine the
impact of climate hange on the Murray-Darling Basin in Australia. Both climate
modelling and recent experience of extended drought suggest that a region once con-
sidered to be one of the world's breadbaskets will face serious climatic hallenges to
continued production. While farmers in the region will require ecologically appro-
priate production methods, Lawrence and his co-authors argue that suh methods
will not be seriously considered unless both the Australian Government and the ag-
ricultural industry aknowledge the need to temper productivism.
In comparison to the potential failure of an important source of exported food
commodities in Australia, Jeff Neilson and Bustanul Arifin assess Indonesia's at-
tempts to ahieve self-suiciency in domestic rice production. In
Food security and
the de-agrarianization of the Indonesian economy
, they examine the economic costs
of production subsidies that do not necessarily ensure accessibility or availability of
food to the country's poor consumers. While aknowledging the logic of arguments
for de-emphasizing self-sufficiency, Neilson and Arifin argue that the muted im-
pact of the 2008 food crisis in Indonesia's domestic market suggests that suh policy
provides a valuable buffer in the face of increasing uncertainty in the global food
system.
Chapter 11
by Nave Wald, Christopher Rosin and Doug Hill entitled
'Soyization'
and food security in South America
focuses on commodity production of inputs to
animal feed. They examine the impact of expanding areas of soybean cultivation in
the Southern Cone of South America. While offering a means for governments to
earn foreign exhange and wealthy land managers to realize high capital returns,
soybeans also displace small-scale producers of diverse foods and cause severe envir-
onmental degradation. Wald, Rosin and Hill use the example of a peasant movement
in northern Argentina to demonstrate the potential for cooperative response to the
