Mitigating the Nutritional Impacts of the Global Food Price Crisis
Mitigating the Nutritional Impacts of the Global Food Price Crisis

Author: Institute of Medicine

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2010-03-10

Total Pages: 201

ISBN-13: 0309151953

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In 2007 and 2008, the world witnessed a dramatic increase in food prices. The global financial crisis that began in 2008 compounded the burden of high food prices, exacerbating the problems of hunger and malnutrition in developing countries. The tandem food price and economic crises struck amidst the massive, chronic problem of hunger and undernutrition in developing countries. National governments and international actors have taken a variety of steps to mitigate the negative effects of increased food prices on particular groups. The recent abrupt increase in food prices, in tandem with the current global economic crisis, threatens progress already made in these areas, and could inhibit future efforts. The Institute of Medicine held a workshop, summarized in this volume, to describe the dynamic technological, agricultural, and economic issues contributing to the food price increases of 2007 and 2008 and their impacts on health and nutrition in resource-poor regions. The compounding effects of the current global economic downturn on nutrition motivated additional discussions on these dual crises, their impacts on the nutritional status of vulnerable populations, and opportunities to mitigate their negative nutritional effects.

The Global Food Crisis
The Global Food Crisis

Author: Jennifer Clapp

Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press

Published: 2009-09-30

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 1554581982

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The global food crisis is a stark reminder of the fragility of the global food system. The Global Food Crisis: Governance Challenges and Opportunities captures the debate about how to go forward and examines the implications of the crisis for food security in the world’s poorest countries, both for the global environment and for the global rules and institutions that govern food and agriculture. In this volume, policy-makers and scholars assess the causes and consequences of the most recent food price volatility and examine the associated governance challenges and opportunities, including short-term emergency responses, the ecological dimensions of the crisis, and the longer-term goal of building sustainable global food systems. The recommendations include vastly increasing public investment in small-farm agriculture; reforming global food aid and food research institutions; establishing fairer international agricultural trade rules; promoting sustainable agricultural methods; placing agriculture higher on the post-Kyoto climate change agenda; revamping biofuel policies; and enhancing international agricultural policy-making. Co-published with the Centre for International Governance Innovation

The Atlas of World Hunger
The Atlas of World Hunger

Author: Thomas J. Bassett

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2010-05-15

Total Pages: 217

ISBN-13: 0226039080

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Earlier this year, President Obama declared one of his top priorities to be “making sure that people are able to get enough to eat.” The United States spends about five billion dollars on food aid and related programs each year, but still, both domestically and internationally, millions of people are hungry. In 2006, the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations counted 850 million hungry people worldwide, but as food prices soared, an additional 100 million or more who were vulnerable succumbed to food insecurity. If hunger were simply a matter of food production, no one would go without. There is more than enough food produced annually to provide every living person with a healthy diet, yet so many suffer from food shortages, unsafe water, and malnutrition every year. That’s because hunger is a complex political, economic, and ecological phenomenon. The interplay of these forces produces a geography of hunger that Thomas J. Bassett and Alex Winter-Nelson illuminate in this empowering book. The Atlas of World Hunger uses a conceptual framework informed by geography and agricultural economics to present a hunger index that combines food availability, household access, and nutritional outcomes into a single tool—one that delivers a fuller understanding of the scope of global hunger, its underlying mechanisms, and the ways in which the goals for ending hunger can be achieved. The first depiction of the geography of hunger worldwide, the Atlas will be an important resource for teachers, students, and anyone else interested in understanding the geography and causes of hunger. This knowledge, the authors argue, is a critical first step toward eliminating unnecessary suffering in a world of plenty.

The New Politics of Strategic Resources
The New Politics of Strategic Resources

Author: David Steven

Publisher: Brookings Institution Press

Published: 2014-11-21

Total Pages: 375

ISBN-13: 0815725345

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Since 2008, energy and food markets—those most fundamental to human existence—have remained in turmoil. Resource scarcity has had a much bigger global impact in recent years than has been predicted, with ongoing volatility a sign that the world is only part-way through navigating a treacherous transition in the way it uses resources. Scarcity, and perceptions of scarcity, increase political risks, while geopolitical turmoil exacerbates shortages and complicates the search for solutions. The New Politics of Strategic Resources examines the political dimensions of strategic resource challenges at the domestic and international levels. For better or worse, energy and food markets are shaped by perceptions of national interest and do not behave as traditional market goods. So while markets are an essential part of any response to tighter resource supplies, governments also will play a key role. David Steven, Emily O'Brien, Bruce Jones, and their colleagues discuss what those roles are and what they should be. The architecture for coordinating multilateral responses to these dynamics has fallen short, raising questions about the effective international management of these issues. Politics impede here too, as the major powers must negotiate political and security trade-offs to cooperate on the design of more robust international regimes and mechanisms for resource security and the provision of global public goods. This timely volume includes chapters on major powers (United States, India, China) and key suppliers (Russia, Saudi Arabia). The contributors also address thematic topics, such as the interaction between oil and state fragility; the changing political dynamics of climate change; and the politics of resource subsidies.

The Right to Survive
The Right to Survive

Author: Tanja Schuemer-Cross

Publisher: Oxfam

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 71

ISBN-13: 0855986395

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Statement of responsibility from p. [2] of cover.

Trade, Food Security, and Human Rights
Trade, Food Security, and Human Rights

Author: Ying Chen

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-02-24

Total Pages: 297

ISBN-13: 1317008537

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Most scholars attribute systemic causes of food insecurity to poverty, human overpopulation, lack of farmland, and expansion of biofuel programs. However, as Chen argues here, another significant factor has been overlooked. The current food insecurity is not absolute food shortage, since global food production still exceeds the need of the entire world population, but a problem of how to secure access to resources. Distorted agricultural trade undermines world food distribution, and uneven distribution impedes people’s access to food, particularly in poor developing countries. Examining EU and US agricultural policies and World Trade Organization negotiations in agriculture, the author argues how they affect the international agricultural trade, claiming that current food insecurity is the result of inequitable food distribution and trade practices. The international trade regime is advised to reconcile trade rules with the consideration of food security issues. Several other enforceable solutions to reduce world hunger and malnutrition are also advanced, including national capacity building, the improvement of governance, and strategic development of biofuel programs. This book will be of great interest to agricultural trade professionals and consultant policy makers in the EU, US and developing countries. Students and researchers with a concentration on international trade, agriculture economics, global governance and international law will benefit greatly from this study.