2008 Global Food Crisis - Causes, Consequences and Policy Recommendations

Masters in International Development / PSIA
Food Security in International Politics
Name : Edwin Johan Santana Gaarder
Student number : 100047222

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DISCUSS CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES OF THE GLOBAL FOOD CRISIS OF 2008.
WHAT POLICY CHANGES SHOULD BE ADDRESSED MOST URGENTLY IN YOUR VIEW?
A useful article by Piesse & Thirtle (2009) lists and discusses the various causes of the 2008
food crisis, identifying low stock to utilisation ratios as the single most important driver
behind the price spikes of 2008-2009, indicating a threshold (of about 15% for grains and
oilseeds, for example) below which one can expect market panic about food shortages and
consequent price hikes. However, the authors do well to remind us of the obvious point that
“stock depletion is an outcome of demand exceeding supply” over the long term. Stocks are
supposed to act as a buffer to protect against short-term supply or demand shocks, and if
they reach consistently low levels it is because the mismatch between supply and demand
has become structural due to long-term changes in
production or consumption patterns. What could
have driven such a structural change prior to
2008-2009? Paarlberg convincingly argues that
one simply cannot attribute the price spikes to “a
slowdown in food production or in the growth of
agricultural productivity” (2013, p. 20) since “the
productive potential of global agriculture has
exceeded population growth [for decades],
resulting in a steady, albeit slow, increase in
average per capita food availability” (FAO, 2013).
In 2007 “the volume of food produced [was
already] more than one and a half times what is
needed to provide every person on earth with a nutritious diet” (Weis, 2007, p. 11),
suggesting that the 2008 food crisis was not the result of a physical shortage of food. Instead,
we must look at other factors that changed the structure of the world food system in order to
identify the dysfunctionalities that caused the crisis. It is useful at this point to remember that
– whether before or after the crisis, with international food prices above their long-term
trend or not – grotesque distortions in the world food system mean that about 870 million
people “do not consume enough food to cover their minimum dietary energy requirements”
(FAO, 2013, p. 67). Whether this figure increased or decreased during the international food
crisis is a matter of some confusion, given that the FAO initially estimated an increase in the
undernourished population of 30 billion but then revised its estimates to assert that “the
number of undernourished people had actually fallen in 2007-2009” (Paarlberg, 2013,
Source:
FAO,
2013


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p.21). The point, however, is that the absolute figure remains both inordinate and appalling.
One of the most important consequences of the global food crisis of 2008, therefore, was to
encourage the study of the world food system, and to stimulate discussion about its failures
and the policy changes that could be implemented in order to improve food security on a
global level. The premise of this study is that the crisis cannot be understood in isolation
from the long-term development of the world food system, and that policy changes must
therefore address long-term structural issues that underlie the price spikes of 2008-2009.
The global food crisis of 2008 resulted from the convergence of various long-term trends
and was exacerbated by short-term speculation and protective measures by governments
One of the most important long-term trends that caused the global food crisis in 2008 was
the increasing price of fuel, with the price of petroleum reaching $140 per barrel in the
summer of 2008 (Paalberg, 2013; Piesse and Thirtle, 2009). Fuel is used as an input by
farmers and is also an important
ingredient in the production of
artificial nitrogen fertilizer; so
increased costs on both fronts
were passed on to consumers
through increased prices. The
price of fuel, understood within a
wider context of energy policy,
played an even more significant
role by encouraging governments to divert crops to biofuel production through
mandates/subsidies that often ignored whether such biofuels were competitive and
sustainable, choosing instead to focus on energy self-sufficiency (a security concern) and the
demands of agricultural lobbies for continued domestic support. Some of these distortionary
policies have since been reversed, but as Weis (2007) so poignantly remarks, we still face
the challenge that “most major oil-producing countries have already reached or are fast
approaching the halfway point of their oil reserves [which] coupled with the increasing
energy needed to extract waning supplies is likely to drive rising costs, a phenomenon that
has been called ‘peak oil’” (p. 39). Expected increases in the world’s population will
continue to drive demand for agricultural land for decades to come, and it is essential that
the market be allowed to dictate the efficient allocation of these lands, to food production
and biofuel production respectively, through price signals that are unaffected by subsidies
and accurately reflect the balance of supply and demand. With some notable exceptions
Source:
Piesse
&

Thirtle
(2009)


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(e.g. Brazilian sugar-based ethanol, which is viable at an oil price of US$35 per barrel), it
currently seems that biofuels are not competitive (especially maize-based ones from
developed markets like the US), except when accompanied by above-average oil prices.
Another driver of increased demand for agricultural land is the rapid meatification of diets
that first occurred in the industrialized US and EU, but has been rapidly imitated by
emerging market populations with increasing disposable incomes, of which the prime
example are the Chinese, who doubled their per capita meat and dairy consumption in the
two decades prior to 2007 (Weis, 2007). Meat production generates additional demands on
agricultural land for the cultivation of crops like maize and soybeans, which are used to feed
animals during their lifecycles. The conversion of the nutrients in feed crops into edible meat
is inherently inefficient (protein, carbohydrates and fibres are lost over the course of the
animal’s life) meaning that
“significantly more land [must] be
cultivated per person” under meat-
based diets “than would be
required for more plant-based
diets” (Weis, 2007, p.41). In
addition to this, meat production
places additional strain on water
and energy resources, a phenomenon that has been most effectively expressed in one
estimate that “an edible unit of protein from factory-farmed meat requires 100 times more
fresh water and more than eight times the fossil-fuel energy than does an edible unit of
protein from grain” (ibid., p. 42). Although the demands on land and other resources
generated by the meatification of diets may be frightening at first glance, it does provide at
least one salutary lesson, which is that the Malthusian fear over growing populations and
dwindling resources should be directed, not towards the human population, but towards a
farm animal population that is growing disproportionately faster (see figure 1.1). The
meatification of diets is one of the only policy areas that call for demand-side solutions,
which will be explored further in a subsequent section. Suffice it for now to say that, from
the perspective of the 2008 food crisis, the use of land for feed crops and other agricultural
goods not intended for human consumption (biofuels) were significant contributors to
restricted supply.
The last major issue that will be dealt with in this section is perhaps the most complex,
namely the thorny question of agricultural subsidies, tariffs and price support in the
Source:
Weis,
2007


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developed world, and the controversial multilateral trade negotiations that have been held in
the WTO. The history of this topic is complex and has been dealt with at length by Kimberly
Ann Elliott (2006) in Delivering on Doha: Farm Trade and the Poor, but it will be necessary
to recapitulate briefly here. Domestic support programmes for farmers first emerged in the
US during the Great Depression, and in the EU following the end of the Second World War.
Subsidies linked to production, coupled with public stock-holdings to control prices,
resulted in the famous agricultural surpluses known as the “lakes of milk” and “mountains of
butter”, and which came to be disposed of through export subsidies and food aid
programmes like the US PL480. The unfortunate side effect of these distortionary policies
was to flood the markets of developing countries with cheap (sometimes free) agricultural
goods, undercutting local farmers and discouraging investment in agriculture (technology
and R&D) especially in Africa and other less developed regions. Some highly competitive
agricultural power-houses (like Brazil and Argentina) managed to maintain their
participation in international markets, whilst others (India and China) chose to protect their
markets and focus on self-sufficiency, but much of the world’s agricultural output came to
be dominated by the US and the EU, as detailed in the diagram below. However, with the
advent of the WTO in 1995 and the initiation of the Doha Development Round in 2001,
developing countries (led by India and Brazil) began to voice their concerns more forcefully
and demand (i) the elimination of export subsidies, (ii) increased market access and (iii) “de-
coupled” domestic support for farmers in the rich world. The result, in the words of Piesse
and Thirtle (2009), was “policy change to reduce supply and stocks” in the developed world
over the course of the 90s and 00s. Together with declining R&D expenditure and
decelerating yield gains (see fig. 7), and an agricultural sector in the developing world that
does not have the capability to adjust rapidly to changes in supply and demand and rapidly
deliver food to world markets, these developments are causing fundamental structural
changes in the world food system that are in part responsible for the global food crisis of
2008. Subsequent sections of this essay will explore the possible outcomes of multilateral
trade negotiations and make
concrete policy proposals
regarding trade discipline, aiming
to guarantee a livelihood for
farmers in developing countries
and ensure food security for
vulnerable populations.
Source:
www.palpalindia.com


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Other (short-term) issues that contributed to the global food crisis of 2008 include financial
speculation by yield-hungry investors following the Global Financial Crisis, as well as panic-
buying by countries like the Philippines, which was eager to ensure sufficient rice supplies
to feed its population. The implementation of export bans by a number of countries, most
notably India, also contributed to rising international prices and will be dealt with below in
the discussion of trade disciplines and the special safeguard measures demanded by low-
income country coalitions at the WTO, where it will be suggested that such countries need
the flexibility to ensure reasonable prices for both their domestic producers and their low-
income consumers. The main focus of this essay, however, will henceforth be the discussion
of the aforementioned long-term trends in conjunction with an analysis of (i) urbanization
pressures and (ii) the reasons why such a large proportion of the world’s population has
limited access to the food that is currently produced in more than sufficient quantities. It will
be suggested that the rich population of industrialized countries possesses sufficient
“entitlements” (Sen, 1982) to sacrifice their subsidized local production and purchase their
food supplies from abroad. Countries with low-income and vulnerable rural populations, by
contrast, should have the choice between importing cheap food in order to feed their
populations, or to support their farmers (primarily smallholders) by protecting their markets,
given that this difficult trade-off is one that only elected officials in poor countries can
legitimately make. A related challenge will be to determine the best allocation of agricultural
land, in order to balance environmental concerns with the need to ensure food security
through the production of more and cheaper food, a major part of which will be a demand-
side effort to temper aspirations for increased meat consumption. It is hoped that this
approach will allow us to arrive at a set of policy recommendations that address the
malfunctioning of the world food system and the distortions that led to the 2008 global food
Source:
Piesse
and
Thirtle
(2009)


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crisis. Such a recipe for global governance will necessarily be idealistic in nature, given the
limited power of international institutions like the WTO and the FAO, and there are in
reality numerous political obstacles that will not be addressed here given space limitations,
but it is assumed the exercise will be worthwhile in establishing a starting point for
meaningful discussion and further research.
The reduction of subsidies in high-income, industrialized countries must be accompanied
by temporary flexibilities and improved capabilities in the Global South
There is a widespread consensus across both sides of the food security debate that
agricultural subsidies and market-price support in high-income, industrialized countries
disproportionately benefit a small and wealthy minority of large-scale farmers to the
detriment of (i) small-scale farmers in low-income countries, and (ii) large-scale farmers in
competitive agro-exporting countries like Brazil and Australia, both of whom could
potentially export to these wealthy markets and extract sizeable surpluses, although the latter
probably stand to gain more than the former from increased market access (Elliot, 2006;
Weis, 2007; Paarlberg 2013). Developed and sophisticated economies in the North are also
in the best position to reallocate the tiny proportion of their population (on average under
5%) that depend on subsidies to sustain themselves in agriculture, which could perhaps be
considered a natural step given that many of these people are now approaching pensionable
age. It is difficult to quantify exactly what effect would result from the gradual
reduction/elimination of agricultural subsidies and market protection in the North, but it is
reasonable to assume that considerable gaps in the market will need to be filled by imports
from the two groups of (potential) agro-exporting nations identified above. In order to ensure
that there is no food crisis due to a short-term reduction in food supplies and a delay in
market response from agro-exporters in the global South, reform of agriculture in the North
must be accompanied by capacity-building in the South, particularly in improving yields
and preventing food losses in the post-harvest handling and storage phase. Capacity building
must begin with agricultural productivity, given the sizeable “yield gap” (difference between
current and potential yields) faced by different regions of the world, and estimated by the
Deininger and Byerlee (2011) at the World Bank as follows:
Oceania is close to realizing its full potential, followed by North America (0.89),
Europe (0.81), and South America (0.65). By contrast, with only 20 percent of
potential production realized, Sub-Saharan Africa offers large potential for increasing
yields on currently cultivated areas. (p. 58)
Although “closing” the yield gap depends on the extent to which one is willing to employ
modern methods of agricultural production, deplored by Tony Weis (2007) but celebrated


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by proponents of the Green Revolution like Paul Collier (2008) and Paarlberg (2013), there
is nevertheless significant scope to increase yields in South America and Sub-Saharan Africa,
even within a framework of small-scale farming. Intimately linked to the issue of increased
productivity, however, is the question of what happens with agricultural products once they
are produced. About a third of edible food produced for human consumption gets lost or
wasted globally, which is the equivalent of 1.3 billion tonnes per year, according to a study
by the Swedish Institute for Food and Biotechnology and the FAO named Global Food
Losses and Food Waste (Gustavsson et al, 2011). In developing countries, wastage occurs
mainly in the “production to retailing phase”, as can be seen in the graph below, so it is
crucial to update food chain infrastructure in order to reduce such wastage. Food chain
infrastructure is also essential as a public good to connect low-income farmers to markets
and thus improve their livelihoods. Once we have accounted for increased yields, reduced
waste through improved infrastructure, the potential for less meat consumption and a
reduced aspiration thereto, it is imagined that an equilibrium can be reached that would
simultaneously limit pressures for land expansion, move towards an environmentally
sustainable use of cultivated land, and meet the food demand of consumers. In addition to
the above, the world also happens to have an available land bank of “noncultivated area
suitable for cropping that is non-forested, non-protected, and populated with less than 25
persons/km2 (or 20 ha/household) [which] amounts to 445 million ha, [equivalent to] almost
a third of globally cropped land (1.5 billion ha)” (World Bank, 2010, pp. xv-xvi). Much of
this land is in a relatively small number of countries, many in Africa, and some worry about
the market power that could be accumulated by such countries as well as the potential use
of the “food weapon” in the event of a conflict. It is proposed here that these issues be dealt
with under the auspices of multilateral institutions like the UN and the WTO, with the use of
Source:
Gustavsson
et
al
(2011)


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“food sanctions” explicitly defined as a crime against humanity in order to avoid
humanitarian catastrophes like that inflicted on the Iraqi people following the
implementation of the US embargo during the Gulf War.
The above discussion has concentrated on rich-world producers and consumers of
agricultural products, and has begun to consider the implications for farmers in the Global
South, with particular focus on the agricultural potential of Africa. In order to avoid further
environmental degradation through large-scale farming in Latin America and its possibly
overwhelming introduction into the African agricultural scene, a further contention to be
presented here is that strict limits on deforestation, land expansion and the unsustainable use
of agricultural land be enforced in these regions by national governments, which must
simultaneously provide enhanced support for small-scale farmers through extension services
(financial, technical, logistic). The logic of urbanization has become almost unstoppable in
the developed world, and has advanced more in Latin America than in Africa, but support
for small-scale farmers can potentially mitigate the push factors that have hitherto driven the
rural poor into miserable conditions in the city slums of low-income countries. Urbanization
is not an undesirable phenomenon per se, but must be driven by the pull factor of successful
cities with adequate economic opportunities and infrastructure to welcome rural immigrants.
The fact that this has not been the case so far is the reason why the food security of poor
urban consumers has become such a fundamental issue in agricultural trade negotiations.
Many countries face a trade-off between supporting their farmers (often poor small-holders)
and their urban poor, with India’s export restrictions during the 2008 food crisis acting in
favour of the latter to the detriment of the former. Although the reduction of subsidies in the
North is largely considered to be an advantage for farmers in the South, the case is less
clear-cut with regards to poor urban consumers in developing countries, who will face
gradually rising prices in agricultural imports and only slowly decreasing prices in
domestically produced agricultural goods, as capabilities improve and domestic production
increases. Although this logic holds, it is nevertheless perverse to suggest that subsidies for
rich-country farmers are needed to protect the interests of the urban poor in the global
South. In that case, it would make much more sense to subsidise the poor urban consumer
directly! Instead, countries in the South will need a degree of flexibility in agricultural trade
policies as they attempt to coordinate the long-term development of local agricultural
sectors with the immediate need for cheap food imports. India is one example of a country
that has pushed for such flexibilities in its agricultural trade policies at the WTO in the name
of food security, and it is indeed the perfect example of a country that requires such


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flexibility due to the vulnerability of its population. At different times, India may need to
support its rural small-holders through tariffs (which increase the domestic price of
agricultural products) or protect its urban poor through export restrictions (which decrease
the domestic price of agricultural products), and it is argued here that such a trade-off can
only be made by the democratically elected government of the nation in question. Other
LDCs, and even some large trading nations like China, face similar problems and should be
allowed to employ special safeguard mechanisms when necessary, thus constituting an
exception to the immediate drive for agricultural liberalization. In the interim, these
countries must focus on improving economic opportunities in other sectors of the economy
and on stimulating urban development in order to ensure “entitlements” (Sen, 1982) for the
entirety of their populations, as a necessary precursor to any form of laissez-faire agricultural
policy by their governments. In sum, it must be acknowledged that the development of the
world food system is inextricably intertwined with the development policy of nation-states in
all sectors (agriculture, manufacturing, services) and in a variety of policy areas (education,
health, urban development, infrastructure, labour, environment, foreign policy, etc.), and
that any attempt to avoid the recurrence of global food crises like that of 2008-2009 must
take a holistic approach that conceptualizes the complex and inter-connected world food
system as a coherent whole.
Reducing demand for (and tempering aspirations to) meat consumption is a demand-side
problem that cannot be solved by resorting to the coercive power of the State.
It is not feasible to suggest that the consumption of meat could be prohibited or restricted in
a coercive manner, through legal and penal systems, given that other activities more harmful
to human health and the environment (e.g. cigarette-smoking and automobile usage) are still
permitted throughout the world. The supply of meat products responds to demand in
countries where the disposable income of consumers is high, as well as increasing demand
in emerging economies, and it would make no sense to restrict this supply through coercive
measures (except in the case of environmental regulation) as this would merely serve to
increase prices and create distortion in markets for edible meat. Instead, official health
policy should recognise that:
…protein intake levels in meat-intensive diets vastly exceed our biological needs to the
point of often having a detrimental effect on human health […] These negative health
impacts are magnified when coupled with the high levels of saturated fats and
cholesterol that are also characteristic of such diets, not to mention the concentrations
of bio-accumulated pesticides, nitrites and pharmaceuticals and, in some countries,
hormones […] Some major epidemiological studies have identified meat-centred diets
as a significant contributing factor to a large range of chronic health problems, from


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cardiovascular disease (the leading cause of death in North America) to obesity
(identified as a global health epidemic by the WHO), and urge instead that reducing or
even eliminating animal products would offer immense public health benefits.
This passage has been quoted at length because it is believed that promoting awareness of
all negative health issues is the most effective way of reducing demand for meat products
among consumers. In contrast to the position of militant vegetarians and certain
environmentalists, this study will not argue that vegetarianism is an all-or-nothing panacea.
There is almost no evidence at all that limited meat consumption is detrimental to human
health; on the contrary, meat is often an easily accessible source of protein, which can be
absorbed more easily than plant-based protein. There is, moreover, a cultural dimension to
the problem of meat consumption that should not be simply ignored: meat-based dishes are
a central element to the gastronomic tradition of many cultures (e.g. the churrasco in
southern Brazil and Argentina), and the importance of maintaining links between local
customs, methods of preparation and patterns of consumption are of critical importance to
the promotion of healthy eating and awareness of nutritional issues, a point that has been
made forcefully by the Slow Food Movement (www.slowfood.com). However, this is not to
say that meat consumption cannot be reduced through public health campaigns and
promotional efforts by members of civil society and NGOs. What is envisaged here is
something along the lines of the “five a day” campaigns that were so successful in promoting
fruit and vegetable consumption in a range of countries, following recommendations by the
WHO that individuals need “a minimum of 400g of fruit and vegetables per day […] for the
prevention of chronic diseases such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes and obesity, as well as
for the prevention and alleviation of several micronutrient deficiencies” (WHO, 2014).
Although experts would have to estimate the exact amount of meat consumption that would
allow us to attain the abovementioned equilibrium between environmental concerns, public
health issues and food security objectives, it not difficult to imagine similar slogans that
target the desired reductions in meat consumption, like “thrice a week” or “meat on
Mondays”. Needless to say, initial efforts would necessarily be focussed on high-income
industrialised economies, where the populations have more flexibility with regards to food
choices given higher levels of “entitlements”, and given that this is where most meat
consumption currently take place anyway. Gradual extension to the global South would
thereafter be a function of relative levels of economic development and the meatification of
diets.
(Weis, 2007, p. 169)


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Conclusion: This essay has examined the causes of the global food crisis of 2008-2009 and
analysed them in the context of long-term pressures on the world food system. Given the
latest estimate of the number of undernourished people in the world, amounting to about
870 million, the argument presented here is that the policy changes to prevent such a crisis
from reoccurring are inseparable from the structural changes needed to ensure food security
over the long term for the world’s more vulnerable populations. Of course, there are a
number of short-term measures that could facilitate developing countries’ response to rising
prices, the most important of which was temporarily authorized by the WTO when the “Bali
package” was passed in December 2013: this is the so-called “peace clause” that allows
developing countries to exceed their limits for domestic support for agriculture (known as
Amber Box limits) in order to build up public stockpiles, which can be released to lower
prices and support low-income consumers in times of need. However, it is even more
important over the long-term to address the three drivers of demand that are currently
causing the most strain on the productive capacity of world agriculture: (i) demand for fuel,
(ii) meatification of diets and (iii) the reduction of subsidies in the developed world. In order
to address the last of these issues, the priority must be to engage in capacity-building in the
South, particularly in the fields of agricultural productivity and infrastructure, in order to
ensure that the new world food system has the capacity to replace the reduced output from
high-income countries expected to result from the gradual elimination of subsidies.
Improved conditions for farmers in rural areas should, in and of itself, weaken the push
factors that currently underlie much urbanisation in the developing world, which would in
turn alleviate the pressures of time and space faced by governments to improve urban
conditions and extend economic opportunities to the urban poor. This is the principal means
by which “entitlements” to food can be acquired by vulnerable populations, and is therefore
equally important in the battle against hunger, given that food security is a question of
access to food and not physical availability of food per se. In the meantime, as economic
development progresses in rural and urban settings, governments of developing countries
like India will need flexibility in trade disciplines established at the WTO, in order to
balance the needs of rural farmers with those of the urban poor.
The remaining two issues, namely (i) increased demands for fuel, and (ii) the meatification of
diets, are both linked to environmental degradation and need to be handled in conjunction
with environmental policies that aim to preserve the planet for future generations. Preceding
sections have explored how public health campaigns could seek to reduce demand for
meat, initially in developed countries but thereafter in emerging economies like China, in


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order to reduce the pressures on cultivable land and minimize the need for expansion. Crop
diversion towards biofuel production has in the past been encouraged through
mandates/subsidies, which also increased demand for agricultural land, and it has not
always been clear that this was an optimal way to limit environmental degradation
(particularly in the case maize-derived biodiesel in the US), proving instead to have been a
means to enact covert subsidy or energy self-sufficiency programmes. The situation has since
improved, but there is nevertheless an urgent need to reach an equilibrium that optimizes
the production of agricultural goods – providing a balance between different crops and meat
products based on the human need for a given proportion of nutrients – whilst
simultaneously minimizing environmental degradation and unnecessary land expansion. In
order to reach such an equilibrium, environmental regulations enacted by governments is
key, as is the need for technical, financial and logistic support for the world’s remaining
smallholders. The environmental cost of large-scale farming should be recognized and
monetised, so that an adequate trade-off can be made between less productive but more
environmentally friendly small-scale agriculture and the yield-maximizing, low-cost, large-
scale farming that causes so much environmental harm.
Throughout this essay, policy recommendations have been with no regard to their political
feasibility or the practical obstacles to their implementation. Collective action problems in
the battle against agricultural subsidies in the North (as conceptualized by Mancur Olson)
have been adequately discussed elsewhere (Elliot, 2006; Weis, 2007); so has the realpolitik
of multilateral trade negotiations at the WTO (Elliot, 2006; Ray and Saha, 2009;
Efstathopoulos, 2012). The purpose of this essay was to try to identify an ideal scenario that
will allow civil society, pressure groups, NGOs, academics, think-tanks and any benevolent
politicians or diplomats to push in the right direction. With this in mind, the argument has
also assumed that the food security debate – as represented on opposing poles by Weis
(2007) and Paarlberg (2013), by opponents and proponents of agricultural liberalization on a
global scale – is not unbridgeable, and that there is an equilibrium to be found in the middle
ground between militant vegetarians and environmentalists, development specialists and
fundamentalist free traders. The only academic discipline that must be completely rejected,
if this approach is to work, is that of realist international relations theory, since relative gains
seeking amongst unitary, rationalist nation-states (that exist to maximize their own utility) is
incompatible with the notion of a world food system that can use the planet’s resources in a
sustainable way to the benefit of all consumers. What is needed to feed the planet and avoid
hunger crises like that of 2008 is cooperation, and it is hoped that our leaders and fledgling


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institutions of global governance will recognise this, in order to avoid resource conflict and
environmental catastrophe before it is too late.
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Collier, P. (2008). The politics of hunger: How illusion and greed fan the food crisis. Foreign
Affairs, 67-79.
Deininger, K. W., & Byerlee, D. (2011). Rising global interest in farmland: can it yield
sustainable and equitable benefits? World Bank Publications.
Efstathopoulos, C. (2012). Leadership in the WTO: Brazil, India and the Doha development
agenda. Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 25(2), 269-293.
Elliott, K. A. (2006). Delivering on Doha: Farm Trade and the Poor. Peterson Institute Press:
All Books.
FAO (2013). Statistical Yearbook 2013: World Food and Agriculture. FAO (Food and
Agriculture Organziation of the United Nations), Rome.
Gustavsson, J., Cederberg, C., Sonesson, U., Van Otterdijk, R., & Meybeck, A. (2011).
Global food losses and food waste. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United
Nations, Rome.
Paarlberg, R. (2013). Food politics: What everyone needs to know. Oxford University Press.
Piesse, J., & Thirtle, C. (2009). Three bubbles and a panic: An explanatory review of recent
food commodity price events. Food policy, 34(2), 119-129.
Ray, A. S., & Saha, S. (2009). India’s Stance at the WTO: Shifting Coordinates, Unaltered
Paradigm (No. 09-06). Centre for International Trade and Development, Jawaharlal Nehru
University, New Delhi, India.
Sen, A. (1982). Poverty and famines: an essay on entitlement and deprivation. Oxford
University Press.
Weis, A. J. (2007). The global food economy: The battle for the future of farming. Zed Books.
WHO (2014). Promoting fruit and vegetable consumption around the world, viewed online
at http://www.who.int/dietphysicalactivity/fruit/en/, 4th of May 2014.

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