What a difference a year makes. A little more than 12 months ago, many feared a global food shortage and crop prices soared to record highs.
This year, prices are falling as the weather in most crop production regions co-operates to produce good yields and the recession saps food demand.
Was the food emergency simply a flash in the pan?
Not if you consider the numerous responses it launched that have the potential to dramatically change agriculture in many parts of the world.
It shocked the Group of Eight wealthy countries, which includes Canada, to pledge to spend $20 billion on agricultural development in poor countries, especially in Africa. Money would be used for fertilizer, seed, improved storage and agricultural research instead of simple food aid.
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It caused India and China to invest more heavily in their agricultural sectors, building up government-owned grain stocks and supporting farmers’ incomes to encourage them to stay on the land and produce more food for their huge populations.
It prompted several countries, particularly oil rich but farmland poor countries of the Middle East, to invest through private and state-owned entities in land in Africa, Russia and Ukraine to grow food and ship it home.
Investors have become more knowledgeable about the food production business and aware of the potential for profit.
Worries about food shortages gave proponents of genetically modified food another argument, namely that the technology is the best opportunity to increase yields to meet the world’s growing needs.
Some of these developments are welcome. Others raise concerns.
Rich countries must follow through on their commitment to spend billions to raise the skills and technology of farmers in poor countries.
Last year’s tight food supplies were transitory but the chronic malnourishment of almost one billion poor is not. This long-term shame can be solved only by a sustained effort to rebuild food systems in poor countries that provide the vast majority of the nutritional needs of the population.
Food trade is important but imports and food aid can’t replace an efficient, prosperous domestic agriculture sector when it comes to supplying affordable food.
Producers in developing countries should have access to technology, including GM seeds that can raise yields and incomes. Issues of affordability must be addressed, but blanket bans of GM technology tie farmers hands.
Third World agricultural development should be oriented mostly to feeding domestic populations. The land grab in poor regions by richer countries is disturbing because of the potential to disrupt local food security.
Poor countries, with help from the United Nations, should develop codes of conduct for land buying to ensure such foreign investment helps, not hinders, food availability.
But as we concentrate on the details of securing adequate food supply, we must not forget basic economic principles.
World hunger will disappear if farmers have the appropriate economic incentive to grow food and the poor have enough money to buy it.
Bruce Dyck, Terry Fries, Barb Glen, D’Arce McMillan and Ken Zacharias collaborate in the writing of Western Producer editorials.
