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Perspectives on the international relations of food

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

Raymond F. Hopkins  and
Donald J. Puchala
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Extract

The international system of production, distribution and consumption of food is managed by states, corporations and international organizations. International organizations play minor roles in the food regime, principally as arenas for policy coordination among state bureaucracies and as agents for modest multilateral programs. All of these actors work within the framework of a set of norms, rules and practices that constitutes a global food regime. Currently, the regime is undergoing change. Growing demand for food, tighter connections among markets, and greater reliance on technology have increased the importance of international adjustments. American preponderance in shaping regime features and insuring food security through reserves has declined. The dramatic price rises and rationing of international food supplies that occurred during the “crisis” of 1973–74 exposed serious deficiencies in the existing regime. At least five world food problems—potential shortages, instability, insecurity, low productivity and malnutrition—continue as real or potential threats. To solve these problems the norms of the current regime that has existed since World War II are seriously under challenge. Re-evaluation and reform of the major principles characterizing the food regime are needed.

Type
Section I Overview
Information
International Organization , Volume 32 , Issue 3: Special Issue: THE GLOBAL POLITICAL ECONOMY OF FOOD , Summer 1978 , pp. 581 - 616
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1978

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References

1 This paper is adapted from revised versions of “Global Food Regimes: Overcoming Hunger and Poverty,” prepared by Raymond Hopkins for the 1980s Project of the Council on Foreign Relations. The authors wish to thank Edwin Martin, Lyle Schertz, Dale Hathaway, I. M. Destler, Eugene Skolnikoff, Hayward Alker, Lawrence Krause, and a host of other food experts and CFR staff members for their insights and comments offered during various phases of the preparation of this chapter.

2 Mair, Lucy, Primitive Government (Baltimore: Penguin, 1962)Google Scholar; Wittfogel, Karl A., Oriental Despotism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957)Google Scholar.

3 FAO, FAO Commodity Review and Outlook 1975–76 (FAO: Rome, 1976), pp. 8–9Google Scholar.

4 See USDA, The World Food Situation and Prospects to 1985 (Washington: United States Department of Agriculture, 1974)Google Scholar, and Brown, Lester, “The World Food Prospect,” Science (12 12, 1975): 1053–59Google Scholar.

5 International Food Policy Research Institute, Meeting Food Needs in the Developing World, Research Report #1 (Washington: IFPRI, 02 1976)Google ScholarPubMed.

6 Ibid., p. 13.

7 Eckholm, Eric, Losing Ground: Environmental Stress and World Food Prospects (New York: Norton, 1976)Google Scholar.

8 Horsfall, James G. and Frink, Charles R., “Perspective on Agriculture's Future: Rising Costs— Rising Doubts” (unpublished paper presented at Symposium on Limits to Growth, University of Connecticut, 10 21, 1975)Google Scholar.

9 FAO, p. 23 for production figures for 1973–74 and estimates for 1975–76.

10 Katzenstein, Peter, “International Interdependence: Some Long-Term Trends and Recent Changes,” International Organization, Vol. 29, No. 4 (Autumn 1975): 1021–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 Knudsen, Odin and Parnes, Andrew, Trade Instability and Economic Development: An Emprical Study (Lexington Mass.: Lexington Books, 1975)Google Scholar. These authors point out that export instability, on balance, encourages economic development and that some degree of instability is probably desirable.

12 All USDA and FAO projections tend to agree on this point.

13 Johnston, Bruce F. and Kilby, Peter, Agriculture and Structural Transformation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975)Google Scholar; Hunter, Guy, Modernizing Peasant Societies (New York and London: Oxford University Press, 1969)Google Scholar; Hayami, Yujiro and Ruttan, Vernon, Agricultural Development: An International Perspective (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1971)Google Scholar; Southworth, Herman and Johnston, Bruce, eds., Agricultural Development and Economic Growth (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1967)Google Scholar; Griffin, Keith, Underdevelopment in Spanish America (Cambridge: M.I.T. Press, 1969)Google Scholar; Griffin, Keith, The Political Economy of Agrarian Change (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1974)Google Scholar.

14 Overconsumption is also a form of malnutrition. It is not, however, a concern of this volume.

15 See FAO, Assessment of The World Food Situation,(Rome: FAO, 1974), pp. 49–50Google Scholar, and Reutlinger, Shlomo and Selowsky, Marcelo, Undernourishment and Poverty, International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Bank Staff Working Paper no. 202 (Washington: IBRD, 04, 1975)Google Scholar.

16 For a general review of malnutrition, see, Austin, James, “Attacking the Malnutrition Problem,” (unpublished paper presented at the Conference of the Institute for the Study of Human Development, Madrid, Spain, 09, 1975)Google Scholar. See also Austin's contribution to this volume.

17 Schultz, Theodore W., “Value of U.S. Farm Surpluses to Underdeveloped Countries,” Journal of Farm Economics, Vol. 42 (12 1960): 1028–9Google Scholar, and Kern, Clifford R., “Looking a Gift Horse in the Mouth: The Economics of Food Aid Programs,” Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 8 (03 1968): 59–75Google Scholar.

18 Barker, Jonathan, “Peasants Under Capitalism” (unpublished paper given at the International Studies Association Meetings, 03 15, 1977)Google Scholar.

19 Shepherd, Jack, The Politics of Starvation (New York: The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1975)Google Scholar.

20 U.S. Congress, Senate, Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs, The United States, FAO and World Food Politics: U.S. Relations With An International Food Organization, Staff Report 94th Congress, 2nd Session, (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 06, 1976), pp. 11–13Google Scholar.

21 United States Government, FAO Interagency Staff Committee, “United States Objectives in FAO,” (Washington, 05, 1976)Google ScholarPubMed.

22 Weiss, Thomas G. and Jordan, Robert S., The World Food Conference and Global Problem Solving (New York: Praeger, 1976), pp. 155–166Google Scholar.

23 Gosovic, B., UNCTAD, Conflict and Compromise: The Third World's Quest for an Equitable World Order Through the United Nations (Leiden: Sijthoff, 1975), pp. 93–114 and passim.Google Scholar; Nagle, J. C., Agricultural Trade Policies (Lexington, Mass.: D. C. Heath, 1976), pp. 70–97Google Scholar.

24 For a discussion of budgetary resources, see, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, “Multilateral Assistance for Agricultural Development” (Washington: USDA, 1977)Google Scholar. For commentaries on national support and political and bureaucratic problems, see, United States Senate, Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs, pp. 25–68.

25 Under current legislation (1977), a U.S. domestic reserve of 35 million tons of grain maybe accumulated and held.

26 Jones, Joseph M., The United Nations at Work: Developing Land, Forests, Oceans and People (Oxford, England: Pergamon Press, 1965), p. 118Google Scholar.

27 See Lofchie, Michael, “Political and Economic Origins of African Hunger,” Journal of Modern African Studies (12 1975): 551–567Google Scholar, and George, Susan, How the Other Half Dies (London: Penguin, 1976)Google Scholar.

28 Similarly, most poor countries have had little influence on the regime, except as their needs became so apparent as to be impossible to ignore.

29 It might also be considered to have been largely benign toward the interests of poor countries, though not necessarily poor people in these countries, except where these interests conflicted with those of the major participants in the commercial system.

30 Saleh, Abdullah A., “Disincentives to Agricultural Production in Developing Countries: A Policy Survey,” Foreign Agricultural Supplement (Washington: GAO, 03, 1975), p. 1Google Scholar.