Thursday, June 12, 2008
Land Reform and the Food Crisis
While the food subsidies held by the US and EU, whose institutions, the IMF and World Bank preach the virtues of the "free" markets to developing nations and use of crops for Bio-fuels are important contributors the Food Crisis. The need for land reform in developing countries is an important and necessary reform to fight hunger in these nations. Land ownership in developing nations is typically very concentrated among a small minority of the population, much of which is often sits idle.
Land re-distribution addresses economic capabilities and sustainability in a number of ways the most obvious being decreasing poverty by providing the poor with assets. The use of land can further improve conditions of the poor by providing opportunities to grow crops for sustenance or to be sold on the market. However economic policies that promote agriculture, particularly policies which targets small scale production are important determinants to the success of such land reforms. (Boyce, Rosset, and Stanton 2005) For example farmers may need access to credit or assistance to purchase necessary tools and equipment to cultivate crops. Government policy such as trade negotiations with other nations may help to provide small farmers with foreign markets to sell their crops.
Although small scale farming is generally less productive in terms of output per labor unit than larger scale farming, the circumstances in which reforms often take place is one where land is scare and labor abundant. In a number of ways small scale farming can be more productive in that small farmers tend to cultivate a larger percentage of their land, grow more crops per year given on a given amount of land, grow higher value crops and produce greater yields per acre. (Boyce, Rosset, and Stanton 2005) Additionally since often times the land being targeted by these policies is idle, redistribution increases agricultural output by placing ownership with people that often have greater incentive to cultivate and make use of the land.
Small scale farming may also be more environmental friendlier than larger scale production because of the labor intensive methods used depend less on chemical herbicides, pesticides and fertilizers, which may result in harmful toxins and degrade the quality of the soil compared to the use more organic methods whose use over time has proved to be successful and sustainable. Small scale farmers may also possess greater knowledge about the local environment such as weather, crop varieties, soil, insects and plant disease. Use of local crop varieties may encourage biodiversity since such seed varieties may be better adapted to various local conditions such as seasonal flooding or growing on hill side terrains. Small farmers may also have a greater incentive in sustainable farming out of concern of their economic livelihood as farmers and their ability to pass the land on to future generations.
References
Boyce, James K. Rosset, Peter. and Stanton, Elizabeth A. 2005. Land Reform and Sustainable Development. University of Massachusetts. Working Paper Series.
Additional articles of interest
Market Madness: How Speculators are Manipulating & Profiting from the Global Food Crisis
Manufacturing a Food Crisis
Historical Failure of the Capitalist Model Food Crisis - Part 1
Capitalism, Agribusiness and the Food Sovereignty Alternative Food Crisis - Part 2
Bolivia from down under, is a hotter situation than Venezuela. The radicalism in Venezuela, has more to do with Chavez, than Bolivia having to do with Morales.
I am in the process of getting my masters degree in Economics. The school I’m attending (the University of Utah) is one of the few in the US that takes a more heterodox and critical approach to capitalism. I’m going to try to focus on the exploitation of developing nations and examining efforts to provide more democratic and humane alternatives. This last entry is my 1st original work instead of posting articles by other authors and I am hoping I can take this Blog in that direction in the future.
Ren
You are right about that. The social movements in Bolivia are absolutely amazing. Morales and MAS, while important contributors, they are more or less riding the wave of indigenous movements and social discontent in Bolivia. The indigenous movement has shown itself to be extremely powerful, so powerful that mass demonstrations have been able to paralyze unresponsive governments in the past. These people are tired of being stepped on and are willing to fight for progress.
Every year 15 million children die of hunger
For the price of one missile, a school full of hungry children could eat lunch every day for 5 years
Throughout the 1990's more than 100 million children will die from illness and starvation. Those 100 million deaths could be prevented for the price of ten Stealth bombers, or what the world spends on its military in two days!
The World Health Organization estimates that one-third of the world is well-fed, one-third is under-fed one-third is starving- Since you've entered this site at least 200 people have died of starvation. Over 4 million will die this year.
One in twelve people worldwide is malnourished, including 160 million children under the age of 5. United Nations Food and Agriculture
The Indian subcontinent has nearly half the world's hungry people. Africa and the rest of Asia together have approximately 40%, and the remaining hungry people are found in Latin America and other parts of the world. Hunger in Global Economy
Nearly one in four people, 1.3 billion - a majority of humanity - live on less than $1 per day, while the world's 358 billionaires have assets exceeding the combined annual incomes of countries with 45 percent of the world's people. UNICEF
3 billion people in the world today struggle to survive on US$2/day.
In 1994 the Urban Institute in Washington DC estimated that one out of 6 elderly people in the U.S. has an inadequate diet.
In the U.S. hunger and race are related. In 1991 46% of African-American children were chronically hungry, and 40% of Latino children were chronically hungry compared to 16% of white children.
The infant mortality rate is closely linked to inadequate nutrition among pregnant women. The U.S. ranks 23rd among industrial nations in infant mortality. African-American infants die at nearly twice the rate of white infants.
One out of every eight children under the age of twelve in the U.S. goes to bed hungry every night.
Half of all children under five years of age in South Asia and one third of those in sub-Saharan Africa are malnourished.
In 1997 alone, the lives of at least 300,000 young children were saved by vitamin A supplementation programmes in developing countries.
Malnutrition is implicated in more than half of all child deaths worldwide - a proportion unmatched by any infectious disease since the Black Death
About 183 million children weigh less than they should for their age
To satisfy the world's sanitation and food requirements would cost only US$13 billion- what the people of the United States and the European Union spend on perfume each year.
The assets of the world's three richest men are more than the combined GNP of all the least developed countries on the planet.
Every 3.6 seconds someone dies of hunger
It is estimated that some 800 million people in the world suffer from hunger and malnutrition, about 100 times as many as those who actually die from it each year.
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