CHAPTER 5 Lessons for the Future: Does the Global Food System Need Fixing?


lthough adverse by definition, food crises do present opportunities for positive change. Not only does a higher price regime provide incentives for farmers to scale up production, but it can also render the weaknesses of existing policies transparent to a broader policymaking audience. Indeed, the 1972–74 food crisis produced and bolstered a number of new institutions to fill the perceived failures of the global food system: for food aid (WFP), financing (International Fund for Agricultural Develop- ment), research (IFPRI and the Consultative Group on International Agricul- tural Research), and early warning systems (GIEWS). But at the same time international policymakers failed to address many of the most fundamental deficiencies of the global food system, a fact that was acknowledged at the time. In 1981, for example, Valdes and Siamwalla came to the following conclusion:


A


International prices of cereals have fallen in real terms, grain stocks have been rebuilt, and the crisis atmosphere has abated. World food security has ceased to be a major concern for the press and for the general public. Yet, the underlying causes of food crises such as the one in 1972–74 have not disappeared . . . on the international scene only limited progress has been made to help them in these efforts. (1981, 1)


The deficiency of previous efforts to improve global food security is borne out not only by the recurrence of a global food crisis, but also by the persis- tence of year-to-year food insecurity in a range of developing countries, per- sistently high rates of rural poverty, and stagnating agricultural productivity growth. These are all complex problems requiring different sorts of solutions. Some problems are international in nature (for example, trade barriers, aid modalities, and the reserve systems of major exporters), whereas others are


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