Food security is said to exist when all people have access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to cater for their dietary needs (Gonzalez, 2004). While access to sufficient and nutritious food is recognized internationally as one of the basic rights every individual is entitled to, food insecurity has ravaged the third world. In Africa and Asia, millions of people lack enough food, and their number is increasing by the day. There are fingerprints of war, disease, cultural backwardness and poor agricultural practices in the third world situation. However, other factors including colonialism, trade liberalization, and the Green Revolution have played a significant role in fanning the worsening food insecurity, and under- and mal-nourishment that characterizes many parts of the third world today. The three-faced problem of colonialism, trade liberalization and the Green Revolution is the focus of this paper.
Colonialism and food insecurity in the third world
Over 800 million people living in Asia and Africa lack access to enough and nutritious food today. Asia is home to 60 percent of the people without food while Africa accounts for 25 percent of the world malnourished. However a greater percentage of Africans (33 ) are undernourished compared to Asias 16 percent (Lund, 2008).
Colonialism can be seen as a practice of domination, which involves the subjugation of one people to another. Europe notoriously colonized many parts of Africa and Asia where the Europeans imposed their political sovereignty and beliefs (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2006). The rationale for colonialism was simple and straightforward. It was a vehicle for the colonialists to relocate resources from the colonies to Europe. With improving sea transport, the Europeans could transport large shipments of raw materials from Africa for their industries abroad and ship back some of the finished products for sale in the colonies.
Colonialism was the sole force behind the shift from traditional food production to export-oriented agricultural production in the colonized Third World. The colonialists regarded the colonies as their sources of raw materials for industries including the sugar and energy industries.
When they colonized Africa and Asia, the colonialists rubbished the diversity of traditional food crops which the indigenous people grew and promoted specialization in crops which the Europeans needed for their industries. One of the most devastating effects of colonialism is that millions of indigenous people lost their farmland to the colonialists who needed large tracts of land to establish huge plantations (Harvey, 2007). The loss of farms meant that thousands of Africans and Asians had no land on which to grow food or keep livestock. Unfortunately, some of the millions who lost their land during the colonial era did not regain their land even after their countries fought free of the colonialists grip. This is evident in the serious land problems which still dog Kenya, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia where millions of people starve because they have no land on which to grow food.
More importantly, colonial-era agriculture was characterized by economic and agricultural specialization in the Third World. The colonialists chose one or a few agricultural products which flourished in the colonies, and went ahead to specialize on those, to the detriment of the indigenous crops on which the people had depended on for centuries. It did not help matters that most of the crops favored by the colonialists were exotic to the Third World countries and thus required irrigation, manufactured fertilizers, and other products which were not practiced widely in the Third World previously.
Crop and livestock diversity in the Third World was thus threatened as the colonialists enforced specialization. India became a sugar producer, Malaysia produced rubber, Egypt produced cotton, Kenya produced tea and coffee, Ghana produced cocoa, Cuba produced sugar, while Argentina produced beef and wheat (Gonzalez, 2004). It is evident from the list that most of the agricultural products were exotic to the countries and are today vulnerable to vagaries of world market price fluctuations. Even worse, most of them are non-food products and has made many countries in Asia and Africa food importers, and victims of perpetual food insecurity.
Trade Liberalization and food insecurity
Trade and non-trade relationships between countries and regions have intensified to levels not known before. Since the end of the Second World War and the cold war which ended with the fall of communism, countries which were initially divided along political lines have since mended their relationships or created some where they did not exist before. Powerful nations which were bitter opponents during the cold war like China and the US are now close trade partners, transacting between them trade worth billions of US dollars annually.
Increased trade relations have accompanied the effect that the policy of any one country has an impact on others. International trade has created the need for rules to govern trade practices among the players. The most important of these reforms included the removal of export subsidies, production subsidies, and the elimination of tariff barriers to international trade. Trade liberalization is informed on the notion that unhindered competition and removal of price-distorting policies improves efficiency in the long-run. Third World countries were therefore expected to remove subsidies of their agriculture and open up their markets to competing products from the developed world. One of the most prominent effects of trade liberalization in the Third World is that millions of farmers are unable to raise the capital required for agricultural production. Without access to loans and subsidies, most farmers in the developing world are forced to resort to subsistence agriculture characterized by rudimentary technology and production methods. Furthermore, because they produce in small-scale, the cost of production per unit in the developing world tends to be higher than costs in the developed world which still subsidizes its agriculture heavily (Shrivastava, 2009).
While the developed world gets unhindered access to markets in the developing world, the developed world use both tariff and non-tariff instruments to impede the developing worlds access to its markets (Trueblood Shapouri, 2001). Competition from cheaper agricultural products from the developed world challenges the profitability of agricultural products from the developing world. The effect of decreased profitability is that more and more people in the third world abandon agriculture for jobs in the manufacturing and service sectors (Mwaniki, n.d).
Therefore one key change in the global trade regulation that could alter or improve food security for the low income food deficit countries (LIFDCs) is the strict regulation of trade liberalization which has continued to injure food security especially for smaller economies. As such the beneficiaries to the liberalization are larger economies which have export-oriented farming. This tremendously affects small scale farmers are inadequately equipped to compete in the global arena, increasing the levels of unemployment and poverty. Thus non-liberalization policies could be introduced to enable the disadvantaged farmers compete and sustain programs that would adequately address their plight.
The Green Revolution and food insecurity in the Third World
Beginning the 1960s, the world of agriculture ushered in a new era. The advent of the Green Revolution seemingly symbolized the end of food insecurity with the entry of disease- and pest-resistant crops. The strains produced for release to agricultural producers could resist most of the disease and pest which had proved most destructive then. Though Africa and Asia were reasonably sluggish in adopting the Green Revolution which promised to revolutionize agriculture, they adopted the little they had access to. This made exotic crops, which had and were continuously replacing the indigenous crops, even more preferable to the indigenous crops and farmers rushed to adopt the seemingly more productive crops.
The bubbles burst when the farmers realized that the new crops were susceptible to other diseases and were actually more vulnerable than the indigenous types. The father of the Green Revolution, Norman Borlaug, sounded the warning, This thing has immense potential for social and human destruction. Borlaug warned that the famines which the revolution was supposed to have expelled could ravage the world again (Mackenzie, 2007). When a strain of black stem rust, the Ug99, struck wheat crop in Uganda, none of the wheat could withstand it. Many more diseases have come up and dealt farmers huge losses. The other effect of the revolution was that it emphasized on dependence on agro-chemicals which made agriculture unnecessarily expensive. Farmers in the Third World are now forced to spend millions of US dollars on chemicals. As noted above, trade liberalization has made agriculture in the Third World significantly unprofitable. The extra burden of the cost of agrochemicals makes agriculture even more difficult for the farmers.
The combination of the effects of the Green Revolution, colonialism and trade liberalization has created untold chaos in agriculture in the developing world. The majorities of the farmers produce non-food crops for the export markets and remain vulnerable to international market fluctuations. Trade liberalization has also tipped the international food markets sharply in favor of the developed world, discouraging agricultural production in the developing world. Until the developing world does something to counter the effects of these three effects, food insecurity in the developing world can only get worse in the future.
Colonialism and food insecurity in the third world
Over 800 million people living in Asia and Africa lack access to enough and nutritious food today. Asia is home to 60 percent of the people without food while Africa accounts for 25 percent of the world malnourished. However a greater percentage of Africans (33 ) are undernourished compared to Asias 16 percent (Lund, 2008).
Colonialism can be seen as a practice of domination, which involves the subjugation of one people to another. Europe notoriously colonized many parts of Africa and Asia where the Europeans imposed their political sovereignty and beliefs (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2006). The rationale for colonialism was simple and straightforward. It was a vehicle for the colonialists to relocate resources from the colonies to Europe. With improving sea transport, the Europeans could transport large shipments of raw materials from Africa for their industries abroad and ship back some of the finished products for sale in the colonies.
Colonialism was the sole force behind the shift from traditional food production to export-oriented agricultural production in the colonized Third World. The colonialists regarded the colonies as their sources of raw materials for industries including the sugar and energy industries.
When they colonized Africa and Asia, the colonialists rubbished the diversity of traditional food crops which the indigenous people grew and promoted specialization in crops which the Europeans needed for their industries. One of the most devastating effects of colonialism is that millions of indigenous people lost their farmland to the colonialists who needed large tracts of land to establish huge plantations (Harvey, 2007). The loss of farms meant that thousands of Africans and Asians had no land on which to grow food or keep livestock. Unfortunately, some of the millions who lost their land during the colonial era did not regain their land even after their countries fought free of the colonialists grip. This is evident in the serious land problems which still dog Kenya, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia where millions of people starve because they have no land on which to grow food.
More importantly, colonial-era agriculture was characterized by economic and agricultural specialization in the Third World. The colonialists chose one or a few agricultural products which flourished in the colonies, and went ahead to specialize on those, to the detriment of the indigenous crops on which the people had depended on for centuries. It did not help matters that most of the crops favored by the colonialists were exotic to the Third World countries and thus required irrigation, manufactured fertilizers, and other products which were not practiced widely in the Third World previously.
Crop and livestock diversity in the Third World was thus threatened as the colonialists enforced specialization. India became a sugar producer, Malaysia produced rubber, Egypt produced cotton, Kenya produced tea and coffee, Ghana produced cocoa, Cuba produced sugar, while Argentina produced beef and wheat (Gonzalez, 2004). It is evident from the list that most of the agricultural products were exotic to the countries and are today vulnerable to vagaries of world market price fluctuations. Even worse, most of them are non-food products and has made many countries in Asia and Africa food importers, and victims of perpetual food insecurity.
Trade Liberalization and food insecurity
Trade and non-trade relationships between countries and regions have intensified to levels not known before. Since the end of the Second World War and the cold war which ended with the fall of communism, countries which were initially divided along political lines have since mended their relationships or created some where they did not exist before. Powerful nations which were bitter opponents during the cold war like China and the US are now close trade partners, transacting between them trade worth billions of US dollars annually.
Increased trade relations have accompanied the effect that the policy of any one country has an impact on others. International trade has created the need for rules to govern trade practices among the players. The most important of these reforms included the removal of export subsidies, production subsidies, and the elimination of tariff barriers to international trade. Trade liberalization is informed on the notion that unhindered competition and removal of price-distorting policies improves efficiency in the long-run. Third World countries were therefore expected to remove subsidies of their agriculture and open up their markets to competing products from the developed world. One of the most prominent effects of trade liberalization in the Third World is that millions of farmers are unable to raise the capital required for agricultural production. Without access to loans and subsidies, most farmers in the developing world are forced to resort to subsistence agriculture characterized by rudimentary technology and production methods. Furthermore, because they produce in small-scale, the cost of production per unit in the developing world tends to be higher than costs in the developed world which still subsidizes its agriculture heavily (Shrivastava, 2009).
While the developed world gets unhindered access to markets in the developing world, the developed world use both tariff and non-tariff instruments to impede the developing worlds access to its markets (Trueblood Shapouri, 2001). Competition from cheaper agricultural products from the developed world challenges the profitability of agricultural products from the developing world. The effect of decreased profitability is that more and more people in the third world abandon agriculture for jobs in the manufacturing and service sectors (Mwaniki, n.d).
Therefore one key change in the global trade regulation that could alter or improve food security for the low income food deficit countries (LIFDCs) is the strict regulation of trade liberalization which has continued to injure food security especially for smaller economies. As such the beneficiaries to the liberalization are larger economies which have export-oriented farming. This tremendously affects small scale farmers are inadequately equipped to compete in the global arena, increasing the levels of unemployment and poverty. Thus non-liberalization policies could be introduced to enable the disadvantaged farmers compete and sustain programs that would adequately address their plight.
The Green Revolution and food insecurity in the Third World
Beginning the 1960s, the world of agriculture ushered in a new era. The advent of the Green Revolution seemingly symbolized the end of food insecurity with the entry of disease- and pest-resistant crops. The strains produced for release to agricultural producers could resist most of the disease and pest which had proved most destructive then. Though Africa and Asia were reasonably sluggish in adopting the Green Revolution which promised to revolutionize agriculture, they adopted the little they had access to. This made exotic crops, which had and were continuously replacing the indigenous crops, even more preferable to the indigenous crops and farmers rushed to adopt the seemingly more productive crops.
The bubbles burst when the farmers realized that the new crops were susceptible to other diseases and were actually more vulnerable than the indigenous types. The father of the Green Revolution, Norman Borlaug, sounded the warning, This thing has immense potential for social and human destruction. Borlaug warned that the famines which the revolution was supposed to have expelled could ravage the world again (Mackenzie, 2007). When a strain of black stem rust, the Ug99, struck wheat crop in Uganda, none of the wheat could withstand it. Many more diseases have come up and dealt farmers huge losses. The other effect of the revolution was that it emphasized on dependence on agro-chemicals which made agriculture unnecessarily expensive. Farmers in the Third World are now forced to spend millions of US dollars on chemicals. As noted above, trade liberalization has made agriculture in the Third World significantly unprofitable. The extra burden of the cost of agrochemicals makes agriculture even more difficult for the farmers.
The combination of the effects of the Green Revolution, colonialism and trade liberalization has created untold chaos in agriculture in the developing world. The majorities of the farmers produce non-food crops for the export markets and remain vulnerable to international market fluctuations. Trade liberalization has also tipped the international food markets sharply in favor of the developed world, discouraging agricultural production in the developing world. Until the developing world does something to counter the effects of these three effects, food insecurity in the developing world can only get worse in the future.
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