Food Security and World Trade Prospects

The aim of this paper was to show the relationship between the level of economic growth and the state of food security in selected regions and countries in the world during 2012-2015. The source of the information was secondary data from GUS (Central Statistical Office), the United Nations, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and Global Food Security Index reports. The analyses showed significant territorial differences between levels of GDP and food security. It was apparent that higher levels of GDP were associated with higher levels of food security, and the biggest improvements in food security occurred in those countries with the fastest rise in GDP per capita. The high correlation between these indicators shows that the basic condition for improvement in world food security is economic growth and growth in real incomes, especially in poorer countries.

After a first foresight study on World food security in 2050 (Agrimonde), CIRAD and INRA have turned their attention to a new foresight exercise on 'Land use and food security in 2050' (Agrimonde-Terra). This new study seeks to highlight levers that could modify ongoing land-use patterns for improved food and nutrition security. Agrimonde-Terra proposes a trend analysis on the global context, climate change, food diets, urban-rural linkages, farm structures, cropping and livestock systems, and explores five scenarios. Three scenarios entitled Metropolization, Regionalization and Households are based on current competing trends identified in most world regions. Two scenarios entitled Healthy and Communities involve potential breaks that could change the entire land use and food security system. The Healthy scenario is the only one that makes it possible to achieve sustainable world food and nutrition security in 2050. Nevertheless, current trends in agricultural and food systems in most parts of the world converge towards the Metropolization scenario, which is not sustainable in terms of both land use and human health. Therefore, changing the course of ongoing trends in favor of sustainable land uses and healthy food systems will be one of the main challenges of the next decades. It will require systemic transformation, strong and coherent public policies across sectors and scales, and consistent actions from a wide range of actors. This foresight provides a large information base on land uses, food systems and food security and constitutes a tool box to stimulate debates, imagine new policies and innovations. It aims to empower decision makers, stakeholders, non-governmental organizations and researchers to develop a constructive dialogue on the futures of land uses and food security at either world, regional and national levels.

Global food security is one of the problems that needs to be addressed quickly, as it affects the lives of billions of people around the world. The article discusses the key theoretical aspects of global food security, including the causes of its violations, as well as the measures taken to overcome it. The authors emphasize the controversial nature of the concept of «food security», which lies in its different understanding at the national and international levels, and, in the authors’ opinion, food security should be considered differentially, although at the present stage of development it goes beyond a purely national understanding. The article reveals the mechanism of international legal regulation and the goals that the international community is trying to achieve in order to eliminate poverty and hunger among the most vulnerable groups of the population, but the authors emphasize that this is not a long-term solution to the problem, and therefore the principle of self-sufficiency and fair access to stable food supplies and agricultural development in these countries must be respected. Therefore, it is precisely in the context of the development of national food security in each country that global security as a whole increases. Attention is focused on the problem of competition between global food security and food policy of individual countries, as well as the distinction between these concepts. The authors conclude that national food security policies should not impede the achievement of the goals set by the world to ensure the right of everyone to access to food. It is noted that one of the ways to solve this global problem is to improve international legal regulation through the conclusion of an international agreement on world food security, under which the participating States will be vested with appropriate responsibilities to maintain world food security and liability in case of gross violation of this agreement.

Despite global availability of food, the world is not food secure: in the late 1980s, over 780 million people were undernourished, more than 180 million children underweight, and around 1.1 billion people living in poverty. As almost 100 million people are added to the world’s population every year in the next quarter century, it is clear that whether enough food is available to feed all people and whether all people have access to the available food in needed quantities depends on actions the world community takes today. IFPRI projections suggest that the gap between production and consumption will widen in all developing countries by 2020. The better-off countries will be able to fill the gap through commercial imports, but the poorer countries will lack sufficient foreign exchange to avert widespread food insecurity. Agricultural development, by producing more food and ensuring better access to food via employment creation and income growth, is the key to improving world food security. The long lag time between investment in agricultural development and corresponding improvements in food security require that a commitment be made now to improve world food security, otherwise many more people will go hungry and malnourished in coming years.Key wordsagricultural developmentfood consumptionfood productionfood securityhungermalnutritionpoverty

Objective. The objective of the research is theoretical and practical study of factors and directions of influence on the formation of modern trends in world food trade and directions for overcoming the food crisis. Also research of food security problems and ways to overcome the food crisis in Ukraine. Methods. To achieve the goal, the following methods were used: descriptive, analytical, analysis and synthesis, generalization and systematization, induction and deduction, statistical, tabular. Results. As a result of the conducted research, it was established that food is a primary strategic commodity, a priority direction for the development of the world economy and international politics. Also, under the current circumstances, the problem of ensuring global food security in the modern world is intensifying, the main reasons for which are the instability of the global agro-food market and the crisis in agricultural production. It was determined that at the current stage of the development of economic thought there is no single approach and methods of developing world food trade in the processes of ensuring food security. There are a large number of funds and organizations that help develop world food trade, due to which they stabilize the state of world food security with some success, providing recommendations and methods for overcoming the food crisis, the most significant contribution was made by the «Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)». The list of countries that are the most influential and significant global food exporters has been determined. According to the results of the analysis of statistical data, it was established that Ukraine was also an influential participant in the international food market before the events of February 2022, but due to these events, it lost volumes from certain food items. In general, the international food market showed a trend of growth in food production volumes and a stable increase in prices, which has recently been of a rapid nature. It is established that in 2022, the highest price increase in the whole world in the last 40 years took place and the trend of recession of food security in the world can be traced.

An empirical analysis of aspects of food security in Zimbabwe

The worsening water scarcity has imposed a significant stress on food production in many parts of the world. This stress becomes more critical when countries seek self-sufficiency. A literature review shows that food self-sufficiency has not been assessed as the main factor in determining the optimal cultivation patterns. However, food self-sufficiency is one of the main policies of these countries and requires the most attention and concentration. Previous works have focused on the virtual water trade to meet regional food demand and to calculate trade flows. The potential of the trade network can be exploited to improve the cropping pattern to ensure food and water security. To this end, and based on the research gaps mentioned, this study develops a method to link intra-country trade networks, food security, and total water footprints (WFs) to improve food security. The method is applied in Iran, a water-scarce country. The study shows that 781 × 106 m3 of water could be saved by creating a trade network. Results of the balanced trade network are input to a multi-objective optimization model to improve cropping patterns based on the objectives of achieving food security and preventing water crises. The method provides 400 management scenarios to improve cropping patterns considering 51 main crops in Iran. Results show a range of improvements in food security (19–45%) and a decrease in WFs (2–3%). The selected scenario for Iran would reduce the blue water footprint by 1207 × 106 m3, and reduce the cropland area by 19 × 103 ha. This methodology allows decision makers to develop policies that achieve food security under limited water resources in arid and semi-arid regions.

In the long run-- over the past four decades--improvements in food security in Indonesia have generally been driven by pro-poor economic growth and a successful Green Revolution, led by high-yielding rice varieties, massive investments in rural infrastructure, including irrigation, and ready availability of fertilizer. In the short run, food security in the country has been intimately connected to rice prices. After more than two decades of stabilizing domestic rice prices around the long-run trend of prices in the world market, Indonesia emerged from the devastating financial crisis in 1998 with domestic rice prices much higher than world prices and much higher than long-run trends of real prices in rupiahs. Although the current political rhetoric pushing for even higher prices uses food security as the rationale (i.e., they will cause greater self-sufficiency in rice), in fact few productivity gains are now available to rice farmers, so their gains will be consumers' loses. High rice prices have a major impact on the number of individuals living below the poverty line and on the quality of their diet. The paper reviews research on the impact of rice prices on the poor, on real wages in rural and urban areas, and on the broader macroeconomic consequences for investments in labor-intensive manufacturing. Discussion then focuses on how political and economic circumstances have changed since price stabilization, implemented by the national food agency (Bulog), balanced the needs of producers and consumers as Indonesia's approach to food security. The most important current challenge for the country's future food security is re-starting rapid, pro-poor growth. An additional challenge on the horizon is the supermarket revolution, which is rapidly changing the basic structure of Indonesia's food marketing system. Within a decade well over half of Indonesia's rice is likely to be sold in supermarkets, thus transferring to the private sector a supply-management role that had historically been a public sector activity.

Le froid, élément de la sécurité alimentaire dans le monde

Food security, as defined by the United Nations' Committee on World Food Security, means that “all people, at all times, have physical, social, and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food that meets their food preferences and dietary needs for an active and healthy life”. Food security is not just ensuring food sufficiency, but also ensuring the quality and the reliability of supply chains which have become more complex with diversified sources of farm productions. Some common issues in food supply chains are lacking efficient traceability of product origins and distributions. Blockchain is an emerging technology for the agricultural supply chain which could monitor food quality and safety by digitally tracking data and processes of material resources. Meanwhile, the Internet of Things (IoT) system is used for diagnosis and control in smart agriculture such as crop growth observation that can produce good quality and sustainable farm production. This work proposes a framework of the integration of blockchain with IoT to improve the reliability of food supply chain (FSC) by focusing on optimizing the consensus algorithm of blockchain. The expected outcome is to produce an efficient traceability and higher quality transactions which can integrate all procedures and dealings in real-time processes across the FSC.

The purpose of the study is to improve the legal support of food security in Ukraine, taking into account foreign best practices in this area. The subject of the research is a comparative analysis of the administrative and legal support of food security in the USA, Canada, Japan and the EU countries, according to the areas of state support and development of the agricultural sector, state social policy and social support of the population, and state regulation of product quality assurance. The generalisation of trends in foreign experience can be used to improve the administrative and legal regulation of the food security system of Ukraine. The methodological background of the study is a combination of theoretical and general scientific methods: analysis, synthesis and comparison, theoretical and logical generalisation. The study systematises the strategic directions of state regulation of food security in foreign countries (in particular, the United States, Canada, Japan, and the European Union) in accordance with the directions of state regulation of the agricultural sector, state social policy and social support of the population, and state regulation of product quality. Each country has a unique approach to food security, depending on domestic policies, resources and global market conditions. However, all the countries analysed share the common goal of ensuring safe, high-quality and affordable food for their populations, while developing a sustainable agricultural sector. This study analyses the food security challenges and threats facing Ukraine during the Russian-Ukrainian war (2022-2024). These factors contributed to the adoption of administrative and legal strategic decisions aimed at improving food security and economic sustainability of the country, namely: the law that restored the work of the State Land Cadastre, joining the signing of the Roadmap for Global Food Security; the Food Systems Transformation Plan for the period up to 2030; the Resolution "On Ensuring Stable Operation of Food Producers under Martial Law"; the National Food Security Platform; the draft National Target Programme for Land Use and Protection until 2033 and other regulatory documents aimed at stabilising the agricultural sector, restoring land use and improving the country's food security in times of war. Conclusion. Based on the research, Ukraine has a unique opportunity to improve the administrative and legal support of food security, using the foreign experience of progressive countries with a high level of the Global Food Security Index. At the same time, Ukraine is experiencing a crisis related to the consequences of the Russian-Ukrainian war, in particular: deterioration of food security; reduction of the population's purchasing power due to higher prices for basic foodstuffs; reduction of the amount of sown areas in the agricultural sector; reduction of the country's capacity. The government has adopted a number of laws, regulations, acts and measures to improve food security and economic sustainability. The implementation of these measures is aimed at achieving the following goals: replenishing the agricultural market by supporting producers; restoring food industry enterprises; ensuring the availability of food for all segments of the Ukrainian population; strengthening food security by replenishing state reserves with food; creating a food security monitoring system; prioritising the de-mining of agricultural land; adapting to climate change, etc.

Since 1950, world food output has more than doubled, but in many cases this impressive gain has been achieved by the adoption of agricultural practices that lead to an excessive rate of soil erosion. At least one-fifth, and perhaps as much as one-third, of the global cropland base is losing soil at a rate that is undermining its long-term productivity. World food production per person will eventually begin to decrease if the loss of topsoil continues at current rates. In view of this, there is an urgent need to realign national priorities everywhere in order to get the brakes on world population growth and to finance the adoption of agricultural practices that will preserve the cropland base.

There is considerable disagreement about whether trends in world food supply are favourable or not, and in this book contributors from various scholarly backgrounds interpret past trends in world food trade, aid and security and propose new policy options for the 1990s. They address the problems facing the distribution of global economic growth and trade between industrialized and developing countries while exploring the effects that supply, demand, assistance programmes, foreign aid and other policy variables have on the evolving world trade and food system. This book should prove of interest to a range of scholars and policymakers dealing with food, health, human rights, Third World development, agricultural economics, international political economy and trade policy.

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