The diplomacy of world food: goals, capabilities, issues and arenas

Abstract

Food is a factor in international diplomacy as a direct instrument of policy and as a condition underlying policy. Grain trade is particularly important. For most of the postwar period, principal grain exporting countries pursued policies designed to support domestic prices, using foreign agricultural policy to dispose of accumulated surpluses and to pursue broader non-food (political and economic) objectives. Grain importing countries came to rely on cheap food supplies in international markets, neglecting incentives to stimulate domestic production. Worldwide food shortages in 1973–74 made clear the need to consider international as well as domestic food requirements. Food considerations acquired a foreign policy dimension, while foreign policy considerations sparked a debate about the use of food for power. A return to surplus conditions in world food markets reduces the opportunities for the exercise of food power, while creating the conditions to meet historically unattainable food goals. To accomplish this, a system of international coordination and review of separate national food policies may be needed. Such a system would ensure greater accountability of private groups to governments and governments to one another without relying excessively on either automatic market forces or a centralized world food authority.