The UN Committee on World Food Security’s break from the agricultural productivity trap

Abstract

ABSTRACTIn 2008, the price of grain spiked internationally, leading to a series of events commentators began to call the global food crisis. Although low agricultural productivity was not the cause of the crisis or the high rates of food insecurity that followed, intergovernmental agencies fell into old patterns and largely responded with policies geared towards increasing agricultural productivity. The UN Committee on World Food Security (CFS), however, has offered alternatives to this productivity trap, providing a space for dialogue on different approaches. In this paper, I review CFS policy recommendations from 2010 to 2017, and argue that by focusing on small-scale producer livelihood rather than productivity rates and the availability of food on markets, the CFS has contributed to the normative elaboration of alternative paradigms. I argue further, that the CFS’s reformed structure and the inclusion of civil society in policy-making facilitated space for the promotion of these alternatives.