World Food Needs Toward 2020: Discussion

Abstract

We have here four papers, each covering, from somewhat different perspectives, issues related to future prospects for food supply and demand. I will provide brief comments on the papers, then discuss some issues I think important that are not discussed in any of the papers. First, I have a couple of comments on the Rosegrant and Sombilla and Delgado, Crosson, and Courbois papers. These papers present results from the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) analysis using their International Model for Policy Analysis of Commodities and Trade (IMPACT). This work has gained widespread respect, and the results seem generally reasonable or at least consistent with my biases. One issue not adequately addressed is probable changes in the location of meat production. The model results in a near tripling of world meat trade by 2020. While that is possible, it is more likely that more of the meat production will move closer to the final consumer by 2020. It won't happen in the next five or maybe even ten years, but by 2015, most of the increase in meat demand in many importing countries will probably be satisfied from local production. This will become more possible in the next five years, as it becomes more feasible to transfer complete production systems from one location to another. Much of the production may be through Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) of American or European firms, which is already happening to some extent. On another issue, Rosegrant and Sombilla predict that real world food prices will decline more slowly than in the recent past. In other work, they have evaluated the sensitivity of this result to changes in investment in agricultural research. If the research investments do not materialize, real food prices actually rise. This is an important issue and is related to the next two papers. The Haddad, Webb, and Slack paper makes the point that agriculture has shifted away from th center of the debates on hunger and food security. They attempt to use correlations across countries on a number of aggregate variables to weave a story. I am not convinced. The correlation exercise seemed to be more of a fishing expedition. There was no explanation of why one would even expect some of the correlations to be high. For example, what is proven by a low correlation between economic growth and changes in food supply? Could it be that countries that grow faster import more food? I didn't see any explanation why the corr lations used in the paper meant anything. Later in the paper, the authors find that health care ervice is an important determinant of child undernutrition. Has anyone argued that agriculture is the only determinant of all economic and social well-being? I don't think so. Increased agricultural incomes are an important component of economic growth in many countries. Investments in social institutions and infrastructure are also important. I simply don't find the correlations presented in the paper very useful; they are perhaps even misleading. The paper by Byerlee, Hazell, and Kerr covers the waterfront of issues related to food production and poverty in Asia between now and 2020. These authors concur with the IFPRI conclusion that much of the increase in food production must come from yield increases, hence, again, the importance of investments in agricultural research. This paper also points out the importance of diversification and investments in d yland agriculture. These papers and others done in a similar vein generally provide an interesting perspective on where we might be with respect to food production and consumption by 2020, but the papers do not cover what might transpire between now and then. In particular, what is likely to happen with food price variability? At Purdue, we have also been attempting to identify key drivers of change in the food system in the decade ahead. Our analysis concludes that Wallace E. Tyner is professor and head of the Department of Agricultural Economics at Purdue University.