Reconceiving Food Security and Environmental Protection
Lindsay Falvey University of Melbourne, Australia Email: [email protected]
ABSTRACT
The twin issues of food security and environmental protection for the remainder of the century will be defined by expectations that the population will continue to grow to 11 billion, mainly in less developed countries (LDCs), as well as by human behavior. This paper considers conventional analyses of food demand and compares these with wider philosophical perspectives that may modify approaches to agricultural science. The conventional approach is indicated in IFPRI research which models scenarios to 2020 and predicts an increased demand for cereal of 40% to be met by increased production mainly in LDCs, with more developed country (MDC) exports possibly falling with prices. While production seems adequate for the higher population, continued distributional and nutritional inequities are foreseen. Food production is likely to maintain priority over environmental protection in LDCs although environmental remediation should benefit from technology, particularly in MDCs. The agricultural environment represents human’s widest spread of terrestrial environmental manipulation, and its monitoring is more economic than ecological in orientation. Rising understanding of the mutual causality between the impoverishment of people and the environment may well focus more on non- technological factors through this century than the last. Outside agricultural circles, philosophical thought has advanced beyond the anthropocentric approaches of sustainable agriculture to consider the rights of nature, including humans. Increased societal awareness of such matters may influence the overall development paradigm within which rests most of our agricultural research. A reduction in total food requirements is implied in this paradigm as agricultural self-sufficiency is accepted as socially beneficial and as food security is conceived as a universal right of access to nutritious food. Such security implies increased protection of environments in LDCs. Whether such changes occur, there is value in widening the ethical perspective of all of us associated with the manipulation of nature and the planning of human development through the 21st century.
Food security is an essential precursor to past forty years, development approaches to global environmental protection. From global and food security have moved with political imperatives population perspectives, the issue may be cast in and experience — with the emphasis shifting from terms of poverty forcing otherwise environmentally food energy and protein supply, to equity of access, responsible farmers in less developed countries to malnutrition — all within an industrial market (LDCs) to sacrifice long-terms goals, or in more model. basic terms of the denial of basic rights to food, Concern about natural resources scarcity shelter, clothes, and essential medicines. Over the broadened to degradation, in parallel with changes
1 For example, the International Conference of the International Food Policy Research Institute on the subject of ‘Sustainable Food Security For All By 2020’ held at Bonn, Germany, September 4-6, 2001.
China’s population while continuing its economic have been enunciated by IFPRI and are summarized expansion, increased affluence may increase below. demand figures further than currently estimated. The result of predicted increases in population CONVENTIONAL CONSIDERATIONS and food demand is that 2020 LDC citizens are expected to consume less than half the quantities Models are necessarily based on a number of of cereals of those in MDCs. The rising affluence assumptions derived from observations of the past. of Asia, notwithstanding recent setbacks, is In the 1999 IFPRI Food Policy Report, six predicted to stimulate demand for livestock ‘emerging issues’ that may impact on the model’s products, and as a consequence, double the demand predictions are discussed. As summarized below, for cereals used as livestock feed. Other shifts in these are: new evidence on nutrition and policy, demand include a global rise in popularity for maize low food prices, trade negotiations, over wheat and rice. biotechnological advances, information technology, Grain demand in 2020 is predicted to be 40% and the potential of agroecological approaches above 1995 levels (85% of which will be in LDCs), (Pinstrup-Andersen et al. 1999). while the land area available for its production will New evidence on nutrition and policy probably be less (land availability in Sub-Saharan indicates that some 33% of LDC preschool children Africa is difficult to factor into the model), thus are probably stunted at present, a continuing leading to one of the conclusions that further yield reduction from 47% from 1980, albeit with rising enhancement research is warranted. We have come incidence in pockets of absolute food deficiency. to assume that yields continually rise as an output It also indicates that low birth weights contribute of technological research, although recent curves significantly to future malnutrition and premature indicate a slowing of the rate of yield increase. death, that iodine deficiency affects some two Analyses of prices indicate that grain, the major billion persons, that iron deficiency anemia affects human foodstuff, will probably remain at its a similar number of mainly women, and that current low levels or perhaps fall further, thereby Vitamin A deficiency is ‘widespread’. decreasing grain planting in MDCs. A 2030 Programs to address child malnutrition are population of 11 billion, mainly in LDCs, leads to constrained by income levels and national the model indicating that average individual governance approaches according to the calorific intake in LDCs will rise to 2,800 per day conventional analysis, which is based on from grain and meat consumption levels, 50% and observations that improved nutrition is associated 65% below those in MDCs, respectively. with increased secondary school enrolments of IFPRI therefore concludes that food women, and absence of civil disorder. Food production in LDCs will need to expand more than insecurity is thus widened by new information, and in MDCs, and that inherent limitations will still is related to non-agronomic factors. In addition, necessitate a doubling of LDC cereal imports, about FAO (2000) considers the trend of reducing 60% of which will come from the USA, and an malnutrition to have been interrupted in 1998 by eight-fold increase in meat imports. economic and environmental factors, thereby From the perspective of LDCs, the IFPRI highlighting the reliance of the overall approach model predicts that ‘with increased production and on the continued well-being of the relatively more imports, per capita food availability in LDCs will wealthy. increase’ (Pinstrup-Andersen et al. 1999). Low food (grain) prices have been observed However, even under this ‘average food security’ for decades and in 1999, reached the lowest in one approach, food insecurity is predicted to continue hundred years. Volatility of prices has been in the form of malnutrition in some 135 million attributed to weather patterns, reduced rates of children under the age of five. In South Asia for increase in yields, subsidy programs, and variations example, the incidence of child malnutrition is in planted areas. Global planted areas of grain are expected to be around 40%. The model is inevitably estimated to have decreased by about 3% between subject to unpredictable factors, some of which 1995 and 2000, which is less than was predicted Lindsay Falvey 17
from the rate of decline in demand at the prevailing for food security in the short term when compared prices, including reduced imports of livestock feed with other values discussed later. grain by crisis-affected Asian countries. IFPRI Information technology, which allows notes optimistically that, as 2000 prices for wheat processing of information for a fraction of past and maize are below the long-term trend line and, costs, offers prospects for widening rural access to as demand for livestock products in Asia should education and other social services. It also applies rise significantly, rising demand for grain should to extension, market information, and farm-level cause a price adjustment. technologies in such forms as geo-positioning for Trade negotiations for liberalizing of fertilizer application in commercial agriculture. In markets may not benefit LDCs that are unable to the educational mode, information technology obtain improved access to higher priced markets appears more likely to be used to promote as they are constrained by poor administrative and commerce in place of subsistence farming as a legal capacity to manage such issues as food means of increasing food security through expected standards and plant varietal rights. IFPRI (1999) increases in purchasing power. concludes that it is important to ‘continue to pursue Agroecological approaches constitute an domestic policy reforms that remove distortions attempt of intensive agriculture to learn from adverse to small farmers and the poor while traditional practices. This is usually viewed as facilitating access to the benefits from more open evidence of the working of the iterative model of trade’. While oriented to trade, the approach could agricultural research and development, which is perhaps be interpreted to include an incidental seen, for the sake of convenience, to begin with subsistence orientation to local food security, in the Green Revolution. The very success of the Green parallel with separate policies for commercial Revolution has led to such environmental concerns agriculture oriented to domestic needs before as water shortages, chemical contamination, international trade income. biodiversity reduction, unsustainable production Biotechnological innovations offer the systems, and reliance on external knowledge. prospect of further large yield improvements. A few concerned NGOs and scientists have Opposition to genetically modified foods in the advocated local agricultural inputs consistent with West is considered in conventional arguments to natural cycles of decomposition and growth, with be deleterious to the interests of LDCs where the chemicals used only as a last resort. Requiring technology offers, among other things, higher higher labor and lower capital inputs than yields, improved nutritive value of existing crops, commercial approaches, and implying lower yields and expansion of the environments in which in many cases, the agroecological approaches have preferred crops may be grown. the dual benefits of educating development To use the technologies, it is suggested by specialists about alternatives to transplanted advocates that aid be oriented to supporting LDC technological solutions, and of approaching promulgation of intellectual property rights sustainable agriculture to a greater degree than is legislation so that the owners of the technologies evident from capital-intensive approaches. In will release them for use in LDCs. The argument addition, the approach allows a producer to is readily supported by researchers who seek participate with neighbors according to the existing environments in which they may continue to culture and to make personal decisions. However, develop new crops and technologies, and may at agroecological approaches in this guise are times lose some objectivity. essentially a refinement of intensive commercial For example, the issue in the West may appear agricultural approaches, and therefore retain risks to be mainly uninformed opposition to perceived to subsistence farmers being brought ill-prepared risks in GMOs used as food, but may also reflect a into a credit-based, expensive, and commercial rising concern in technological and ecological form of agriculture that can lead to loss of land issues, and the concentrated private ownership of and food security without compensating rewards. genetic material (Falvey 2000). The technology’s Other commentaries are similarly cautiously greater value to commercial than subsistence optimistic of continued improvements in average agriculture appears to make it an unreliable basis food security, while noting that access to food is a 18 Asian Journal of Agriculture and Development, Vol. 1, No. 2
continuing constraint to real food security (FAO be remedied by grain supplied from unaffected 2001). These ‘emerging issues’ will impact on such areas, rendering grain stores obsolete. These models in unforeseen ways, and have been arguments are based on observations in Western highlighted by IFPRI to place a context around countries and the cost of storing grain. Past policies interpretations of the model. However, such models for grain storage have relied on ancient do not focus on smallholder self-sufficiency in observations of cyclical weather, and in the minds agriculture, and this precludes their application in of some persons, the ability to manage market specific food security situations. Specifically, prices by controlling large volumes of a further factors critical to food security and commodity. Arguments for storage as part of environmental care include: human interaction within nature are being eroded by the arguments of free trade that focus on the z Grain volumes stored across years obsolescence of storage as a price controlling z Agriculturally induced environmental mechanism in a global market now oversupplied degradation at the price levels desired by MDC traders. z Human and ecosystem rights in an agricultural One logical outcome might be for LDC context governments to assume responsibility for storage, z Differing policy requirements of subsistence but this appears to be precluded by inability to pay, and commercial agriculture alternative priorities, and the high costs of z Self-sufficient agriculture as the essence of inefficiency and corruption in some countries. On- food security farm and local grain storage in LDCs rises in z The role of food as a basic right before its importance with such global changes. In any case, consideration as a commodity the outcome is that the food-insecure are rendered z Environmental protection. even more so by the global reductions in grain storage (FAO 2000) that are now at the lowest These points are amplified below. To allow levels ever, having fallen below the reduced target the ‘informed confidence of all persons in a self- of 16% of annual production to 14.2%. identified group within a society of their ability to It has been argued that 100 of the existing access adequate nutritious food for their families 650 million tons of grain fed to livestock can be at all times’ requires an understanding of food as used as a reserve for human food needs. Calling more than one among countless traded on such a ‘reserve’ would initiate competition for commodities, and its production as more than an access to food of an unprecedented order. To take industrial process, even though those views may the extreme and simplistic approach: a global be useful to conceptions of commercial agriculture. catastrophe would mean no reserve at all, as all Broad consideration of food security can be standing grain would be affected. undertaken within an economic paradigm, although A catastrophe affecting India and China would this requires a broader perspective of economics allow, say, 120 grams of grain per person per day than has been common in recent decades. Concerned from the 100 million tons, or perhaps 780 grams scientists may seek understanding of the context if all feed grain could be diverted – but commercial of their work within the philosophical and religious imperatives may easily preclude such generosity. understandings of humans that complement FAO takes a more realistic if necessarily economic research. macroeconomic view. However, the concept of storage is more than VIEWING FOOD SECURITY one of price manipulation and global averages of AND THE ENVIRONMENT availability since it contributes to confidence that FROM A WIDER PERSPECTIVE one has sufficient food for one’s family. The issue of grain storage as a component of food security at 1. The Role of Grain Storage national and international levels remains relevant, and the role of on-farm or local storage is of prime International free trade discussions can easily importance in ensuring local food security. lead to assumptions that regional crop failures can Lindsay Falvey 19
2. Agriculturally Induced increasing extent, includes plantations that under Environmental Degradation management systems may be better classified as crops than forests. Sara Scherr (1999) notes that Misuse and overuse of some Green Revolution “in South and Southeast Asia estimates for total techniques have brought about environmental annual economic loss from degradation [on degradation, although one might argue that the agricultural lands] range from under 1% to 7% of rising population was the base cause, and that agricultural gross domestic product.” Concern over current knowledge is an unfair basis for criticizing loss of productivity over approximately 16% of past actions. Nevertheless, the continued use of agricultural land in LDCs, estimated for the past damaging techniques is now untenable, despite 50 years at 13% for croplands and 4% for pasture- continued degradation in LDCs, particularly in lands, is recognized as diminishing agricultural association with deforestation to create new income and economic growth, with its major effect agricultural lands, salinization of irrigated areas, being on the food security in those localities and depletion of marine fish reserves. (Scherr, 1999). Deforestation threatens biodiversity, increases Environmental decline also results from soil erosion risks, and puts the rural poor who natural phenomena, which can be exacerbated by depend on food, fiber, medicine, or income from population pressure. FAO’s (2000) consideration forests disadvantages. Rates of deforestation may of droughts in its food security deliberations be declining as forests themselves decline; in the highlights such medium-term effects, although it 1980s, some 8% (11% in Asia) of global tropical is usually assumed that affected areas will return forests were felled (Alexandratos, n.d.), mainly to to past levels of productivity. Our economically- suit agricultural expansion. biased concepts of sustainable agriculture have been In agricultural areas, improper irrigation has mistaken for ecological sustainability and continue caused salinization, which has reduced productivity to cause confrontation between agriculture and and changed environments in other areas. Most environmental protection measures. Concerns of analyses focus on the loss of agricultural land more the Worldwatch Institute (Brown 2000) that than environmental impacts and indicate that up to environmental decline may prejudice opportunities 30 million hectares (12%) of global irrigated land for expansion of agricultural production form part is seriously salinized, and that more than twice this of this wider scenario. figure is moderately salinized (Umali, 1993). Off- Poverty is both a cause and an effect of shore, fish catches peaked in 1989, indicating that environmental degradation, and continues to pose extraction rates of the previous several years had the most serious environmental threat in LDCs. exceeded sustainable levels, and that the natural Millions of subsistence farmers, who would resource base had been damaged, perhaps normally protect their immediate environment and permanently (Brown, Lenssen and Kane 1995). have minimal external environmental impact, will In considering agriculturally induced eventually exploit natural resources when their food environmental degradation, it is most common for security is threatened; this is entirely understandable, agricultural science reviews to focus on means of and blame should be allocated to the mechanisms reestablishing lost capacity. Thus the comparison which produce poverty rather than to the farmers. is made that, from some 8.7 billion hectares of Conventional economic development theory land in the world, of which about 3.2 billion advocates ‘accelerated agricultural intensification hectares are considered to be potentially arable and [as] a key component of the strategy to alleviate of which 1.5 billion hectares currently support poverty and protect the environment … [and that] crops, some1.7 billion hectares of pasture, forest, … contrary to what some will have us believe, and woodland remain, with the inference that these agricultural development is part of the solution to are closer to a natural state. protect the environment, not part of the problem’ However, pasturelands are usually so (Pinstrup-Andersen and Pandya-Lorch 1995). This designated due to their unsuitability for cropping can be true within the narrow arguments about the often due to low rainfall, which renders them relative benefits of intensive agricultural techniques sensitive to overgrazing. Forest statistics, to an compared to traditional approaches in situations 20 Asian Journal of Agriculture and Development, Vol. 1, No. 2 where population pressure has exceeded the individuality otherwise ungoverned by community capacity of traditional systems. moral codes. The concerns of communities, such However, one must take a broader as kinship, familial groupings, protection of perspective in a general discussion of food security, offspring, preservation of lineage, and belief in and at the global level, acknowledge the causes of the strength of the community against external poverty in terms broader than incomes; at local dangers, contrast with national governance levels, acknowledge the right of all persons to a structures that assume homogenization of culture, secure food supply. rights, responsibilities, and lifestyles (Dyck, 1994). To require that LDC farmers aspire to 3. Human and Ecosystem Rights operate as individuals producing cash crops for in an Agricultural Context income from which inputs, credit, and farm equipment can be paid before family food is Human rights to food are espoused in theory, purchased, acts against the social integrity based while denied in fact through such unfortunate acts on the basic right to food produced by families as occurring in ethnic conflicts, and more subtly themselves. through misplaced optimism in governance and Deep ecological viewpoints are usually legal bases, and the ability of competitive economic anathema to agricultural arguments. Nevertheless, systems to deliver equitable outcomes. they are informative when placed in the context of Environmental compromise arising from evolving intellectual conceptions of nature, and the agriculture can be conceived as a consequence of effects of human interventions. Roderick Nash’s poverty induced by global forces, as well as (1989) history of the natural rights of nature itself, population pressure, which itself may arise from including humans, provides such a context for inequitable access to knowledge. environmental ethics, at least in Anglo-Celtic While it may be attractive to argue for major cultures. He considers philosophical investigation revisions to international development approaches, of the moral relationship between humans and commitment to the current approach is significant nature to be ‘one of the most extraordinary and unlikely to be influenced by non-competition developments in recent intellectual history’ (Nash based approaches. A more practical approach may 1989, p. 4). be to work within the iterative nature of the LDC Social evolution from a pre-ethical past where development model to guarantee human rights to the self was primarily expressed through family, local food security, before investment in industrial tribe, and region, is traced to current ethical sectors, including export agriculture that targets concerns relating to nation, race, humans, and to higher-priced MDC markets. an extent animals, and future considerations of Such an approach would inevitably lead to universal environmental ethics. Such change in consideration of community-based actions that moral perceptions is compared to the abolition of create value from cooperation itself, as distinct USA slavery in 1865 when slaves were no longer from the adoption of some traditional elements to considered to be ownable chattels but humans with enhance intensive agricultural production systems. equal rights. If a community is defined as a mutually Nash’s expanding concept of rights beneficial network of interdependent persons complements the evolution of ethics, and sharing resources essential to the formation and incidentally assists our understanding of the human sustenance of that network, past separation from and environmental rights expectations of community approaches and traditional law in MDCs international aid donors that seek ‘good may indicate a reason for development attempts to governance’ in LDCs. ‘form’, rather than acknowledge, communities. John Stuart Mill’s observation that ‘every MDC actions flowing from Hobbes’ 17th century great movement must experience three stages: rejection of humans as naturally social beings have ridicule, discussion, adoption’ (Nash 1989, p. 8) created respect for the pursuit of personal interests. may well apply to the ridicule attracted by doubts This, in turn, requires regulation of human of the efficacy of solely technological solutions to Lindsay Falvey 21 poverty, food security and environmental 4. Differing Policy Requirements degradation. However, some such views have of Subsistence and Commercial Agriculture already affected moral viewpoints concerning cruelty to animals; views vary from cruelty Agricultural policies in LDCs have reflected demeaning humans, to the ascribing of specific progressions in development thought, which has rights to animals. Evolution of thought from the encouraged emulation of the wealth creation rights of living beings and life supporting matter mechanisms of richer nations, thereby confirming to the ascription of rights to an ecosystem seems to to advocates that there is a desire for global be the next stage, with humans acting as economic development (Biot, Blaikie, Jackson and spokespersons for inarticulate and abstract concepts Palmer-Jones 1995). Food security, once a general such as ecology, mountains, and forests. national objective, became subsumed within Denial of natural rights produces moral industrialization fueled by the developmentalist outrage in Western societies. Liberation commonly arguments which grouped agriculture with other requires the revision of rules that oppress a minority, industries examined for international comparative which in Nash’s analogy is nature itself. The rights advantage. of land and livestock, for example, conflict with This economic analysis allowed such long-held concepts of human property, thereby conclusions as, ‘a country should not pursue food providing a direct parallel with the 1850s’ self-sufficiency where the natural resource movements, which liberated slaves from being endowment is uncompetitive and where potential considered personal property. returns from export oriented industrial investment From the 1960s’ insights of Murray Boochin are high’. The resultant modernization based on (1965) whose arguments foreshadowed Rachel foreign funds, which later widened to include Carson’s ‘Silent Spring’, his further philosophical private sector borrowing, investment and development into the 1980s notes the manipulation speculation, created the excessive volatility recently of ecology to serve human dominance of nature experienced. Cash-cropping, in place of food- through technological means of redressing negative cropping, and contract growing as encouraged in impacts rather than preventing them (Boochin industrial agriculture thus exposed small-holders 1980). In so doing, he provided a clear description to food insecurity and global price risks. of the sustainability arguments that we commonly Foreign influence has visited development employ in supporting industrial agriculture. theories on LDCs with the approach of incremental From an LDC perspective, NGOs’ and other improvement of the Marshall Plan successes of institutions’ advocacy of traditional approaches to post-World War II Europe (Leys 1996) which agriculture, as well as the dispirited farmers’ failed assumed adequate education levels, rule of law, and expectations of commercial successes, highlight codification of moral values. the value of food self-sufficiency as the first As each was found to differ between priority of small farmers. Traditional community- individual LDCs, interest in the social values of based systems, and affinities with the natural specific cultures arose. The evident social and environment echo some of the sentiments of the environmental costs caused reconsideration of the leaders in Western environmental philosophy, who model through emotive analysis, which produced are in turn introducing the factors which will social and individual choice models, and probably modify our approaches to development commitments to basic human values, including the in the longer term. right of each person to food, shelter, clothes, and If such similarity of viewpoints continues, health care (Long and Douwe van der Ploeg 1994). agricultural science may well be revealed as having The early intuitive link between development neglected its responsibility to ensure food security projects and local requirements is thereby given and environmental protection when it supported belated credence in a two-tiered development commercial agriculture to the exclusion of self- approach, where the first tier concerns national sufficiency. structural adjustment including legislation, and the second aims at specific local needs. 22 Asian Journal of Agriculture and Development, Vol. 1, No. 2
The Asian financial crisis highlighted the Keynes’ warnings against the subordination forgotten assumption of adequate governance, of matters of permanent significance to short-term thereby completing the circle of social-economic avariciousness (Schumacher 1973) have not been factors early on defined by Adam Smith (1976). heeded in technically oriented development Sustainable development, arising from this practice. Human factors and natural resources have historical context, might therefore be conceived as thus been unwittingly valued at zero, and all income a recollection of past insights into human behavior has been considered of the same value regardless and experience in international development. of whether it was derived by human effort or However, an entrenched technological and financial speculative activities. orientation (Redclift 1987) encourages commercial As is clear to those experienced with agricultural expansion to marginal areas, which smallholders, a working animal has a broader continues to mask the social realities that the inherent value than a tractor; why then would mere majority of agriculturists are poor smallholders work output determine the relative values of a whose prime concern is family food security, tractor and a buffalo? If the animal and tractor are followed by the access to non-agricultural social considered a metaphor for agricultural and services that will benefit their children. industrial development, the paucity of If one accepts the iterative learning aspects understanding about agriculture engendered by its of the development model, the conclusions from treatment solely as an economic activity may be 50 years of experience in the World Bank (1999) clearer. Smallholders, practicing a traditional self- indicate such lessons as: sufficient agriculture may be shown to be more important than commercial agriculture when such z Macroeconomic stability is an essential a broader social paradigm is used (Falvey 2000). prerequisite to achieve the economic growth Reliance on generic Asian remedies ignores essential to development; different economic structures between countries. z Economic growth does not filter down to Trade policy similarly has special needs where the poorer elements in a society and must be majority of the population is supported by addressed through specific human needs agriculture and where agriculture embodies much projects and programs; of the cultural values of the society. In such z A comprehensive group of integrated policies circumstances, self-sufficient agriculture, including is essential to stimulate development; and social issues, determines success, rather than the z Sustained development requires socially national income from agricultural exports. The inclusive and responsive institutions. latter may require little input by government as the expected rise in demand for agricultural Thus one might define self-sufficient products should provide windfall profits to smallholder agriculturists in these points as: Southeast Asia’s agricultural exporters. Alternatives to intensive commercial a. Contributing to stability through feeding agriculture may be profitably considered in terms themselves – food security means stability in of their origin, application, and success. Self- this context (de Soysa 2000); sufficiency implies quite different qualities of life b. Meeting rural human needs of food, shelter, in different countries in terms of health services, clothing, and health care before other needs; access to education, opportunities for one’s children, c. & d. Acknowledging self-sufficient and and communication. Sometimes grouped as commercial agriculture as having different alternative agriculture, these are associated with institutional needs, which may include minimal low capital inputs and ecologically considerate interference in some agricultural practices. For forms of food production that incorporate essential example, perceived transition of power from human values including self-reliance, healthy food, traditional spirits to institutions has been shown and occasional income from sale of surpluses. to reduce the viability of communal actions Inclusion of this, the widest agricultural sector, such as irrigation and forest use (Mulder 1968). Lindsay Falvey 23 under policies for commercial agriculture, leads concept with economic, if not always financial, to distortion of outcomes and food security failures. benefits to a society. The Thai form of self- sufficiency applies to all aspects of life, drawing 5. Self-Sufficient Agriculture on Buddhism and common sense in advocating as the Essence of Food Security frugality, thrift, self-awareness, and basic moral precepts (Board of the Royal Projects 1999). Self-sufficient agriculture contributes to Application of the approach to the Thai rural stability and food security as introduced above. It sector has been codified in recommendations that may take the form of lost concepts being aim to produce sufficient food for a farm family reintroduced, adapting approaches from other areas, on-farm, and to use limited resources, particularly or selectively modifying traditional approaches. water in an equitable and frugal manner. Farm land These forms are evident in such ‘alternatives’ as would be allocated, for example, 30:30:30:10 to: the Japanese Fukuoaka (Wasi 1988) farming system on-farm water conservation for irrigation, which eschews plowing, weeding, commercial integrated poultry production, aquatic plant fertilizers and pesticides, and pruning, while production and aquaculture; wet rice production; emphasizing spiritual aspects of the practice of cash and other crops including perennial trees; and farming and producing sufficient food for the housing, composting, and backyard production. family, possibly with a small surplus for security Indicative rather than prescriptive, the or sale. approach provides a starting point within an A modification, the Kyusei Nature Farming overriding theme of sustaining a family without system, aims to produce high quality food while reliance on external assistance and without requiring contributing to economic and spiritual objectives credit-based links to commerce. It further promotes for both farmers and consumers (Matsumoto 1993) cooperative action within a community for self- through the use of microbial inoculants to improve improvement in such areas as collective bargaining, soil quality and plant growth. sharing of capital items, and negotiation with Permaculture (Mollison 1988), a system outside parties, including government officials and based on industrial chemical-free integration of business. forestry with agriculture, a multi-crop mix, and Recognizing the existence of two agricultures hydroponics linked to aquaculture, appeals to some in LDCs, self-sufficient and commercial, is concerned MDC individuals, and in fact shares many indicated from the above conceptions. Self- aspects of the existing integrated agriculture of sufficient agriculture may also be seen as perhaps LDCs (Wetchaguran 1980). ‘Organic farming’ the major economic sector of most LDCs ( if labor while sharing much of the rhetoric of these inputs are costed at common rates and social approaches, is increasingly a commercial typology welfare savings are considered) and as the major that should not be confused with the essence of component of food security. self-sufficient farming, which is family food Self-sufficient farmers cannot subsidize the security. lifestyles of the relatively wealthy, which includes An example from Thailand is instructive: the middle classes in LDCs. Subsidies seem to exist Thai national policy and respect for righteous wherever rural poverty continues. However, current leadership has encouraged common persons to definitions of poverty also confound the debate. continue to view His Majesty the King as the Financially based definitions of poverty neglect ultimate human authority. Such special cultural such factors as the right to work in a creative and characteristics produce outcomes unforeseen by productive manner in order to look after one’s self foreign observers, such as the rapid adoption of and one’s family while enjoying basic social the self-sufficiency ethic advocated by the King services. Assumption that cash receipts of less than (Phongpaichit, 1999). Self-sufficiency is a bold one dollar per day constitutes poverty (FAO 2001) initiative that may be difficult to consider in the tends to orient arguments to financial solutions absence of such a respected leader, and yet it without addressing wider concepts of poverty illustrates that traditional values residual in rural including access to education and health care, and areas can be re-instilled more broadly as a moral feeling secure about food. 24 Asian Journal of Agriculture and Development, Vol. 1, No. 2
Self-sufficiency in agriculture is difficult to with the sector, and the philosophers who interpret factor into international development agency the evolving value system in which we operate. agenda. For example, the World Bank, which The basic needs approach to development as is operates through loans to LDCs oriented to implied is common in NGO more than financing macroeconomic matters, is basing its post-Asian institution reports; however, the discourse now steps crisis investments on: beyond usual approaches to suggest that food, and hence some aspects of agriculture, should be z Restoring competitiveness through corporate excluded from financial analyses. restructuring, financial sector strengthening, The right to eat may be the same as the right and fiscal stimulus; to breath. The basic needs of food, clothes, shelter z Strengthening public sector governance and health care, as mentioned in this paper, are through capacity building in private drawn from 2,500 year-old insights into human expenditure management, administrative life, which incidentally address the essential reform, and privatization; and development questions of equity, stability, and z Sharing growth through support for the happiness. This is more far-reaching than the unemployed and the vulnerable, empowerment Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article of local communities, and financing of social 25(1) which states that ‘everyone has the right to a programs. standard of living adequate for the health and well- being of himself and his family, including food’. Such financial perspectives on development The development of agriculture allowed are likely to pervade, and leave the parallel civilizations to emerge, which produced increased approach of self-sufficiency to others, most likely sophistication of culture. It also increased the ability responsible national governments and, so far as to hoard grain, destroy crops, and create a social they operate separate from lending agencies, aid hierarchy supported military expansionism, as well donors including UNDP. as, intellectual and religious development. Self-sufficient smallholders require a different Intellectual, and particularly, spiritual insights of approach from commercial producers. While this nature and humans indicated the benefit of moral can be supported by the separation of agricultural codes, at one level for social stability, and at another from poverty alleviation policies, the latter can also for spiritual development, which in turn also acknowledge self-sufficiency that occasionally sells produced stability (Moore 2000). surplus production. Thus conceived, agriculture As the essentials of life were critical to embraces social more than financial and technical stability, these were the focus of equity and rights sectors in most LDCs, because the majority of the codified in, for example, the laws of Judaism population is involved in it and earns little. adopted by Christianity (Banks and Stevens 1997) Smallholders and food security may not necessarily concerning periodic release from agricultural debt be best served by projects of development banks and fallow periods for land, and in the case of that must take a financial perspective, even on social Buddhism, the specific listing of the basic human programs. needs as food, clothing, shelter and health care. Therefore it remains to government, with its Once these needs were met, individuals could many unsolicited advisers, to be the responsible pursue spiritual development. voice for complete development, through policies For a whole society, the ruler was charged that overtly acknowledge the distinction between with the responsibility to govern in a manner that self-sufficient and commercial agriculture. allowed food security for all and to make his life an example of moral virtue (Swearer 1996). 6. The Role of Food as a Basic Need Pragmatists note that communities that adopted this Before its Consideration as a Commodity approach were easily dominated by aggressive neighbors; nevertheless, the essence of the insight So far, the argument for food security has that basic needs differ from other material human brought together the disparate views of endeavors is worthy of consideration in the food development practitioners and academics concerned security debate. Lindsay Falvey 25
As the main source of modern technology avariciously traded goods, we may do well to has been the West, its separation of natural science consider food security in terms other than gross from the church over hundreds of years has national production and trade figures. influenced our views about the amorality of technology in itself, with its use by individuals or 7. Environmental Protection groups determining morality. However, the weakening influence of moral Protection of the natural environment from authority itself has revealed a relative morality the ‘collateral damage’ of agricultural technology emerging in Western personal life with society being is presently conceived as a regulatory function on governed by laws that similarly are reinterpreted behalf of society. The amoral approach of science as morality shifts (Goss 1997). Through the period has allowed it to be viewed as benign, and for us, that this has occurred, the concept of stability has scientists, to be trusted as informed persons on the become associated with material comfort and the subject of environmental side effects. This has rule of law, with obvious success in material aspects occurred at the same time as our management and of life. funding have shifted from mainly impartial and However, in terms of global food security, it informed government modes, to a financial has obscured factors that constantly undermine our outcome orientation linked increasingly to attempts to meet humanitarian goals, even when commerce. based on the best information, models, and The impartial role of such bodies as the technology. Consultative Group on International Agricultural One of the factors that limit success in Research (CGIAR) which work to assist the humanitarian goals is that humans continually use marginalized persons of the world, becomes more food (and other basic needs) as military tools, and critical in such a circumstance. However, in general, superior powers that purport to redress such our credibility is slipping in the public’s perception, inequities have probably attained their position and in modern democratic governance systems, the through similar military or economic domination. response to environmental risk must be increased The outcome of such compromises in moral regulation. behavior can be seen, for example, in inconsistent We need therefore to consider carefully our policies concerning domestic agricultural subsidies, moral stance in publicly advocating the use of development assistance plans which ignore potentially dangerous technologies lest we be population issues, and international market access. perceived to act on behalf of commerce before Pressures to treat food as a traded commodity may society or the environment. therefore conflict with the basic right of all humans The argument made herein for environmental to food. Deeper insights, while usually considered protection to be an outcome of food security is impractical, offer the alternative paradigm of food particularly relevant to LDCs. Regulation is being produced for home use, sharing, and sale of unlikely to be any more effective than it has been any surplus, with income applied to socially in the past when a human right is violated. beneficial outcomes. However, technological innovations suited to Many of the assertions of this section can be environmental rehabilitation will continue to be readily challenged; many other aspects such as developed and applied, and in MDCs, probably physical and spiritual integration with nature have serve an industry based on rehabilitation itself. In not been developed. My purpose in introducing the same manner that agriculture is better conceived the argument is to elicit a basis for effective as two separate activities, self-sufficient and discussion about food security, without which commercial, so environmental protection may discussion of environmental protection is largely follow suit for self-sufficient food security allowing academic. If ancient intellectual considerations and protection of an environment, while commerce sells mystical insights produced this concept of basic environmental technologies in richer markets. needs (Payutto 1995) being separate from 26 Asian Journal of Agriculture and Development, Vol. 1, No. 2
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS overlooked, and the past assumption that farmers will become a low proportion of the population Food security, more than poverty per se, seems to continue unspoken. determines the degree to which the natural Before self-sufficient smallholders, who have environment is protected. Our earlier argument been encouraged into commercial agriculture, can continues to hold, that intensive agriculture allows be said to have benefited, they require an income the maximum residue of natural wilderness areas equivalent to the purchase cost of food, capital compared to less productive forms of agriculture return on investment and operational costs of the being spread across a wider area (Falvey 1996). commercial venture, risk insurance against price, However, while the production orientation weather, and other variations, and compensation is commercial, objectives of environmental for lost traditions and values, which may also protection are undermined when expected financial increase community costs in the future. returns do not lead to food security, and agriculture Thus the focus for food security research, must expand to other areas. This scenario illustrates both technical and social, may better conceive its the two most powerful forces of environmental field application as a subsistence farm than a decline in LDCs; food insecurity forcing families monocultural agribusiness. Our economic paradigm to abandon traditional values of the environment, can be readily broadened if we so reconceive food and avarice encouraging the introduction of cash security as all persons having informed confidence crops in place of household food crops with the in their ability to access adequate nutritious food expansion of cash economies to peoples excluded for their families at all times. from the full benefits of the economic system. In reconceiving food security, local grain Conceiving food security as an average of storage is of prime importance, while national and food production on a global, or even a national international storage remain relevant. The millions basis, produces conflicting policy initiatives, such of subsistence farmers would continue to protect as environmental regulations that must be ignored their environment through traditional taboos on in rural areas where food is insufficient as a result exploitation and knowledge of the capabilities of of farmers being coerced into cash crops. The the resource and food needs of their families. This widening debt problem of smallholder farmers in conception may be accommodated within the such situations continues to contribute to iterative LDC development model by simply acting foreclosure of families’ lands, and so, create on the universal human right to local food security, landless farmers whose traditions of land care no before investment in industrial sectors, which in longer apply to their new tenanted situation, thus this definition includes export agriculture targeting further contributing to degradation. higher-priced MDC markets. We are therefore faced with two apparently Once this human right is overtly acted on, opposing viewpoints on food security. One view the emerging forces of ecological rights among the states that the world produces sufficient food now, influential nations might be assumed to dictate and with appropriate research, will continue to meet international assistance policy and so interpret ‘good food demand as far as can be foreseen. The other governance’ in all countries to include ecological view states that the causes of past and current food sensitivity. The congruence of thought in traditional insecurity relate to inappropriate human community-based systems and rising sentiments of interventions in distribution and production systems. Western environmental philosophy will probably The IFPRI model produces the first view while modify our approaches to development as the the second view is the wider argument presented. influence of the commercial agricultural model IFPRI’s conclusion that LDC food production recedes from government and development thought and imports must increase substantially supports and moves towards its major commercial the need for research to increase yields, and to beneficiaries. integrate aspects of agroecological approaches into Current encouragement of commercial intensive commercial agriculture. However, the agricultural expansion to marginal areas continues risks to individual subsistence farmers in costly to disrupt millions of poor smallholders whose credit-based commercial agriculture are easily prime concern is family food security, followed Lindsay Falvey 27 by access to non-agricultural social services that Bertini, Catherine. 1997. Food Security – not Food Supply. will benefit their children. Nevertheless, World Food Supply International Symposium, McGill commercial agriculture in socially and University, Montreal. World Food Programme.
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