Cornucopia with which people in developed countries are endowed since mid-twentieth century results in collective complacency about food security. Along with irresistible commercial advertisements and health consultations, we have been ‘brainwashed’ to believe in the credendum of a globalised, trade-dependent food system and industrial agriculture as the solution to food demands worldwide while derogating local agricultural productions. Our global food system[1] today is characterised by an unprecedented scale of centralisation, intensification and concentration. Its record-high food yield is supposed to suffice the mouths of six billion and, thus, make optimistic progress towards the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals (MDG) of halving the proportion of undernourished people by 2015.[2] Nonetheless, we are even very far from the World Food Summit (WFS) target aiming to halve the number of hungry people.[3]
The reasons for such ‘food crisis’ in 2008[4] or beyond are purely textbook-standard language, i.e. increasing demands from the developing countries, climate change, land-grabbing for biofuel crops reducing normal food yields, capital speculation and depreciation of USD leading to higher food prices. In reality, the culprit is a couple of transnational corporations (TNC), or ‘Food Empire’, dominating the global agri-food industry, from agricultural inputs to food retail. (WorldWatch Institute, 2002) This leads us to question whether the current globalised food system is sustainable for all and the alternatives available. Instead of a globalised food system, this paper, supported with examples around the world, will argue that it is better to have localised food systems considering their offering all an equitable access to food as part of the agenda for sustainable development. Comparing carbon emissions of both systems is relevant in typical academic discussions, but consideration of this factor is beyond the scope of analysis in this paper.
The reasons for such ‘food crisis’ in 2008[4] or beyond are purely textbook-standard language, i.e. increasing demands from the developing countries, climate change, land-grabbing for biofuel crops reducing normal food yields, capital speculation and depreciation of USD leading to higher food prices. In reality, the culprit is a couple of transnational corporations (TNC), or ‘Food Empire’, dominating the global agri-food industry, from agricultural inputs to food retail. (WorldWatch Institute, 2002) This leads us to question whether the current globalised food system is sustainable for all and the alternatives available. Instead of a globalised food system, this paper, supported with examples around the world, will argue that it is better to have localised food systems considering their offering all an equitable access to food as part of the agenda for sustainable development. Comparing carbon emissions of both systems is relevant in typical academic discussions, but consideration of this factor is beyond the scope of analysis in this paper.
‘The earth has enough for everyone’s needs, but not for some people’s greed.’
Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948)
Analytical framework
This paper is to argue that a LFS is the alternative system which can provide people, especially those in the south, with ‘food security’ and ‘food sovereignty’, i.e. equitable and self-controllable access to basic food. Beginning with brief introduction to both concepts underpinning the main argument and presentation of the primary benefits of LFSs, the analysis will take two perspectives. Firstly, it proceeds with the endogenous challenges of LFSs with potential solutions suggested, then, an illumination of how the ‘Food Empire’ controls the current globalised food system (GFS) taking advantage of ‘globalisation’ and unfair trade rules, which are the exogenous challenges impeding the re-establishment of LFSs. The last part will briefly examine how information technology (IT) as an instrument of globalisation can stand for cooperation and building solidarity blocks through creating a global ‘civil society’ and cost reductions.
Food security[5]
(Individual) ‘food security’ refers to ‘Access by all people at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life. Food security includes, at a minimum: (1) ready availability of nutritionally adequate, safe food, and (2) an assured ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways.’ (Anderson, 1990) A secure food system can be achieved through a stable industry, attributable from ‘lowering of farm risks, high production levels, support for value-added food products, open markets, strong trade rules and global cooperation’ (Ontario Public Health Association, 2001), coupled with food safety and consumer information. Food security being increasingly uncertain in a closely intertwined world prompts discussions about ‘localised’ food security, emphasising on local sources with landuse policy support, and ‘food sovereignty’.
Food sovereignty
Extreme right is extreme wrong. Against vulnerable food security, citizen-consumers seek to reclaim control over their food system with ‘food sovereignty’.[6] (Windfuhr & Jonsén, 2005) Food sovereignty is simply about the unconditional ‘human right to food’.[7] Broadly speaking, it is ‘the right of each nation to maintain and develop its own capacity to produce the staple foods of its peoples, respecting their productive and cultural diversity’. (Menezes, 2001) When food productions are concentrating in a few major countries, to ensure absolute food security for all, proponents of food sovereignty believe that multilateral trade agreements and institutional controls over the transnational agribusinesses should be reformed to ensure that local communities, especially the farmers, will regain ‘the right to define their own agricultural,…food and land policies to suit their own ecological, social, economic and cultural circumstances’ (Pimbert, 2007).
By re-developing LFSs, the world will be able to achieve the twin targets defined above. ‘Free trade’ experience in the past few decades is telling us that only some degree of food system localisation can fulfil both food security and food sovereignty for every individual as part of the agenda of sustainable development.[8] Patel in his recent book, Stuffed and Starved, considers food sovereignty as ‘a vision that aims to redress the abuse of the powerless by the powerful’. He illuminates the direct relation between globalised food systems and famines as well as farmer suicides around the world. The ironic co-existence of one billion malnourished and another one billion overweight people is the corollary of a system in which the value of our food chain is captured by several TNCs raising the signboard of free trade and consumer choices. (Patel, 2007) This part illustrates how LFSs contribute to global food security and sovereignty[9] without the GFS governed by ‘free trade’:
Tackling global poverty/inequality
Instead of a global food system dominated by the ‘Food Empire’, LFSs solve the problem of global poverty which is due to competitions from heavily-subsidised foreign products in a so-called liberal market. Localisation means reducing dependence on foods obtained from international trade while supporting local agricultural productions and hence, protecting the livelihood of local farmers and their families. This is particularly important for developing countries where agricultural sector employs majority of people. By locally growing foods (mostly imported in the current system), it prevents the collapse of smaller-sized farms and food-processing chains, ensuring long-term national food security. Without foreign control of market prices, there will not be large amount of surplus food being stockpiled and wasted in the global north today.
Take India as an example. Punjab and Warangal used to be regions of intensive agricultural productions in India. After trade and market liberalisation, land has become desert due to heavy use of pesticides for hybrid, pest-vulnerable crops that kills pollinators. Mining of groundwater for cash crops brings man-made droughts to the regions with dried wells. In addition, farmers are lured by TNCs to buy high-cost, non-renewable, genetically-engineered hybrid cotton seeds, the ‘white gold’, which were supposed to make them millionaires. However, they earned negative returns and are pushed to heavy debt and bankruptcy. Cases of farmers committing suicide to escape from debts abound. Given the devaluating currencies, increasing production costs and collapsing commodity prices, such globalisation of non-sustainable industrial agriculture is vanishing the incomes of Third World farmers into nothing. India food prices doubled between 1999 and 2000 where consumers pay more, but farmers earn less. (Shiva, 2000) Thus far, the rural income has fallen by 20%. (Patel, 2007)
Another example is the changes to the sugar industry in China after its accession to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in 2001. Guangxi Province is one of the poorest and desiccated in China. Since 1990s, peasants had been fighting poverty by growing drought-resistant sugarcane for white sugar. Their income had increased by 14% since 1990 and some 11 million overcome persistent poverty. However, after China joined WTO with market liberalisation measures, cheap, heavily-subsidised European sugar inundates the Chinese market, depressing the sugar prices by 38% in 2001-2003 (See the graph below). Farmers’ and sugar factories’ aggregate income recorded a loss of RMB2.59b (£246.43m) and RMB7.59b (£722.45m) respectively. Falling prices have bankrupted many farmers (sugarcane producers) and suspended majority of sugar-making enterprises in China. Less demand for locally grown sugarcane forced the provincial government to reduce 1.69m acre of sugarcane-farming area, causing another aggregate income loss of RMB1.29b (£122.74m) for farmers, tax revenue amounting to RMB374m (£35.59m) for local government plus job losses of 110,000 in the sector, which is detrimental to social tranquillity and community development. Similar stories also occur in China’s cotton industry.[10] (Oxfam Hong Kong, 2005)
Apparent in these two examples is that not only does the current globalised food system strike the markets of originally self-sufficient developing countries and indirectly deprive them of export opportunities, but also does it undermine their agricultural development and farmers’ livelihood. Some degree of localisation should help alleviate global poverty and inequality.
Agricultural growth and hunger reduction
Poverty and hunger must go together. Hunger reduction is an important manifestation of food security. According to FAO’s food insecurity report, agricultural growth is a key to hunger mitigation. Some 70% of the poor in developing countries live in rural areas and depend their livelihoods, directly or indirectly, on farming. (FAO, 2006) In Indonesia alone, one-fifth of household income and 40% of national food supply come from home gardens managed by small families. (Shiva, 2000) Thus, the potential of fuelling growth of rural agriculture with more exotic money and employment opportunities is immense in feeding the hungry in food-insecure countries.
Stable food prices
Communities with LFSs enjoy relatively stable food prices while a GFS destabilises food prices to a large extent. The victims are always the people with higher Engel’s Coefficient.[11] As alluded to when introducing food security, in an inter-connected world the influence of any incidents occurring at a corner of the globe can swiftly radiate into an international crisis. This is the crux of the problem of food insecurity in ‘open’ markets that were self-sufficient before trade liberalisation. China, for instance, relies much on imported beans and bean oil. Two years ago, food prices in Chinese market rose because of rising international beans’ prices. After its accession to WTO with partial liberation of agricultural trade, Chinese beans are completely controlled by TNCs. Bean price rise spread along the food chain, so did the prices of maize, soya meal, feedstuff, pork and poultry.[12] However, the prices of wheat and rice are relatively stable because of the ‘independent’ production and consumption systems in China. (Zhou, 2008) Thus, only LFSs can guarantee a nation’s survival with more stable food prices in such a capricious era.
Reducing food and farmland wastage
Given that international trade incurs macro-control of international food prices by TNCs in rich countries, it is noteworthy that for this purpose there are untold amounts of surplus food stockpiled or wasted and farmland idled in the north every year. No more substantive reliance on foreign food supply and fossil fuels could discourage and dilute corporate control over international food market and productions in the Third World. Japanese periodical Sentaku has reported that America’s wheat production decreased by 70 million tons in 2008 in order to keep the food prices high with one-third of American farmlands in fallow. (Sentaku, 2008) That price manipulation being evitable could save a considerable area of farmlands in global north for energy crops or other economic uses.
Sustainable agriculture
By the same token, localisation of food supply reduces reliance on industrial monoculture in a few food-producing countries. Lower intensity agricultural productions using less chemical pesticide, fertilizer, fossil fuel and creating less waste could even encourage organic farming, rendering it more sustainable. For farmers in the south, absence of TNCs’ domination allows them to combine indigenous and modern farming methods, leading to more environmentally sustainable agriculture. Becoming less dependent on high-cost artificial inputs like hybrid seeds and avoiding cost-price squeeze or further debts can also benefit local environment and farmers.
Natural conservation
Localised food system means foods of short food miles are grown locally on urban farmlands to feed the city residents. Governments protecting urban farmlands for smaller-scale agricultural productions provide unique conditions for conservation of natural habitats, preservation of scenic areas and opportunities to bring agricultural heritage closer to residents. The natural green farms do not require governments’ investments in infrastructure to fuel any artificial development projects. The ongoing agricultural industrialisation de-incentivises farmers to supply food for urban dwellers, which is happening in Latin American[13] and African countries.
LFSs yield strategic benefits[14]
Localising food systems as a strategic policy is worth a mention in passing. For those weak, passive international players, or food-consuming countries, regaining control over national food supply through re-establishing LFSs of their own yields strategic benefits. ‘Food empire’ comes ‘food politics’. In other words, mastering ‘food sovereignty’ and maintaining basic ‘food security’ through localised food system equates ‘strategic security’ for a country’s survival. This explains why some countries like Japan, China and Taiwan insist upon the necessity of being self-contained in basic foods, even if local farming is unprofitable. Hinted from the examples of (pseudo-)food assistance, embargo from the superpower and development loans from international institutions tabulated below, we see food can become a political weapon more powerful than oil trade, forcing the powerless to cede their ‘(food) sovereignty’ to the powerful. Poor people being deprived of healthy food supply are always the innocent victims of ‘food weapons’. Thus, seizing ‘food sovereignty’ with LFSs is imperative to national ‘food security’.
Indeed, food sovereignty per se is neither an anti-trade nor anti-science notion. It certainly recognises that ‘fair trade’ does contribute to poverty alleviation, but simply the gains from trade liberalisation now are not universal. So, the view being promoted is a fundamental shift from relying on highly globalised agribusinesses to supporting localised markets and small-scale farming systems of cultural- and bio-diversity.
Challenges from food system localisation
Certainly, some may argue that high-degree localisation, in endogenous sense, involves issues of consumer perceptions, food seasonality, higher food prices and urbanisation pressure. To effectively localise a food system in a globalisation era, assessing the practicality of strategies should consider the challenges lying ahead.
Consumer perceptions
Aubrun’s studies on Americans’ perceptions and opinions of food consumption are extendable to food consumers in other countries. The common perceptions on food supply affected by everyday commercials are fundamentally important for food system change. Normally, consumers neither deliberate much about the sources of foods nor have sufficient knowledge of farming in an environment where foods from all over the world are easily available to their satisfaction. (Aubrun, 2005) Therefore, localising a food system needs considerable resources and efforts to close the information gaps by branding, labelling[15] or collective marketing as local farmers usually has limited resources for advertisements. An example is Michigan’s apple market in which the primary concern of localisation was marketing cost and constraints small-scale producers encountered. (Mainville, 2005)
Food seasonality
Regional physical/climatic constraints prevent local farms from growing every food variety all year long, especially in those food-producing areas with forecast soil degradation or water scarcity. However, the food market is mainly supported by collective purchasers such as supermarkets, restaurants, schools[16] and hospitals which often contract with food distributors promising reliable food supply. In fact, consumers’ preference is always inconsistent with local seasonality. It is hardly profitable for mercantile distributors to supply only local foods not able to meet clients’ demand. Localising food systems requires financial incentives for big buyers to source more local food products.
Higher food prices
Locally-produced foods incur higher costs and hence prices, especially in global north where factors of production are essentially more expensive than the south. It means higher prices paid to local farmers.[17] As Patel argues, ‘a living wage is an integral part of food policy’. (Patel, 2007) Higher price is the primary obstacle to consumers’ persistent purchase of local foods. The major supermarkets importing food internationally with growing market shares can offer daily discounts for food purchase whereas groceries cannot. More noteworthy is the cultural factors that influence consumers’ behaviour. For example, Chinese people like fresh foods from traditional wet markets, but it is far unfeasible to mandate costly ‘local’ labelling in vegetable stalls, which may push more people to supermarkets for relatively cheaper foreign foods.
Urbanisation pressure
Market economy makes development interests dominate policy formulations. Urban land tends to be reserved for industrial, commercial or residential development that can generate more values, with which local farming, mining and forestry cannot compete. Local farmers with farmland or pastureland in the proximity of urban areas are often persuaded to sell it off to property developers. This undermines our capacity to produce food locally. Soaring land prices along with intensified urbanisation make it too costly to preserve urban farmland.
Political will
Allen (1999) considers ‘local’ being historical and romanticised. The terms ‘community’ and ‘local’ have no practical meaning unless with a possibility of faithful cooperation in a pluralistic community. (Allen, 1999) To initiate structural changes to rooted policies like cutting taxes for local farmers while raising taxes for companies, it is too difficult to compromise amongst community members with diverse priorities and intricate interests in a democratic system. Sacrificing vested interests distribution system is a serious challenge ahead of localising food systems to which lack of political will is, therefore, another fundamental barrier.
Overcoming the challenges
Notwithstanding the endogenous challenges outlined above, arguably, countries should try to grow reasonable proportion of the foods they demand while become less dependent on trade for their food security. To ensure food security and sovereignty as part of the sustainability agenda, a localised food system is definitely more favourable to deeper social justice that tackles issues of food access and equity. It is about universal availability, accessibility and affordability of a healthy, local food supply to everyone on the planet (Hancock, 1997) by giving people more control over what they eat and do in alternative food systems. These alternative food systems initiate localisation of food system to the greatest extent possible based on potential social, economic and environmental benefits. (Pelletier et al., 1999) Deeper social justice being one thing, those challenges discussed above is not incurable. This part will briefly discuss potential solutions to these challenges with further examples.
Education for Consumers
With profound use of media and IT, the problems of consumer perceptions (raising public awareness) and higher food prices[18] can be feasibly solved in a ‘civil society’ with extensive promotion, re-education, pushed further with major public policy shifts to alter consumers’ behaviour, which will be elaborated in the last part of this paper.
Agri-food system sustainability
Those who concern food seasonality could mean to taste more types of food at anytime, but LFSs can provide as many choices as a GFS can or even more. We are often warned that the world will starve without chemical/genetic engineering intensification and agricultural globalisation, which, according to those agribusinesses and biotechnology corporations, is the only way to feed growing population. Nevertheless, recent scientific researches show that, from biodiversity perspective, the productivity of bio-diverse farms is higher than that of TNCs’ monoculture.[19] Meanwhile, FAO have confirmed the findings that small bio-diverse farms can produce thousands of times more foods than large, industrial monocultures. (See the table below.) It is also the best strategy to prevent drought and desertification. The reason why small-scaled agricultural productions cannot prevail over large-scale monoculture can be explained by today’s ‘capitalist patriarchy’ where definition of being productive does not favour small-scale farming.[20] In the name of increasing food productions, the sustainable, diversity- and nutrient-rich agri-food systems were annihilated gradually. (Shiva, 2000) Under the strong influence of the ‘Food Empire’, countries follow to wear the global straitjacket under-valuating the local food-producing/processing economies.
Community gardens forming urban ‘foodshed’
Community gardens could be a solution for urbanisation pressure. Agriculture is separated from urban living and should be rejuvenated as part of the society, albeit the pressure of urban growth. To borrow Kloppenburg’s phrase, rebuilding a ‘foodshed’[21] is a conceptual framework for exploring alternative, more LFSs that ‘starts from a premise of the unity of place and people, of nature and society’. (Kloppenburg, Hendrickson, & Stevenson, 1996) By focusing foodsheds at local level, it restores the rural-urban relationship while attaining food security and sovereignty. For an effective foodshed to develop, scholars suggest that urban agriculture and community gardens are the initiatives of LFS in the north. (Lappe & Lappe, 2002) Urban- and peripheral-farming limit food miles and supply for urban residents more fresh food of which citizens are ‘sovereigns’ through democratic decision-making processes. Communities throughout the US are taking the first step to tackle food security by studying about shrinking their ‘foodsheds’ (within a 100-mile radius) as part of their strategy for localised economy, emphasising small-scale, localised, diverse industry. Examples of preserving urban agriculture (small/medium-sized family farms) are found in American north-central regions.
Facing the same pressure of urban development, Seattle and Madison have identified plots on the peripheries to promote hundreds of ‘community gardens’[22] made into permanent landuse in their City’s Comprehensive Plans. With support of residents, Madison formulated policy which preserves local, diverse urban agricultural enterprises and encourages new small-farm operations such as ‘Community-Supported Agriculture Farms’[23] to ensure community food security. (Carmona, 2007) These examples in such a ‘Food Empire’ being not supposed to be worried about food supply demonstrates the importance of local food security, and land pressure brought by ongoing urbanisation should not be an overwhelming challenge in communities reasonably aware of food security and sovereignty.
Major impediments created by the GFS
Definitely, it is impossible for any food system to circumvent the influence of free trade that nurtures the ‘Food Empire’. Before the era of global free agri-trade, every country/region had its own food production and operating systems, ensuring basic survival of the people. After the ‘green revolution’ and trade liberalisation, the food yield has increased and market widened, but many are still living in famine. It is because, in a globalising world, there are politico-economic conditions manipulating various factors of productions, i.e. the rules of the game. We have already discussed the endogenous challenges of LFS. In this part, we will investigate its exogenous challenges –— how the globalised food system impedes food system localisation with those ‘rules’ promoting a ‘food empire’.
International institutions, WTO in particular[24], play a central role in globalising the food system to what it is today. The trading rules it formulates predominate the economic development and industrial structures of every country. The ‘Agreement on Agriculture’ (AoA)[25], enacted in 1995, aims at facilitating agricultural growth and agri-trade liberalisation. Its core objective ‘is to establish a fair and market-oriented agricultural trading system.’ Theoretically, it alleviates peasants’ poverty in the south by exploring foreign agri-markets for more incomes. In reality, as developing countries joining WTO are also required to open domestic markets to foreign competitors that imperils peasants’ livelihood (although with concessions in AoA), the ‘fair rules’ has not been well- executed, leadings to severe north-south trade imbalance.[26] One of the major reasons is the excess production of US-EU countries.
The hidden battle in agri-trade is the international competitions on export subsidies and import tariffs. Rich countries like the US and EU provide substantial subsidies for their local agribusinesses, which encourages over-productions to be ‘dumped’ into poor countries, though AoA signatories are subject to subsidy reduction commitments and prohibited from introducing any new subsidies. Rich countries rationalise their agricultural subsidy policies concocting various pretexts, namely ‘exceptions’, allowed in WTO agreements. US$1 billion is spent on their export subsidies every single day. It helps their agribusinesses withstand lower profit margins for dumping in other markets. As a result, declining agri-food prices lowers farmers’ income in developing countries while engenders their heavier reliance on imports. Their lack of financial resources (especially those countries with heavy national debts) and techniques disables them from competing with those agri-foods from the north with similar subsidies. The examples below are only tips of the iceberg:
Apart from the tactics of export subsidies and forcing developing countries to open their markets with international institutions like IMF and the World Bank aforementioned, the north impose exorbitant tariffs on agri-products from the south, especially processed products like chocolate, even four to five times higher than those for other rich counterparts. The total tariffs levied by the north on the south amount to US$100 billion every year, two times equivalent of the amount of development aid which the south receive a year. (Oxfam Hong Kong, 2005) Thus, the distorted ‘rules’ of the agri-trading system is the primary impediment to localising a food system.[27]
Patent laws for the rich
Localising food systems requires recognition of indigenous varieties and/or farming knowledge, but globalised patent regulations under WTO TRIPs Agreement[28] become another impediment. In a globalised (food) system, every country for foreign investments must create a ‘favourable business environment’ where legislations consistent with the ‘international norms’, or actually ‘the expectation of western investors’, are obligatory. First, the wealth of the Third World is ‘stolen’ by the TNCs through patents on biodiversity and indigenous knowledge. Under the framework of TRIPs Agreement that allows patenting of life forms and indigenous knowledge, TNCs use such laws on patents and intellectual property rights to make ‘legitimate’ claims to their ‘exclusive creations’ of indigenous crops like cotton, soya bean, mustard and varieties of seeds and medicines. Patented, or indeed pirated, seeds are protected by law from unauthorised saving and sharing. ‘The poor are pushed into deeper poverty by making them pay for what was theirs…[Sustainability,] sharing and exchange…[are] redefined as a crime’. For instance, Rice Tec, a US-based company, has patented basmati rice lines and grains that belonged to native Indians. (Shiva, 2000) A developing country may find it unaffordable to, at least, redeem the patents from the food giants if it wants to re-establish its localised food system. Barriers to be cleared exist in other legislative areas such as hygiene and labour laws, but there is no space for extended discussions.
‘Food Empire’
Export subsidies plus patent laws as WTO ‘game rules’ provide favourable conditions for expansion of the ‘Food Empire’, which renders localised food system more difficult to achieve. Throughout the previous arguments, especially when discussing the advantages of a localised food system (relative disadvantages of a globalised food system), the case studies of sugar, rice, cotton and unsustainable agricultural methods elicited are all implying a hidden driving force behind-the-scene. A World Bank report admits that ‘behind the polarisation of domestic consumer prices and world prices is the presence of large trading companies in international commodity markets [that capture most of the values]’.[29] (Shiva, 2000) Such oligarchy of several TNCs form a ‘Food empire’ that dominates the global food supply chains. The ‘food empire’ (tripartite conglomerates), including Congra-Dupont (frozen foods companies), Cargill-Monsanto (crop giant; seed company), Novartis-ADM (cooking oil companies), have controlled the whole food chain of North America and are spreading their influence round the globe.[30] Globalisation and free agri-trade, signified with the rise of ‘Food Empire’, devastates local cultures, handicaps local food-producing economies and brings economic genocide to farmers. Consumers are ‘educated’ in daily advertisements that imported, processed, packaged foods from industrial agriculture are superior. On the contrary, ‘everything fresh, local and handmade is defined as inferior goods or even a health hazard’. (Shiva, 2000) Given the irresistible power of and continuous indoctrination by the food giants, this is the greatest impediment to LFSs.
‘A collection of discontent and anger is often what changes the world for the better.’
Raj Patel (Author of Stuffed & Starved)
IT in food systems
The food-empire-controlled food system benefits from globalisation which has contracted space and blurred national boundaries. The unprecedented interconnectedness of the world is incarnated in the speed of, chiefly, information flows. The result is the globalised social, cultural and economic dependencies (Koc & Dahlberg, 1999) attributable to such instruments of globalisation as mass media and information technology (IT). For the underprivileged to also benefit from an ‘interconnected world’, IT can be well utilised to serve the impulses of cooperation and building solidarity blocks for LFSs through a global ‘civil society’ and reducing the transaction costs.
Global ‘civil society’
It is suggested that IT can catalyse a global ‘civil society’[31] which promotes fundamental shifts of worldviews on food systems and rules of justice. This could be the panacea for curing consumer perceptions and political will as discussed before. Perhaps the best way to change the world is to let civil societies pressurise the pro-business governments for food system reforms in democratic regimes. Noted that traditional media like newspapers and TV are subject to business controls, NGOs, charities, pressure groups should cooperate to form another ‘empire’ and make fullest use of the Internet space to ‘re-brainwash’ the growing number of ‘cybercitizens’/‘netizens’ with the real picture of globalised food system unreported in daily ‘censored’ news. Strategic online campaigning will cause a ‘consumption revolution’ – a worldwide proposition of fair-trade LFSs. The demand-side will undergo changes in tastes and perceptions on eating seasonally, agro-ecologically, supporting locally-owned agribusinesses, ensuring the survival of locally produced foods and rural, traditional culture. The increasing popularity of ‘farmers’ markets’[32] and numbers of products with ‘fair trade’ label are preliminary success. With the Internet becoming more influential in international policy-making processes, an attitudinal shift as fundamental as this will definitely affect the values held by the politicians. An IT-driven opinion bombardment will nurture new governance systems which eradicate the negative effects of international trade like dumping. By that time, trade system reforms, market localisation, restricting over-production, financing smallholder agriculture or innovative researches for developing countries will no longer be policy unthinkable while the advantages of a LFS are realised and the aforesaid solutions promising.[33]
Cost reductions
Consumers will hang back when the time cost of searching and discovering small-scale local food producers is too high in a LFS and hence, its feasibility. (Butler, Ridings, & Pike, 2009) IT can contribute to lowering costs of (i) transactions and (ii) building solidarity blocks.[34]
(i) Transaction costs
IT links demand and supply more effectively by facilitating consumers’ search for local producers with limited resources for costly TV advertisements; shrinking production and distribution costs with inventories and database systems; and cutting operating costs with online ordering systems and communication platforms, etc. With just low-cost investment in IT infrastructures, local, smallholder agribusinesses can hugely raise their visibility in the markets.
(ii) Building solidarity blocks
Cooperation should not be confined to state-to-state, it could be inter-organisational, consumers-producers or suppliers-producers, etc. Higher profiles of different parties in LFSs enable IT-aided ‘foodshed analyses’ to provide opportunities for business interactions and networking activities. Discovery of more potential business partnerships even motivates the creation of alliances or solidarity blocks for continuous growth of LFSs.
Conclusion
In this paper, we have discussed the benefits as well as endogenous and exogenous challenges of LFSs. To show the real picture of GFS, we analysed how the ‘Food Empire’ undermines the welfare of everyone in the world, especially the way the underprivileged in the south are being exploited. It is arguably better to have localised food systems as they ensure ‘food security’ and ‘food sovereignty’ for all and hence, global sustainability. Things like consumers’ perceptions and stability of food prices are not overwhelming barriers provided that we are willing to change ourselves. In global agri-trade, the so-called undistorted, fully-competitive, cross-boundary and perfect market system proposed by the neoclassical economists never exists. The current globalised food system, characterised by various phenomena of injustice, is heading us towards non-sustainability. To reverse the path, we have to review trade rules and stop the food war against nature, the poor and justice. Universal food security or sovereignty is not simply about feeding the hungry, but an implication of deeper social justice which concerns ‘equity’ of enjoying access to natural resources. ‘Free market’ and ‘green revolution’ are not the answers to today’s crisis, but ‘political will’ only. To borrow Ghandi’s words again, persistent hunger is preposterous when ‘the earth have enough for everyone’s needs’.
Email me at winstonkm.mark@googlemail.com
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36. WorldWatch Institute. (2002). State of the World 2002. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
37. Zhou, L. (2008). American Food Politics and Food Weapons [In Chinese]. Nanjing: China People's University.
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Annex I
The Agreement on Agriculture
The Agreement on Agriculture applies to the agricultural products listed in Annex 1 of the Agreement.
While most sectors of trade were incrementally liberalized over the years after the GATT 1994 was established, trade in agricultural products remained subject to restrictions and distortions.
The GATT 1947 rules, as well as accession conditions, and waivers, permitted GATT Contracting Parties to retain greater protection and to provide wider-ranging subsidies for agricultural products than for industrial goods. Additionally, there were few market-opening commitments made for agriculture so the degree of binding achieved was far less than for industrial products. As a result, disagreements over the precise implications of the rules affecting agricultural trade led to trade disputes.
The Uruguay Round negotiations on agriculture represented a major break with the past. The resulting Agreement requires WTO members to commit to long-term reform with the aim of making agricultural trade more market-oriented. This would improve predictability and security for importing and exporting countries alike.
The new market access rule for agricultural products is "tariffs only". Before the Uruguay Round, some agricultural imports were restricted by quantitative import restrictions and other non-tariff measures. All these agriculture-specific non-tariff measures were to be either removed or to be replaced by tariffs, reflecting equivalent levels of protection. This process of converting non tariff measures to tariffs is called "tariffication". To take care of instances where tariffication had resulted in very high equivalent tariffs, a system of tariff-rate quotas meaning lower tariffs within the quotas and higher tariff rates for quantities outside the quotas was agreed so as to maintain existing import access levels and to provide minimum-access opportunities.
The provisions of the Agreement on Agriculture can be classified in the three areas below.
· Market access: the agreement prohibits the use of agriculture-specific non-tariff measures - and all such non-tariff import restrictions have been transformed into tariff equivalents;
· Domestic support: trade-distorting domestic subsidies granted in favour of agricultural producers are now disciplined and subject to reduction commitments except when in small amount (called de minimis); and
· Export subsidies: subsidies granted to domestic products to support their export and increase their competitiveness in foreign markets are also disciplined and subject to reduction commitments.
How can developing and least-developed countries benefit from the Agreement on Agriculture?
The Agreement on Agriculture recognizes the special situation faced by some Members in relation to food security and provides for special and differential treatment for developing countries. It includes:
· Significant improvement in market access conditions for agricultural products of interest to developing country members;
· Ministerial Decision on Measures Concerning the Possible Negative Effects of the Reform Programme on Least-Developed and Net Food-Importing Developing Countries;
· For domestic support:
§ lower reduction commitments;
§ greater de minimis allowance (10%);
§ exclusion of some domestic support policies from the reduction commitments such as: investment subsidies which are generally available to agriculture, agricultural input subsidies generally available to low-income or resource-poor producers, and support to encourage diversification from growing illicit narcotic crops.
· For export subsidies:
§ lower reduction commitments;
§ longer implementation periods;
§ possibility to use transportation and marketing-cost reduction subsidies in the Uruguay Round implementation period;
§ Technical assistance with implementation of the Agreement and country-specific commitments.
The rules and disciplines in the Agreement on Agriculture are complemented by an undertaking to continue the reform process through negotiations. Currently, WTO members are negotiating based on the mandate in Article 20 of the Agreement on Agriculture and in conjunction with the mandate of the Doha Development Agenda.
(An excerpt from the training handouts of the World Trade Organisation for government officials)
[1] Food system: Cornell University defines ‘food system’ as ‘a system with interdependent parts that provides food to a community. It includes the growing, harvesting, storing, transporting processing, packaging, marketing, retailing and consuming of the product. Some or all these steps in the food system may be within the community or they may be part of the regional or global system’. (Wilkins & Eames-Sheavly, 2009) A globalised food system means a market shift from shorter to longer supply chains, local to regional or international trade, smaller to larger retailers. The main source of national food shocks becomes international prices and trade problems. Therefore, poor people tend to spend relatively more of their income on food, and suffer more during upheaving food prices.
[2] By halving the proportion of undernourished people by 2015, it means counting 31 million fewer hungry people, ten times the total reduction achieved since 1990-92. (FAO, 2006)
[3] Almost no progress has been made since 1990-92 (FAO, 2006) and the situation may be deteriorating. The 2010 report of International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank shows that an extra of 53 million people has fallen into extreme poverty (living with less than US$1.25 a day) after the global economic recession in 2009. In the coming 5 years, there would be additional 1.2 million children who die because of poverty. This latest report predicts that 900 million would still live in extreme poverty by 2015.
[4] Take the price of rice in 2008 as an example. Rice-exporting countries such as Thailand, Vietnam, India and Egypt have announced limiting rice exports to guarantee their national rice supply, leading to a sharp increase of the price of rice since March 2008. The offshore price increased from US$467 to US$608 per ton of rice. The export price of Thai rice alone was up by 30%, the highest in 20 years.
[5] WFS agrees that ‘food security’ exists when all people, at all times, have access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active healthy life, but is influenced by such variables as food supply (weather/natural factors), poverty and inequality, politics or institutions.
[6] Food sovereignty originates from the global network of peasant farmer organisations, Via Campesina, and has been honed since the early noughties. Growing movements for food sovereignty bring profound implications to scientific and social researches, politics, trade and the globalised problems of poverty and environmental degradation.
[7] It entails rebuilding local agriculture, consumption of ‘good food’ (including fairer trade, less food miles and organic farming) and the environment (less pollution, higher agrobiodiversity, etc.). (Millstone & Lang, 2002)
[8] The quintessence of both concepts combined is culminating in flourishing circumstances under which individuals enjoy equitable access to adequate foods through localised, self-controllable food systems. Against a TNC- or superpowers-controlled global food system, not only can advocacy of food security and sovereignty protect the poor in the south, but also achieve global sustainability, which otherwise is a mission impossible.
[9] Henderson (2000) delineates the drawbacks of a globalised food system from the perspectives of environment, economy and social issues, including:
- ‘the loss of farmland and farmers;
- the impoverishment of rural economies and the decline of small towns;
- the shrinking of the farmers’ share of the food dollar;
- the erosion of soil, the pollution of air and water with synthetic agrochemicals and farm run-off; and
- the spread of monoculture and the corresponding decline of biodiversity.’ (Henderson, 2000)
[11] Engel’s Coefficient refers to the proportion of food cost in one’s income.
[12] Between March 2007 and March 2008, international prices of wheat, maize, beans and rice had increased by 137.5%, 36.4%, 79.2% and 66.6% respectively.
[13] In Mexico, for example, 60% of cultivated land for corn was abandoned after Mexican Government signed the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994. The livelihood of 3 million farmers, accounting for 8% of the population, was decimated. NAFTA forced 1.3 million Mexicans to leave their farmland and migrated to urban areas, forming the majority of urban poor and leading to a fall in urban industrial wages. An increased flow of illegal workers to the US was also found. The overall poverty rates nationwide increased by 50%.
[14] ‘Food is a weapon but the way to use that is to tie countries to us. That way they’ll be far more reluctant to upset us.’ (John Brock, during confirmation hearings as Secretary of Agriculture, 1980) (Rau, 1991) A report by the Central Intelligence Agency has suggested that the food shortage in the Third World countries gives the US an unprecedented power and, actually, all the hungry people are put completely in American power. (cf. Zhou, 2008)
[15] Eating-out and lack of showcasing in groceries or wet markets render localising food system not easy. This is particularly true of people living in busy metropolises like New York and Hong Kong. Their awareness of food locality is so low that they are not bothered to read labels.
[16] Schools as an institutional buyer can make a difference by organising ‘farm-to-school’ (Kantor, 2001) or ‘farm-in-school’ programmes (farmers’ markets in schools) which facilitate the schools, including students and staff, to purchase food products from local producers or farmers directly.
[17] This aspect, together with lack of political will, suggests that food system localisation is connected to other policy domains in a sense that more of our money should be spent on food instead of housing, for example. Localising food system may entail a lot of fundamental adjustments to economic structure, which needs great efforts to implement in the current business climate.
[18] As discussed as one of the challenges of localised food system, the local farmers are earning too little when they are exploited by the powerful. The reason why people perceive that higher food prices are too nauseating may be that they are continuously made to spend too much on housing in the current economic structure.
[19] According to a study in eastern Nigeria, it is found that home gardens occupying only 2% of a household’s farmland accounted for 50% of the farm’s total output. (Shiva, 2000)
[20] ‘Yields’ refer to production per unit area of a single crop. ‘Output’ refers to the total production of diverse crops and products. Planting only one crop in the entire field as a monoculture will increase its individual yield. Planting multiple corps in a mixture will have lower yields of individual crops, but with high total output of food. ‘Golden rice’ is an obvious example. Actually, Vitamin A is provided in non-polished rice by nature. If herbicides were not sprayed on our wheat fields, there would be bathua, amaranth, mustard leaves as delicious and nutritious greens that provide Vitamin A. (Shiva, 2000)
[21] A foodshed is helpful in discussing and promoting local food system. ‘Foodshed’ is similar to the concept of a watershed: while watersheds outline the flow of water that supplies a particular area, a foodshed outlines the flow of food that feeds a particular region. It encompasses the farm, your table and everything in between. Understanding the origin and pathways of our food will make it easier to shrink the food miles and frame the supply chain within local level. (Source: http://www.foodroutes.org/faq14.jsp)
[22] Community gardening, which is a form of urban agriculture, refers to common gardens in urban areas shared by a couple of residents or families living to close proximity. (Kantor, 2001)
[23] At the beginning of a farm’s growing year, consumers buy shares that entitle them to an agreed fraction of the farm’s crops upon successful harvests. (Kantor, 2001)
[24] As set out in the Preamble to WTO Agreement, non-discrimination is a fundamental principle of the multilateral trading system which is embodied by two principles, the most favoured nation (MFN) treatment obligation and the national treatment obligation.
i. MFN principle: Member states cannot normally discriminate between their trading partners. If a Member grants to a country a special favour (such as a lower customs duty on one of its products) it must grant the favour immediately and unconditionally to all WTO members.
ii. National treatment principle: Members are prohibited from favouring its domestic products over the imported products of other Member countries.
[25] See Annex I for a brief introduction.
[26] Data shows that the gross total global agricultural trade currently amounts to US$674 billion. However, developing countries shares only one-third of the trade volume and Africa merely 4%. 96% of some 2.5 billion peasants live in the south, about half of which live on US$1 a day. (Oxfam Hong Kong, 2005)
[27] In 2004, WTO accepted a complaint from Brazil regarding heavily subsidised cotton exported from the US. The panel judged that the US subsidising their local cotton industry have distorted the international market prices, which is inconsistent with the regulations of WTO.
[28] The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement) is an integral Part of the WTO Agreements and it is binding on each Member of the WTO. The TRIPS Agreement contains specific provisions in the following areas of intellectual property: copyright (protects literary and artistic works) and related rights (i.e. the rights of performers, producers of sound recordings and broadcasting organizations); trademarks (signs capable of distinguishing the goods and services of one enterprise from those of other enterprise); geographical indications (signs used on goods to state that a production originated in a geographical area possess qualities or reputation due to its place of origin); patents (inventions), including the protection of new varieties of plants; industrial designs; the layout-designs of integrated circuits; and undisclosed information, including trade secrets and test data. It requires Members to make available enforcement procedures to permit prompt and effective action against any act of infringement of intellectual property rights covered by the Agreement. These include: the principles of due process; obligations with respect to civil and administrative procedures and remedies; adoption of provisional measures; special border measures; and, criminal procedures.
[29] The impact of the ‘food empire’ on farmers is highlighted in a recent report by Canadian National Farmers’ Union, which shows that the big three cereal companies: Kellogg’s, Quaker Oats, and General Mills were 500 times more profitable than farmers whom are being paid a fraction of what they received 10 years ago. These companies made an average return on equity of 147% compared to 0.3% for farmers. Farmers around the world may be facing similar situations. (Canadian National Farmers' Union, 2000)
[30] The overwhelming influence of this ‘food empire’ on farmers across the world is told clearly in a scenario quoted from an article by the World Watch Institute:
“But suppose you’re the farmer. Want to buy seed to grow corn? If Cargill is the only buyer of corn in a hundred mile radius, and Cargill is only buying a particular Monsanto corn variety for its mills or elevators or feedlots, then if you don't plant Monsanto’s seed you won't have a market for your corn. Need a loan to buy the seed? Go to Cargill-owned Bank of Ellsworth, but be sure to let them know which seed you'll be buying. Also mention that you’ll be buying Cargill’s Saskferco brand fertilizer. OK, but once the corn is grown, you don’t like the idea of having to sell to Cargill at the prices it dictates? Well, maybe you’ll feed the corn to your pigs, then, and sell them to the highest bidder. No problem-Cargill’s Excel Corporation buys pigs, too. OK, you’re moving to the city, and renouncing the farm life! No more home-made grits for breakfast, you're buying corn flakes. Well, good news: Cargill Foods supplies corn flour to the top cereal makers. You’ll notice, though, that all the big brands of corn flakes seem to have pretty much the same hefty price per ounce. After all, they’re all made by the agricultural oligopoly.” (Halweil, 2000)
[31] A civil society ‘is a public space between the state, the market and the ordinary household, in which people can debate and tackle action.’ It could include any voluntary collective activity to achieve change on a particular issue - but not political parties, even though civil society has a political dimension. By this definition, civil society covers charities; neighbourhood self-help schemes; international bodies like the UN or the Red Cross; religious-based pressure-groups; human rights campaigns in repressive societies; and non-governmental organisations improving health, education and living-standards in both the developed and developing nations. (BBC World Service, 2001)
[32] “Farmers’ market” is basically a community gathering that producers and consumers engage in direct face-to-face transactions of their local produce regularly, usually once or twice a week. (Kantor, 2001)
[33] My proposition coincides with Perlas (2003) who observes that ‘evidence of this increase in resistance [from unfairly traded foods] can be seen with the rise of some forms of global civil society and the proliferation of counter-movements.’ (Perlas, 2003)
[34] Cited in Butler et al. (2009), Gillespie et al. (2007) suggest that IT can contribute to LFSs by:
- Facilitating many types of search;
- Supporting innovation (product, production, and process) and the transfer of innovation;
- Reducing production and distribution costs;
- Facilitating the execution of transactions;
- Increasing the legitimacy of participation in these systems among consumers and producers; and
- Enabling social activities (e.g. identification, relationship building and maintenance, impression management, trust formation) between individuals (Gillespie et al., 2007)
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