Globalisation and Food Security

Overview

In both the developing and the developed worlds, it is worth noting that food security is such a critical element as well as the socio-economic indicator behind the quality of life. Food security showcases the ability of people, countries and households to access, as well as makes use of the important human right. Food access and food security are two key concepts that can be used interchangeably and deeply impact the standards of living in a greater scale. Food systems, on a global scale are changing, which means that they are adopting strategies that ensure availability, as well as diversity of food. Most of the changes cannot be delinked from market liberalization, foreign direct investment, increasing incomes and urbanization. These constitute the structures of globalization that has seen markets interact on a global scale while striking a balance in the supplies. Based on this, the discussion presents the advantages and disadvantages of globalization in the face of food insecurity. The discussion is based on the fact that globalization has been part of the strategies that have been put in play to curb food security in different regions. However, scholars have equally argued that it might the prime reason as to why food insecurity never ends.

Advantages

It is evident that globalization influences enhancement of food security through a number of means, which makes it advantageous in this context.

• First, globalization proves advantageous to food security through trade liberalization (Shiva, and Bedi, 2002; Misselhorn et al., 2012). The role of trade in terms of food items is something that has been existing for the longest period. In the mid-1800s, industrial interests raised concerns about food accessibility by the poor classes in Britain, which led to Corn Laws being repealed in the year 1846. Over 70 years now, the debate around trade in agriculture and food security still sounds fresh (Wilkinson 2015). The idea of free trade was floated as governments pursued agricultural markets. The rise of food exceptionalism attracted the US attention, which proved advantageous to the political climate. History has it that trade liberalization, in the full glare of globalization became an opportunity in the face of food security. In 2007, the global food markets saw the need to make use of the trade policies as one way of enhancing domestic food security. While trade advocates would subvert the idea, the prime reason countries had to run for trade policies was to tap into the advantages globalization offered for the purposes of enhancing food self-reliance. The global trade in food and agriculture and the framework of trade liberalization opened or unlocked barriers, which attracted competition as well as specialization (Young 2004). This led to natural endowments that are inclined more towards labour and technology.
• Technological transfer is the second advantage. This led to enhancement of the efficient ways of food production, which increases the food supply and food security in the country. Countries in Asia and Africa find it beneficial to tap into the technological advantage offered through globalization, which in turn influences a change in terms of food production.
• In addition, globalization is treated as the transmission belt in which food can be moved from the areas of surplus to deficit regions. This idea can constructively been built on the significant theory of comparative advantage. The advantageous role of globalization as a transmission belt can be grounded on three fundamental reasons. First, some of the countries are said to run short of the natural endowments, which are necessary in producing enough food. Key reasons include limited land, climatic factors and soil among other factors (Godfray et al. 2010). Therefore, globalization facilitates the flow of food to these regions while fostering world food security.
• Globalization has saved such scenarios where drought and floods affect populations as it was the case in Haiti. Secondly, it is impractical to attain complete self-sufficiency as a result of the endless cases of the resource and environmental reasons. This means that sustainability benefits can only be realized through food trade. Globalization supports sustainable agricultural production as it is the case in the Sub-Saharan Africa (Leakey 2018). Notably, global food stability is more stable than it is the case at the regional or national level. Therefore, globalization is itself an opportunity that checks on global food trends and food security.

Disadvantages

While globalization would be praised for raising the bar of food security across the world, it has equally championed for food insecurity across nations.

• First, Globalization is a threat to food insecurity through, first, the persistent trend of urbanization. Projections indicate that between the year 2000 and 2030, the largest part of the world population will be living in the urban areas as a result of globalization. While the population stood at around 2.9 billion in 2000, the figure is expected to rise to 4.9 billion in the year 2030. The increases are expected more in the cities of the developing countries and megacities that are being flooded by the middle class population (Ekpenyong 2015). With this trend in place, there are chances that globalization is the key driver to urban poverty and food shortages. Across most of the developing countries, it is not obvious that an increase in the urban population means a positive change in terms of development.
• Secondly, globalization introduces irreversible push factors that can likely led to weak agricultural growth, as well as the overall rural decline. In Africa, for example, the urban population is said to grown by 5.2% on annual terms as from 1970 to 1995 (Oguntegbe et al. 2018). At the same time, the per capita GDP kept declining by almost 0.66% on annual basis. The adversely affected sector includes agriculture, the backbone of food security, which is the same trend that appeared in India.
• In addition, while trade liberalization, a factor supported by globalization, was applauded for solving the issue of food insecurity, it is equally treated as a threat in other ways. The most recent food prices and crisis at the global scale has attracted the attention of countries that keep relying on the food imports (Ekpenyong 2015). In this context, trade is no longer an opportunity by any standards.
• Lastly, globalization seems to draw more resources from one region as far as the industrial food system is put in place. As countries open their borders to allow partners to trade, there are chances that some of the food resources are likely to be limited to some regions. For the purposes of meeting the demand in the global market, the limited resources have to be worked, which in turn puts the country at food risk. In such cases, chances of a country gaining from globalization, in terms of food security, become minimal with time.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the discussion tables a stalemate of globalization as a benefit or a drawback in terms of addressing food security. First, a focus on benefits tabled such reasons as trade liberalization and transmission belt, which are the key advantages of globalization in addressing food availability and accessibility. However, counterarguments have insisted on urbanization and trade as the champions of food insecurity as far as globalization is put into consideration. While weighing on both sides, history reveals that most countries dream of becoming self-reliant in terms of food supply. However, shortages in food supply are always imminent. Based on this, it can be concluded that globalization is both an opportunity and a threat to food security.

References

• Oguntegbe, K., Okoruwa, V., Obi-Egbedi, O. and Olagunju, K., 2018. Population Growth Problems and Food Security in Nigeria. Available at SSRN 3330999.
• Ekpenyong, A.S., 2015. Urbanization: Its Implication for Sustainable Food Security, Health and Nutritional Nexus in Developing Economies-A Case Study of Nigeria. Journal of Studies in Social Sciences, 11(1).
• Misselhorn, A., Aggarwal, P., Ericksen, P., Gregory, P., Horn-Phathanothai, L., Ingram, J. and Wiebe, K., 2012. A vision for attaining food security. Current opinion in environmental sustainability, 4(1), pp.7-17.
• Wilkinson, J., 2015. Food security and the global agrifood system: Ethical issues in historical and sociological perspective. Global food security, 7, pp.9-14.
• Young, E.M., 2004. Globalization and food security: novel questions in a novel context?. Progress in Development Studies, 4(1), pp.1-21.
• Godfray, H.C.J., Beddington, J.R., Crute, I.R., Haddad, L., Lawrence, D., Muir, J.F., Pretty, J., Robinson, S., Thomas, S.M. and Toulmin, C., 2010. Food security: the challenge of feeding 9 billion people. science, 327(5967), pp.812-818.
• Leakey, R.R., 2018. Converting ‘trade-offs’ to ‘trade-ons’ for greatly enhanced food security in Africa: multiple environmental, economic and social benefits from ‘socially modified crops’. Food Security, pp.1-20.
• Shiva, V. and Bedi, G., 2002. Sustainable agriculture and food security: the impact of globalisation. Sage Publications India Pvt Ltd.