The Yaqui Valley is the birthplace of the Green Revolution and one of the most intensive agricultural regions of the world, using irrigation, fertilizers, and other technologies to produce some of the highest yields of wheat anywhere. It also faces resource limitations, threats to human health, and rapidly changing economic conditions. In short, the Yaqui Valley represents the challenge of modern agriculture: how to maintain livelihoods and increase food production while protecting the environment.
Seafood plays a critical role in global food security and protein intake. The global supply of seafood increasingly comes from aquaculture - the farming of fish, shellfish, and aquatic plants. China is the dominant leader in this field, supplying about two-thirds of global aquaculture production. China also consumes an estimated one-third of global aquaculture output, a figure that is expected to increase as the country proceeds along its developmental trajectory.
Indonesia is currently the world’s top palm oil producer. Since the 1980s total land area planted to palm oil has increased by over 2,100 percent growing to 4.6 million hectares – the equivalent of six Yosemite National Parks. Plantation growth has predominately occurred on deforested native rainforest with major implications for global carbon emissions and biodiversity.
Encina Hall
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305
0
klaus.mittenzwei@nilf.no
Anna Lindh Fellow, The Europe Center
Mittenzwei.Klaus.jpg
PhD
Klaus Mittenzwei is an agricultural economist at the Norwegian Agricultural Economics Research Institute in Oslo, Norway. He completed his doctorate at the University of Life Sciences, Norway in 2001. His dissertation focused on the role of political institutions as a significant source for explaining agricultural policies. In a current follow-up research project funded by the Norwegian Research Council, he will analyze these findings in greater detail. Other areas of research include modeling the effects of agricultural policies on the economic, environmental and societal objectives of society. In particular, the CAPRI modeling system (covering world agricultural trade and the details of the agricultural policies in the EU-25, Norway and Turkey) is used to understand how agricultural policy reforms affect the often conflicting agricultural policy objectives like farmers’ income, productivity and public goods provided by the agricultural sector.
Policies promoting ethanol and biodiesel production and use in the U.S., Europe, and other parts of the world since the mid-2000s have had profound—and largely unintended—consequences on global food prices, agricultural land values, land acquisition, and food security in developing countries. They have also created regional opportunities in the form of agricultural investments, crop yield growth, and booming farm economies. Rising incomes in emerging economies are generating increased demand for transportation fuels, thus stimulating further growth of the global biofuel industry. This seminar will explore the politics, economics, and global food security implications of the expanding biofuel sector. Several policy questions will be raised, including the role of biofuel mandates on food prices, the role of trade policies for stabilizing food prices in an era of increasingly tight demand, and the role of land policies and institutions for feedstock production and income distribution in the developing world.
Siwa Msangi, Senior Research Fellow in the Environment and Production Technology Division at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) will provide commentary. Msangi's work focuses on the major socio-economic and bio-physical drivers affecting agricultural production and trade, and their impacts on nutrition, poverty and the environment. Dr. Msangi manages a research portfolio that includes the economic and environmental implications of biofuels, and has coordinated the project Biofuels and the Poor in partnership with FSE.
The Jerry Yang and Akiko Yamazaki
Environment and Energy Building
Stanford University
473 Via Ortega, Office 363
Stanford, CA 94305
(650) 723-5697
(650) 725-1992
0
roz@stanford.edu
Senior Fellow, Stanford Woods Institute and Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
William Wrigley Professor of Earth System Science
Senior Fellow and Founding Director, Center on Food Security and the Environment
Roz_low_res_9_11_cropped.jpg
PhD
Rosamond Naylor is the William Wrigley Professor in Earth System Science, a Senior Fellow at Stanford Woods Institute and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, the founding Director at the Center on Food Security and the Environment, and Professor of Economics (by courtesy) at Stanford University. She received her B.A. in Economics and Environmental Studies from the University of Colorado, her M.Sc. in Economics from the London School of Economics, and her Ph.D. in applied economics from Stanford University. Her research focuses on policies and practices to improve global food security and protect the environment on land and at sea. She works with her students in many locations around the world. She has been involved in many field-level research projects around the world and has published widely on issues related to intensive crop production, aquaculture and livestock systems, biofuels, climate change, food price volatility, and food policy analysis. In addition to her many peer-reviewed papers, Naylor has published two books on her work: The Evolving Sphere of Food Security (Naylor, ed., 2014), and The Tropical Oil Crops Revolution: Food, Farmers, Fuels, and Forests (Byerlee, Falcon, and Naylor, 2017).
She is a Fellow of the Ecological Society of America, a Pew Marine Fellow, a Leopold Leadership Fellow, a Fellow of the Beijer Institute for Ecological Economics, a member of Sigma Xi, and the co-Chair of the Blue Food Assessment. Naylor serves as the President of the Board of Directors for Aspen Global Change Institute, is a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee for Oceana and is a member of the Forest Advisory Panel for Cargill. At Stanford, Naylor teaches courses on the World Food Economy, Human-Environment Interactions, and Food and Security.
This paper serves as background to the fourth presentation in a Symposium Series on Global Food Policy and Food Security hosted by the Center on Food Security and Environment at Stanford University and supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Political dynamics, not economic analysis, drive the domestic policy response to sharply rising food prices. The political objective during a food price crisis is almost always to keep it from happening. In the short run, this means “stabilizing” domestic food prices despite whatever is happening in world markets. Stabilizing domestic food prices in the face of sharply escalating world prices is not a foolish goal—most countries try to do it. The real issue is whether this can be done effectively and efficiently. The answer is always “no” unless the country has planned well ahead for such a contingency and already has an operational food price stabilization program in place.
As a matter of “good practice,” all countries are discouraged by international donors from conducting such programs. Instead, countries are urged to implement “social” safety nets in times of food price spikes. The economic rationale is clear: let market prices signal the scarcity of food resources so that supply and demand can adjust, and then compensate the poor for deterioration in their standard of living when food prices rise. The problem is that safety nets that reach the poor quickly and effectively take considerable time to design and implement, and are quite costly in fiscal terms if the poor are a substantial share of the total population. Historically, unless the country is already running a cash transfer program to the poor, the emergence of a food price crisis is too sudden for an effective government response. Gearing up emergency food relief safety nets is not an effective response to a sudden spike in food prices.
More active measures to prevent food price spikes are needed, both domestically and internationally. One starting point would be for countries with large populations to gradually build their grain reserves to the point where they do not feel vulnerable to spikes in world prices and to possible grain embargoes from their regular suppliers. It would be desirable to have such stockholding strategies coordinated internationally, but this is unlikely in other than rhetorical terms. Still, the mere existence of these stocks, even if domestically controlled, would have a calming influence on world grain markets (especially on the very thin world rice market). With calmer markets, recourse to more open trade policies becomes politically feasible (and it is almost always economically desirable). Eventually, the reality of the high costs of grain storage will stimulate a more balanced approach to food security, with both reserves and trade playing significant roles.
What does price instability have to do with food security? Price spikes hurt poor consumers, price collapses hurt farmers, and price risks reduce investment. Timmer's work suggests that food price instability also has a deeper and more insidious impact: it slows down economic growth and the structural transformation that is the pathway out of rural poverty. Food price instability really hurts the poor in both the short run and the long run.
"Food security is not a viable social objective unless it is also a profitable undertaking for input suppliers, farmers, and marketers of output. Consumers must then be able to afford to purchase this food, secure in the knowledge that it is safe and nutritious. Achieving food security within these constraints of a complex economic system is a challenge because both poor consumers and small farmers must be effective participants." -- Peter Timmer
Thom Jayne, Professor of International Development at Michigan State University, will join the conversation as a discussant following the main presentation.
Biography
C. Peter Timmer is a leading authority on agriculture and rural development who has published widely on these topics. He has served as a professor at Stanford, Cornell, three faculties at Harvard, and the University of California, San Diego, where he was also the dean of the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies. A core advisor on the World Bank's World Development Report 2008: Agriculture for Development, Timmer also works with several Asian governments on domestic policy responses to instability in the global rice market. He is an advisor to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on agricultural development issues.
Center on Food Security and the Environment
Encina Hall East, E400
Stanford, CA 94305
0
ptimmer63@gmail.com
Thomas D. Cabot Professor of Development Studies, Emeritus, Harvard University
2720_image_PeterTimmerpg.jpg
C. Peter Timmer was a visiting professor at Stanford's Center on Food Security and the Environment in 2007. He is a leading authority on agriculture and rural development who has published widely on these topics. He has served as a professor at Stanford, Cornell, three faculties at Harvard, and the University of California, San Diego, where he was also the dean of the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies. A core advisor on the World Bank's World Development Report 2008: Agriculture for Development, Timmer also works with several Asian governments on domestic policy responses to instability in the global rice market. In 1992, he received the Bintang Jasa Utama (Highest Merit Star) from the Republic of Indonesia for his contributions to food security. He is an advisor to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on agricultural development issues.
Timmer's work focuses on three broad topics: the nature of "pro-poor growth" and its application in Indonesia and other countries in Asia; the supermarket revolution in developing countries and its impact on the poor (both producers and consumers); and the structural transformation in historical perspective as a framework for understanding the political economy of agricultural policy.
Peter Timmer
Thomas D. Cabot Professor of Development Studies, Emeritus, at Harvard University
Speaker
Thom Jayne
Professor of International Development
Commentator
Michigan State University
Symposiums
Global Food Policy and Food Security Symposium Series
Ousmane Badiane, Director for Africa at IFPRI, will talk about the investment and policy strategies needed for a dynamic agricultural sector, and how conditions in Africa differ from those in Asia.
Peter Timmer, Thomas D. Cabot Professor of Development Studies, Emeritus, at Harvard University, will join the conversation as a discussant following the main presentation.
Biography
Dr. Ousmane Badiane is the Africa Director for the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). In this role, he coordinates IFPRI's work program in the areas of food policy research, capacity strengthening, and policy communications in Africa. He is also in charge of IFPRI's partnerships with African institutions dealing with the above areas.
Dr. Badiane, a national of Senegal, was Lead Specialist for Food and Agricultural Policy for the Africa Region at the World Bank from January 1998 to August 2008. He previously worked at IFPRI as Senior Research Fellow from 1989 to 1997, when he led the institute's work on market reforms and development. While at IFPRI, he taught, as adjunct professor, at Johns Hopkins' School of Advance International Studies from 1993 to 2003. Dr. Badiane received a Masters Degree and PhD in agricultural economics from the University of Kiel in Germany.
Center on Food Security and the Environment
Encina Hall East, E400
Stanford, CA 94305
0
ptimmer63@gmail.com
Thomas D. Cabot Professor of Development Studies, Emeritus, Harvard University
2720_image_PeterTimmerpg.jpg
C. Peter Timmer was a visiting professor at Stanford's Center on Food Security and the Environment in 2007. He is a leading authority on agriculture and rural development who has published widely on these topics. He has served as a professor at Stanford, Cornell, three faculties at Harvard, and the University of California, San Diego, where he was also the dean of the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies. A core advisor on the World Bank's World Development Report 2008: Agriculture for Development, Timmer also works with several Asian governments on domestic policy responses to instability in the global rice market. In 1992, he received the Bintang Jasa Utama (Highest Merit Star) from the Republic of Indonesia for his contributions to food security. He is an advisor to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on agricultural development issues.
Timmer's work focuses on three broad topics: the nature of "pro-poor growth" and its application in Indonesia and other countries in Asia; the supermarket revolution in developing countries and its impact on the poor (both producers and consumers); and the structural transformation in historical perspective as a framework for understanding the political economy of agricultural policy.
Peter Timmer
Speaker
Symposiums
Global Food Policy and Food Security Symposium Series
