Fight Against Food Shortages and Surpluses, The : Perspectives of a Practitioner (eBook)

Perspectives of a Practitioner

Belgium) McClintock John (ACTION for Food Reserves (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2020
184 Seiten
CABI (Verlag)
978-1-78639-486-6 (ISBN)

Infos

This book presents a logical argument, rigorously formulated, for practical policy options to fight food shortages and surpluses. It navigates the reader through issues and ideologies surrounding hunger, presents and tests hypotheses with theory and evidence, and concludes with workable policies to address food crises.

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The price of food commodities - such as wheat, corn and rice - is unstable. It can suddenly shoot up, making food unaffordable for millions of people around the world, bringing hunger and famine. A shortage may be due to bad weather or to a human pandemic which disrupts the food system. The other side of the volatility coin is a grain surplus - too much grain on the market. A grain surplus can cause food prices to rapidly fall, wiping out the profits of farming families and jeopardising their livelihoods. The whole world would be better off if commodity prices were more stable. The challenge is for governments to manage food and farming so that there are neither food shortages nor food surpluses. This book explores how governments can do this and uses theory and evidence to address major ideologies and global problems anew by: - Exploring the causes, consequence and potential for moderation of food price volatility. - Evaluating the various policy tools that have been proposed to eliminate hunger and reduce volatility. - Concluding with a practical strategy to moderate volatility - grain buffer stocks. In so doing the book addresses a core question: how can prices be managed for the benefit of consumers and farmers without impairing the efficiency of the market? Authored by an agricultural economist with thirty years of practical experience in farm policy, this book will assist governments in the design of their food and agricultural policies. Requiring no prior knowledge of economics, it is essential reading for students, researchers and policy makers in the areas of economics, international and sustainable development, agriculture, and food security.

Autor

John McClintock is an agricultural economist (Reading and Oxford universities, Ecole Nationale Supérieure Agronomique, Montpellier). He has worked in a number of developing and European countries and for the European Commission. He is the founder of ACTION for Food Reserves, a non-governmental organisation in Brussels that seeks to promote stable grain prices and the use of buffer stocks.

Rezensionen

The author, a renowned agricultural economist with decades of experience in developing countries, with international agencies and in academia clearly documents why the techniques used by most governments to try to satisfy both farmers and consumers are inadequate. While this didactically written book should be read by agricultural economists, it is written in a style without too much esoteric jargon and thus should be clear to all stake holders in the food production/marketing/consumption chain. The book has all the requisite graphs that accompany an economic treatise for those who prefer data to text. Highly recommended.

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 21.10.2020
• Verlagsort: Oxford
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Naturwissenschaften ► Geowissenschaften
• Themenwelt: Technik ► Lebensmitteltechnologie
• Themenwelt: Wirtschaft ► Betriebswirtschaft / Management
• Themenwelt: Wirtschaft ► Volkswirtschaftslehre ► Makroökonomie
• Themenwelt: Weitere Fachgebiete ► Land- / Forstwirtschaft / Fischerei
• Schlagworte: Agricultural commodities • Agricultural Policy • Agriculture • commodity price stabilisation • farming • Food Policy • Food Prices • Food Price Volatility • food reserves • food security • food stocks • international agricultural trade • international commodity agreements • Price Determination • price theory • Regional Integration • Trade Policy • world hunger
• ISBN-10: 1-78639-486-3 / 1786394863
• ISBN-13: 978-1-78639-486-6 / 9781786394866