Open trade against food insecurity
While some claim that each nation limiting export will help solve food insecurity, I argue that open trading can increase the availability and access to food through international corporations and potentially ease the severity of food insecurity.
According to the United Nations Committee, food insecurity is defined as meaning that not all people, at all times, have physical, social, and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food that meets their food preferences and dietary needs for an active and healthy life. (“Australia : Leveraging Funding and Expertise for Food Security.” MENA Report, Albawaba (London) Ltd., Apr. 2016, p. n/a.) Currently, the world produces enough food to feed everyone on the planet, yet 16.6% of the world’s population is undernourished. Malnutrition is defined as a state of not being able to get enough food for at least one year.
(https://www.embracerelief.org/world-hunger-facts-world-food-shortage-2021/) Enough food is defined as a level of intake that is insufficient to meet dietary energy requirements. Unfortunately, the UN World Food Programme’s hunger map shows that 957 million people around the world do not have enough food regularly, accounting for 93 hungry countries total. In 2020, 155 million people faced severe food insecurity. And the situation could get worse. Food prices are increasing like a rocket, just like the prices that have sparked food crises and riots in many parts of the world over the past 20 years.
Indeed, countries can improve their food security by stabilizing domestic prices of staples essential in the diet of the poor. Export restrictions can reduce price volatility in domestic markets, protecting a domestic processing industry by restricting exports of the raw product used. Prohibit exports from stabilizing domestic prices, thereby preventing the risk of domestic production being exported to benefit from higher prices in neighboring countries. Because export restrictions significantly contribute to exacerbating adverse effects on food security when an unexpected, rapid increase of food staple prices occurs, and a food crisis develops.
Concededly, limiting export would have a temporary benefit for countries are in major food-exporting economies. Those countries can take other measures to ensure adequate food supplies, from limiting purchases to reducing taxes on food grains and tapping into domestic emergency stocks to prevent speculative price bubbles from forming. And using more targeted transfers — like food stamp programs — to address the needs of the most vulnerable populations.
Opening the food trade has a crucial role in raising production and incomes. (https://www.devex.com/news/opinion-open-trade-is-crucial-for-food-security-and-development-92709) Exchange enables production to be located in areas where resources are used most efficiently and are essential in getting surplus products to deficit areas. Trade raises overall incomes through the benefits to exporters and importers (through lower prices than would otherwise be paid), contributing to faster economic growth and rising per capita incomes. Significantly, opening food trade improves rural production, specifically small-scale farmers, which enhances the food supply.
As the population grows, opening up food trade can help increase food supplies to meet growing demand. It relieves the pressure on limited local natural resources. Countries with scarce arable land can obtain a wider variety of food at lower prices, while farmers in land-abundant countries can grow food for export, often at a higher price than the domestic market. It not only helps improve food security but also promotes a year of healthy seasonal product consumption, such as fruits and vegetables and non-traditional food items. Helping to diversify diets would also help alleviate food insecurity through increasing food stability.
Open trade would also help Africa, which records the highest proportion of undernourished people, sustain food security. The new market, created under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement, is estimated to have a population of 1.3 billion across Africa and a gross domestic product (GDP) of $3.4 trillion. According to the World Bank, this can lift 30 million Africans out of extreme poverty. Also, data shows that these deeper economic arrangements allow for multiplier effects of trade multipliers to be highly significant from a trade perspective. Factor movements allow for easy redistribution of merchandise (agricultural produce in this instance) from surplus to deficit regions. Consequently, there will be food security sustainability and improved economic welfare in the area and continent. (file:///Users/jzxu/Downloads/sustainability-12–01419.pdf) The Effects of AfCFTA on Food Security Sustainability: An Analysis of the Cereals Trade in the SADC Region
Increasingly, we, the global citizen, should realize that building global food security needs an open market because it not only help stabilize the food price but increase access to food.
