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PUBLICATIONS

Food security and agricultural development
in Asia in the context of globalization
Published by: International Fund for Agricultural Development,
National Agricultural Cooperative Federation,
and the Asia Pacific Policy Center, 2003.

At the beginning of the millennium, nations from all over the world banded together to declare, in no uncertain terms, their commitment to poverty eradication. During the Millennium Summit, poverty and poverty-related indicators were identified and quantitative targets were set. These comprise the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), foremost: of which is the goal to halve the proportion of poor people and those who suffer from extreme hunger by 2015 (from its base figure in 1990). The United Nations, which presided over the formal agreement, goes as far as periodically monitoring the compliance of nations to the targets agreed upon.

Poverty and hunger are the overriding concerns of less developed, developing, and developed countries alike, long before the drafting of the Millennium Development Goals in 2000. For in­stance, in 1995, governments committed themselves to establishing national definitions, indicators, and measurements of poverty during the World. Summit for Social Development.

Coinciding with these developments is the establishment of the World Trade Organization (WTO). The overall purpose of the WTO is to correct and prevent restrictions and distortions in world trade. During its inception, the expectation is that successful trade liberalization would boost world economy by US$ 2.5 trillion and lift 320 million people out of extreme poverty by 201.5. Note that the latter figure corresponds to about a quarter of the world's poor. This implies that trade liberalization alone would have achieved the MDG more than halfway. Almost a decade afterward, WTO and the concept of globalization itself are seriously being re-examined and even questioned if, in fact, they have delivered the supposed tremendous gains, especially to the poor.

In June 2002, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the National Agricultural Cooperatives Federation (NACF) of South Korea sponsored an international conference on "Food. Security and. Agricultural Development in Asia in the context of Globalization." The conference was organized by the Asia-Pacific Policy Center . Eight Asian countries were represented during the conference - South Korea , Cambodia , Laos , Bangladesh , India , Indonesia , Pakistan , and the Philippines . The participants came from government (executive arid legislative branches), non­government organizations, academic institutions, UN agencies, and other multilateral institutions.

Three major papers were presented during the conference. The keynote paper by Arsenio Balisacan reviewed the opportunities and risks brought about by globalization. Ramon Clarete offered to explain food insecurity in developing countries and cautioned against attributing this to globalization and trade liberalization. Suk-Won Yoon talked about the possibilities of agricultural cooperation in Asia and presented the idea of establishing the Asian Food Cooperation Organization (AFCO).

The current state of food security and agricultural development in the eight participating countries were presented by their respective agricultural experts. Luis P Lorenzo, Presidential Ad­ viser for Job Creation, talked about the Million Jobs Program in agriculture of the Philippine govern­ ment during his luncheon speech.

Globalization is the process of increasing integration of economies and societies through the flow of goods and services, technology, finance, and information. Over the past 150 years, the world has seen three waves of globalization. Each wave has been driven by advances in transport, commu­ nication and, more recently, information technology that reduced the effective distance between markets and induced developments in financial intermediation and international trade in goods, services, and ideas.

Meanwhile, trade liberalization, as embodied in the Uruguay Round WTO Agreement on Agriculture (AoA), aims to correct and prevent restrictions and distortions in world agricultural markets. It. also provided a framework of rules and specified a time frame within which to effect the commitments to reduce protection and trade-distorting support. In practice, however, certain provi­ sions like the tarifficacion of import barriers actually presented opportunities to increase protection in agriculture. Political realities made way for other gray areas as well, e.g., blue box measures, and the use of Aggregate Measure of Support (AMS) to quantify reductions of domestic support to agriculture.

Food security is defined as the access of the population, at stable market prices, to food supply on a year-round basis.

Balisacan and Atiqur Rahman reported that between the periods 1965-66 and 1999-2000, per capita food supply increased from 2,000 kcal per day to 2,600 kcal per day. Technological revolution, including the spread of the green revolution, and investment in irrigation are primarily responsible for these significant improvements.

Various countries also reported significant improvement in food production. India has made tremendous progress in agriculture during the last thirty years. It has achieved self-sufficiency in grains - it is the world's largest producer of pulses, second largest of wheat and rice, and fourth of coarse grains. Indonesia is also self-sufficient in rice and corn, except during times of adverse climatic condition. In Laos , there has been a significant increase in production beginning 1986 when they invested heavily in irrigation development.

There are two levels of food security - macro and household levels. And incidence of macro food security and household food insecurity can occur simultaneously. For instance, despite the laudable achievements in agriculture, about 520 million of the world's 800 million chronically hungry are in Asia . In particular, 44 percent of the world's poor and 40 percent of all food insecure people are found in South Asia . Moreover, in most countries in the region, the agricultural sector hosts most of the poor. Apparently, availability of food at the macro level is but one aspect of food security.