Attaining food security in Central Asia—emerging issues and challenges for policy research

Developing long-term strategies for improving food security, alleviating poverty and encouraging sound use of natural resources is fundamental for sustained economic growth in Central Asia. However, the process of policy and institutional reforms has been complex and slow. This paper, based on several rounds of client consultation, attempts to synthesize emerging issues and challenges that confront food and agricultural sectors in Central Asia. It argues that developing institutions that will foster a policy dialogue on long-term issues related to food, agriculture and the environment within and among the Central Asian countries is fundamental to identify development strategies for the next 10 to 15 years. This will require setting priorities for future food, agriculture, and natural resource policy research and analysis that will help in generating and sharing information on the policy challenges and solutions useful for Central Asia in its quest to reduce malnutrition, eradicate poverty and protect the natural resource base.     

Poverty, food security, and nutrition in Central Asia: a case study of the Kyrgyz Republic

This paper attempts to provide insights into poverty, food insecurity, and malnutrition in Central Asia in the period following independence, and presents the available evidence from household-level data in the Kyrgyz Republic. It finds that although some improvement has been made in recent years, significant levels of poverty, food insecurity, and child malnutrition still exist. The paper argues that, in the short run, efforts should be made to protect vulnerable groups by investing in information generation and building capacity to design and implement food security and nutrition policies and programs. Increasing the speed of policy reforms and investment in productivity-enhancing agricultural research and rural infrastructure are fundamental for long-tern sustainable development in Central Asia.     

Prospects for food demand and supply in Central Asia

Central Asia has experienced massive economic and social shocks during the past decade following the dissolution of the former Soviet Union. Demand for cereals, particularly for staple cereals and meats, has fallen significantly even as production and productivity have plummeted. Although agricultural reforms were launched in 1991, the performance of the agricultural sector has been weak across the region. Prospects for food security in Central Asia appear mixed. Projections indicate that a growing and urbanizing population in Central Asia with rising incomes will increase demand for cereals by 32% between 1995 and 2020 to reach 24 million tons, and for meat by 47% to reach 2.9 million tons. Improvements in crop productivity will be essential to meet the increases in demand projected for the region. Cereal production is forecast to keep pace with demand such that Central Asia will be virtually self-sufficient in cereals. However, national food self-sufficiency or food security does not necessarily translate into household or individual food security. Moreover, self-sufficiency comes with a high price-tag of opportunities foregone and inappropriate use made of resources. Given the growing enthusiasm for food self-sufficiency in Central Asia, it is imperative that research be undertaken to assess the full costs and benefits of such a policy.     

Trends in feed, livestock production, and rangelands during the transition period in three Central Asian countries

After the breakup of the Soviet Union, the republics of Central Asia began to restructure their agricultural sectors to achieve food security and to adjust to the requirements of a market economy. Although they encountered many common challenges, their agricultural policies differed significantly. For this reason, it is important to see the results of these policies and to learn lessons from them. This paper discusses the role of and the challenges facing rangelands and livestock production systems in achieving food security among the pastoral communities of Central Asia. It analyzes the trends in livestock development during the economic transition in Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, and Uzbekistan, and derives policy directions for the sustainable use of rangelands and for the growth of the livestock sector in Central Asia.     

Agricultural policy reforms and food security in Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan

This paper provides an overview of agricultural policy reforms and their impact on food security in Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. Owing to increasing hostility in regional trade among the countries of Central Asia, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, like their neighbors, have chosen to follow a path of food self-sufficiency, which has biased their agricultural systems towards grain production. The paper finds that the land reforms in these two countries, which have dismantled the state farms, have resulted in reduced productivity of crops and declining food availability at the household level. It argues that reversing this trend will require increased investment in rural infrastructure and agricultural research to improve crop yields, and in the short-term, food security interventions to protect the poor and vulnerable.     

Agro-food trade competitiveness of Central European and Balkan countries

This paper investigates the level, composition, and differences in agro-food relative trade advantages/disadvantages for eight Central European and Balkan countries on the European Union (EU) markets and their implications for food policy. Higher and more stable relative trade advantages are found for bulk primary raw agricultural commodities and less for consumer-ready foods, implying competitiveness shortcomings in food processing and in international food marketing. Duration analysis shows that the EU enlargement has a negative impact on agro-food relative trade advantages for all eight analyzed countries. Estimations imply that the duration of agro-food relative trade advantages are the highest for Hungary and Poland, and for Bulgaria in differentiated products, indicating their agro-food trade potentials in the EU-15 markets.     

Food policy reforms for sustainable agricultural development in Uzbekistan, the Kyrgyz Republic, and Tajikistan

Given the present conditions of demographic growth and the complicated transition toward market economies in Central Asia, the problems of food security and designing policies to achieve it without compromising economic growth are at the forefront of policy agendas in these countries. This paper reviews food policy reforms in Uzbekistan, the Kyrgyz Republic, and Tajikistan in the context of sustainable agricultural development. Analyzing the trends in the agricultural sector during the transition period, it identifies the major impacts of policy reforms on food security and enumerates future challenges for improving food security in these countries. It finds that despite the progress made in reforming their economies toward market-oriented ones, the three countries continue to face food insecurity to varying degrees. It concludes that there is an urgent need to further expand and deepen the reform process by enabling functioning land, labor, and financial markets.     

剔除食品和能源的核心通货膨胀度量方法

文章以2000年1月至2015年5月月度同比CPI分类价格指数时间序列数据为基础建立协整关系和 共特征向量检验。实证分析表明我国CPI分类指数时间序列之间长期存在共同趋势,短期存 在共同周期。因此,在我国使用剔除食品和能源的核心通货膨胀测算方法是不合理的。本文 进一步提出我国中央银行在制定货币政策时,应同时关注官方公布的核心通货膨胀和通货膨 胀,以免使货币政策对食品和能源价格上涨反应不足或反应过度,以及提出我国核心通货膨 胀的测算还应关注CPI结构的建议。     

Sustainable food systems for healthy diets in Europe and Central Asia: Introduction to the special issue

This Special Issue highlights various good practices and food policy discussion in relation to the transformation of current food systems toward their social, environmental and economical sustainability. The papers describe policies, programmes and initiatives in developing and advanced economies of Europe and Central Asia that refer to the core elements of food systems, such as food supply, food environments, and consumers. The shared opinions, analyses, studies and approaches, experiences and insights contribute to a better understanding of regional specificities and support the efforts to guide the complex food systems’ transformation for their improved capacity to deliver healthy diets.     

Trade and dietary diversity in Eastern Europe and Central Asia

In public and academic debates, the linkages between agricultural markets and nutrition across the world are vividly discussed. This paper contributes to the ongoing debate by analyzing the relationship between greater openness to trade and dietary diversity. It focuses on the post-communist countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia where trade reforms triggered growth in trade flows and foreign direct investment, which in turn affected food systems in these countries. This shift provides a natural experiment for studying the effects of trade openness on agricultural markets and consumer behaviour. Reduction in trade barriers, for instance in the context of the accession to the WTO and the EU, and the gradual integration with world markets after 1991 had implications for diets through changes in production, prices and incomes. We utilize country-level panel data for 26 post-communist countries in the period 1996–2013 to assess the effects of trade costs, agricultural trade openness and incomes on dietary diversity measured by the Shannon entropy index. The results from fixed effects and instrumental variables estimation are consistent with previous findings that income growth affects dietary diversity positively. They also provide novel evidence that trade barriers reduce variety of products available in domestic markets, in particular fruits and vegetables.     

Willingness-to-pay for natural,organic, and conventional foods: The effects of information and meaningful labels

Vague food labels and distorted product claims have persisted in the “natural” food industry, while organic claims can be certified by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Using experimental methods and a sample of randomly selected subjects, we test food label and information treatment effects on subjects' willingness-to-pay (WTP) for organic, “natural,” and conventional foods. Random nth-price auctions are used to elicit WTP after subjects received one of five randomly assigned information treatments. We find large information effects, including asymmetric cross-market effects for natural and organic foods. Perhaps surprising is that organic premiums increase in response to subjects seeing the “natural” foods industry's perspective on its products. Demographics effects are also important. The results have practical implications for natural and organic food marketing and valuing products where there are vague claims about their attributes.     

How can policy processes remove barriers to sustainable food systems in Europe? Contributing to a policy framework for agri-food transitions

A new food policy coherent with the goal of achieving sustainable food systems implies changing visions and radically revising the understanding of the system on which agricultural and food-related policies act. This paper identifies and discusses policy processes that contribute to sustainable food systems in Europe. Based on a conceptual framework that links the policy cycle approach to transition theories, we (i) assess the evolution of policy cycles of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) to highlight how the food and nutrition concepts have evolved and been reframed throughout the five phases of the CAP, (ii) map and classify available policy instruments to assess potential synergies and gaps in view of their reorganization and (iii) indicate and discuss strategic tools for sustainable food policies. This contribution goes beyond the current literature highlighting the obstacles which hinder the transition to a policy regime that embodies the nexus among food and nutrition security, natural capital preservation and climatic and social justice, and proposing new avenues for food policy studies.     

Agricultural productivity and natural resource use in southern Africa

This paper examines the natural resource status of southern Africa and analyzes the critical linkages between the performance of southern African agriculture and natural resource use patterns. The implication of on-going natural resource use trends on poverty, food insecurity, and environmental degradation are also analyzed. The challenges that must be addressed including, how best to intensify agricultural production, the types of technologies to promote and the imperatives of production efficiency and intra-regional trade are examined. The paper concludes with some suggestions on how best to proceed in the future to be able to successfully address the challenges identified.     

Central American supermarkets’ private standards of quality and safety in procurement of fresh fruits and vegetables

In the context of near-absence of public food safety and quality standards, or the lack of effective implementation of them where they exist, and in order to increase product quality and consistency and differentiate their product from traditional produce retailers, leading supermarket chains in Central America are imposing private standards on their fresh produce suppliers. These are mainly for cosmetic quality, but emerging also are standards for fresh produce safety, in particular for leafy greens and some fruit. They are implementing the private standards at the same time they are cutting costs in order to compete with wetmarkets, via organizational change in the leading chains’ procurement systems (shifting away from use of spot markets and traditional wholesale systems toward centralized purchases and use of implicit contracts and specialized/dedicated wholesalers). They are coupling those changes with some actions to resolve idiosyncratic factor market failures facing farmers such as through provision of technical assistance. The implementation of these private standards of produce safety are good for consumers as they are among the few food safety practices by domestic food industry actors. But the tougher standards are a challenge for producers who need to make significant investments, implying the need for investment assistance and support services by governments. The paper presents field study findings for Costa Rica, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua from 2002 to 2004.     

Investor reactions to food safety incidents: Evidence from the Chinese milk industry

Using a natural experiment in the Chinese milk industry as background, this paper investigates the reactions of individual and institutional investors to food safety incidents. By classifying firms as either honest or dishonest, we find that: First, honest firms significantly outperform dishonest ones and receive more investment flow. Second, individual investors react to incidents more negatively and intensely, especially toward dishonest firms, compared with institutional investors. This study offers important policy implications: First, our findings directly suggest that the government should enact appropriate policies to strengthen food safety and protect consumers’ health. Second, the government should implement efficient mechanisms to strengthen firms’ incentives to participate in social responsibility activities. Third, having institutional investors as corporate monitors is not a sufficient substitute for legal penalties.     

Organizational leadership in Central Asia and the Caucasus: Research considerations and directions

This paper reviews the organizational leadership literature in the post-Soviet countries of Central Asia and the Caucasus. More importantly, we issue a “Clarion Call” for leadership scholars to focus their attention on the region while also providing key considerations and directions for future leadership research in the region. To help encourage and guide future leadership research, the paper provides a comprehensive research framework that identifies factors that need to be incorporated in future research on leadership in the Central Asia and Caucasus countries. We conclude with a discussion of potential research challenges that can arise, as well as research opportunities that are available, as a result of the unique idiosyncrasies of the region known as Central Eurasia.     

中部崛起的突破口：提升科技创新能力

中部六省如何抓住21世纪头20年的战略机遇期实现中部崛起，在很大程度上取决于是否拥有自己的核心竞争力。因此，大力提升科技创新能力，尤其是自主创新能力，是实现中部崛起的突破口。文章分析了中部地区科技创新能力不强的原因，并在此基础上提出了提升中部地区科技创新能力的对策建议。     

The new competition for land: Food,energy, and climate change

The paper addresses the new competition for land arising from growing and changing demand for food when combined with increasing global demand for transport energy, under conditions of declining petro-chemical resources and the urgent need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The paper starts from the premise of a ‘food, energy and environment trilemma’ (Tilman et al., 2009), where all demands to expand the area of cultivated land present high risks of increasing the carbon footprint of agriculture. Having reviewed the main drivers of demand for food and for liquid transport fuels, the paper weighs the controversies surrounding biofuels arising from food-price spikes, the demand for land, and consequent direct and indirect land-use change. It suggests that we need a more complex, and geographically differentiated, analysis of the interactions between direct and indirect land-use change. The paper then reviews evidence of land availability, and suggests that in addition to technical availability in terms of soil, water, and climate, political, social, and technological factors have significantly shaped the competition for land in different global regions, particularly the three major biofuel producing ones of the USA, Brazil and Europe. This point is further developed by reviewing the different innovation pathways for biofuels in these three regions. The main conclusion of this review is firstly that any analysis requires an integrated approach to the food-energy-environment trilemma, and secondly that strategic political direction of innovation and sustainability regulation are required to bring about major shifts in agriculture leading to sustainable intensification of cultivation (Royal Society, 2009), rather than the continued expansion of cultivated area. The consequent perspective is one of considerable global variety in technologies, agricultural productive systems, and use of natural resources. This contrasts sharply with the world of a dominant global and integrated technology platform based on petro-chemicals to which we have become accustomed.     

中原城市群软实力的对策研究

中原城市群地区对承东启西、拉动中部崛起具有重要作用。论文在有关城市软实力研究现状基础上,分析了城市软实力的含义,提出了城市软实力的基本要素,并进一步提出了提升中原城市群软实力的策略在于增加以信任为核心的城市社会资本和大力发展中原城市的文化产业。     

环境规制对FDI区位选择的影响研究——以江苏为例

本文对江苏13市构建面板数据模型,研究环境规制对FDI区位决定的影响,分别对苏南、苏中、苏北及全省进行回归分析,结论是环境规制对全省FDI的发展有负效应,苏北地区FDI受环境规制的负面影响程度最大,苏中FDI不受环境规制影响,苏南地区受环境规制影响程度相对较小,从而为政府进一步做好招商引资提供政策建议.