Trading Out of the Global Food Crisis? The World Trade Organization and the Geopolitics of Food Security

The geopolitics of the Global Food Crisis and international trade has received limited scholarly attention, a significant omission given the major roles of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in structuring world food production and trade flows and as a principal inter-state governing mechanism of the global agro-food system. Analysing recent international policy actions framing the WTO as a ‘fix’ to the Global Food Crisis, this article points to the value of a critical geopolitics of agro-power sensitive to the spatial reconfiguration of production and power in the global agro-food system, problematising geospatial categories such as ‘North’ and ‘South’, and that takes seriously contests for control of geopolitical agents such as the WTO.     

Analyzing the Influence of TBT on Chinese Agricultural and Food Exports

Technical Barriers to Trade （TBT） have become an important obstacle to the export of Chinese agricultural products. This paper illustrates the characteristics of TBT and measures their influence on the export of Chinese agricultural products and food. In conclusion, some countermeasures are discussed for China responding to TBT.     

Joint Production of Food and Wildlife: Uniform Measures or Nature Oases?

Intensive agriculture is often bad for wildlife. Does this imply that a goal to boost wildlife on agricultural land is best met through a general reduction in intensity? We argue that such an approach may not be optimal, since cost functions for provision of wildlife on agricultural land may be non-convex, due to fixed costs associated with such provision. This implies that, even when farms are identical, it may be preferable to split them into groups of high providers and low providers. We test our hypothesis in a study of the optimal management of mown grasslands in southern Sweden, where the two products are silage and successful reproduction of ground-nesting birds, and the variable controlled by the farmer is the date of the first mowing. We show that the optimal solution is likely to involve some farmers maintaining profit-maximizing practices while other—identical—farmers delay their first mowing significantly. The superiority of such split solutions may have major implications for agricultural policy.     

The Impact of Climate Change on China＇s Grain Market and Food Security-- A CGE Model Approach

This paper examines the impact of climate change on China＇s grain production and food security. The research is one of the four studies on future conditions of China＇s food production system under the influence of climate change using numerical simulation methods, carried out under a national 973 project entitled ＂impacts of climate change on food systems in China and its adaptation＂. The other three studies focus on changes in cultivated land area and food production, while this study incorporates their grain yield results into a general equilibrium model to simulate future conditions of the grain market. Our simulation analysis arrives at the impact of climate change by comparing such economic variables as grain production, consumption, and GDP growth rate between a baseline scenario and two climate change scenarios. Our results are summarized as follows： （1） In 2050, the total grain production will reach 689.683 million tons--584.264 million tons of total grain consumption and 42.808 million tons of exports. Without considering losses and inventory demand, in 2050 China＇s grain supply and demand will remain well balanced, with a slight surplus expected. （2） Climate change is expected to benefit China＇s macro economy and individual sectors. In comparison with the baseline scenario of no climate change, real wage, real GDP, investment, household consumption, exports, and other macroeconomic indicators will rise under the climate change scenarios. As far as the agricultural, manufacturing, and service sectors are concerned, production, consumption, imports, and exports will each be favorably affected by climate change. （3） The favorable impact of climate change on China＇s macroeconomy and individual sectors under the high emissions scenario （A2） is stronger than that under the low emissions scenario （B2）. （4） In the grain market, climate change is expected to increase supply, reduce imports, increase supply, and demand; and supply will increase more than demand does. All in     

Feeding (On) Geopolitical Anxieties: Asian Appetites,News Media Framing and the 2007–2008 Food Crisis

This paper analyses the role of news media in (re)producing geopolitical narratives of food insecurity in relation to the 2007–2008 global food price spike. News content and textual analysis suggests that the media’s representation of the food price spike is partly framed by Western geopolitical anxieties of the ‘threatening rise of Asia’, and features ‘fast growing’ Asian appetites among the main culprits of the crisis. Seeking to explain the widespread circulation of such representation, this paper analyses media-source relationship within the context of market-driven journalism, and suggests that the changing role of news media has in turn contributed to a rapid and uncritical circulation of elite-based interpretation of, and neoliberal geopolitical approach to, food security. The paper points at the importance of critical enquiries into geopolitical representations of food insecurity and of opening media space for a ‘counter-geopolitics of food security’.