The futures of genetically-modified foods: Global threat or panacea?

Genetically-modified foods represent a potential solution of the world food crises, but they are also feared as potential dangers for human health, environment and biodiversity. Considering the history of genetically-modified foods and their present situation, this study develops and validates three complex scenarios regarding the future evolution of genetically-modified foods. The plausibility of these scenarios is tested using five food experts, as well as two demographically-representative groups of French and U.K. respondents. The present situation and potential evolution of genetically-modified foodsis also analyzed using the Innovation Diffusion Theory, as well as a Value-based Perspective.     

Nutrients: Impacts and Determinants

Understanding the determinants of nutrient intake and the influenceof nutrition on performance is critical in designing policiesto alleviate hunger and malnutrition. A series of studies undertakenby the authors, which are synthesized here, analyzes the influenceof prices, income, and women's schooling on the nutrient intakeof those in developing countries and the effect of nutritionon health, productivity, wages, and fertility. These studiessuggest that the impact of food price increases may be strong,particularly among those with the lowest incomes, that the growthof income may be less likely to improve nutrient intake thanhas been suggested by others, and that women's schooling isimportant in improving nutrition. These studies also indicatethat nutrition exerts a positive influence on wages, productivity,and fertility. Our limited knowledge of the role and determinantsof nutrition is reflected in the finding of unduly strong effectsof seasonality on price-nutrition relations and the lack ofa direct association between nutrition and health.     

The world food crisis

With 2,400 million people on the wrong side of the ‘hunger gap’, of which at least 1,000 million suffer from overt hunger, public education is required into the nature of the world's food crisis. It is insufficient to grow more food in general; it has to be the right kind to satisfy nutritional needs. While animal protein consumption per capita in the satisfied world has increased from 36 to 44 grams per day, that in the developing world has declined from 11 to 8. This is partly because the 450 million people that comprise the well-fed world have to a large extent become parasitic on the hungry world.     

中国食物自给率及其影响因素分析:基于营养源视角

基于营养源视角,运用灰色关联方法考量中国食物自给率及其影响因素。结果发现：1961—2013年中国综合食物自给率整体呈下降趋势,2000-2005年呈现明显的倒“U”形变化。从其结构而言,产品间差异较大;就其影响因素而言,生产、消费、贸易环节各主要影响因素的影响效应各有差异。测算显示,根据目前的生产布局,到2020年除谷物、糖料、蔬菜作物的自给率上升外,大豆、油料、肉类自给率将持续下降。     

Traditional energy resources : Present state and future development

In the United Kingdom, in particular, the difficulty of reconciling short-term economic and commercial objectives with long-term technical and supply problems has been complicated by new elements: the nuclear energy programme, the discoveries of natural gas and the extension of off-shore oil exploration. The situation is further complicated when the energy problems of the third world are considered, for world consumption will reach astronomical proportions if it were to approach the current North American level. The most hopeful feature of the energy situation is that its seriousness is now being realised.     

How world uncertainties and global pandemics destabilized food,energy and stock markets? Fresh evidence from quantile on quantile regressions

In this study, we analyse the impact of world uncertainty, global pandemics, including the recent COVID-19, and geopolitical risk on global food, energy commodities, and stock markets from a global perspective. The study uses quantile on quantile regression (QQR) and a quantile causality test using quarterly data from 1996Q1 to 2020Q1. Overall, the study results indicate heterogeneity in the influence of the world uncertainty index, global pandemic index, and geopolitical risk on the global food, energy, and stock markets. However, our findings predominantly show a negative impact of world uncertainty, and global pandemic on global food, energy commodities, and stock markets with substantial variations across markets (food, energy, and stock) and quantiles within each market. For robustness, this study applied the geopolitical risk and found the similar impact on food, energy and stock markets. Additionally, the quantile causality test confirms unidirectional causality running from world uncertainty, global pandemic uncertainty, and geopolitical risk to world food, energy, and stock markets. Our findings give a clear guideline to policymakers and investors managing food, energy, and equity markets during uncertainty and pandemic periods.     

2012年全球经济金融形势研判及对策建议

在回顾2011年发展态势的基础上,文章对2012年全球经济金融形势进行了预测,认为2012年世界经济将延续低速增长局面,全球资本流向不确定性增强,全球主要金融市场将持续动荡,股票市场、大宗商品市场和外汇市场波动将加剧,国际银行业前景不容乐观。在此形势下。我国应灵活应对,积极防范各种风险,促进经济平稳较快增长。     

World food prices and monetary policy

How should monetary policy respond to large fluctuations in world food prices? We study this question in an open economy model in which imported food has a larger weight in domestic consumption than abroad and international risk sharing can be imperfect. A key novelty is that the real exchange rate and the terms of trade can move in opposite directions in response to world food price shocks. This exacerbates the policy trade-off between stabilizing output prices vis a vis the real exchange rate, to an extent that depends on risk sharing and the price elasticity of exports. We characterize implications for dynamics, optimal monetary policy, and the relative performance of practical monetary rules. While CPI targeting and expected CPI targeting can dominate PPI targeting if international risk sharing is perfect, even seemingly mild departures from the latter make PPI targeting a winner.     

Population growth and food supply in sub-Saharan Africa

It is argued in this article that sub-Saharan Africa, given its present institutions and endowments of capital and technology, is already dangerously close to overpopulation. The rapid growth of its population projected for the next decades will greatly increase human misery and depress economic development. Specifically, rapid population growth will have disastrous effects on the region's ability to increase exports and provide people with food. There must be a search for new ways in which these effects could be mitigated. In sub-Saharan Africa fertility either continues to be very high or is increasing, in part due to some decline in traditional practices that reduce fertility, such as prolonged breastfeeding. This situation and the expectation of declining mortality imply that African population growth may increase further. Currently, population in sub-Saharan Africa is about half that of India and a third of China. There are 2 main reasons why reduced fertility in the next few decades is unlikely in sub-Saharan Africa as a whole: Africa has low literacy, high infant and child mortality, and low urbanization; and average African fertility rates may even increase for the next 20 years or so. The question that arises is what are the implications of continuing and rapid population growth for the African food supply. The region's cereal production is largely restricted to 4 grains, i.e., millet, sorghum, maize, and rice. The volume of grain production is less, by weight, than 60% of the production of roots and tubers. There are 2 main differences between the output of these crops in sub-Saharan Africa and the rest of the world: yields/hectare are lower in Africa than in elsewhere; and yields have generally been decreasing or largely constant in Africa. The low productivity has several causes. Today, population pressure has brought diminishing returns to traditional agriculture in much of the Sahel and the savanna, in parts of East Africa, Southern Africa, and parts of the West African forest belt. There is also the absence of the Green Revolution, i.e., the use of new high yielding seeds and new technologies in agriculture that has led to marked increases in yields in most other parts of the world. A totally different and more productive agriculture might evolve if African governments were to fundamentally change their vision. Existing production technology could allow substantial increases in the yields of many crops if some basic changes were made in the policies affecting agriculture. A way to achieve such change would be to make farming profitable. The effect of population growth in diminishing returns to agriculture also lends urgency to the need for family planning. Generally, population policy in Africa badly needs strengthening.     

The future of food: countering globalisation and recolonisation of Indian agriculture

India, with a billion plus population, has put agriculture at the heart of its economy and food security at the centre of its agriculture policy. However, all the decisions and policies of a free and independent India which replaced colonial policies of land alienation, and concentration on ownership of land, super exploitation of the peasantry, the creation of famines are being undone through globalisation. These policies are bringing back “zamindari” and land monopolies of colonial times. The public distribution system (PDS) is being dismantled. Farmers are committing suicides, reports of starvation deaths have become common, foreboding a return of famines last experienced under British rule. Biodiversity is being rapidly eroded, and food, the very source of health and nutrition has become a major source of health hazards caused by toxic chemicals in factory farming and new genetically engineered foods and crops. This paper examines these developments in detail and proposes an agenda for creating an alternative future of food and highlights the current practices that are working towards this alternative.     

越南通货膨胀的成因与启示

该文深入剖析了越南通货膨胀的发展和成因,认为此次越南乃至整个世界范围内的通胀失控,既有一国内部的原因,也有全球经济环境的原因。首先全球范围内石油价格和粮食价格的上涨都对越南的通胀失控影响显著;其次越南本国的粮食价格飞涨、流动性过剩和宏观调控失误也是重要原因;最后文章认为应该警惕越南通货膨胀的对外输出作用、全球货币政策需协调配合,同时在此次全球性通货膨胀的背景下,我国应该密切关注通胀效应的国际传递,谨慎对待宏观调控。     

An interactive decision stratum for the multilevel world model

A world model being developed by the authors for the Club of Rome is described. It is based on an interaction between man—the decision maker or the policy analyst-and the computer. Such a symbiosis avoids the pitfalls of relying solely on the computer for policy analysis, which by necessity leads to a mechanistic view of the situation; it provides also means for a creative use of computer techniques for extending the logical capability of man in long-term planning and analysis while leaving the ultimate responsibility for prediction, planning and decision making in his hands. The model is multilevel and hierarchical, with the world represented not as an aggregate, but as a number of regions with countries grouped according to economic similarity.     

Toward the NGO-involved schooling: a study on teachers’ risk perceptions and teachings

This paper focuses on revealing the ambivalent situations in teachers’ risk perceptions and teachings. Three ambivalent situations are found. The first is that, although the teachers reported that collective-related risks are more important than personal-related risks, they are less active in gathering knowledge regarding collective-related risks. The second situation is that, although teachers try to supplement their teaching materials with more risk phenomena, this may just be in response to their occupational needs, rather than due to their moral reflexivity. The third ambivalent situation is that the competitive and individualized environment seems to limit the teachers’ risk teaching. Based on these findings and other research, the author states that NGO-involved schooling might be a significant strategy to face the challenge of world risks in the neoliberal world.     

Risk management of Chinese food companies; a management perspective

This study investigated the current situation of food risk management (FRM) in Chinese companies and the factors that influence the effectiveness of risk management measures. FRM is considered from the perspective of food company managers in 161 food companies surveyed in the Provinces of Henan and Hubei, Central China. Results suggest that the current FRM situation in China is poor, and the most important factor influencing the effectiveness of FRM measures is the financial resource allocated to FRM. Other affecting factors include the level of corporate social responsibility (CSR) engagement of the company and the company size (measured by the number of employees). The better the CSR, the better the FRM; the larger the company, the less effective the FRM measures are. The study provides some suggestions for policy-making and further research.     

Future for food education of children

Food plays an important role in the daily life and wellbeing of children. Childhood food experiences are important guides to eating behaviour in adults. Food is full of properties that we perceive with our senses of smell, touch, hearing, sight and taste. We live in individual sensory worlds, and our food perception processes are also individual. Children actively investigate food during eating and cooking. By encouraging their excursion into the world of food culture and food activities, we support them in expanding their food preferences. This paper is based on the “Future for food education” workshop in the Future for Food Conference and focuses on the knowledge applied to the sensory-based food education for children. Examples of food education practices from Finland and Denmark are presented. The learning café method was used for the workshop attendees to outline the food education possibilities. The key issues were discussed in groups and included such topics as: “Who should perform the food education activities?” and “Who will benefit in the future from food education?” The workshop presentations and discussions indicate that there is a need for the advancement and research of food education for children.     

Implications of domestic price insulation for global food price behavior

Rapid changes in global food prices in recent years are widely viewed as a serious threat to global development. While various sources of price instability in agriculture have been identified, little attention appears to have been given to the importance of changes in trade policies that insulate domestic prices from world markets as a source of volatility in world prices. A contribution of this paper is to show that these interventions are dynamically more complex than simple proportional insulation. Insulation against an initial price increase in world prices increases the magnitude of that increase, while subsequent adjustments to the level of protection change the fundamental nature of price volatility. We find such policies are widespread and increase the volatility of world prices while not reducing the volatility of domestic prices because of the collective action problem involved in this form of policy intervention.     

8. Energy resources

The dual assumptions, that abundant supplies of energy are necessary for economic growth and that energy demand grows exponentially while resources are finite, imply that energy, in addition to population and food supplies, is crucial to neo-Malthusian arguments. In recognition of the central importance of energy, this chapter examines estimates of world energy reserves in the context of continued exponential growth in consumption. It is concerned with the question of whether there will be a world fuel “crisis” in the foreseeable future, and if so, what its nature is likely to be.     

粮食安全的本质内涵与研究框架

粮食安全是一个国家或地区可以持续、稳定、及时、足量和经济地获取所需粮食的状态或能力,它具有数量、质量、结构、均衡和价格等方面的内涵;应树立开放、动态、持续、系统以及获取粮食能力的粮食安全观;粮食安全研究应主要包括粮食安全概念与属性、粮食安全测度指标体系与预警系统、国家粮食安全态势、国家粮食安全战略等内容。     

Population policy,its scope and limits

Balancing population and food supplies is a problem as old as man, but the population problem today has three new facets. Supplies of food are spread unevenly over the globe without relation to population; medical science brings difficulties with its success in prolonging life and reducing infant mortality but also provides the means of controlling conception. Replacing the conventional picture of a dual world based on the level of development, the author presents here a four-celled matrix according to the ratio of resources to population. The envisaged population stabilising policies extend far beyond the field of family planning and may include radical changes in population mobility and food rationing in the next decade.     

西方世界城市理论的演变及其对北京的启示

世界城市理论在西方学术界经过几十年的发展和演变，产生了许多研究成果，从早期的根据全球性特征和跨国经济状况界定世界城市，到侧重于经济全球化背景下城市之间的联系，揭示城市之间的竞争和合作中世界城市的主导地位，以及分析世界城市发展中出现的共性和个性问题等，目前已经形成了丰富的世界城市理论。这些理论对于我国的大城市特别是北京的发展以及提升其国际竞争力具有一定的借鉴价值。