Integrating climate change,food prices and population health

The inter-related nature of food, health and climate change requires a better understanding of the linkages and a greater alignment of policy across these issues to be able to adequately meet the pressing social and health challenges arising from climate change. Food price is one way through which climate change may affect health. The aim of this study of the global and Australian food systems is to provide a whole-of-system analysis of food price vulnerabilities, highlighting the key pressure points across the food system through which climate change could potentially have the greatest impact on consumer food prices and the implications for population health. We outline areas where there are particular vulnerabilities for food systems and food prices arising from climate change, particularly global commodity prices; agricultural productivity; short term supply shocks; and less direct factors such as input costs and government policies. We use Australia as a high-income country case study to consider these issues in more detail. The complex and dynamic nature of pricing mechanisms makes it difficult to predict precisely how prices will be impacted. Should prices rise disproportionately among healthy foodstuffs compared to less healthy foods there may be adverse health outcomes if less expensive and less healthy foods are substituted. Higher prices will also have equity implications with lower socio-economic groups most impacted given these households currently spend proportionately more of their weekly income on food. The ultimate objective of this research is to identify the pathways through the food system via which climate change may affect food prices and ultimately population health, thereby providing evidence for food policy which takes into account environmental and health considerations.     

Estimating impact of cassava research for development approach on productivity,uptake and food security in Malawi

Cassava in Malawi is the second most important staple food crop after maize. This paper assesses the impact of agricultural research for development approach in Malawi on cassava yields, per capita area planted to cassava and household calorie intake from cassava and maize. Given the growing interest over the past decade in agricultural research for development as an innovation systems approach for improving the delivery of research-derived benefits to smallholder farmers and having impact in Africa, this paper provides empirical evidence as to the effects of this framework. The paper concludes that Malawi’s cassava research for development has contributed to measurable gains in area planted to cassava, cassava yields and household caloric intake.     

Toward a food secure future: Ensuring food security for sustainable human development in Sub-Saharan Africa

Food security remains a top development priority and global concern. It is enshrined in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in Sustainable Development Goal two. Food security is also a core component of the human development and capability paradigm, since food access and entitlements are critical for reinforcing essential human capabilities. In introducing this special issue, this paper argues that agriculture is central to improving food security and reducing poverty in Africa. It suggests that realizing the potential of agriculture in Africa requires rapid increases in land productivity and increases in agricultural yields. A science-based approach that integrates gender and sustainability is critical to meet this goal, through the design and implementation of policies that improve the availability farm inputs and farm technology. The paper concludes by introducing the papers in this special issue.     

Food prices and food policy analysis in LDCs

Opinions have been polarized on the role of food prices in economic development. Structuralist analysis argues that food prices are irrelevant to long-term development, but neoclassical theorists believe that food prices may be a critical factor. This article attempts to reconcile these views, reports on the differential impacts of food prices in Indonesia and discusses the role of food prices in the policy process.     

On the importance of tightening feedback loops for sustainable development of food systems

In the process of searching for sustainable trajectories in the food system, this paper reviews and discusses the importance of tightening feedback loops between ecosystems, actors in the food production chain and consumers. Intensification, specialization, distancing, concentration and homogenization are trends identified as major constraints for tightened feedback loops. These trends can mask or make it possible to disregard feedback signals from unhealthy ecosystems and weaken communication in the food chain. We explore possibilities for improved feedback management on local to global scales and present examples where feedback loops have been tightened. Enhanced communication between the actors in the food system and consciousness of ecological feedback, through e.g., increased reliance on local resources, are possibilities for improvement. However, where distances between resource and resource user are too large, feedback has to be directed through institutions on an overarching level, e.g., policy measures or environmental and social labelling of products.     

Rising food prices and undernourishment: A cross-country inquiry

Households’ welfare in developing countries has been hit by dramatic food prices increases which occurred between 2005 and 2008. In this paper, we adopt a partial equilibrium approach to analyze the short-time effects of a staple food price increase on nutritional attainments, as a measure of welfare. The analysis consists of first approximating complete food-demand systems and then performing household level micro-simulations. Instead of focusing on a single country profile, we provide a more complete snapshot by comparing the evidence through a cross-country assessment made possible by the use of nationally representative household surveys. Comparability is assured by the adoption of the same methodological choices in the treatment of the micro data. We find that food price spikes not only reduce the mean consumption of dietary energy, but also worsen the distribution of food calories, further deteriorating the nutritional status of populations. We also discovered that access to agricultural land plays a significant role in ensuring adequate nutritional attainments in rural areas, and surprisingly, even in urban areas.     

Long-term crop productivity response and its interaction with cereal markets and energy prices

Crop yields are endogenous as long as economic agents adjust to permanent changes in expected prices. The literature, however, does not offer a definitive value of how much yield would change in response to sustained price changes. To fill the gap, we use available scientific findings and data to estimate yield elasticities that enable agricultural commodity and food policy analysis. Using a world market model with short- to long-run yield response, we show the impacts of sustained energy price shocks on global cereal supply and demand. The results highlight substantial differences in quantity and price effects depending on the yield elasticities. These results demonstrate the need to recognize yield response when assessing impacts of energy prices or biofuel production on food uses or, more generally, on food security in the face of income and population growth, evolving dietary patterns, climate change implications, or other long-run pressures.     

打造企业文化力 实现可持续发展

企业文化力是企业发展的助推器,是企业发展的原动力。淄博矿业集团许厂煤矿倾心打造文化力,全力铸造新品牌,创建了独具特色的“煤炭企业文化力开发与管理的许厂模式”,为企业的可持续发展提供了强劲的精神动力和智力支持。一、增强创新能力是打造企业文化力的高层次要求1.企业文化是一个企业的行为规范和共同的价值观念文化的力量非常强大,它能在最好的企业管理制度失灵的时候,发挥出特有的管理作用。因此,企业文化是企业的重要资源,是企业中物质文化和精神文化的总和。前者是显形文化,后者是隐形文化,但两者都是客观存在的,并在这种存在中…     

Local food prices and the purchasing power of SNAP benefits

While the nominal value of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits is fixed across states (except for Hawaii and Alaska), variation in food prices across the U.S. is dramatic. We provide new evidence describing geographic variation in the purchasing power of SNAP benefits, measured by the extent to which SNAP-recipient households are able to afford the Thrifty Food Plan (TFP), the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) food plan on which legislated SNAP benefit levels are based. For more than one-quarter of SNAP households, SNAP benefits are too low to cover the cost of the TFP at the primary stores where they report shopping. SNAP purchasing power increases somewhat as we assume households can travel farther to shop and increases much more with the assumed ability to identify and travel to the lowest-cost store in a given area. It is unlikely, however, that SNAP households are sufficiently informed and mobile to shop at the lowest-cost store in a large (e.g., 10 to 20-mile) geographic area. We demonstrate that aggregate dollar shortfalls for SNAP households who cannot afford the TFP could be completely eliminated by redistributing from households in low-cost areas to those in high-cost areas, e.g., by indexing SNAP benefits to local food prices.     

落实科学发展观促进煤炭工业可持续发展

煤炭是支撑中国经济发展的重要能源：1.煤炭是中国的主要能源，建国50多年来，煤炭工业为新中国经济的腾飞提供了2/3以上的一次能源，有效地支撑了国民经济的持续快速发展。虽然石油，天然气和水电等能源的生产和消费比重快速增长，但煤炭在中国能源中的主导地位没有发生根本性变化。     

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.     

坚持科学的发展观 促进煤炭工业可持续发展

以全国煤炭工业经济运行座谈会为契机．自觉用科学的发展观．分析和预测煤炭经济运行发展趋势．指导煤炭经济工作．不断推进煤炭工业的健康发展。     

Ramsey prices,average cost prices and price sustainability

We study the relationship between sustainable and average cost prices in the multiproduct case. It is shown that for the case where costs are separable only average cost prices can be sustainable even if demands are interdependent. As for the non-separable cost case the notion of average cost prices is axiomatically defined as an extension of the average cost concept of the single product case. We then use this extension to derive necessary as well as sufficient conditions for the extended average cost prices to be sustainable.     

ICT capital and labour productivity growth: A non-parametric analysis of 14 OECD countries

This paper uses a new set of country data for 14 countries, members of the OECD, and a non-parametric approach to provide new evidence on the impact of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) on labour productivity growth between 1995 and 2005. For the first time, in the present paper a bootstrap approach for the decomposition of labour productivity change, proposed by Kumar and Russell (2002), is employed. This approach permits to conduct statistical inference on the parameters of interest, and to analyse the effects of ICT technologies on capital accumulation. The results confirm the role of ICT as a general purpose technology that needs organisational and business process changes to fully exploit its growth opportunities. The paper also finds out, by applying a non-parametric test, that ICT technologies positively contribute to the generation of convergence clubs in the evolution of labour productivity. Finally, the empirical evidence offers some basic guidance for future policy intervention in supporting ICT capital investments.     

REDD policy impacts on the agri-food sector and food security

Recent research shows that the combined contributions of deforestation, forest degradation and peat land emissions account for about 15% of greenhouse gas emissions. The REDD policy which preserves forests and values standing forests, enables substantial emission reductions. Since agricultural production and area expansion is a primary driver of tropical deforestation, REDD policies might limit the expansion possibilities of agricultural land use and therefore influence competitiveness of the agricultural sector, agricultural prices, trade patterns, agricultural production and therefore food security in the world. This paper studies the impact of REDD policies on the agri-food sector and food security with a global CGE model called MAGNET using a scenario approach. It focuses on the restrictions on agricultural land expansion within the REDD policy package. Simulation results show that REDD policies start to affect the agri-food sector in some lower developed countries if more than 15% of potentially available agricultural areas are protected from deforestation. A stringent REDD policy that protects 90% of land reserves that could potentially be used for agriculture production results in a global real agricultural price increase of almost 7.6%, and a worldwide agricultural production decrease of 1.7%. Regional differences are large, with real agricultural price changes ranging from 4% in North America to about 24% in Sub-Saharan Africa and South-East Asia. Food access rapidly deteriorates for low-income population in these regions in the case of high forest protection levels. Compensatory payments are necessary from a food security point of view if the level of forest protection increases. Our results indicate that from a food security perspective REDD policy should stop short of trying to protect more than 40% of global carbon if the compensation mechanism is not effectively implemented within REDD.     

The economics and nutritional impacts of food assistance policies and programs

Recent evidence on malnutrition and poverty raise important questions on the role of food assistance policies and programs. In this review article, we examine evidence on the economic and nutritional impacts of international food assistance programs (FAPs) and policies. The returns on investments in FAPs are, on average, high but depend considerably on the targeting and cost structures as well as on food quality and role of complementary activities. We disaggregate findings into four classes of recipients. Returns to FAPs are highest for children under two. But, FAPs oriented towards early childhood interventions are less well funded than are interventions aimed at school-age children or at the broader, largely adult population even though available evidence indicates that these latter classes of interventions offer considerably lower average returns in economic, health, and nutrition terms. Nonetheless, FAP effectiveness in achieving any of several objectives varies with a range of key factors, including targeting, additionality, seasonality, timeliness, incentive effects, social acceptability and political economy considerations.     

Segmentation, advertising and prices

This paper explores the implications of market segmentation on firm competitiveness. In contrast to earlier work, here market segmentation is minimal in the sense that it is based on consumer attributes that are completely unrelated to tastes. We show that when the market is comprised by two consumer segments and when there is sufficient variation in the per-consumer costs firms need to incur to access the different consumer populations, then firms obtain positive profits in symmetric equilibrium. Otherwise, the equilibrium is characterized by zero profits. As a result, a minimal form of market segmentation combined with advertising cost asymmetries across consumer segments give firms an opportunity to generate positive rents in an otherwise Bertrand-like environment.     

落实科学发展观 发展先进生产力 促进煤炭工业健康发展

第六次全国煤炭工业科技大会于2005年11月14日～16日在京召开。这次全国煤炭科技大会，是在全行业深入学习、贯彻落实党的十六届五中全会、《国务院关于促进煤炭工业健康发展的若干意见》和全国煤炭工作会议精神的新形势下召开的。会议的主要内容是．回顾“十五”煤炭科技工作．交流煤炭科技工作经验，表彰煤炭科技工作先进集体和个人：分析形势，把握新时期煤炭工业发展方向；研究“十一五”期间煤炭科技发展方向和工作重，点；讨论修改《煤炭工业“十一五”科技发展规划》和《煤炭工业技术政装》，动员全行业进一步落实科学发展观．坚持自主创新，发展先进生产力，全面推进煤炭工业的调整转型，实现。经济增长方式的根本转变．促进煤炭工业的健康发展。中国煤炭工业协会会长范维唐出席会议并作主题报告。[编者按]     

Population,food and agricultural development: A medium-term view

Trends identified in 86 developing countries over the last 15–20 years indicate that the increase in food production was less than that in domestic demand for food in as many as 53, and 34 failed even to keep up with population growth. The author presents the likely perspective for the next 10 years. His analysis focuses on accelerating the increase in food production; an equitable and efficient distribution particularly among the poorer sections of the population; increasing employment in agriculture and related sectors; and increasing the share of developing countries in expanded trade in agriculture products.