Global Food Chains, African Smallholders and World Bank Governance

This paper critically examines the World Bank's analysis of the development of agribusiness in Africa in the World Development Report 2008 in relationship to its governance policies, which seek to introduce institutional reforms to promote private and public sector linkages with the participation of civil society. The paper argues that this confuses food chain governance (control over quality and the logistics of production) with democratic governance and essentially promotes oligopolization of the food industry and the interests of the powerful in the name of smallholder farmers.     

Supermarket Expansion in Turkey: Shifting Relations of Food Provisioning

This paper examines the shifting relations of food provisioning in Turkey as small producers are increasingly integrated into commercialized agri‐food supply chains led by supermarkets. Turkey's entry into a customs union with the European Union and a World Bank–imposed policy measure adopted during the 2001 economic crisis have greatly facilitated the process of market intensification in Turkish agriculture. There are two sides to this process: one concerns the historical centrality of small‐scale production directed towards local–regional consumers; the other relates to the dominant role played by supermarkets in changing the conditions of subsistence. The restructuring of wholesale markets and the privatization of formerly state‐led agricultural co‐operatives and producers' unions have been crucial for the expansion of supermarkets into agri‐food relationships. The competitive growth of Islamically oriented small and medium‐sized capital groups alongside large retailers is further deepening the commodification process in food relationships.     

粮食供给侧:“按量补贴”与“按质补贴”

[目的]2017年中央一号文件强调,在推进农业供给侧改革中,农业由满足量的需求,向更加注重满足质的需求转变。那么,粮食供给如何实现这一转变,从强调粮食产量向注重粮食质量、兼顾粮食产量的方向转变?尽管粮食质量的衡量是一个多维度的复杂问题,但是质量终归会反映成价格。[方法]通过粮食供给需求的均衡分析,建构了粮食补偿数理模型,研究了按面积补偿向按量补偿、按量补偿向按质补偿转变的条件。[结果]在粮食供给侧改革中,在耕地面积等条件不变的条件下,要实现这一转变,就需要突出规模效应,通过规模化生产补贴和品牌化发展策略实现。在此理论分析基础上,通过美国、中国、日本、俄罗斯、印度的粮食生产的相关性分析,进一步佐证了上述观点。[结论]结合实践经验,提出以规模化生产补贴、区域品牌或农户品牌来实现粮食质量的提升。     

产销平衡区粮食安全评价及形势分析——以甘肃省为例

[目的]粮食安全是社会稳定、经济发展的基础和前提，评估粮食安全状况、分析粮食安全形势，可为科学选择新时期粮食安全战略路径、推进乡村振兴战略实施，促进经济持续发展、构建生态屏障提供决策依据。[方法]文章以粮食产销省份甘肃省为区域，选择粮食产消、粮食供需、口粮保障、粮食储备、粮食流通和粮食生产等6个指标，系统评价2010—2020年区域粮食安全状况；运用产销平衡区粮食安全预警模型，评估近10年甘肃省粮食储备、流通和供需等结构体系的安全性；采用GM (1, 1)模型和线性回归组合模型预测粮食生产趋势，评估近10年甘肃省粮食生产的稳定性。[结果]（1）甘肃省粮食自给率高，人均粮食生产占有量达到了FAO要求的安全水准以上，粮食储备充裕并逐步向合理的储备规模调整，省内外粮食购进和外销保持稳定的流通态势，粮食总供求个别年份出现短缺轻警，总体保持紧平衡态势。（2）2021—2030年甘肃省粮食产量趋势增加，变化范围在1 159万～1 335万t，粮食生产实际产量高于趋势产量，但粮食生产波动指数年际间变幅较大，粮食生产的稳定性欠佳，且主要的口粮作物小麦呈隐性减产态势。[结论]（1）政策支持、财政资金扶持...     

Agriculture on the edge: strategies to abate urban encroachment onto agricultural lands by promoting viable human-scale agriculture as an integral element of urbanization

In the Greater Vancouver region (Canada) tensions exist where urbanization encroaches onto agricultural land. A recently issued white paper proffered ideas to stimulate discussion on land-use plans and public policies to encourage and enhance agriculture while accommodating a doubling of the region's population. It evoked a visceral response from local and regional politicians, planners and agrologists who saw it as an heretical attempt to undermine land conservation. Proponents saw innovative strategies to ameliorate entrenched antipathy between competing perspectives. The core arguments and corresponding critique, outlined in this paper, bring to light elements of a broader debate about the vitality and sustainability of agriculture in British Columbia, as elsewhere, centring on issues of food security (supply) and food sovereignty (control) within two competing agricultural paradigms: human-scale agri-food systems and conventional industrial agri-business. Municipal enabled agriculture (MEA) is advanced as a catalyst for the full integration of the agri-food system within the planning, design, function, economy and community of cities and vice versa. MEA can make significant contributions to local and regional economies and has the potential to alter the way communities are designed to reduce unsustainability, planned to incorporate resilience, and organized so that they flourish socially and culturally.     

基于粮食安全视角的海洋农业发展价值分析

论文从粮食安全的视角分析了我国陆上粮食生产面临的挑战,阐释了现代食物观,认为维护我国粮食安全需要节流开源发展海洋农业,构建现代食物观,通过多种途径维护食物安全;论文阐述了海洋农业的基础地位,指出了其在完善农业产业链条、维护粮食安全体系完整等方面的基础性价值,并提出了发展我国海洋农业的政策建议。     

Chemical fertilizer in transformations in world agriculture and the state system, 1870 to interwar period

The role of fertilizer in spreading commercial agriculture during the first food regime (ca 1870 to the First World War) is well established. What is less understood is the role of fertilizer in industry at this time. This paper details superphosphate fertilizer, part of a class of chemical fertilizers that emerged in the metropoles from the 1870s, and its role in the transformations in world agriculture as well as in industry. Superphosphate fertilizer was not just for the soil. The manufacture of superphosphates also provided a base for the growth of chemical industries. This growth was constitutive of industrial transformations in imperial states—the second industrial revolution—in which mass production units became integrated through a handful of chemicals. One of these chemicals is sulphuric acid, of which superphosphates require large amounts in their manufacture. As the main market for sulphuric acid through the interwar period, superphosphate manufacturing created synergies with other industries and thus made sulphuric acid cheaper. By connecting the manufacturing centres of fertilizer to the multiple farming regions undergoing accelerated commodity production, this study shows that the first food regime and the second industrial revolution were mutually constitutive moments to explain transformations in agriculture and the state system in the long 19th century.     

Conditioning trends shaping the agricultural and rural landscape in Africa

African countries continue to face deepening food crises that have been accentuated by the global food, energy, and financial crises. This situation is part of a long‐term structural problem: decades of under‐investments in agricultural sector and poor policies of support for smallholder farmers who form the bulk of the farming population. The inability of these farmers to achieve a supply response when commodity prices were high and market access was less of a problem suggests that there are multiple sets of binding constraints that continue to limit the potential of agricultural growth to reduce food security and poverty on the continent. This article reviews some of the historical trends that have hampered the performance of the agriculture sector. In addition, it reviews the impacts of more positive trends that could stimulate agricultural growth in Africa that could change the African agricultural landscape. The article however warns that there are more recent global developments and some continental challenges that could prevent or slow agricultural growth. These include the global financial crisis, public sector investments, inequities in global agricultural development policies, rush for agricultural lands by foreign investors, domestic commercial financing markets, climate change, and emerging carbon markets. The article argues that while opportunities for accelerated growth exists for African agriculture, new sets of policy instruments will be needed to support smallholder farmers to access new agricultural technologies, finance, reduce impacts of climate change, and adopt sustainable land use practices that can allow them to benefit from emerging global carbon markets.     

The future of Russia’s agriculture and food industry between global opportunities and technological restrictions

This paper reports on the result of a major foresight exercise commissioned by the Ministry of Agriculture of the Russian Federation on the prospective developments of the agriculture and food industry up to the year 2030. The exercise identified economic, technological, social and ecological trends that will greatly influence both supply and demand in the industry. The findings provide a decision base for policy-makers to improve the technology base and to ease the reliance on technology imports. The country’s agricultural producers have been struggling with the introduction of new technologies, and customers are showing conservative demand patterns. Previous research showed that technology transfer into Russian agricultural enterprises suffers from a low knowledge level especially in receiving organizations. The country’s own S&T system requires support both for technology development and technology transfer, especially for breeding of best-suited plants and animals for local circumstances. Furthermore, consumer behaviour could be influenced towards higher demand, for example, organic food or ethical husbandry.     

传统农业时代乡村粮食安全水平估测

传统农业时代中国单位面积的粮食产量长期在世界处于领先地位,农业技术水平的提高在很大程度上降低了饥荒风险,减缓了饥荒的发生。隋唐以前粮食生产能力处于持续上涨阶段,粮食生产能力完全能够应对可能发生的饥荒,而且还可以供养更多的人口。宋元明时期粮食生产能力依然高于秦汉时期的水平。入清以后由于人口增殖过快,人口压力剧增,粮食供应空前紧张。清代中国人均粮食占有量倒退到2000多年前春秋战国时代的水平上,饥荒的频繁发生已经呈现出不可避免的恶化趋势。因此提高粮食产量水平成为20世纪中国最为关键的问题,在耕地资源基本开发殆尽的情况下,唯有采取改进农业技术提高单位面积产量的办法最为可行。战争和自然灾害是导致粮食波动的根本性因素,局部地区因此而出现粮食短缺,饥荒的发生成为可能。农民是粮食生产的主体力量,同时也是最易遭受饥荒危害的社会群体。中国传统社会农民生活水平长期处于贫困化的状态,直至20世纪中叶依然没有发生根本性变化。     

Agronomic considerations for urban agriculture in southern cities

Urban and peri-urban agriculture (UA) provide a significant contribution to the total food requirements of cities, especially in southern cities of the developing world. Increasing food production in UA is therefore a necessity for increasing the food security of the urban poor. Urban environments are inherently different from rural environments and these differences in environmental conditions are expected to impact differently on crop growth. This review describes agronomic issues that are unique to UA and identifies possible interventions to address them. The constraints that can significantly differ include temperature, air quality, solar radiation and climate. The growth-limiting and growth-reducing factors that affect actual production in UA include water availability, nutrient supply, soil degradation, pests and soil pollution. The interventions addressing these constraints require action at both field level, and municipal or regional levels. The food security of the urban poor will therefore require coordinated efforts and cooperation between the farmers who produce food and the planners and policy makers who manage the supporting systems such as markets, inputs and land registration.     

The Struggle for Alternatives: NGOs' Responses to the World Development Report 2008

This paper analyzes the response by NGOs to the 2008 World Development Report (WDR08). It does so at two levels of analysis, which in turn reflect two possible ways of reading the WDR08. The first is to read the WDR08 as a document for policy guidance on 'agriculture for development'. In this respect the paper shows how NGOs expose and challenge the WDR08's optimism for the benign impact of unregulated agribusiness investment on poverty reduction, and put forward a convincing alternative. The second, and politically more fertile, way of reading the WDR08 is to make sense of its numerous internal contradictions. These contradictions are functional to the World Bank's hegemonic effort of establishing a common, and broader, agenda for rural development. Having highlighted the WDR08's incoherent messages on (i) rural labour markets and their role in poverty reduction and (ii) what constitutes the most promising driver of poverty reduction in agriculture (returns from wage labour vs from own account farming), the paper documents NGOs' failure to detect and politically exploit these contradictions.     

区块链技术在改善食品安全中的应用分析

近年来电子商务的迅猛发展,推动了食品物流行业的快速进步.传统食品行业供应链的全网数据难以获取,存在信息延迟、不对称、信息孤岛等问题,导致物流供应链上下游企业之间多方的协同交互不流畅,食品安全存在隐患.区块链作为一项新兴技术,近年来不断发展,已经逐渐渗入食品领域中,为食品安全及供应链出现的问题提供了思路和解决办法.本文简...     

Urban agriculture and land use in cities: An approach with the multi-functionality and sustainability concepts in the case of Antananarivo (Madagascar)

Urban planners are increasingly interested in agriculture around cities and have to decide whether to maintain or not areas of agricultural land use within and close to growing cities. There is therefore a need for researchers to design tools to guide public decision-making on land use. Various approaches, originating from different disciplines, may be adopted in this respect. We designed an interdisciplinary research program in order to test two related concepts: the “sustainability” and the “multi-functionality” of agriculture. We show that these concepts provide a useful framework for obtaining appropriate knowledge about urban agriculture, which urban planners could apply in real situations. In close collaboration with urban planners, we applied an interdisciplinary research methodology, based on common farm surveys and territorial approaches, to the Antananarivo area (Madagascar). The main functions analyzed were the food production and environmental roles of urban agriculture. Two aspects of sustainability were assessed: the farm sustainability and the territorial sustainability, with expert scores. This approach identified a wide diversity of farming systems that performed differently, depending on their intra- or suburban location. The food supply function appeared to be important not only for fresh produce but also for rice consumption. The function of protection against flooding is now important and this importance will increase with climate change. A diagnosis of sustainability was made and discussed with urban planners: several farming systems and zones were identified in which agriculture was considered important as a means of maintaining or developing the food supply, employment and incomes, and even landscape or environmental quality. We also identified other areas in which poor production conditions and/or the negative effects of urbanization on agriculture jeopardized its sustainability. This methodology appeared to be useful for determining the most appropriate role of urban agriculture in the land-use planning of this city. Our study raises new questions on the subject and should lead to more focused research programmes. We discuss several points of interest and the limitations and possible extension of this method.     

Putting the culture back into agriculture: civic engagement,community and the celebration of local food

This paper reports on the case study of a community-supported agriculture (CSA) farm in south-western Ontario, Canada. As an exemplar of urban agriculture, Fourfold Farm CSA operates from an alternative agriculture paradigm and is built upon the socio-ecological practices of civic engagement, community and the celebration of local food. Analysis of in-depth, key informant interviews with members of the CSA as well as the co-founders reveals the extent to which the farm is much more than a source of healthy, organic food. The paper outlines the ways the CSA operators and their members articulate a deeper endeavour to link urban food consumers with food producers through cultural activities. The discussion concludes with a call for more social research in agriculture as well as a broader effort to articulate the ways urban agriculture can contribute to putting the culture back into agriculture and creating sustainable systems of farming.     

The Food Crisis,Industrialized Farming and the Imperial Regime

This paper argues that the food crisis cannot solely be equated with abrupt food price increases or seen as merely market induced. The unprecedented price increases of the first half of 2008, and the extremely low prices that followed, are expressions of a far wider and far more persistent underlying crisis, which has been germinating for more than a decade. It is the complex outcome of several combined processes, including the industrialization of agriculture, the liberalization of food and agricultural markets and the rise of food empires. The interaction of these processes has created a global agrarian crisis that has provoked the multifaceted food crisis. Both these crises are being accelerated through their interactions with the wider economic and financial crisis.     

供应链视角下食品安全责任缺失风险的传导机制及规避策略

近年来,食品安全问题的集中爆发,与供应链中食品企业安全责任的缺失不无关联。基于供应链视角,在界定食品供应链与食品安全责任内涵的基础上,分析了食品供应链中食品安全责任缺失风险的传导机制,提出了相应的风险规避策略,期望为食品行业相关部门提供决策参考。     

Does indigenous and campesino traditional agriculture have anything to contribute to food sovereignty in Latin America? Evidence from Chile,Peru, Ecuador,Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico

The current challenge for world agriculture is to provide food for a growing population, within a context of environmental degradation and economic inequality. The challenge is how to produce accessible, healthy, diverse, nutritious, safe and abundant food in a way that is sustainable, allowing farmers to exert food sovereignty while at the same time addressing ecosystem conservation. The aim of this study is to explore the potential contribution of traditional agriculture to food sovereignty and also to understand the challenges that indigenous communities are facing today. Our case studies are from six Latin-American countries: Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico, where we carried out semi-structured, guided visits and field observations. Our results shed light on how traditional agricultural knowledge, techniques and practices can contribute to these issues, but also to the need of protecting and recovering the cultural and ecological heritage. There is a need to resolve public management issues, related to development investment, technological packages, cultural loss and gender. If these are not addressed, the potential contribution of ancient agricultural knowledge will fail to contribute to strengthen food sovereignty and maintain the local markets, which are also places for seed exchange, knowledge sharing and social networking.     

Food security and Canada's agricultural system challenged by COVID-19

The effect of COVID-19 on Canadian food security is examined from two different perspectives. COVID-19 creates a unique “income shock” that is expected to increase the prevalence of household food insecurity. This food insecurity can be measured by utilizing the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS). More fundamentally, COVID-19 heightens household concern about the capacity of the Canadian food system to ensure food availability. Despite surges in demand and supply chain disruptions, we currently do not observe broad, rapid appreciation in food prices. This suggests that there is an adequate supply of food for the near term. There is less certainty over intermediate and longer time periods because so many factors are in flux, particularly the rate of increases in sicknesses and deaths across the country and globally. Data on these health factors and elements of the food supply chain are needed to predict beyond a short time frame. In this regard, we discuss three ongoing considerations—ease of capital flows, international exchange, and maintaining transportation—that will help ensure food availability in the longer run.     

再论耕地总量动态平衡

研究目的:分析中国耕地保护政策和未来发展的极限状态,提出中国耕地保护新的思维框架,为国家制定相关政策提供参考.研究方法:反演思维法.研究结果:当中国人口达到16亿时,全国用于建设占用耕地的极限值大约在3.39×106ha～3.73×106ha左右.耕地总量到2020年将达到极限水平.到2030年人口高峰来临,尚有一定的耕地缺口.研究结论:变"耕地总量动态平衡"为"农用地总量动态平衡",变"粮食安全"为"食物安全",建立农用地总量动态平衡与食物安全监测与预警制度,从提高复种指数、增加草食养殖等途经保证食物安全.做到:总体控制,动态监测,提前预警,分区管理,统筹兼顾,逐步实施,整体发展.