Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t8hqh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T00:44:12.962Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Shifting and sharing adjustment burdens: the role of the industrial food importing nations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

Robert L. Paarlberg
Get access

Extract

Too often world food problems are viewed as North-South problems, as matters to be resolved between rich and poor. In fact, most world food trade takes place entirely among the rich. The industrial nations of the European Community, Japan, and the USSR import more food today than all of the poor countries combined. These industrial food importing nations make a dubious contribution to the stability and security of the world food system. In different measure, they seek to shift adjustment burdens onto others, to enjoy something of a free ride. All have subsidized production for export in times of world surplus, and all have stepped ahead of poor countries to purchase high priced imports in times of scarcity. To these burden-shifting trade policies, the USSR in particular adds its own troublesome nonparticipation in most multilateral efforts at world food policy management. Prospects for improved burden sharing in the future are dim. Fortunately, the world food system still gains most of its stability and security from separate production decisions within nations, rather than from collective storage, trade, or aid decisions among nations.

Type
Section II Food Policies of Important Countries
Information
International Organization , Volume 32 , Issue 3: Special Issue: THE GLOBAL POLITICAL ECONOMY OF FOOD , Summer 1978 , pp. 655 - 677
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1978

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 See Malmgren, Harald B., International Economic Peacekeeping in Phase II (New York: Quadrangle Books, 1972), p. 145Google Scholar.

2 See Johnson, D. Gale, World Agriculture in Disarray (London: Macmillan Press, 1973), p. 12CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 US Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, “World Agricultural Situation,” WAS-10 (07 1976), p. 22Google Scholar.

4 de Vries, Egbert and Richter-Altschaffer, J. H., World Food Crisis and Agricultural Trade Problems (Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1974), p. 5Google Scholar.

5 The enlarged Community imports twice as much food as all of the non-member states of the Western European regfon combined. Western European nations outside of the EEC, such as Spain, Portugal, and Greece, are increasing their food imports more rapidly, but the EEC itself still dominates the import trade of the region.

6 See Britton, Denis K., “National Policies Within the CAP,” Food Policy, Vol. 1, No. 5 (11 1976): 405–12CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 Bulletin of the European Communities, Supplement 2/75, “Stocktaking of the Common Agricultural Policy” (Communication from the Commission to the Parliament and the Council, transmitted on 27 February 1975), p. 8.

8 See Kruer, G. R. and Bemston, B., “Cost of the Common Agricultural Policy to the European Economic Community,” Foreign Agricultural Trade of the United States (Washington: Department of Agriculture, 1969), pp. 7 and 12Google Scholar, and Bergmann, Dennis et al. , A Future for European Agriculture, Atlantic Paper 4 (Paris: Atlantic Institute, 1970), pp. 8–9, 62Google Scholar, as presented in Johnson, , World Agriculture in Disarray, pp. 45–51Google Scholar.

9 Malmgren, , International Economic Peacekeeping in Phase II, p. 123Google Scholar.

10 Feld, Werner J., “Trade Between the US and the European Community: Differing Expectations in a Changing Power Relationship,” Journal of International Affairs, Vol. 28, No. 1 (1974): 11–12Google Scholar.

11 DeVries, and Richter-Altschaffer, , World Food Crisis and Agricultural Trade Problems, p. 94Google Scholar.

12 For an elaboration of the notion of a “free rider,” see Olson, Mancur Jr, The Logic of Collective Action (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1965), pp. 22–36Google Scholar.

13 While the US failed to negotiate a reduction of barriers to agricultural trade in the Kennedy Round of the GATT negotiations, the US at least did persuade the EEC to enter into the 1967 Food Aid Convention, which pledged the EEC to contribute more than 20 percent to a 5 million ton food aid program for developing countries.

14 MacKerron, Gordon and Rush, Howard J., “Agriculture in the EEC: Taking Stock,” Food Policy, Vol. 1, No. 4 (08 1976): 294CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 See, for example, O'Hagan, J. P., “National Self-Sufficiency in Food,” Food Policy, Vol. 1, No. 5 (11 1976): 355–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 Director-General's proposed strategy for International Agricultural Adjustment, FAO Conference 18th Session. C75/18, August 1975, p. 15.

17 Thomasson, Larry F., “Self-Sufficiency Goal Raises Many Questions,” in US Department of Agriculture, Foreign Agricultural Service, Foreign Agriculture, Vol. XIII, No. 40 (10 6, 1975): 28Google Scholar.

18 US Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, “World Food Situation and Prospects to 1985,” Foreign Agricultural Economic Report No. 98 (12 1975), p. 24Google Scholar.

19 Average farm size has increased since World War II by only.2 acres, and 74 percent of the Japanese agricultural labor force now consists of women or of males over 60 years of age. Farm households survive, typically, by seeking more than half of their income from employment beyond agriculture. The Japanese government has recently emphasized the need to contain this situation by developing more farming operations by “full time male farmers.” See Japanese Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, ”The State of Japan's Agriculture: A Summary Report,” Tokyo, Japan, 1975, p. 19Google Scholar.

20 See “Farming,” Business Japan (October 1975): 17.

21 See Japanese Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, “Long Term Prospects of Production and Demand of Agricultural Products in Japan,” Tokyo, Japan, 08 1975Google Scholar. For an extended analysis of this important document see US Department of Agriculture, Foreign Agricultural Service, Foreign Agriculture, Vol. XIII, No. 40 (10 6, 1975)Google Scholar.

22 Trezise, Philip H., Rebuilding Grain Reserves (Washington: Brookings, 1976), p. 31Google Scholar.

23 Suzuki, Ichiro, “Need for Imports of Feed Cereals to Continue,” Business Japan (01 1977): 105Google Scholar.

24 Thomasson, , “Self-Sufficiency Goal Raises Many Questions,” p. 28Google Scholar.

25 United States Senate, Hearings before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, “Sales of Grain to the Soviet Union,” 10 8, 1974 (GPO: Washington, D.C.), p. 51Google Scholar.

26 Dirks, Harlan J., “Japan's Strategy to Stabilize Food Supplies,” US Department of State (Sixteenth Session Senior Seminar in Foreign Policy, 1973–1974), p. 13Google Scholar, and de Lattre, Anne, “Food Aid,” OECD Observer, No. 81 (05–06 1976): 14–16Google Scholar.

27 Nakamura, Takashi, “Fishing Continues Good Despite Restrictions,” Business Japan (03 1976: 63–64Google Scholar.

28 Brown, Lester R., By Bread Alone (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1974), p. 149Google Scholar.

29 Japan's distant water fishing activities are now coming under the restriction of national coastal fishing waters which extend out to 200 miles. Nearly half of Japan's distant water catch has been taken within 200 miles of other nation's shores, most conspicuously the US and the USSR.

30 Brown, Lester R., “The Politics and Responsibility of the North American Breadbasket,” Washington, D.C., WorldWatch Institute, Worldwatch Paper 2, 10 1975, p. 14Google Scholar.

31 As early as 1901, Lenin set forth the orthodox view of agrarian questions: “To attempt to save the peasantry would mean a useless hindrance to social development.” Volin, Cited in Lazar, A Century of Russian Agriculture (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970), p. 98CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32 US Department of Agriculture, “The World Food Situation and Prospects to 1985,” p. 14Google Scholar.

33 For a detailed review of the 1976–80 plan, see Schoonover, David M., “Soviet Agriculture in the 1976–80 Plan,” presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for Advancement of Slavic Studies, St. Louis, Missouri, 10 7, 1976Google Scholar.

34 US Department of Agriculture, “The World Food Situation and Prospects to 1985,” p. 30Google Scholar.

35 Politburo member Gennadi Voronov saw his career come to a premature close in 1973, for having championed the agricultural reform policies of Ivan Khudenko, who had actually demonstrated that decentralization could increase productivity. Khudenko himself was accused of embezzlement in a rigged trial and died in a prison hospital in 1974. See The Economist, January 15, 1977: 69.

36 Following the demise of Polyansky, the Peoples Republic of China taunted the Soviets with the observation that “During the 23 year period administered by Khrushchev and Brezhnev, a total of 8 ministers of agriculture have been dismissed from office—one scapegoat in less than every three years.” See Soviet World Outlook, Vol. 1, No. 4 (04 15, 1976): 7Google Scholar.

37 Bell, Richard E., “The New Soviet Five-Year Plan: Its Meaning and Implication for American Agriculture,” US Department of Agriculture, USDA 1372–76, 05 12, 1976Google Scholar.

38 See Schoonover, , “Soviet Agriculture in the 1976–80 Plan,” p. 11Google Scholar.

39 US Senate, Committee on Government Operations, Report of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, “Russian Grain Transactions” (GPO, Washington, D.C.), 07 29, 1974Google Scholar.

40 Trager, James, The Great Grain Robber) (New York: Ballantine Books, 1975), p. 130Google Scholar.

41 Comptroller General of the US, “Exporter's Profits on Sales of US Wheat to Russia” (GPO, Washington, D.C.), 02 12, 1974, p. 25Google Scholar.

42 US Department of Agriculture, “The World Food Situation and Prospects to 1985,” p. 42Google Scholar.

43 See Paarlberg, Robert L., “The Soviet Burden on the World Food System,” Food Policy, Vol. 1, No. 5 (11 1976): 392–404CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

44 It is widely assumed that the USSR holds large underground “war reserves” of grain which may not be drawn down in peacetime.

45 Trezise, , Rebuilding Grain Reserves, pp. 52–54Google Scholar.