Agriculture and Food

The article, Restore the food market, argues that the food crisis, i.e. food shortages and food price hikes, is a phenomena of nationally closed and protected markets.

There is a growing notion that rich countries should slash imports from poor countries whose antiquated factories are heavy carbon emitters: this eco-protectionism is in fact good old-fashioned protectionism and would hit the poor hardest.

Rising food prices have caused street protests from Mexico to India to Senegal. But this could be a blessing in disguise if it makes governments eliminate the trade barriers that push prices higher: the poorest countries will benefit most from dropping their own tariffs.

Chronic hunger affects some 850 million people in the world, while hunger and poverty combined claim around 25,000 lives every day. To remind us of this unacceptable tragedy, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FOA) celebrated its annual World Food Day with the slogan "The right to food." But the FAO should have paid more attention to rights that matter most for "landless farmers, urban slum dwellers and the extremely poor" - the right to own and exchange property and the right to trade freely, both locally and internationally.

Scary headlines recently announced that a study claims that a pesticide causes prostate cancer and birth defects. Predictably, the study on banana plantations in the Caribbean islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe was seized on by the environmentalists, in vindication of their beliefs about the dangers of agricultural chemicals.