U.S. Food: Making The Most Of A Global Resource

David W. Mcclintock

• Éditeur: CRC Press
• Année: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781000010527
• Édition: 1
• Sujet: Biological Sciences
• Sous-sujet: Biology

This volume focuses on the basic dilemma inherent in the formulation and implementation of agricultural policies in the United States: many of the best short-term options are the worst ones for the long run, and vice versa. The study begins with an overview of the world food problem, including both the negative and positive issues that give rise to

1
The Many Faces of the Global Food Problem

Many imponderable problems challenge the development of a comprehensive, forward-looking U.S. food policy. Yet the development of such a policy is not an impossible task if appropriate efforts are made to develop linkages between seemingly disparate issues. The following chapters explore critical climatic and population variables and suggest possible ways to rationalize the humanitarian, commercial, and political uses of U.S. food as a national asset and a global resource.

The Challenges to U.S. Food Policymakers

Many food policy dilemmas will confront U.S. decision-makers in the coming years. These dilemmas should lend further credence to the Club of Rome thesis that "The emerging world system requires a 'holistic' view to be taken of the future world development: everything seems to depend on everything else."¹ There is always a tendency, fueled by immediate needs, to seek short-term gains at the expense of long-range benefits. Grave consequences can result if a satisfactory short-range situation is mistaken for a long-range one. It appears that U.S. leadership faces a double challenge: to develop sufficiently far-reaching food and agricultural policies to maximize both national and international humanitarian interests, and to devise such policies in spite of inevitable pressures from domestic and foreign constituencies for less than satisfactory mini-solutions that would serve only their own interests.

Although the final quarter of the twentieth century has only just begun, one can safely predict that it will have global problems of a markedly different character from those of the post-World War II era. East-West competition for influence in the developing world, originally a manifestation of U.S.-Soviet rivalry in other spheres, soon may be overshadowed by North-South tensions between nations at various stages of economic development. Distinctions are now being made among the Third, Fourth, and even Fifth Worlds. From the U.S. viewpoint, this change in the global environment began about 1973, when Soviet grain purchases and the Arab-Israeli war provided highly visible evidence of the respective roles of food and energy in international economics and politics. The rudest shock came from the petroleum boycott by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and the resultant price increases. The boycott showed that the United States was more vulnerable than it had anticipated in terms of fuel imports; the grain sales showed that an exportable and frequently surplus domestic product—food—had become a new element in Soviet-U.S. relations as well as a more valuable item in the world marketplace.

A great deal of national concern, if not remedial action, has been focused on the energy problem, but comparatively little attention has been devoted to the question of what our role would be if there were a global food crisis resulting from unchecked population growth and inadequate food production. The varied and, at times, contradictory nature of recent private and government pronouncements on the subject suggests that food will be a more complex issue than energy by the end of the century. Some proponents of strategic food planning argue for more effective use of food as a "weapon" against the Soviets, uncooperative foreign oil exporters, and other international adversaries. Others in private and government circles decry the use of food as a weapon and, instead, point to the moral problems inherent in a situation where the United States may have a partial voice in determining who will eat and who will starve. The word "triage," describing the World War I concept of dividing battlefield casualties into three groups according to survival prospects, has been revived in some futurists' discussions of worst-case food scenarios.

The issue of future management of U.S. food becomes even more complicated when one considers the strong disagreements about the actual capacity of the U.S. agricultural system if simultaneously subjected, to domestic and global population pressures. There is also disagreement over the demographic predictions themselves. In addition, controversy has arisen over whether various predicted climatic changes—ranging from a new cooling or warming cycle to increased variability or perhaps another Midwestern drought—will have significant impact on the food situation and whether the U.S. position as a net food exporter will be strengthened or weakened as a result. Pessimists argue that climate, demography, and the predictable action (or inaction) of various national and international entities will lead to mass starvation. They point to the fact that U.S. agriculture is energy-intensive; they say that food and energy are not divisible issues but, rather, components of a macro-problem resulting from the increasing interdependence of all nations. The optimists foresee scientific breakthroughs extending the "green revolution,"* the cultivation of marginal and fallow lands, ocean harvesting, and the development of synthetic foods as solutions that will thwart the arrival of the ultimate crisis.

Innovative food policies for both the short- and long-term will be essential to preserve whatever advantages the United States derives from its remarkably productive agricultural system. Policymakers must face the additional challenges of reconciling conflicting farmer and consumer interests in the domestic political arena, of balancing humanitarian requirements with political strategy in the international sphere, and of dealing with new fiscal realities and a host of other issues. The distant future is as unpredictable as ever. And it is difficult to plan for the short-term in a substantive area where there is so much disagreement on both technical and ethical grounds.

Dimensions of the Problem

The alarmists' arguments are formidable. As food expert Lester Brown observes, the annual increase in global demand for cereals (resulting primarily from population growth) is currently in excess of 30 million tons per year. In 1900 the annual increase was only 4 million tons. Half a century later, the figure had increased only threefold to 12 million² Using the United Nations' "medium" projection of a world population of 6.5 billion by the end of this century, and assuming an average food consumption level approximating that currently prevailing in Western Europe (1,000 pounds of grain per person per year), world cereal production would have to reach almost 3 billion tons annually by the year 2000, which is 2.5 times the current output.³ World population expansion alone, without any rise in per capita food intake, would require an increased production of three-quarters of a billion tons by A.D. 2000. This represents 2.5 times the current total production of North America. At the (unrealistic) U.S. level of consumption (875 kilograms record; 700 kilograms currently), the global requirement would reach 4.6 to 5.7 billion tons. According to the International Food Policy Research Institute, the continuation of global grain production at levels recorded over the past fifteen years would find the developing countries with a deficit of about 100 million tons per year as early as 1985-86. If the lower annual rate of increase in production characteristic of the late 1960s and early 1970s prevails instead, their annual deficit could reach 200 million tons.⁴ As the situation in India and the highly publicized mid-1970s famine in the Sahel demonstrate, food problems can be endemic. Ironically in 1975 and 1976 India was faced with food supplies that exceeded handling capacity, falling agricultural prices, and a sharp increase in wastage.

Considering the position of the United States as an agricultural (as well as industrial and military) superpower, the implications of these predictions are more profound than policymakers, who must deal with the recurrent short-term problems of domestic production and overseas trade, might assume. Far-reaching decisions will have to be made with regard to production and pricing, storage, overseas marketing, and foreign aid. Policymakers will have to take into consideration the new and unfamiliar uses of food as a strategic commodity in an era of dwindling energy and raw material resources. Significantly, U.S. grain exports accounted for one-half or more of the world total in the period of 1973-75. The equivalent of 20 percent of all U.S. farm acreage is devoted to export production, which in turn occupies about 14 percent of the farm work force.⁵ Since 1968 the value of U.S. agricultural exports has risen markedly (271 percent; from $6.2 billion in 1968 to $23 billion in 1976).⁶ Notwithstanding these impressive figures and the obvious advantages that the United States derives from its land and technological resources, the national productive capacity is now the subject of controversy. It has been argued that even the term surplus is a relative concept not to be confused with nonmarketability. Tillage vastly increased in the early 1970s as a result of high market prices. In some instances it increased at the risk of creating new dust bowls if the climatic conditions of the 1930s return. Although there is a lot of fallow land in the United States, much of it is marginal in terms of the efficiencies of mechanization⁷ Some observers warn that the United States cannot expect the windfall in production increases that resulted from the earlier revolution in mechanization. Pessimists question whether present nutritional levels can be upheld, disregarding the demand for improved diets likely to result from increased per capita income. Increased agricultural production would be required from an acreage which in all probability will have shrunk as a result of urban and industrial expansion. Georg Borgstrom discusses some of the implications of reduced acreage:

By then the yields per acre will have to be increased considerably, demanding major investments and large-scale engineering projects for irrigation, fertilizer plants, and sewage disposal units of entirely new types. . . . [Faster growing cycles] will necessitate a much higher consumption of fertilizers (by some experts the U.S. requirements have been estimated as 17 times higher by the year 2000 than in 1969), and, above all, water. . . . Water tables in several key areas already have fallen below the level for economically acceptable pumping.⁸

On a more positive note, one should not underestimate the political and economic advantages that the scale and technological development of our agriculture affords our country. Indeed, doubts concerning the long-term productive capacity of the American farmer are difficult to comprehend considering renewed surpluses and weakened prices.

There has been a temptation to regard the American agricultural bounty in somewhat simplistic terms, particularly in terms of food as a political commodity. For example, it must be remembered that the recurring Soviet demand for U.S. grain results from a conscious political decision on their part to adhere to livestock development plans despite domestic grain shortfall. It does not come from an appraisal that direct human consumption of cereals will have to be reduced. Improving the quality of the Soviet diet has become an important political commitment of the Kremlin leadership, but they regard U.S. grain purchases as an option rather than as a necessity. The situation with regard to the petroleum-exporting nations, likewise, is not ideal for application of a U.S. food lever. Because of their enormous revenues and fairly modest food import needs (based on their small populations), most OPEC nations could obtain from the international marketplace any foodstuffs that the United States withheld. (The only truly populous OPEC nation is Indonesia, which has its own fairly respectable agricultural base. Nigeria is another possible exception.) Similarly, U.S. ability to feed its European (or other) allies in the event of a widespread military conflict is limited. It should be judged in terms of supplementary assistance rather than as the large-scale feeding operation sometimes hypothesized in war-games. At the production levels of the mid-1960s, one-half of all U.S. exports of fuel and feed— the equivalent of 40 million acres—would have been required to sustain England at its customary dietary level; Western Europe could not be sustained entirely by U.S. agriculture.⁹

The Aid Dilemma

The extent to which food may be used for humanitarian assistance is limited by the unfavorable ratio of need to availability and by cost realities. Distinctions must be drawn between famine relief in low-population areas, such as the Sahel, and famine relief in heavily populated areas of periodic need, such as India. Food aid programs only occasionally represent a single policy objective somewhere between pure humanitarianism and pure pragmatism. Just as the Soviet deals of the early 1970s were motivated by both politics and economics, our aid to the Third World has been motivated by both altruism and enlightened political self-interest.

Food is produced as the result of conscious decisions about planting and other resource allocations, is perishable after it is produced, and involves complex costs in handling, storage, and transportation. These factors do not preclude its use either as a weapon or as a purely humanitarian resource. They underscore the fact that practically every national policy decision relating to food involves trade-offs and complex constituency pressures. U.S. policies toward food aid obviously will require periodic reassessment in the light of adverse shifts in global food balance and emergence of new, competing domestic budgetary priorities. New cost calculations will have to be weighed. The United States' instrumental role in structuring the global food balance must be assessed in terms of implied future responsibilities as well as current political advantages.

In a publication entitled The World Food Situation and Prospects to 1985, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) notes that the total value of U.S. food aid programs has remained fairly constant, around $1 billion per annum in the 1970s, but the volume of this aid has declined as both the volume and value of exports has risen. Indeed, the volume of commodities delivered under U.S. food aid programs by 1974 was the lowest since die mid-1950s, when shipments began under Public Law 480.¹⁰ In previous years the use of surplus food as a component of foreign aid helped reduce storage costs. This in effect made food a cheaper aid item than capital goods or services obtainable only at market prices.

Although the United States has been encouraging other nations to share the international burdens, the results have not been encouraging. Despite improvements in world agricultural production in the 1975-76 crop years, earlier poor harvests in Europe and shortfalls in the USSR limited the net global production increase to only 3 percent in 1976, an amount that was not comfortably ahead of the world population increase of 1.9 percent. The now-defunct Subcommittee on International Resources, Food, and Energy of the House International Relations Committee generated considerable pressure for larger U.S. aid commitments with its 1976 Right to Food Resolution. The resolution promoted self-help development among the world's poorest countries, especially those most seriously affected by hunger, and emphasized the plight of the rural poor. Significantly, it set a target of 1 percent of the U.S. gross national product (GNP) to be spent on all forms of U.S. food assistance, governmental and private.¹¹ Although the resolution passed in both the House and Senate in separate versions, the two chambers could not agree on a consolidated version before expiration of the session. In 1977, congressional attention shifted to a World Food Reserve Bill. Even though the "Right-to-Food" hearings evoked a favorable response, it is doubtful that U.S. grants and concessional sales of food will ever return to the levels witnessed when surpluses were a major domestic agricultural problem. And it is questionable whether, over the long-term, the United States will find it prudent or feasible to hold to fixed aid commitments (based on percentage of GNP) for a commodity that is becoming a critical factor in the international balance of payments.

The aid dilemma cannot be resolved solely by determining how much food will be exported through gifts or loans from the United States and other food-exporting nations. Other developmental problems must be resolved so that the deficit countries can increase their own agricultural production. Without this parallel effort, international aid will inevitably fall short of meeting even minimal actual needs. For example, despite the deficit situation prevailing in many developing countries, the influx of foreign food aid tends to hold down local agricultural prices. Foreign farmers, who also fear the effect of periodic gluts and surpluses on prices, thus are discouraged from expanding their production. This tendency may be further reinforced by local government policies that hold market prices at artificially low levels as an indirect subsidy to urban populations. Ironically (as argued in one study by Bridger and de Soissons), world food production cannot be increased by more than 3 to 4 percent per year for any sustained period without incurring the risk of unsalable surpluses, particularly in the surplus-exporting countries like the United States. This problem diminishes only when increased efficiency leads to sufficiently lower costs, reflected at the retail level. But this, in turn, can create a demand for higher quality food from an entirely new income sector; more often than not, other sectors' incomes will not rise sufficiently to absorb the costs of increased agricultural production at this 4 percent level.¹² If aid to the industrial sector is too ...

Table des matières

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Tables and Figures
• 1. The Many Faces of the Global Food Problem
• 2. The Climatic Variable
• 3. Population and Food
• 4. U.S. Food in an Interdependent World
• 5. Policy Priorities and Political Realities
• Notes
• Bibliography