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The COVID-19 pandemic poses unprecedented challenges for agriculture and food security, and governments must take action, writes Raghbendra Jha.
In 2016, even before the COVID-19 crisis, the Food and Agriculture Organization estimated that 815 million people or 10.7 percent of the population at that time were starving. The 2015 State of Food Insecurity Report revealed that there were 780 million undernourished people in 2014-16 in developing regions of the world alone.
The COVID-19 crisis will only exacerbate these crises. Currently, the world is concerned about disruption of supply chains for pharmaceuticals, personal protective equipment and the like. But with the large-scale displacement of rural labor in large parts of the world and countries that restrict food exports, the disruption in food supply will soon become apparent. In fact, the United Nations has warned of the risk of global famine.
The COVID-19 crisis will have multifaceted impacts on the world economy and society, but this article is limited to the core areas of food insecurity, public health, and environmental degradation.
Before discussing these issues, some issues should be put aside. First, the COVID-19 crisis has revealed that the world is globalized, at least in the sense that all peoples and countries are affected by the virus and all are committed to finding solutions.
Secondly, given the grim statistics of hunger, poverty and malnutrition, it is defeatist to argue that we must forgo economic growth and go through a phase of what has been called “slow globalization.” For decades, rising national incomes and global trade have lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty, hunger and disease.
Third, it is not entirely accurate to suggest that rapid economic growth is solely responsible for environmental degradation. In fact, recent literature has also argued that it is a certain pattern of private consumption rather than income growth per se that is the main determinant of environmental degradation, which is broadly defined to include various factors, including carbon emissions.
Therefore, the essential challenge is to keep economic growth rates high while reducing the growth rate of consumption at the margin. What is needed is a change of expenses.
Perhaps the most compelling reason is the anticipated rate and distribution of population growth in the world. The United Nations estimates that only nine countries are expected to account for more than half of population growth between 2017 and 2050.
This, together with the rapid pace of urbanization, implies that agricultural land in these countries is under threat of being occupied by urban expansion. Much of this land is highly fertile, as it occupies the basins of some important rivers.
Furthermore, the growth of agricultural productivity is not up to what is required to feed the growing world population. Along with these supply limitations, the development of urban centers creates additional pressures on other natural resources, in particular water.
As communities urbanize, the demand for food increases, along with a sharp increase in urban area.
As a consequence, there are serious concerns about the availability of adequate food. As is well known, there is a distinction between food security and agricultural production. The economics of food and access to it is complex, and the mere availability of food does not guarantee the achievement of food security. Thus, large parts of the world looked towards a neo-Malthusian future, even before the COVID-19 crisis.
Some studies have discussed the policy steps that need to be taken to ensure adequate food security for all by 2050. Two, the first on the supply side and the second on the demand side, are discussed below.
An obvious policy prescription is to increase the productivity of the land to improve crop yields. This requires a massive investment in agricultural research. What is needed is to increase the incentive to invest in agricultural research through specific subsidies. This is the first major change required in aggregate consumption.
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On the demand side, grain diversion to feed farm animals must be reduced, if not eliminated. This would require a tax on meat and other products, which is a market-based solution. The consumption of crops by farm animals is creating an externality, reducing access to food for millions of people that the market cannot value. A meat consumption tax would serve this purpose. The diversion of crops to the production of biomass, ethanol and other products should be restricted by taxing these products.
The proceeds from both taxes could be used to subsidize agricultural research and development to stimulate increased agricultural production for food and to increase public health spending. The COVID-19 pandemic poses unprecedented challenges to food security. Changes in spending with a judicious approach that can be financed without undue burden on government budgets could be part of the political response to this challenge.
