LOCAL PROBLEMS IN A GLOBAL SYSTEM: THE APPROACH OF IIASA'S FOOD AND AGRICULTURE PROGRAM
98 F. Rabar elements of other countries only indirectly, and in ways that are heavily influenced by
2.4 A First Approach to the Selected Countries
What can be said about the selected countries at the outset? Table 1 already shows an imperfect tentative classification; it clearly separates developed and developing coun- tries. The developed countries have a dominant share in the international market. 53% of the world's population participates in only 8% of the world's agricultural imports. It is precisely those who d o not produce enough food who cannot import it either.
Table 1 makes another classification as well. Based on studies by the IFPRI and the World Bank it separates those developing countries with no serious balance-of-trade prob- lems from those that struggle with foreign-exchange problen~s. The first idea was to dis- tinguish, within the second group, between food exporters and importers. The exporters have t o follow the dominant demand structure of the developed countries while the
Local problems in a global system
102 F. Rabar
TABLE 1 Percentage shares of world totals of the 20 selected countries in the system (1976).
Country Population Production Land Imports Exports
USA
importers are exposed to the market changes and can respond only by reducing their import quantities; h b e v e r , it was soon discovered that there have been rapid recent shifts in the countries' positions (e.g, Mexico is turning out to be a net importer) and that being a net importer or exporter is not very meaningful if applied to those countries that have hunger and are in a marginal situation in the international market. For instance, India's position as a net food exporter does not mean food surpluses, and neither does it show
how far biological needs are met in the country. Again, it would be premature to say that I
the developed countries' market is almost closed and disconnected from the developing I nations and that the links between the two are so weak that they can be neglected in the
investigations. It can be shown that although quantitatively there is no heavy interdepend- ence between them the nature of their interdependence is such that it can be detrimental to the weak.
It can be seen from Figure 4 that if a powerful economy is connected with a weak one then (1) the different proportional weights of the trade linkages (in the rich country a specific trade relation plays only a minor role), (2) the nature of the exchanged goods (staple food, capital goods, and raw materials imported by the developing country and mainly luxury goods imported by the developed country), (3) the substitution possibilities within the advanced technology of the developed country (e.g. synthetic fiber for jute
Local problems in a global system 103
FIGURE 4 The interdependence between a powerful economy (the United States) and a weak economy (India) (from FAO, 1976).
and cotton, synthetic materials for rubber), and (4) the highly effective government pro- tection backed up by a large budget in the developed country all make a considerable difference in their positions, creating an interdependence which is harmful for the weak.
The problem is then to find a way to solve this undesirable interdependence.
We nlay look at the system in another way. Josling (1975) has classified the coun- tries according to their per capita kilocalorie consumption and production and we have prepared a map of the selected countries on this basis, also introducing some dynamics from 196 1 to 1975 (see Figure 5). Because of the differences in scale it seemed valuable to enlarge a part of Figure 5 as shown in Figure 6.
According to Figure 6 , the countries can be grouped into ( I ) those which move toward a clear exporter position, (2) those which increasingly import, (3) those which try to be self-sufficient or try to move upwards parallel to the self-sufficiency line, and (4) those which are trapped.
As illustrations of a country that is increasingly importing and one that is trapped we show the developments of Japan and India from 1961 to 1975 in Figures 7 and 8, respectively.
S
5000.
2
4000 Newc
'=
0 P 3000o requirement
Production (kcallcapita)
FIGURE 5 Per capita kilocalorie consumption versus per capita kilocalorie production for the 20 selected countries showing the shifts between 1961 and 1975.
4- m
.-
-
m0
.-
0500 1000 2000 3000 4000 Production (kcallcapita)
FIGURE 6 An enlargement o f part o f Figure 5.
Local problems in a global system
Production (kcallcapitalday)
FIGURE 7 Per capita food consumption versus per capita food production for Japan,
-
> 2200 -m
?
m -.-
+ P m:
2100--
m0
25 -
C
.
0-
66/67 Production (kcallcapitalday)
FIGURE 8 Per capita food consumption versus per capita food production for India, 1961-1975
106 F. Ra bar Some tentative statements can be made based on Figures 5-8. (1) There are only a few countries moving towards a clear importer position. (2) Poor developing countries cannot afford imports. Even some of the oil producers try to move along the self- sufficiency line. (3) Fast population growth leads countries into "traps", and they are vulnerable t o the effects of adverse weather changes to a degree largely forgotten in present-day developed countries. They have no policy choices: they must utilise everything in order to eat, no matter what the consequences are for the environment, equity, resource depletion, unemployment, etc. However trivial these statements might sound they bring us nearer to a better problem definition.
We have seen the relative position of the selected countries in the food field. We have mentioned that the interdependence between developed and developing countries can lead to disadvantages for the poorer countries but we have not yet dealt with govern- ment policies and their role in bringing the countries to their present positions. The food market is perhaps the most distorted market in the world. Both national and international supplies and demands are influenced by government policies (Swanson, 1975; Schmidt and Carter, 1978).
These government policies are so sophisticated and complex, and in some cases mutually contradictory, that their outcome is often unpredictable, even in the countries where they were conceived and applied. Even more unpredictable is their secondary effect on the international market and on other countries. As it is impossible to give an overview of the whole policy field, we will restrict ourselves here to one example: the policies of the United States, as summarized in the simplest possible way in Figure 9. Although this is an oversimplified tentative representation of a much more complex field, it gives an idea of the difficult consistency problems that can arise when a set of policy instruments is applied in a combined way.
As we said initially, government policies are certainly not the main causes of hunger in the developing areas. Yet, because small changes in the large countries can generate large changes in the small countries we can rightly suspect that policy changes can, some- times, make quite a difference in some countries (Littlechild et al., 1979).