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4
POLITICAL, ECONOMIC, AND INSTITUTIONAL OPPORTUNITIES
AND BARRIERS
The last segment of the workshop focused on what changes (in public policy and
regulatory institutions, markets and other economic institutions dominated by the private sector,
and social and cultural institutions) would be needed to raise the probabilities for ensuring that
food availabilities in 2050 respond to global food demands and the nutritional needs of more
than 9 billion people. The session began with discussions on environmental externalities and the
costs of natural resource degradation; political economy issues, priorities and political will; and
incentives and limitations to action by civil society and private sector. The last panel session
considered ways to confront trade-offs, remove national and international externalities, seek
multiple wins, and establish coalitions as well as partnerships to ensure sustainable food security
for all.
EXTERNALITIES: THE COSTS OF NATURAL RESOURCE DEGRADATION36
Jason Clay, World Wildlife Fund
Jason Clay began his presentation by stating that environmental externalities are those
impacts to the environment that are not included in a product’s price—the impacts are external to
pricing. They are, in effect, subsidies. In this case, however, they are not subsidies from
government but rather subsidies from nature. And, in value, the subsidies from nature probably
represent as much as ten times all the subsidies from governments combined.
Two considerations are important when thinking about environmental externalities. First,
on a finite planet with increasing population and consumption, we will be hard pressed to pass
off the costs of production and consumption to the planet. WWF’s Living Planet Report (2010)
suggests that we are already living at 1.5 planets—that is, that we are living beyond the ability of
the planet to replenish renewable resources, much less the nonrenewable ones. As we add more
people who consume on average even more than today, environmental externalities will pose
more significant threats to our ability to produce food, amongst other things. The particularly
worrisome issue is that technology gains (e.g., in the case of food genetics, equipment, BMPs,
etc.) are not able to keep pace with, and help mitigate, the current drawdown on our natural
resource base.
The second consideration is whether sustainability should be considered a luxury or a
necessity. In today’s markets, the question is how much more will consumers pay for sustainable
products than for unsustainable ones. Perhaps, given that we are currently consuming resources
on a finite planet faster than they can regenerate, unsustainable products should perhaps cost
more than sustainable ones.
36
The presentation is available at http://sites.nationalacademies.org/PGA/sustainability/foodsecurity/PGA_062564,
presentation by Jason Clay (May 4, 2011).
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From our experience dealing with subsidies in agriculture, we know that when producers
are subsidized, there is less incentive to be more efficient, and innovation comes only when
farmers are forced to survive and even thrive without external support. On a finite planet, the
cost of externalities will need to be factored into prices. Given shortages of arable land, water,
phosphate and potassium, we will probably see markets begin to address these issues. The
question is whether it will be fast enough to avert a food security crisis. Put another way, the
question is whether consumers should pay the real costs of production? As arable land, soil
fertility, and health and water scarcity are all increasing issues globally, we need to figure out
how the relative cost of food can possibly continue to decline. In the United States, we pay the
least, at just over 10 percent of household income.
Agriculture is currently the largest threat to the planet of any human activity. It is the
leading cause of habitat conversion and deforestation. The key crops on the agriculture frontier
are beef, soy and palm oil. Agriculture uses twice as much water as all other human uses
combined, and currently it takes about 1 liter of water to produce one calorie of food globally.
Some 12–15 major rivers run dry at least part of the year. Agriculture is the largest source of
pollution and not just in developing countries where agriculture is the primary economic activity
but also in the United States and UK. Agriculture uses more chemicals than any other human
activity. And, finally, as a result of agricultural practices over the past 150 years, we have lost an
estimated 50 percent of remaining top soil around the world.
Although the impacts of large-scale, commercial agriculture and small-scale less
intensive or more subsistence oriented agriculture are different, it is not clear which forms of
agriculture have the most impacts. It depends on the issues being compared and the
methodologies being used. What is clear moving forward, however, is that regardless of the
technologies in use or the scales of production, whatever per capita impacts are acceptable with 7
billion people will not be with 10 billion.
To put it another way, the issue going forward with regard to producing more with less is
how to think, not what to think. We need to focus more on the desired results and less on the
means to achieve them. Adopting a BMP (better management practice) approach will achieve
compliance, but it won’t stimulate innovation. If we want innovation, we should identify the
results we want and let producers and others find different ways to achieve them. This will
stimulate the development of a range of new BMPs, some of which will produce results that far
exceed those we think are now possible.
As the old adage goes, you manage what you measure. So what should we measure?
Taking into account the fact that producing anything has impacts, the issue moving forward will
be to define which are acceptable and which are not. We also need to shift our thinking from
maximizing any one variable to optimizing several of them. For example, total productivity is
perhaps less important than production per key inputs (e.g., water, soil, N, P, K, pesticides, etc.).
In terms of protein, we might measure grams of protein consumed as feed versus grams of
protein coming out as food.
Most environmental impacts of producing food are not included in the prices paid to
farmers and then passed on to buyers. Water is a good case in point. The following table shows
the amount of water it takes to grow raw materials used as ingredients to manufacture four
common products. The amount the farmer was paid was insufficient to pay a decent price for
water, much less all the other expenses farmers have in producing any of the crops.
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Table 4-1 Externalities, Products and Prices--The Case of Water
Raw Material Input Water to Produce Input Farm Gate Price
1 cotton T-shirt 4 oz. ginned 500-2,000 liters US$0.20 (Australia)
1 Liter of soda 6 T. sugar 175-250 liters US$0.006 (Brazil)
1 oz. slice of cheese 6 oz. milk 40 liters US$0.03 (USA)
1 double-quarter pounder 8 oz. hamburger 3,000-15,000 liters US$0.26 (USA)
SOURCE: Clay, J. W. 2009. The Political Economy of Water and Agriculture. pp. 29-37 in Water and Agriculture:
Implications for Development and Growth. Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies.
We cannot measure every environmental externality. We need to focus on those that are
the most critical. It would also be strategic to focus on those that already have markets. We
should use markets to incorporate those values into pricing. For example, we have carbon
markets, so ideally we could develop markets to pay farmers for their carbon along with other
products they produce. This carbon could include what is sequestered as well as what is avoided.
The unit would be in CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent) emissions. As water becomes more
scarce, water markets are beginning to develop. And as farmers are confronted with higher prices
for water, they use it more efficiently.
Farmers, too, are beginning to find that addressing environmental externalities can make
them more productive and more profitable. For example, farmers who maintain or improve soil
quality have to buy fewer soil amendments. Farmers in Brazil and Indonesia have found that
buying degraded land and rehabilitating it for soy and oil palm is more profitable than is clearing
forests or other natural habitat. In fact, in Brazilian farmers make more money growing soil than
growing soy, when one takes into account the increased value of land from increasing soil carbon
(Landers, 2007). In fact, for every 0.5 percent soil carbon they introduce into the soil, they
reduce their input use, on average, by about 10 percent. In another case, Central American coffee
producers have found that they can increase coffee production by up to 30 percent if they
maintain sufficient habitat to accommodate pollinators. We live on a finite planet. We have
limited resources, but both population and per capita consumption are increasing. We need to
protect the planet’s resources for future generations. There is no such thing as a free lunch.
Addressing environmental externalities will increase the price of food. However, eroding our
resource base will also increase the cost of producing food.
As the Oromo of Ethiopia say, “You can’t wake a person who’s pretending to sleep.” We
need to wake up to the fact that we live on a finite planet.
POLITICAL ECONOMY ISSUES, PRIORITIES AND POLITICAL WILL37
Robert Paarlberg, Wellesley College
How can we persuade government officials to take the actions needed to increase global
food security? If there were an easy answer to this question, it would have been done already.
37
The presentation is available at http://sites.nationalacademies.org/PGA/sustainability/foodsecurity/PGA_062564,
presentation by Robert Paarlberg (May 4, 2011).
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Robert Paarlberg focused his discussion on the policy actions in greatest need of change: the
public investment policies of national governments in Africa. He focused on Africa because this
is the only region where food security is certain to worsen in the years ahead under a business as
usual scenario. He also focused on public investment policies because policies in other areas--
including exchange rate policies, fiscal policies, market policies, tariff policies, and regulatory
policies--have improved significantly in Africa since the 1980s. Only public investment policies
are lagging behind.
Africa’s rural investment deficits become conspicuous to anyone travelling in the
countryside. African governments must spend more on rural roads, rural power, agricultural
R&D, agricultural extension, and small-scale agricultural irrigation. Weak public support for
these investments has been holding back the productivity of the smallholder sector in Africa,
perpetuating the poverty and hence the food insecurity of this large segment (on average 60
percent) of the population. Roughly 70 percent of all farmers in Africa live more than a 30
minute walk from the nearest all weather road, so most household transport still consists of
carrying things on foot (Calvo, 1998). These high transport costs make inputs like fertilizer too
expensive at the farm gate, and they reduce incentives to grow a surplus for the market. Also,
only 4 percent of farmland in Africa is irrigated, and almost nobody has access to electrical
power, powered machinery, veterinary services, or public extension agents. These deficits all
persist because governments in Africa continue to devote only about 5 percent of their public
budgets (on average) to agricultural development. The Government of India, in the early years
of the Green Revolution, devoted more than 20 percent of its public budget to agricultural
development. African leaders pledged in 2003 to increase their investment level to 10 percent,
but only a handful delivered on that pledge.
How can governments in Africa be persuaded to meet their own promise and double their
current investments in agricultural development? We can’t count on farmers in Africa to
demand this change in policy, because farmers in Africa have a weak political voice. Most are
women, not literate, not politically organized, not armed, and physically remote from each other
and from the capital city. We also cannot count on intergovernmental organizations--such as the
special agencies of the United Nations (like FAO)--to perform this task. FAO resolutions,
passed at “food summits” in Rome, are non-binding and unfunded. We also cannot count on
international NGOs to persuade African governments to redirect their spending. These NGOs
have little influence over African spending decisions; the rural services delivered by NGOs can
even give governments an excuse to do less, rather than more.
In the end, the job of encouraging national governments in Africa to make larger public
investments in the farming sector falls heavily on the bilateral and multilateral donor community.
Here, of course, a second problem arises. It is not just African governments that have under-
invested in agriculture over the past three decades; it is the donor community as well. Between
1980 and 2006, United States official development assistance to agriculture in Africa declined by
86 percent. This, at a time when food grain production was falling on a per capita basis in
Africa, with numbers of chronically malnourished people doubling. Between 1978 and 2006, the
share of World Bank lending that went for agricultural development also declined, from 30
percent down to just 8 percent. So instead of persuading African governments to spend more on
agriculture, the donor community spent most of the past three decades signaling that less
spending would be appropriate.
Have the international food price spikes of the past three years persuaded donors and
African governments to correct their under-investment tendencies at last? In response to the
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2008 price spike, the donors did pledge to do better. At a meeting in Italy in 2009, the G8
countries pledged to increase their agricultural assistance to at least $20 billion over the coming
three years, despite the financial crisis they were experiencing at the time. But then, even as
international food prices were again trending upward in 2010, this aid revival effort faltered.
Austerity policies reduced the willingness of donors in Europe to increase their assistance to
agriculture, and Congressional appropriators dragged their feet in the United States as well. The
Obama administration tried hard to meet its G8 pledge level of $1.2 billion a year for agriculture,
even requesting $1.8 billion in FY11 for what it was now calling a “Feed the Future” initiative.
But in the end, Congress appropriated only $913 million, and the FY12 appropriation will be
more difficult, with the House of Representatives now under control of Tea -Party influenced
Republicans. Other ominous signs included a 19 percent Congressional cut in appropriations for
the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), which funds rural infrastructure projects in
Africa, plus defeat of the Lugar-Casey 2009 Global Food Security Act, a bipartisan measure that
would have authorized a larger USAID effort in agricultural infrastructure, education, and R&D
in Africa. This worthy measure passed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee unanimously in
2009 but was blocked by a single senator, on budget grounds, and never came to a vote on the
Senate floor.
So, there are actually two categories of policy officials now failing to pass the “political
will” test: governments in Africa and decision makers in the donor community. Paarlberg stated
that this should not be framed as a money problem, because the alternative to investing more
today in African agriculture will not be cheap. It will be an endless demand in Africa for
expensive food aid.
INCENTIVES AND LIMITATIONS TO ACTION BY CIVIL SOCIETY38
Brian Greenberg, InterAction
Brian Greenberg began his presentation with an overview of the civil society sector and
the work of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as it relates to agricultural development
and food security. He noted that generalizations about “civil society” or the “NGO sector”
should be made cautiously. These broad terms encompass a wide range of organizations that play
diverse roles in international agricultural development and food security. International NGOs,
local civil society groups, community service organizations, cooperatives, and associations of
many types are grouped under this broad label. Operational models range from charitable,
mission-driven approaches to not-for-profit businesses and encompass both faith-based and
secular organizations. Civil society activities span policy analysis, programs, research and
advocacy, and reflect a wide range of political, social and economic objectives.
With an ability to mobilize about $6–9 billion annually for development and
humanitarian assistance, the civil society sector rightly considers itself a significant donor. NGO
investments in agricultural development remained relatively stable in recent decades, as major
donors greatly reduced their levels of official assistance. InterAction’s Food Security Aid Map
(http://foodsecurity.ngoaidmap.org) displays nearly 800 currently active NGO programs in food
security, a number representing a fraction of the global total. As observers have noted,
38
The presentation is available at http://sites.nationalacademies.org/PGA/sustainability/foodsecurity/PGA_062564,
presentation by Brian Greenberg (May 4, 2011).
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coordination and alignment of these investments has sometimes been a challenge for this
community.
The agricultural development and food security programs of NGOs reflect a spectrum of
motives and missions. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), human rights and a belief
in the importance of civil society’s “third way”--a critical counterbalance to the dominant power
of the private sector and governments--are unifying principles within this community.
Characteristic strengths and capabilities of NGOs include sustained community engagement, the
use of predominantly local staff, and a reliance on partnerships with other civil society
organizations, governments and the private sector. Productivity gains and market participation
that serve the interests of smallholders are important to the NGO agricultural development
community. A commitment to building the capacity of local counterparts is increasingly a
feature of international NGO (INGO) programs.
The realization that many indicators of food security have been moving in the wrong
direction in recent years has made an appreciation of the importance of food security programs
close to universal among NGOs. With nearly 1 billion people now chronically undernourished,
and with demand for additional production often contributing further to environmental
degradation, an attitude of humility about the record of development in addressing these
problems is widespread in the NGO community.
Aid effectiveness principles rooted in the Paris and Accra declarations are proving
important touchstones for the NGO community. Yet though “country ownership” has been
advanced by governments as centrally important, and though they have pledged to create more
enabling environments for civil society roles in development, actual measures to mobilize and
partner with civil society to achieve development objectives have been limited. Community
engagement and mutual accountability are areas of current NGO advocacy to make aid
effectiveness principles more a reality than a promise. To achieve the spirit of the Paris and
Accra declarations, the NGO Open Forum has created a set of accountability and transparency
principles for the sector with the goal of inducing greater alignment and collaboration with
governments. Another critical touchstone for the NGO community has been an appreciation of
the centrality of women to development outcomes. Gender-relational approaches to engaging and
empowering women, in which the attitudes and behaviors of men are understood as a root cause
of gender disparities, are increasingly influential.
Human capital, technical capacity, organizational development, and effective
partnerships are remaining challenges for the NGO community. Realizing that the magnitude of
development challenges requires an “all hands on deck” mobilization, ways to partner more
broadly and effectively are among the most urgent needs. Another important response to the
scale of rural poverty and hunger has been efforts to achieve closer alignment and greater
consistency in the approaches and objectives of civil society organizations, the private sector and
governments. The leverage or synergy that will be needed among all development organizations
to achieve the MDGs is proving a powerful inducement to expanded consultations and
coordination.
Another set of challenges is rooted in difficulties in addressing the root causes of poverty
and hunger. Many programs tackle one or a few dimensions of what are typically very complex
and interwoven problems. Lingering sectoral and disciplinary loyalties pose challenges in
tailoring program responses to the multi-causal sources of real world problems. Food price rises,
for example, are a product of complex contributing factors rooted in imperfect markets, rising
energy costs, tariff and trade rules, biofuel demand and commodity speculation. Most
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agricultural development programs do not address or lack the mandate to tackle this sort of
complex challenge. Another persistent and critical constraint has been weak public and political
understanding of foreign assistance and its links to diplomatic and security concerns. This lack of
understanding has in part been responsible for the fall in support for agricultural development in
recent decades.
In an environment of greatly reduced resources for development assistance, it remains to
be seen whether the trend of underinvestment in agriculture can be reversed by recently
escalating food prices and the rising number of hungry people. An emphasis in policy making
and government circles on short-term outcomes--despite the reality that rural development is a
long term process--poses a persistent challenge for programs in the field. Widespread market
failures in providing key inputs, information and labor resources, and in offering small scale
producers reasonable rewards for their output, continue to be all too typical of rural areas in
many countries. The persistent marginalization of women, and the restriction of rights, mobility,
safety and security of assets that they need to become effective economic agents, is perhaps the
greatest brake to rural development.
At the strategic or existential level, the greatest threat to sustained rural development is a
lack of appreciation for the critical importance of environmental health and stability in
agricultural production. The nature and magnitude of environmental constraints is not widely
understood or appreciated. Beliefs that destructive production systems can be compensated for
with ever-greater inputs of fertilizer, water and pesticides continue as mainstream in many
agricultural development circles. Strategies and techniques for securing greater production from
smallholders in the face of escalating environmental degradation and scarcity are urgently
needed.
From the standpoint of mission-drive civil society organizations trying to improve the
lives of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable populations, a more supportive and enabling
policy, legal and regulatory environment for their operations is among the highest priorities. Too
often, governments perceive NGOs as political threats because of the work they do, the
credibility they gain and the loyalty they secure within the communities where they work. Too
often, governments choose not to engage or choose to carefully marginalize civil society in
setting development strategy, building capacity on all sides, implementing programs and
monitoring the benefits delivered to those most in need.
NGOs will continue to work towards programs that appropriately integrate across sectors,
such as environment and gender, that have frequently been stove-piped. This will entail less
precedence and unchallenged priority for the disciplines that have traditionally dominated
agricultural development: economics and agronomy. As the cross-cutting and complex nature of
development challenges becomes better appreciated, approaches and insights from the social
sciences, ecology, gender, community engagement and local governance, etc., will need to be
more actively solicited and integrated into lasting development solutions.
INCENTIVES AND LIMITATIONS TO ACTION BY THE PRIVATE SECTOR39
Dennis Treacy, Smithfield Foods
39
The presentation is available at http://sites.nationalacademies.org/PGA/sustainability/foodsecurity/PGA_062564,
presentation by Dennis Treacy (May 4, 2011).
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Modern, large-scale animal agriculture is a crucial component of the sustainability
challenge. Smithfield Foods Inc.’s (Smithfield’s) experience in producing safe, nutritious and
affordable food in a responsible manner illustrates how key business priorities can stimulate
sustainable practices and environmental benefits.
Government and society have the potential to create both barriers and incentives to
sustainability. Misinformation in the current public discourse on food and agriculture is often
based on ideology, not sound science or fact. This influences public opinion and policy and
remains a threat to true sustainability. It is imperative that thought leaders such as the National
Academies--the nation's preeminent source of high-quality, objective advice on science,
engineering, and health matters--balance the dialogue and shape sound policies, inform public
opinion, and advance the pursuit of sustainable food production.
Dennis Treacy provided an overview of Smithfield’s experience in sustainable
intensification, with examples of existing barriers and limitations to sustainable food production,
as well as opportunities that may enhance sustainable practices.
Smithfield’s Programs
Over the years, Smithfield grew from a regional meat company to a global food supplier
with operations currently in twelve countries and sales to nearly forty. Today, Smithfield Foods
is the world’s largest producer and processor of pork, offering consumers more than 50 brands of
pork products as well as more than 200 gourmet foods.
During the past twenty years of rapid growth, Smithfield has been building
comprehensive sustainability programs step by step. The company began by focusing principally
on environmental compliance in order to address enforcement issues arising during the 1990s
(Smithfield Corporate Social Responsibility (“CSR”) Report, 2009/2010). It revamped internal
departments, creating new positions to oversee a new environmental approach and apply
consistent practices, policies, and procedures across the company. It developed an internal
environmental compliance review program to determine where gaps were occurring and how to
fix them (Smithfield CSR, 2009/10). The company implemented a structured, systematic
approach through a comprehensive environmental management system (EMS) based on the
International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 14001 program.40
Smithfield’s were the first hog farms in the United States to go through the ISO process.
Before long, the company became the world’s first livestock production company to receive
EMS certification under the rigorous standards established by ISO. Once the EMS program was
established for Smithfield’s hog operations, the company adopted it for domestic and
international processing facilities. Today, 578 farms and facilities, or more than 95 percent of
Smithfield’s operations worldwide, are ISO 14001 certified (Smithfield CSR, 2009/2010).
These efforts have resulted not only in great strides in environmental performance, but
also in making more food using fewer natural resources. For example, while the company has
grown into a global company, the company has also achieved over the past five years a 60
percent water efficiency improvement at first processing facilities (which produce whole cuts of
meat) on a normalized basis, a 22 percent reduction in electricity use at company farms, and a 4
percent absolute reduction in our direct and indirect greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Last year,
we estimated that these improvements and environmental improvements have reduced company
40
See Environmental Management System/ISO 14001. http://water.epa.gov/polwaste/wastewater/Environmental-
Management-System-ISO-14001-Frequently-Asked-Questions.cfm. Accessed on September 29, 2011.
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costs by $100 million over that time period (Smithfield CSR, 2009/2010). This estimate will
likely increase substantially in 2011.
While these changes first arose from the desire to achieve better compliance, these efforts
have continued, accelerated, and expanded in response to business priorities--our focus on high
margin/high volume products and improved capacity utilization, responding to customer
preferences, achieving cost reductions through more efficient operations, and improving
employee health and safety. Moreover, what began with an environmental focus has expanded to
each of the company’s five key sustainable performance areas: environment, animal welfare,
food safety and quality, communities and employees. The company has utilized its EMS model
and approach to each of these core areas and has experienced similar progress under each
(Smithfield CSR, 2009/2010).
Smithfield has continued to work on embedding sustainability concepts in its company
culture, emphasizing leadership, performance and accountability. In 2002, the company
produced its first Corporate Social Responsibility Report, detailing early improvements in the
environmental arena and, through stakeholder input, now uses the Global Reporting Initiative
(GRI) metrics as the basis for documenting the environmental, social and economic impacts of
its operations.41
Market Demand for Protein
The United Nations projects that world population will reach at least 9 billion people by
2050 and has called for an increase in world food production by 100 percent within the same
timeframe. Global demand for and consumption of animal protein, particularly in rapidly
developing countries such as Brazil and China, will continue to increase, although the levels
there are still below the levels of consumption in most other industrialized countries. The UN
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) suggests that global meat production and
consumption will rise from 233 million tonnes (2000) to 300 million tonnes (2020).
This demand is caused in part by the growth in the human population but also because of
urbanization and the increasing affluence of the emerging economies and the growth of the
middle class. The high-value protein that the livestock sector offers improved nutrition for these
new consumers and also provides an important source of a wide range of nutrients. For many
people in the world, particularly in developing countries, livestock products remain a desired
food for nutritional value and taste. If this demand is to be met, providers of animal protein,
including meat, dairy and fish, must focus on more intensive farming and yield, improvements in
natural resource management, and advances in technology.
Barriers and Limitations
Unbalanced reporting and outright misinformation in popular writing about modern, large
scale agriculture can encourage barriers and limitations to sustainable intensification. A casual
web search easily reveals numerous articles with negative headlines but little in terms of actual
research or factual support.
In contrast, a recent study published in the February 2011 edition of Foodborne
Pathogens and Disease details a remarkable success story about how modern swine production
has largely eradicated common pathogens endemic to swine, but it has garnered very little
41
See Global Reporting Initiative. http://www.globalreporting.org/Home. Accessed on October 3, 2011.
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attention on the web or in the press (Davies, 2011). There, Dr. Peter Davies, of the University of
Minnesota, published an exhaustive study focusing on claims oft-repeated in today’s press that
modern intensive hog farms has increased the risk of major foodborne pathogens common to the
to the pig species. His study determined just the opposite--that large-scale, modern production
has virtually eliminated those pathogens. In fact, Davies found that pigs raised in old, outdoor
systems “inherently confront higher risks of exposure to foodborne parasites.” Modern, intensive
swine production “represents a substantial health achievement,” Dr. Davies writes, “that has
gone largely unheralded.” Indeed, Dr. Davies observes that "[m]isinformation in public discourse
has achieved pandemic potential with the rise of blogging and other social networking tools" and
"are mostly ideological and heavily value laden." Unfortunately, such misinformation can
misdirect the efforts of policymakers and color the views of government officials.
Food productivity gains from intensive production are also threatened by poorly
conceived government policy. For example, in the United States, ethanol policies have driven
nearly 40 percent of the annual corn crop into ethanol production for fuel, directly and
substantially driving up feed costs for livestock and jeopardizing the economic viability of meat
producers (USDA, 2011). The federal Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit has been in place in
one form or another for more than three decades and now provides billions in support to a mature
industry (U.S. Congressional Budget Office, 2010). As consumption grows with the federal
Renewable Fuels Standard, so does the cost of the tax credit. Corn-based ethanol is the only
product that is supported three ways by the government: with a 45 cent per gallon tax subsidy, a
54 cent per gallon tariff on imported ethanol, and a mandate that forces the public to buy the fuel.
Although many in the food industry support development of alternative energy sources, it should
reject a flawed corn-based ethanol policy that results in higher food prices for the consumer and
limited net benefit on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (U.S. Congressional Budget Office,
2009).
Another example is a rulemaking being considered presently by the U.S. Department of
Agriculture’s Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration (GIPSA). In 2010,
GIPSA issued a proposed rule regarding the marketing of livestock and poultry. Of particular
concern are provisions that would cause use of marketing agreements between producers and
packers to be severely reduced or to disappear, and provisions that would prohibit packers who
own livestock from selling those animals to another packer--all of which actually aim to
discourage more efficient, intensive animal agriculture.
Incentives and Opportunities
On the other hand, government incentives aimed at reducing key impacts of food
production have the potential to encourage sustainable practices. Such incentives, if utilized on a
broad scale, would also encourage sustainability in animal agriculture. An example of a
successful incentive structure is found in the state of North Carolina. There, the state passed a
renewable portfolio standard (REPS) in 2007 requiring electricity providers to obtain a minimum
percentage of their power from renewable energy resources. Under this new law, investor-owned
utilities in North Carolina are required to meet up to 12.5 percent of their energy needs through
renewable energy resources or energy efficiency measures. A portion of their energy needs must
also come from swine and poultry wastes. These electric power suppliers generally may comply
with the REPS requirement in a number of ways, including the generation of power at new
renewable energy facilities. North Carolina’s incentives have driven development of renewable
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energy projects at Smithfield’s farms and should be considered in regions where large-scale,
modern farms operate.
Another important incentive is the reduction of trade barriers. Currently, most food is
consumed in the country in which it is produced (Clay, 2010). Increasing trade will foster an
increase in global food supply (USDA, 2008). It will also allow the marketplace to reward the
most efficient companies and those actively engaged in more sustainable, intensive agriculture
with more opportunities to reach markets in areas that may not have such sustainable solutions.
In 2011, Congress was considering free trade agreements with South Korea, Panama, and
Columbia. These agreements would offer U.S. companies, including Smithfield, vastly expanded
access to consumers in these countries. As an example, one of the largest economies in the
world, South Korea, provides a great opportunity for food industries to expand exports of
sustainable products and to allow consumers to choose from an abundance of safe, nutritious and
affordable food options.
Conclusion
Although no single strategy will solve the global food problem or fully address the
challenge of feeding nine billion people, Smithfield’s experience in sustainable intensification
helps inform the discussion. Modern, large-scale animal agriculture can help meet the
sustainability challenge and often does so based on fundamental business priorities. Treacy
stated that NAS can help balance the debate through science-based examination and by
providing a hard look at the sacred assumptions in so much popular writing about modern
production practices.
PANEL: CONFRONT TRADE-OFFS, REMOVE NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL
EXTERNALITIES, SEEK MULTIPLE WINS, AND ESTABLISH COALITIONS
AND PARTNERSHIPS
Emmy Simmons, U.S. Agency for International Development (ret.)Melinda Kimble, United
Nations Foundation
Carol Kramer-LeBlanc, U.S. Department of Agriculture
Emmy Simmons led off the panel by providing highlights from the previous days’
discussion. She noted that Mike Bushell made the point that sustainable agriculture/sustainable
food security is a journey, not a destination. The external environment, science and public
perceptions are constantly evolving. Phil Pardey reminded participants that while technology in
many sectors is evolving rapidly, dealing with biological process--with complex social and
economic process--will take a long time, and the outcome we want in 2040 will rely on action
that the world community is taking today. Robert Paarlberg noted that past underinvestment in
agriculture, combined with the new demographic bubble, made new investments increasingly
important.
Simmons explained the hard constraints to increasing global food supplies--how water,
sun, temperature and land match up against potential interventions. The limited availability of
land, the intensification of land use, and the institutional weaknesses undermine the incentives to
use land more sustainably. Property rights are one of the key issues that are delaying more
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intensification of land use as well as more investment in the land and productivity increases. The
question of scale, with regard to the intensification of land use, is one of the big issues.
Simmons also noted constraints with regard to existing biodiversity highlighting Tim Benton’s
point that the management of existing biodiversity resources, especially those linked to forests
and oceans, often seemed to be widely separated from agriculture. Simmons mentioned that
another hard constraint is water use. There has to be more efficiency of water use, but there may
be some absolute limits to increasing the efficiency of water use, as explained by David Molden.
Simmons questioned how those absolute limits can be dealt with in terms of food supplies,
particularly as related to local increases in production and productivity.
Simmons noted that there was a hard constraint in the form of inadequate stocks of
knowledge in producers’ heads and along the value chain. Initial stocks of knowledge among
producers and along the value chain need to be rapidly built up. Brian Greenberg explained that
NGOs often work at the community level and work with marginal producers in an effort to
increase knowledge stocks, which will generate the rate of productivity growth needed for
sustainable intensification. There was also a hard constraint with regard to fertilizer availability
because of limited supplies of potassium and phosphorus. Donald Crain estimated there will be
300 years of potassium supply with no substitute--it will take a long time for innovation.
Simmons emphasized the need to take deliberate, coordinated, purposeful steps in terms
of defining an agenda, noting that developing metrics for both planning and monitoring are
critical areas for investment. Simmons highlighted the following three areas for additional
investment to support expanding sustainable food supplies:
1. Spatially based datasets to permit management and manipulation of information at
different scales, such as the plot scale, farm scale, landscape scale, water basin scale, and
global scale.
2. Longitudinal information that permits assessment of dynamics, rather than snapshots or
cross-sectional information.
3. Better information about what the appropriate level of investment in data should be (e.g.,
who should do it, how it can be longitudinal, how it can be spatially aware, and how this
information base can best be integrated for a more sustainable food secure future).
Underinvestment in data, which was discussed at the first workshop, has been confirmed
by the second workshop.
Melinda Kimble’s presentation42 focused on the institutions required to manage the
global commons and to meet the challenges of achieving global food security. She highlighted
the work of the UN High Level Task Force on Food Security, which was modeled on the World
Economic Forum’s (WEF) recommendations to redesign UN and other intergovernmental
institutions to better address 21st century challenges. Although prescient, the WEF Global
Redesign Initiative has received minimal attention. Yet, the GRI is one of the more
comprehensive reports to date, as it highlights the need for more of the G-8’s traditional
economic leadership role to move to more representative groups of governments, most logically,
the G-20. The report also urges involvement of civil society, the private sector, and private
philanthropy. This presentation highlighted how the World Bank and the UN applied these
concepts to improve delivery of both food aid and policy support through the reform of the
Committee on Food Security--a pilot attempt to put into practice increased multi-stakeholder
42
The presentation is available at http://sites.nationalacademies.org/PGA/sustainability/foodsecurity/PGA_062564,
presentation by Melinda Kimble (May 4, 2011).
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engagement and promotion of developing country and private sector participation in designing
better solutions to complex global problems. Who sits at the table is important, but there are two
other imperatives for success:
High level (head of government) commitment to action is required.
New informatics that provide a better understanding of problems and that establish
baselines and performance metrics in order to measure success.
The new Committee on Global Food Security includes a broad coalition of agencies:
FAO, World Food Program, International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD) (all
Rome-based)
World Health Organization (WHO), International Labor Organization (ILO), UN Trade
and Development secretariat (UNCTAD), Office of the UN High Commissioner for
Refugees (UNHCR), Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (all Geneva-
based), and World Trade Organization (WTO)
World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) (Washington-based) and
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) (Paris-based)
UN funds and programs--UNDP, UNICEF, UNEP, and the Secretariat players--UN
Department of Economic and Social Affairs, UN Department of Political Affairs, UN
Peacekeeping, and UN Department of Public Information.
The group also solicited the input of grain traders, private philanthropies and other
agricultural experts. This new governance effort also incorporated the UN reforms embedded in
recommendations of the 2006 Coherence Panel--to improve interagency coordination and
delivery at the field level--and we see the beginnings of the institutional response to the 2008
crisis and the establishment of the High Level Task Force on Food Security to track the issues,
define problems and recommend action.
As the global financial crisis unfolded, the international community continued to move
on reforming and strengthening the management of global food security. By April 2010, the
effort was well underway, with the World Bank and France playing leading roles. The Advisory
Group for the new Committee, which held its first meeting in 2010, included new philanthropic
players (e.g., the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) and private sector trade groups. Twelve
countries make up the Committee on World Food Security. As discussions proceeded, a new
singular voice emerged, and a unified Secretariat supported by the Rome agencies worked to
expand the analysis and dialogue on a range of solutions. This approach aims at engaging
relevant UN agencies to focus on individual elements of the planning process, integrating their
various activities toward a single set of national objectives that are designed to achieve the
Millennium Development Goals most relevant to food security. The “change management
framework” is being field tested in eight countries, several of which have severe food security
challenges.
The ultimate goal of “one UN” is to consolidate offices, work program planning and
resources into a single country package addressing national food security. This new approach to
technical assistance at the country level should be directly reinforcing of the global planning and
coordination process under the new Committee on World Food Security. These complementary
processes hold the potential to provide the countries and the international community a better
window on what works globally and at country level. They also provide opportunities for
flexible and adaptive management and information sharing, as well as performance
benchmarking.
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The first opportunity to evaluate these reforms is the WCFS meeting in Rome in October
2011. This meeting will provide an opportunity to assess initial results and examine the ongoing
challenges facing agriculture, food and nutrition. A five-year work plan for the WCFS will be
introduced at this session, along with a new assessment of global food security. Collectively, all
this work holds promise for testing some of the GRI principles--high level commitments, multi-
stakeholder participation, coordinated planning and new informatics--as the UN works on
refining and consolidating its ability to deliver capacity-building interventions on the ground.
Should this effort prove effective, it could well prove an adaptive model for better coordination
around global challenges.
Carol Kramer-LeBlanc focused her discussion on health, sustainable agriculture and
evolving food systems. She talked about the growing importance of obesity concerns in USDA
policy circles but noted that nutritional improvements in school lunch programs are constrained
by budget cost. She expressed her concern that food insecurity in the United States and globally
has been more severe since the 2008 food price crisis, particularly for women and children. She
talked about the major U.S. initiative known as Feed the Future. USDA, the Department of State
and USAID are leading this effort. One particular element of the program that had been
emphasized by Hillary Clinton in speeches at the United Nations is its focus on nutritional
interventions for children, particularly in the first 1,000 days of life. Other USDA international
efforts include work with the Commission on Sustainable Development that looks at the issues
on agriculture, rural development, land, drought and desertification associated with agriculture
has been inserted in the task force on poverty. She noted, however, that most USDA resources
are spent on U.S. domestic issues. Kramer-LeBlanc reiterated Robert Paarlberg’s point that a
major challenge is to convince politicians of the value of international development activities.
GENERAL DISCUSSION
Following the panel discussions, a number of observations and questions were shared.
Hartwig de Haen led off by recommending that the new institutions and initiatives mentioned by
Melinda Kimble should be evaluated. He further suggested that, from a global perspective,
systems of food security governance should be measured against the following three criteria:
1. Does the system have mechanisms in place that would prevent future crisis, or at least
cushion the vulnerable, poor and hungry against the effects of such a crisis?
2. Does the system assure that all the governments abide by their commitments that they
have repeatedly expressed at global summits?
3. Do the global mechanisms, including the reformed intergovernmental Committee on
World Food Security (CFS), provide adequate dynamic leadership globally toward a
lasting eradication of hunger in the longer term, a respect for the right to food, and
elimination of malnutrition including overnourishment?
Hartwig de Haen emphasized that a massive global campaign on the implications of non-
action is needed. Marco Ferroni said that one of the main messages coming from the workshop
was the importance of productivity enhancements as a means to assuring sustainable food
security. He said that productivity and sustainability go hand in hand and questioned whether the
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global management institutions discussed by Jason Clay and Melinda Kimble were adequately
focused on the productivity paradigm. Kimble suggested that global conversations have been
underway for the last twenty years, and they will impact our ability to take directed action for or
against agricultural intensification and productivity.
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