Assessment Paper Agriculture and Food Security

AGRICULTURE

Agriculture: Assessment Paper

Question 1

The relationship between food security and wider socio-economic development is strong since stable food security would imply positive human capital for work and progress. With food insecurity, there would be less to eat for people and more negative consequences on health that would incur high governmental costs for medical treatments and management (Torero, 2014). 

Without food security, there would be inequality in food distribution, leading to a particular area being more prone to chronic illness conditions. Poverty in those areas would not help them gain the required treatments, and with this unavailability of resources, social safety programs are of no use. 

With the significant health benefits that food security provides, it would prevent the economic burden of the costs of treatment and prove to be a growth factor for running the economic wheel. It is said that it serves as a coordination feature among various economy departments, such as nutrition, finance, agriculture, infrastructure, etc., that would be naturally regulated for improved working so that all the citizens are provided the necessary facilities. 

The wider socio-economic development is only possible when different sectors of the economy come together to eliminate food insecurity and help reduce chronic malnutrition. Collaboration for policy-making is required at all levels in various sectors, such as food strategy for the poor, transport, supply chains, agricultural departments, and government authorities, all working in cohesion to ensure short and long-term food security. Fiscal costs for food spending should be minimized with a carefully devised strategy at all national, regional, and global levels. 

Question 2

The relationship between the expansion of the food system and food price shocks is such that a reduction in food price shocks would decrease the investment in agricultural production (Kalkuhl, von Braun & Torero, 2016). It would directly negatively affect the food supply in the long run. The volatility in food prices would force the government to make ill-designed decisions and unplanned market interventions that might not suit people and inflation rates. 

The global food system is becoming easily affected by food price volatility since agriculture markets in each country have to cater to the food needs of the growing populations. Food price volatility depicts inefficient investment decisions that are a consequence of adverse behavior in the price market. It becomes beyond the capacity of the producers to keep the prices low and beyond the acquisition of the consumers to buy food at high prices, especially in poor and underprivileged areas of the country. Hence, it leads to food insecurity that represents the hindered expansion of the food system. 

Over the long run, price stability is expected by the government for which policies and strategies are devised that should not affect the poor communities. At a macroeconomic level, price shocks would impact the final total food output, employment in the agriculture sector, trade and government revenues in the same segment, etc., creating an influence on international food prices (Special Focus, 2019). On the other hand, at a microeconomic level, food insecurity would increase since the poor segments of the population would be affected due to price shocks, and inequality in food availability would increase. 

Question 3

Food insecurity depicts itself as a market failure due to bad policy-making. If people in one household are food secure, it does not imply that all of its members are food secure; there still could be some individuals who would be food insecure. Similarly, the same vice versa rule stands for food-insecure households. In this way, market demand for food for certain individuals could not be met. National food security for a particular age group or segment of the population might remain food insecure, for which government policy-making might have remained weak. 

The entire country’s growth would be affected by increased prices and some groups of households remaining food insecure. The problem might magnify to a macroeconomic level where food security would require the government to revise its policy. Also, food insecurity may be present in middle or upper-income households despite a comprehensive national food security policy (Thomson, Metz & Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 1999, p. 4). This could be due to a lack of awareness about what healthy foods should be eaten to maintain a healthy weight, what fruits and vegetables should be eaten to avoid obesity etc. Here targeted policy initiatives would be required to create awareness for malnutrition, healthy diet and lifestyles, and food insecurity education. 

To ensure food security at all levels, identifying vulnerable groups is mandatory to do policy-making accordingly. For instance, the vulnerable groups could be regional, poverty-based, demographically based, economic or occupational based along with climatic conditions that make the groups prone to ecologically based food insecurity (Thomson, Metz & Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 1999, p. 6). Each household’s food consumption would vary across countries that should be considered for successful governmental policies to eradicate food insecurity and prevent market failure. 

Question 4

The five steps of policy development are setting the agenda, formulating, embracing, executing, directing, and evaluating. In modern times, media plays an important role in the agenda-setting stage. When the media highlights a certain concern, asking the authorities and policymakers to take action for it (Paletz, Owen & Cook, 2015, p. 669). For instance, if a disease is spreading at an experiential rate, the media would notify it in the news, magnifying it to the extent that the government’s influential people notice it as a public concern. 

The next step is policy formulation, in which the policymakers discuss and argue how the matter should be handled. Various viewpoints of all the authority holders are gained so that wide frames are investigated for the legality of the matter. Afterward comes the stages of adoption, which is when the policy seems favorable for the benefit of people and is finally adopted. In this stage, media also plays its part as some people favor the adoption, while some criticize it; however, legitimization of policy needs to be done for making a difference, such as control and prevention of infectious diseases.  

Then comes the stage of implementation and administration where the bureaucrats of the Congress ensure that specific standards of the policy adoption and its execution are deployed to fulfill its aim. It might be a time-consuming process for the authorities of Congress but maintain the consistency and dedication for approving the policy, for example, for prevention of the spread of an infectious disease. In the end, the evaluation stage helps gauge whether the policy can achieve the goals that were set to be and has delivered performance or not. 

Question 5

Food policy is the policy in which it is determined how the food should be produced, treated, circulated, bought, or provided to the final consumers. It is different from other policies since its decision-makers are present in all government segments while people looking after the transport sector, for example, within the governmental body, would only be fixed in one area. It could be understood that the judicial system recognizes the legality of certain foods and their distribution systems for being legal or illegal (Food Print, 2019). The administrative sector of the government takes actions that are needed to be taken for local, state, and federal processing and supply chain management of the food resource. 

The impact of food policy would also influence other sectors of the government. For example, price hikes and shocks for certain food items would make this item expensive in the market and might not be easily available for certain population groups, making them more ill due to poor diet. It would certainly increase the economic burden as hospitals treat and manage diseases. The availability of increased medical staff to treat those patients would incur greater fiscal costs for the authorities. Hence, food policy is also different in terms of the impacts it could create on a wider scale and other sectors of the government. This single policy is the only one that could determine the fate of other sectors on both macro and microeconomic levels. 

Question 6

Engels’ law is the one in which the relationship between household income and expenditure on certain goods and services is ascertained (Corporate Finance Institute, n.a.). Concerning food policy, the significance of Engel’s law could be understood since the increase in income would signify the proportionality in food consumption of a household (Cirera & Masset, 2010). The food demand of various individuals for certain eatables and the entire country affects the rate of food growth, its production policy, and its distribution and process. 

The ability to meet the food demand for the ever-increasing world population is a tough task to be accomplished. Governmental authorities are struggling all across the globe to meet the food demand, even if it has to be done by import and export. The household disposable income and the additional pressures on the food system to fulfill demands for food consumption is a carefully thought-out process. The aggregate agricultural policy would have to rely on Engel’s law as creating budgets for food production with relevance to income distribution is particular economics that requires intelligence in decision making. 

Further, the income growth rate might determine the future food demand in the coming times. The distribution in households and countries, including poor and developed countries, would identify how faster food demand grows in the short and long term. For this purpose, the budgets for food consumptions have to be allocated that come under the definition of food policy. The food policy formulation also emphasized along the lines of Engels’ law that food inequality should be prevented so that chronic food conditions, health complexities, and food price hikes could be avoided to evade market failures. 

Question 7

According to Food Policy Analysis (FPA) by Timmer et al. in 1983, it has been determined that there are four objectives of food policy: expediting economic growth, facilitating equal distribution of income from the resulting growth, warranty for nutritional ground for the poor, and ensure stability in prices and availability of food in the markets (Timmer, 2010). 

In my home country, the most pressing and urgent objective is the nutritional ground for the poor. Research has suggested that poverty is negatively associated with obtaining a healthy diet since staple diets are inaccessible to the poor compared to their incomes (Harrington et al., 2009). The overall food production has been sufficient; even some food items are exported. However, the nutritional demand for the poor is not due to high prices and affordability issues. Based on the US Dietary Guidelines, certain foods that Americans are not getting in enough quantities to maintain a healthy weight are calcium, magnesium, vitamin E, Vitamin A and C, fiber, and potassium (Griffin, 2009). The consequential effects of the fact that the report corroborated in 2020 certifying one in every eight Americans are food insecure, which means they do not have enough financial resources to have their hands on nutritional foods (Hunger and Health, n.a.). It indicates that the third objective of the food policy is not met in my home country. The nutrition diet is not made available due to weak policies and somewhat, the relevantly lower effect of Engel’s law on household income distribution and food consumption for devising a smart food policy here. 

Political instability, chronic diseases, and frequent natural disasters have created circumstances that have not brought steadiness in food policy formulation for the poor. A large proportion of the population is under-nourished, especially where nourishment issues have caused breath in young children. Moreover, droughts and extreme weather have also caused unwanted food delivery and distribution problems for underprivileged areas of the country. 

The nutritional experts have suggested that a healthy diet includes fresh fruits and vegetables, meat, grains, and whole foods. Within my home country, a large segment of the population lacks these facilities. The Thrifty Food Plan (TFP) aims to provide some nutritional value of these foods to the entire American population on an equal basis (Drewnowski & Eichelsodoerfer, 2010). Cost estimations of these healthy food items are necessary for forming a successful food policy based on equal distribution with maximum benefits for all. 

Question 8

Three different government departments make the three different types of food policies. For instance, the first food policy would be made by the government’s legislative body. The US senators or city counselors who are elected and become the representatives of their local areas contribute to making a policy and enforcing laws to fulfill equal food distribution. In this regard, New York State’s 2019 Food Recovery and Recycling Act was enacted to recycle food scraps and donate the waste food for the needy ones (Food Print, 2019).