I’m presently looking into how farm policy is passed and a nation-by-nation assessment of policies relating to individual crops.
I think the general strategy to initiating a holistic agriculture framework should focus upon lessening consumption of developed world corn syrup, unhealthy oils (ie. all except sunflower and canola I think), sugar, red meats where feed is grown on land with other potential uses (alfalfa on marginal land okay, corn/barkey feed not okay), barley…and I think developing world production should be decreased for all crops where rainforests are harmed.
I’d increase consumption of fruits and vegetables in the developed world, and grains for food, especailly highly storable wheat, in the developing world.
In all cases should tobacco and ethanol (unless a complete energy lifecycle accounting is first undertaken) production be decreased.
In all cases should honey and beeswax be subsidized. Bees pollinate 10x as much crop value as is their industry capitalized. This is probably the lowest hanging fruit.
Of particular importance are the policies of China and the USA, both exporters of more than 10% world production of food.
Rather than reducing first world subsidies, I’d like to see the developed world allocate a small portion of their subsidies to subsidize their competitors in the third world. IDK the optimal ratio, but maybe something like a 60% European subsidy would see the EU subsidize the 3rd world at a 6% rate. A 40% Canadian subsidy would see the 3rd world subsidy be at 4%. Merely removing subsidies would raise commodity prices and harm developing world farm labourers and urban poor.
Be nice to research a crop that contains all 8 amino acids. Also, urban greenhouses are the way of the future and this research should be promoted. Especially since fruits and veggies tend to grow in warm coastal humid climates and I’d think global warming induced rainfall and temperature variations would harm fruit yields particularly hard.
The EU should probably allow GMOs where the gene traits are greater insect tolerance, drought tolerance, etc. Maybe assign a ladder of GMO importance and delay less important traits while waiting for further research to determine the odds of crops turning into weeds or nutritional harms and other frankenfruit issues. Having the ability to rapidly transition back to pre-GMO agriculture might address GMO fears.
It might make sense to index an agri-company (machinery, seeds and fertilizer) R+D (or even corporate) tax credit inversely to a food inflation rate index. When food prices rise you want Monsanto and Potash to output more stuff. If GMO producers would fast-track desirable gene traits, maybe they could be excempted from some future environmental damage liability.

Re: Steps 1 (emergencies) and 6 social protection)

In poor countries, including those 18 for which food riots have been reported, emergency assistance as a response to nationally high food prices will be difficult to calibrate and to target. Organisational structures for reliable ‘social protection’ will be weak or lacking and to build them will take time. Their absorptive capacity will therefore for quite some time remain low - with one exception: SCHOOLS.
Even in least developed countries, school systems can serve as effective conduits for various goods and services. In times of food crises, school feeding, whether ‘developemtal’ or not, offers a proven channel for near-immediate delivery of large volumes of food in kind or in cash (local purchases)for priority groups of poor populations. School feeding programmes are universally popular and easier to prepare and operate than almost any other forms of project food aid (in Afrika they are about the only food aid programmes that have been reliably implemented).The international agency for this form of aid exists - WFP. A large number of projects in the most needy countries is either already operational (many of these projects could be ‘harmonika’like expended) or can quickly and almost routinely be prepared - RESOURCES PERMITTING.

Jens Schulthes
former Director for the Asia & Pacific Region, WFP
23 May, 2008

thanks for this sharing. it is usefull for me…

I don’t dispute any of the suggestions made in this informative article.

The problem I see is that the solutions, if implemented, guarantee that the world will continue chasing its tail while the problems which are supposed to be addressed are compounded.

Unless one believes that unlimited population growth can be sustained in a finite world, these problems will not only continue to become worse—they will affect more people in more-dire ways as the population continues to increase while the resources allowing that growth become ever-more scarce.

Why is there no mention of the world’s burgeoning population as being at least partially causative?

Why is there no mention of rapid population decline, one child per family, the delaying of the onset of pregnancies, birth control or any of the myriad of other family planning strategies meant to reduce the population of the world by means other than starvation and the diseases which are closely linked to too many people?

And to those who believe the problem is not population, but excess consumption, why no mention of the greatest cause of over-consumption—unfettered multi-national corporatism?

Please. Does anyone have any answers to the questions I have posed, or cogent refutations of any of the implied assertions?

If so, I’d appreciate being enlightened and/or corrected.

Regards,,,John

This sounds as if someone wants to use the crises to push for agricultural trade liberalization.