The Center on Food Security and the Environment is a joint effort of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment.
FSI researchers consider international development from a variety of angles. They analyze ideas such as how public action and good governance are cornerstones of economic prosperity in Mexico and how investments in high school education will improve China’s economy.
They are looking at novel technological interventions to improve rural livelihoods, like the development implications of solar power-generated crop growing in Northern Benin.
FSI academics also assess which political processes yield better access to public services, particularly in developing countries. With a focus on health care, researchers have studied the political incentives to embrace UNICEF’s child survival efforts and how a well-run anti-alcohol policy in Russia affected mortality rates.
FSI’s work on international development also includes training the next generation of leaders through pre- and post-doctoral fellowships as well as the Draper Hills Summer Fellows Program.
Eran Bendavid, Assistant Professor of Medicine at Stanford University provides commentary on nutrition and food policy expert Per Pinstrup-Andersen's presentation and paper on "Food systems and human health and nutrition". The symposium and paper are part of the Center on Food Security and the Environment's Global Food Policy and Food Security Symposium series.
Freshwater scarcity has been cited as the major crisis of the 21st century, but it is surprisingly hard to describe the nature of the global water crisis. We conducted a meta- analysis of 22 coupled human–water system case studies, using qualitative comparison analysis (QCA) to identify water resource system outcomes and the factors that drive them. The cases exhibited different outcomes for human wellbeing that could be grouped into a six “syndromes”: groundwater depletion, ecological destruction, drought-driven conflicts, unmet subsistence needs, resource capture by elite, and water reallocation to nature. For syndromes that were not successful adaptations, three characteristics gave cause for concern: (1) unsustainability—a decline in the water stock or ecosystem function that could result in a long-term steep decline in future human wellbeing; (2) vulnerability—high variability in water resource availability combined with inadequate coping capacity, leading to temporary drops in human wellbeing; (3) chronic scarcity—persistent inadequate access and hence low conditions of human wellbeing. All syndromes could be explained by a limited set of causal factors that fell into four categories: demand changes, supply changes, governance systems, and infrastructure/technology. By considering basins as members of syndrome classes and tracing common causal pathways of water crises, water resource analysts and planners might develop improved water policies aimed at reducing vulnerability, inequity, and unsustainability of freshwater systems.
Paul Collier will talk about how to manage the difference between helpful and damaging commercialisation, and puts forth three arguments. First, we need to face the tough reality that African food production has failed to keep pace with demand over the course of several decades, suggesting that there is a deep problem with respect to innovation and investment given the way African agriculture has been organised. Second, we need to accept that climate change, population growth, and income gains from natural resources will all stress this imbalance further: the prospect is for widening food deficits with business as usual. Third, two major changes are afoot. Globally, the model of commercial tropical agriculture pioneered in Brazil has demonstrated that output can be raised very substantially by changing the mode of organisation. Africa is now starting to open land markets to large foreign management. Superficially this looks like Brazil2, but it may instead be a wave of speculative acquisitions triggered by the price peaks of 2008.
Collier is the Director of the Centre for the Study of African Economies and Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government, Oxford University. He is currently Advisor to the Strategy and Policy Department of the IMF, advisor to the Africa Region of the World Bank; and he has advised the British Government on its recent White Paper on economic development policy. He has been writing a monthly column for the Independent, and also writes for the New York Times, the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post. His research covers the causes and consequences of civil war; the effects of aid and the problems of democracy in low-income and natural-resources rich societies.
Derek Byerlee's talk will lay out a number of models of inclusive agribusiness growth, grouped into three categories (i) institutional arrangements for improving productivity of smallholders operating in spot markets, (ii) various types of contract farming arrangements, and (iii) large-scale farms that generate jobs and/or include community equity shares. The institutional and policy context as well as commodity characteristics that favor these models are discussed within a simple transactions cost framework. He will also discuss cross-cutting policy priorities to enable the growth of commercial agriculture and agribusiness. These include continuing reforms to liberalize product and input markets, access to technology and skills, stimulating financial and risks markets, securing land rights, and investment in infrastructure through public-private partnerships.
Byerlee has dedicated his career to agriculture in developing countries, as a teacher, researcher, administrator and policy advisor. He has lived and worked for a total of 20 years in the three major developing regions-Africa, Asia, and Latin America. After beginning in academia at Michigan State University, he spent the bulk of his career at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT). There as a economist and research manager he made notable contributions in forging a new spirit of collaboration between scientists, economists and farmers. He also published widely on efficiency of research systems, spillovers, and sustaining productivity in post green revolution agriculture. After joining the World Bank in 1994, he has applied his experience of research systems to finding innovative approaches to funding and organizing agricultural research, including emerging challenges in biotechnology policy. Since 2003, he has provided strategic direction and led policy world for the agricultural and rural sector in the World Bank.
Bechtel Conference Center
The lost decades for China in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s look remarkably like the lost decades of Africa in the 1980s and 1990s. Poor land rights, weak incentives, incomplete markets and inappropriate investment portfolios. However, China burst out of its stagnation in the 1980s and has enjoyed three decades of remarkable growth. In this talk Rozelle examines the record of the development of China’s food economy and identifies the policies that helped generate the growth and transformation of agriculture. Incentives, markets and strategic investments by the state were key. Equally important, however, is what the state did not do. Policies that worked and those that failed (or those that were ignored) are addressed. Most importantly, Rozelle tries to take an objective, nuanced look at the lessons that might be learned and those that are not relevant for Africa. Many parts of Africa have experienced positive growth during the past decade. Rozelle examines if there are any lessons that might be helpful in turning ten positive years into several more decades of transformation.
Scott Rozelle (main speaker). Scott Rozelle is the Helen F. Farnsworth Senior Fellow and the co-director of the Rural Education Action Program in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. His research focuses almost exclusively on China and is concerned with: agricultural policy, including the supply, demand, and trade in agricultural projects; the emergence and evolution of markets and other economic institutions in the transition process and their implications for equity and efficiency; and the economics of poverty and inequality, with an emphasis on rural education, health and nutrition.
Alain de Janvry (commentator). Alain de Janvry is an economist working on international economic development, with expertise principally in Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle-East, and the Indian subcontinent. Fields of work include poverty analysis, rural development, quantitative analysis of development policies, impact analysis of social programs, technological innovations in agriculture, and the management of common property resources. He has worked with many international development agencies, including FAO, IFAD, the World Bank, UNDP, ILO, the CGIAR, and the Inter-American Development Bank as well as foundations such as Ford, Rockefeller and Kellogg. His main objective in teaching, research, and work with development agencies is the promotion of human welfare, including understanding the determinants of poverty and analyzing successful approach to improve well-being and promote sustainability in resource use.
Bechtel Conference Center
Encina Hall East, E404
Stanford, CA 94305-6055
Scott Rozelle is the Helen F. Farnsworth Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research at Stanford University. He received his BS from the University of California, Berkeley, and his MS and PhD from Cornell University. Previously, Rozelle was a professor at the University of California, Davis and an assistant professor in Stanford’s Food Research Institute and department of economics. He currently is a member of several organizations, including the American Economics Association, the International Association for Agricultural Economists, and the Association for Asian Studies. Rozelle also serves on the editorial boards of Economic Development and Cultural Change, Agricultural Economics, the Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, and the China Economic Review.
His research focuses almost exclusively on China and is concerned with: agricultural policy, including the supply, demand, and trade in agricultural projects; the emergence and evolution of markets and other economic institutions in the transition process and their implications for equity and efficiency; and the economics of poverty and inequality, with an emphasis on rural education, health and nutrition.
Rozelle's papers have been published in top academic journals, including Science, Nature, American Economic Review, and the Journal of Economic Literature. His book, Invisible China: How the Urban-Rural Divide Threatens China’s Rise, was published in 2020 by The University of Chicago Press. He is fluent in Chinese and has established a research program in which he has close working ties with several Chinese collaborators and policymakers. For the past 20 years, Rozelle has been the chair of the International Advisory Board of the Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy; a co-director of the University of California's Agricultural Issues Center; and a member of Stanford's Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center and the Center on Food Security and the Environment.
In recognition of his outstanding achievements, Rozelle has received numerous honors and awards, including the Friendship Award in 2008, the highest award given to a non-Chinese by the Premier; and the National Science and Technology Collaboration Award in 2009 for scientific achievement in collaborative research.
For decades, earnings from farming in many developing countries, including in sub-Saharan Africa, have been depressed by a pro-urban bias in own-country policies, as well as by governments of richer countries favouring their farmers with import barriers and subsidies. Both sets of policies reduced global economic welfare and agricultural trade, and almost certainly added to global inequality and poverty and to food insecurity in many low-income countries. Progress has been made over the past three decades in reducing the trend levels of agricultural protection in high-income countries and of agricultural disincentives in African and other developing countries. However, there is a propensity for governments to insulate their domestic food market from fluctuations in international prices, and that has not waned. That action amplifies international food price fluctuations, yet when both food-importing and food-exporting countries so engage in insulating behaviour, it does little to advance their national food security. Anderson argues much scope remains to improve economic welfare and reduce poverty and food insecurity by removing trade distortions. He summarizes indicators of these trends and fluctuations in trade barriers before pointing to changes in both border policies and complementary domestic measures that together could improve African food security.
Kym Anderson is the George Gollin Professor of Economics, foundation Executive Director of the Wine Economics Research Centre, and formerly foundation Executive Director of the Centre for International Economic Studies at the University of Adelaide, where he has been affiliated since 1984. His also a Professor of Economics, Arndt-Corden Dept of Economics, Australian National University, Canberra. His research interests and publications are in the areas of international trade and development, agricultural economics, environmental economics, and wine economics. His most recent projects have focused on empirical analysis of such issues as the Doha Development Agenda of the World Trade Organization; global distortions to agricultural incentives; economics of agricultural biotechnology (GMO) policies globally; and wine globalization.
Johann Swinnen (commentator). Johan Swinnen is Professor of Development Economics and Director of LICOS Center for Institutions and Economic Performance at the University of Leuven (KUL) in Belgium. He is also Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), Brussels, where he directs the programme on EU agricultural and rural policy. From 2003 to 2004 he was Lead Economist at the World Bank and from 1998 to 2001 Economic Advisor at the European Commission.
Bechtel Conference Center
LICOS Center for Transition Economics
K.U.Leuven
Deberiotstraat
34 3000 Leuven, Belgium
Johan Swinnen is Professor of Development Economics and Director of LICOS Center for Institutions and Economic Performance at the University of Leuven (KUL) in Belgium. He is also Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), Brussels, where he directs the programme on EU agricultural and rural policy. From 2003 to 2004 he was Lead Economist at the World Bank and from 1998 to 2001 Economic Advisor at the European Commission.
He is a regular consultant for these organizations and for the OECD, FAO, the EBRD, and several governments and was coordinator of several international research networks on food policy, institutional reforms, and economic development. He is President—Elect of the International Association of Agricultural Economists and a Fellow of the European Association of Agricultural Economists. He holds a Ph.D from Cornell University.
His research focuses on institutional reform and development, globalization and international integration, media economics, and agriculture and food policy. His latest books are “Political Power and Economic Policy” (Cambridge Univ Press), “The Perfect Storm: The Political Economy of the Reform of the Common Agricultural Policy” (CEPS), “Global Supply Chains, Standards, and the Poor” (CABI), “Distortions to Agricultural Incentives in the Transition Economies of Europe and Central Asia” (World Bank Publications), and “From Marx and Mao to the Market” (Oxford University Press -- and Chinese translation by Beijing University Press). He is the president of The Beeronomics Society and editor of the book “The Economics of Beer” (Oxford Univ Press).
Soybean production has become a significant force for economic development in Brazil. It has also received considerable attention from environmental and social non-governmental organizations as a driver of deforestation and land consolidation. While many researchers have examined the impacts of soybean production on human and environmental landscapes, there has been little investigation into the economic and institutional context of Brazilian soybean production or the relationship between soy yields and planted area. This study examines the influence of land tenure, land use policy, cooperatives, and credit access on soy production in Brazil. Using county level data we provide statistical evidence that soy planted area and yields are higher in regions where cooperative membership and credit levels are high, and cheap credit sources are more accessible. This result suggests that soybean production and profitability will increase as supply chain infrastructure improves in the Cerrado and Amazon biomes in Brazil. The yields of competing land uses, wheat, coffee, and cattle production and a complementary use, corn production, also help to determine the location of soybean planted area in Brazil. We do not find a significant relationship between land tenure and planted area or land tenure and yields. Soy yields decline as transportation costs increase, but planted area as a proportion of arable land is highest in some of the areas with very high transportation costs. In particular, counties located within Mato Grosso and counties within the Amazon biome have a larger proportion of their arable, legally available land planted in soy than counties outside of the biome. Finally, we provide evidence that soy yields are positively associated with planted area, implying that policies intending to spare land through yield improvements could actually lead to land expansion in the absence of strong land use regulations. While this study focuses on Brazil, the results underscore the importance of understanding how supply chains influence land use associated with cash crops in other countries.
Aquaculture is currently the fastest growing animal food production sector and will soon supply more than half of the world’s seafood for human consumption. Continued growth in aquaculture production is likely to come from intensification of fish, shellfish, and algae production. Intensification is often accompanied by a range of resource and environmental problems. We review several potential solutions to these problems, including novel culture systems, alternative feed strategies, and species choices. We examine the problems addressed; the stage of adoption; and the benefits, costs, and constraints of each solution. Policies that provide incentives for innovation and environmental improvement are also explored. We end the review by identifying easily adoptable solutions and promising technologies worth further investment.
The American Midwest is suffering through the driest summer in decades, and Stanford economist Walter Falcon is watching the corn wither in his fields. He writes how the drought is affecting crops, prices and the livelihoods of his fellow farmers in Iowa.
