Food security politics and the Millennium Development Goals

This article reviews proposals regarding the recent food crisis in the context of a broader, threshold debate on the future of agriculture and food security. While the MDGs have focused on eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, the food crisis pushed the hungry over the one billion mark. There is thus a renewed focus on agricultural development, which pivots on the salience of industrial agriculture (as a supply source) in addressing food security. The World Bank's new 'agriculture for development' initiative seeks to improve small-farmer productivity with new inputs, and their incorporation into global markets via value-chains originating in industrial agriculture. An alternative claim, originating in 'food sovereignty' politics, demanding small-farmer rights to develop bio-regionally specific agro-ecological methods and provision for local, rather than global, markets, resonates in the IAASTD report, which implies agribusiness as usual 'is no longer an option'. The basic divide is over whether agriculture is a servant of economic growth, or should be developed as a foundational source of social and ecological sustainability. We review and compare these different paradigmatic approaches to food security, and their political and ecological implications.     

Production,prices and poverty in rural India

This paper challenges the view that increases in agricultural production have reduced poverty in rural India. Rural poverty is related directly to the consumer price index number for agricultural labourers, and inversely to agricultural production. The underlying time trend term indicates a residual rising trend in rural poverty after accounting for the influence of these two factors. There are plausible, though conjectural, reasons for believing that to a significant extent, the price factor as well as the variables implicit in the time trend term both derive their strength, if not their existence, from the nature of the growth processes which have generated the observed growth in agricultural production. These results contradict Ahluwalia's earlier conclusions, even though they are themselves based on essentially the same data set.     

Inequality and the Impact of Growth on Poverty: Comparative Evidence for Sub-Saharan Africa

This study explores the extent to which inequality affects the impact of income growth on the rates of poverty changes in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) compared to non-SSA, based on an unbalanced panel of 86 countries over 1977–2004. For all three measures of poverty – headcount, gap, and squared gap – the impact of GDP growth on poverty reduction is a decreasing function of initial inequality. The impacts are similar in direction for SSA and non-SSA, so that within both regions there are considerable disparities in the responsiveness of poverty to income growth, depending on inequality. Nevertheless, the income–growth elasticity is substantially less for SSA, implying relatively small poverty-reduction response to growth.     

When Social and Economic Goals Meet: The Double Dividend of Improving Farmers’ Health Capital in Uganda

Focusing on the relationship between farmers’ health and agricultural productivity, we explore the potential effects of improving the current health care fee policy in Uganda. Using a microsimulated general equilibrium model, we show that alternative health fee reduction strategies might increase the chances of achieving simultaneous growth, poverty reduction and improved access to health for households while maximising the public spending effectiveness. However, these results seem very sensitive to the potential disruptive effects on public facilities that such a policy might generate so they must be contextualised within a broader perspective on the health system’s efficiency.     

From Tragedy to Renaissance: Improving Agricultural Data for Better Policies

Abstract

Agricultural development is an essential engine of growth and poverty reduction, yet agricultural data suffer from poor quality and narrow sectoral focus. There are several reasons for this: (1) difficult-to-measure smallholder agriculture is prevalent in poor countries; (2) agricultural data are collected with little coordination across sectors; and (3) poor analysis undermines the demand for high-quality data. This article argues that initiatives like the Global Strategy to Improve Agricultural and Rural Statistics bode well for the future. Moving from Devarajan’s statistical tragedy’ to Kiregyera’s statistical ‘renaissance’ will take a continued long-term effort by individual countries and development partners.     

Small-Scale irrigation and income distribution in Ethiopia

Abstract

Irrigation stimulates agricultural productivity and economic growth, but this may come at the cost of growing inequality. Using data at community and household level, this paper analyzes the distributional impacts of irrigation in Ethiopia. Regression analyses reveal the direct effects of irrigation on expenditures and labour demand, and the indirect effects of irrigation on food prices and expenditures of non-irrigation households. The results indicate that past development of irrigation stimulated growth without deepening inequality, and that irrigation decreased dependence on food-for-work programs. Thus, irrigation has played a positive role in the development of Ethiopia.     

Economic growth,income inequality and poverty in china under economic reforms

China's gross domestic product (GDP) more than quadrupled between 1978 and 1996 under economic reforms. Per capita disposable incomes more than tripled in the cities and almost quadrupled in the rural areas. However, rapid economic growth brought about large income inequality which slowed down poverty reduction. In 1995, there were still 70–170 million people living in poverty. This article aims to assess the relationship between economic growth, income inequality and poverty using both secondary and household survey data. The main findings are (1) urban/rural divide and spatial inequality are two major factors accounting for overall income inequality; (2) non‐wage and non‐farm incomes are more unequally distributed than wage and farm incomes; and (3) the incidence of poverty is very sensitive to the changes in per capita income and inequality.     

Safety in small numbers: Local strategies for survival and growth in Romania and the Kyrgyz Republic

Using a comparative study of farm households from poor rural communities in Kyrgyzstan and north-east Romania this paper explores the intricacies of a variety of forms of cooperation in agriculture. The findings highlight the safety net, labour specialisation, asset-pooling and service delivery functions of different groups that enable rural livelihoods to, at times, cope and at times improve in situations of imperfect information, sluggish labour and land markets, and constrained capital markets. The research presented here indicates that small to medium forms of cooperation provide the rural poor with predictable livelihood strategies under conditions of uncertainty. Specifically, cooperative action, in the form of groups, substitutes for imperfect markets. Despite the push for decollectivisation and privatisation across transition countries there remains a place for encouraging group initiatives, at least for the medium term, on the grounds of both poverty alleviation and agricultural growth.     

Rural poverty and agricultural performance in India

This paper examines time series evidence on rural poverty over the past two decades. The time series shows that the incidence of poverty fluctuates in response to variations in real agricultural output per head, but there is no significant time trend. There is a statistically significant inverse relationship between rural poverty and agricultural performance for India as a whole, suggesting that agricultural growth by itself tends to reduce the incidence of poverty. The analysis for individual states presents a somewhat different picture. The inverse relationship between output per head and rural poverty is observed in several states but there is also evidence that there are processes at work which tend to increase the incidence of poverty, independently of variations in agricultural output per head.     

Lessons from Georgia's neoliberal experiment: A rising tide does not necessarily lift all boats

Between 2004 and 2012, Georgia implemented one of the most comprehensive packages of neoliberal economic reforms ever. These reforms have certainly helped to spur growth, but their social effects remain under-researched. To narrow this gap, this article investigates the effects of growth on poverty in Georgia using the official household survey data. The analysis shows that contrary to popular expectations, poverty has decreased only slightly throughout this period and remains high despite a number of progressive measures adopted by a successor coalition government. These findings provide further evidence on the inappropriateness of the neoliberal model as a poverty reduction strategy.     

Distributive Effects of Regional Trade Agreements on the ‘Small Trading Partners’: Mercosur and the Case of Uruguay and Paraguay

It is disputed whether trade liberalisation processes are sufficient for reducing poverty and inequality. We explore how ‘gains from trade’ have been distributed in the two minor trade partners of Mercosur, Uruguay and Paraguay, by analysing the impact of trade liberalisation on poverty and inequality through two main transmission channels: prices and income. In the case of Uruguay, trade liberalisation favoured a reduction in poverty indicators but had an almost zero effect on income inequality. In the case of Paraguay, trade liberalisation had a markedly negative impact in terms of poverty yet income distribution improved. We conclude that in the case of Mercosur, the effect of trade on poverty and income inequality varies per country and per region. In particular, we conclude that trade integration policies cannot be regarded as ‘poverty-alleviating’ per se.     

Alleviating rural poverty through agricultural growth

The article examines the role of agricultural GDP growth in alleviating rural poverty in LDCs. Cross‐sectional regression analysis indicates that GDP growth by itself takes a very long time to reduce poverty significantly. It suggests that decreases in land concentration could have a more immediate impact on reducing rural poverty; the budgetary and other costs of implementing such changes are not, however, considered. The preferred approach is a combination of equitable growth and redistributive measures.     

Neoclassical and structural analysis of poverty: winning the ‘Economic Kingdom’ for the poor in Southern Africa

In situations characterised by historical injustice in the distribution of economic resources, such as in many southern African ‘settler’ countries, there is a powerful intuitive case that ameliorative and palliative public policy is insufficient to significantly affect poverty reduction. This is because of the dulling effects on growth caused by significant structural inequality in the distribution of resources. However, the proposition that inequality is a problem for poverty reduction is contentious. This article reviews the neoclassical and structuralist literatures on the relationship between growth, inequality and poverty. It argues that the first is inconclusive and, furthermore, can only be so, while the second requires to be made more relevant to the discussions of how redistribution and inequality relate in legitimate policy and practice. The concept of property regimes can help here, within a more contextual understanding of development in practice as not necessarily involving growth and economic progress, but as being subject to periodic phases of ‘de‐development’, or well‐being retrogression. The paper concludes that state‐sponsored redistribution policy has an important role to play in changing underlying property regimes for the benefit of the poor in southern Africa. Inequality does matter, and a consideration of radical, redistributive social change is worth rehabilitating as an efficient means of reducing poverty, particularly in situations of low or fluctuating growth. This consideration, in turn, requires a political acceptance of the legitimacy of a broader role for economic public policy and state action.     

Growth and Poverty Revisited from a Multidimensional Perspective

The actual impact of economic growth on poverty reduction is of fundamental importance to the development agenda. This paper offers new empirical evidence on growth and poverty measured from a multidimensional perspective using the global Multidimensional Poverty Index. Results from a First Difference Estimator Model suggest that while economic growth reduces multidimensional poverty, this impact is well below a one-to-one relationship and lower than the impact of growth on income poverty. Results from a cross-section model additionally suggest that countries with higher levels of exports, higher share of industry and services and higher control of corruption have lower multidimensional poverty.     

Farm productivity and rural poverty in India

Armed with new data, we return to an old question from the pages of this journal: to what extent do India's rural poor share in agricultural growth? Combining data from 24 household sample surveys spanning 35 years with other sources, we estimate a model of the joint determination of consumption‐poverty measures, agricultural wages, and food prices. We find that higher farm productivity brought both absolute and relative gains to poor rural households. A large share of the gains was via wages and prices, though these effects took time. The benefits to the poor were not confined to those near the poverty line.     

Does Financial Development Contribute to Poverty Reduction?

The article examines the contribution of financial development to poverty reduction in developing countries. Building on earlier research which has established links between financial development and economic growth, and between economic growth and poverty reduction, the article tests for a causal process linking financial sector growth and poverty reduction. The empirical results indicate that, up to a threshold level of economic development, financial sector growth contributes to poverty reduction through the growth-enhancing effect. The impact of financial development on poverty reduction will be affected, however, by any change in income inequality resulting from financial development.     

Global Production Networks, Chronic Poverty and ‘Slave Labour’ in Brazil

For large parts of the world's poor labour force, participation in global production networks (GPNs) is associated not with poverty reduction and ??social upgrading??, but with highly precarious, unprotected and exploitative forms of work and employment, resulting in a perpetuation, rather than alleviation, of chronic poverty. In this article, we seek to understand these dynamics of ??adverse incorporation?? in the context of Brazilian agriculture, focusing on the extreme ends of the spectrum of exploitation associated with what, in Brazil, is usually termed ??slave labour??. We explore two questions which reveal the circular character of adverse incorporation. First, to what extent, in what ways and under what circumstances does chronic poverty foster patterns of precarious and exploitative employment within GPNs for poor workers? Second, to what extent, in what ways and under what circumstances can the workings of GPNs, and the terms on which poorer workers are incorporated into them, be said to produce and reproduce chronic poverty?     

The Paradox of Small Hydropower: Local Government and Environmental Governance in China

Small Hydropower is regarded by the Chinese state as a method for both poverty alleviation and environmental protection in rural areas. This paper finds that local government officials develop an ‘environmentally bundled economic interests’ approach that simultaneously fulfills the central state’s new political mission and local economic development demand. The small hydropower plants however have paradoxically become the destroyer of the environment as local government at different levels develop the plants in an un-coordinated manner. We use the growth of small hydropower in Yunnan province as an exemplar to show the new tendency and problems of China’s environmental governance.     

Conditional Cash Transfers,Adult Work Incentives,and Poverty

Conditional cash transfer (CCT) programmes aim to alleviate poverty through monetary and in-kind benefits, as well as reduce future incidence of poverty by encouraging investments in education, health and nutrition. The success of CCT programmes at reducing poverty depends on whether, and the extent to which, cash transfers affect adult work incentives. In this paper we examine whether the PROGRESA programme of Mexico affects adult participation in the labour market and overall adult leisure time, and we link these effects to the impact of the programme on poverty. Utilising the experimental design of PROGRESA's evaluation sample, we find that the programme does not have any significant effect on adult labour force participation and leisure time. Our findings on adult work incentives are reinforced further by the result that PROGRESA leads to a substantial reduction in poverty. The poverty reduction effects are stronger for the poverty gap and severity of poverty measures.     

Is Economic Growth Increasing Disparities? A Multidimensional Analysis of Poverty in the Lao PDR between 2003 and 2013

The Asian story of miraculous growth and poverty reduction has reinforced mainstream views of development that equate high and sustained economic growth with progress in human wellbeing. But understanding development only in terms of economic growth is not sufficient. This paper offers a different perspective on possible effects of Laos’s transition from a subsistence-oriented economy to a market-oriented economy. We used a multidimensional poverty approach with panel data for the years between 2003 and 2013. Findings suggest that benefits were not equally distributed: 50 per cent of people moved in and out of poverty, and the other half was either non-poor (37%) or always poor (13%).