The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation has expressed concern that free markets and government deregulation will make life more difficult for the poor and hungry. It argues that the free market, geared as it is to profit, is not the best way to secure stable supplies that work as a buffer to prevent hunger and starvation.
Free marketeers can point out that food production in the world has risen a a greater rate than population since about 1970 and that this has happened at a time when the application of free-market philosophies was increasing throughout the world. However, it is probable that increased production was more due to technological changes that would, up to a point, have happened irrespective of the economic philosophies of the various governments. None the less it is likely that greater freedom of markets has resulted in other economic efficiencies … particularly in infrastructre … that have improved the production and distribution of food in the world.
FAO is correct to point out that with the onset of greater aherence to free-market principles, governments are moving away from mainatining large stocks of grain as a way of stabilising grain prices in the home market. Often, fears of unrest that follow sharp increases in the price of stable foods have caused governments to control prices. However, that has been offset by requirements from the World Bank and other economic conditions for governments to cut spending.
FAO now asserts that there are 800 million undernourished people in the world and two-thirds of them are in the Asia-Pacific region. This is despite the fact that food production has outstripped population growth. But the picture is not all gloomy. In the 20 years to 1990 the percentage of of undernourished (people who have less that 2200 calories a day) fell from 44 per cent of the people in East Asia to 16 per cent and from 34 per cent to 24 per cent in South Asia. But there are still 500 million undernourished people in the region.
Still, with the increased food production and the significant fall in the per centage of people undernourished over the past 20 years it is difficult to hold deregulation and the free market responsible for greater undernourishment. It might well be that greater government intervention in limited fields might shield against sudden shortages caused by market conditions. However, that might only come in a general environment of grater govrnment internvention with all its attendant inefficiencies and lower overall production.
The FAO points to governments moving away from self-sufficiency and stock-piling surpluses and towards international trade as a threat to poor and undernourished people who would be the first to suffer in the event of a shortfall and consequent rising prices. This, however, ignores the benefits that trade brings. In particular, it ignores the huge benefits of nations concentrating on what they are good at and trading their surpluses. Often self-sufficiency in food comes at the price of substantial inefficiency ans land is turned to crops that are not best suited to the conditions.
Self-sufficiency may give a superficial appearance of security, but security can be improved by the greater interdependence brought by trade. A self-sufficient country is more likely to behave aggressively.
It is too easy to point to the market defects without seeing that the alternatives might be worse.