Abstract
There is growing global concern over the increase in the levels and volatility of world food and energy commodity prices and, in turn, their ramifications for food security and energy security, particularly amongst the poor. This inevitable link has deepened with the financialisation of commodity markets whereby investments in the latter reflect primarily a financial motive without adequate reflection of the fundamental conditions of demand and supply in commodity markets (Shome, Political economy of debt accumulation and fiscal adjustment in a financial crisis in Mohanty D (ed), Monetary policy, sovereign debt and financial stability: the new Trilemma, Cambridge University Press, New Delhi, 2013a). As a result there is also a concern over the extent to which the prices in food and energy markets reflect their actual availability in world markets. In turn, the absence of appropriate linkages might turn out to be inadvertent constraints on inflation and growth in particular in emerging and developing economies (EDEs).
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Notes
- 1.
Different international organisations define EDEs differently. In this chapter, unless otherwise indicated, EDEs are taken to refer to all countries other than those classified in the industrial country category of the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF’s) pre-1997 country classification system. See the IMF’s World Economic Outlook website (http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/data/changes.htm) for further details.
- 2.
Food security is defined as ‘availability and access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food to meet the dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life’ (FAO 2011). Energy security has been defined as ‘access to clean, reliable, and affordable energy services for cooking and heating, lighting, communications and productive uses’, and as ‘uninterrupted physical availability (of energy) at a price which is affordable, while respecting environment concerns’ (IEA 2011).
- 3.
Although there are many definitions of the terms food and energy security, some of the most commonly used definitions are as follows: ‘Food security [is] a situation that exists when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life’ (FAO 2004). Energy access has been defined as ‘access to clean, reliable, and affordable energy services for cooking and heating, lighting, communications and productive uses’ (AGECC 2010) and ‘energy security is defined in terms of the physical availability of supplies to satisfy demand at a given price’ (IEA 2001), recently redefined as ‘uninterrupted physical availability (of energy) at a price which is affordable, while respecting environmental concerns’ (IEA 2011).
- 4.
The FAO has since revised downwards its previous estimate of food insecurity in the world during 2009–2011 to 870 million, representing 12.7 % of the world’s population (FAO 2013).
- 5.
Although energy inputs into agriculture have increased, globally, the share of agriculture in total energy consumption has declined from 3.9 % in 1990 to 2.5 % in 2001 (http://earthtrends.wri.org/pdf_library/data_tables/ene3_2005.pdf).
- 6.
See The Economist, January 14–20, 2011.
- 7.
See UNCTAD (2011).
- 8.
As quoted in Cassiolato in Chap. 11.
- 9.
Although still modest in comparison to DAC aid, development assistance from non-DAC donors is rising rapidly. It more than doubled between 2005 and 2008. China pledged to provide US$ 10 billion over 2010–13 and the Indian prime minister pledged US$ 5 billion over 5 years to Africa at the 2011 India–Africa Summit in Ethiopia.
- 10.
See G8 utoronto website (http://www.g8.utoronto.ca/).
- 11.
Crop yield represents a partial productivity measure whereas multi-factor productivity measures express output relative to a more comprehensive measure of all measurable inputs (including land, labour and capital, as well as energy, chemicals and other purchased inputs). Total factor productivity growth itself is a combination of pure technological progress and the increase in efficiency in utilisation of factors of production, the latter often being made possible by economic and institutional reforms that enhance productivity.
- 12.
However, obesity is emerging as an important challenge in these countries while low child nutrition continues to be a blemish on India’s overall socio-development indicators.
- 13.
- 14.
Since 2004, R&D expenditure as a percent of GDP has been the highest for China among Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC countries).
- 15.
The ratio of expenditure on technology import to total R&D expenditure.
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Shome, P., Sharma, P. (2015). Introduction and Overview. In: Shome, P., Sharma, P. (eds) Emerging Economies. Springer, New Delhi. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-81-322-2101-2_1
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