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Policy Implications and Prospects for Boosting Global Food Security

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Agricultural Trade, Policy Reforms, and Global Food Security

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Abstract

Open markets maximize the benefit that international trade can offer to boost global food security and ensure that the world’s agricultural resources are used sustainably. The declining costs of trading internationally reinforce that message, as does climate change. If global warming and extreme weather events are to become more damaging to food production, they provide all the more reason to be open to international food markets and allow trade to buffer seasonal fluctuations in domestic production. The more countries that do so, the less volatile will be international food prices. Developing countries concerned that poor households would be too vulnerable if food markets were unrestricted can now invoke, at low cost, generic social safety net measures such as conditional targeted income supplements, targeting them to the most vulnerable households.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia

    Kym Anderson

  2. Arndt-Corden Department of Economics, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia

    Kym Anderson

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Anderson, K. (2016). Policy Implications and Prospects for Boosting Global Food Security. In: Agricultural Trade, Policy Reforms, and Global Food Security. Palgrave Studies in Agricultural Economics and Food Policy. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-46925-0_12

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-46925-0_12

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-137-47168-0

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