Hungry for free trade? Food trade and extreme hunger in developing countries

Abstract

One of the greatest challenges of the twenty-first century is to ensure that the world population has reliable access to adequate, affordable and nutritious food sufficient to avoid hunger. Agricultural trade liberalization is often considered a central element of economic strategies aiming at improving food security in developing countries. Many, however, argue that most developing countries may not benefit from freer agricultural trade and that liberalization may accentuate food insecurity. From an empirical perspective, little is known about the effects of trade on food security in developing countries. We estimated the effects of food trade openness on extreme hunger in developing countries using a novel two-step approach. First, we estimated the reverse causal impacts of hunger on food trade openness using rainfall anomalies as instrumental variables to generate exogenous variation in hunger. In a second step, we estimated the effect of food trade openness on hunger using the residual food trade openness that is not driven by hunger as an instrument. We found that a 10% increase in food trade openness would increase the prevalence of undernourishment by about 6%. We also found evidence that developing countries reduce food trade openness as a response to increased hunger, suggesting protectionist policies. A percentage point increase in undernourishment prevalence would decrease food trade openness by 0.9%. Our results suggest that countries may be better off adopting food self-sufficiency for some time, despite such actions clashing with World Trade Organization's regulations and current agenda.

Development and Prospect of Food Security Cooperation in the BRICS Countries

“…[30,54]. Compared with the categories of food-based agricultural products in FAO, the trade volume of 18 agricultural products in HS code has been added as a food trade volume [55], which includes 02 (meats), 03 (fish and other aquatic animals), 04 (dairy, egg, honey, etc. ), 07 (edible vegetables), 08 (edible fruits, nuts), 09 (coffee, tea, spices), 10 (cereal), 11 (milling industry products), 12 (kernel and fruit), 13 (shellac; gum, resin, etc.…”

Fertilizer Use in China: The Role of Agricultural Support Policies

“…The data used to measure China's indirect agricultural support (price supports, agricultural taxes) were compiled from the OECD Producer and Consumer Support Estimates (PCSE) database (market price support data), while data on direct agricultural support (the "four subsidies"-see Table 1) Similar to the process of hypothesis formation, the empirical testing in this section also follows a two-stage process: empirical testing of the influence of ASPs on farmers' decision making in Stage One, and empirical testing of the impact of farmers' production decisions on fertilizer use in Stage Two. Methodologically, considering the good continuity of data, this research, in reference to previous studies (see, for example, Wang and Yang [51]; Zhang and Ren [52]; Qian and Mu [53]), used time series regression models to empirically test the hypotheses.…”

“…Lastly, even though an increasing number of studies have examined decoupled farm program payments (see, for example, Goodwin and Mishra [41]; O'Donoghue and Whitaker [26]; Brady et al [49]; Devadoss, Gibson, and Luckstead [50]), findings from these studies, most of which are based on the experience of developed economies, cannot be readily generalized to developing countries including China. Overall, agricultural subsidies in developed countries are more prevailing and higher than in developing countries [51][52][53]. In China, the situation seems to be more complicated.…”

Food Security and Trade in Food Products in Nigeria

“…Free trade in food trade and over-reliant on food imports have been arguably accused of being among the principal causes of undernutrition and food insecurity in developing countries. They argue that some developing countries are well developed to take advantage of agrarian free trade (Singh, 2014;Verter, 2016;Mary, 2019). For instance, studies by Mary (2019) suggests that the over-reliant on food imports and food trade openness may increase the prevalence of undernourishment, hunger in developing countries (Nigeria included).…”

“…They argue that some developing countries are well developed to take advantage of agrarian free trade (Singh, 2014;Verter, 2016;Mary, 2019). For instance, studies by Mary (2019) suggests that the over-reliant on food imports and food trade openness may increase the prevalence of undernourishment, hunger in developing countries (Nigeria included). Mary argues that Nigeria and some other developing countries would be better off adopting food self-sufficiency measures at least in the short run, even if such actions are at variance with the WTO's regulations.…”