Trade liberalization leads to food insecurity in West Africa

Here's another article responding to the 2008 food crisis, this time written by knowledgeable researchers instead of that hack Collier. It's a long article, but check out the discussion on pages 11 and 12. The authors argue that lowering tariff barriers for rice imports in the 1980s really compromised food security in West Africa, by favoring low food prices for urban consumers instead of supporting the domestic farming sector. This is obvious to anyone that hasn't drunk the agricultural free-trade kool-aid. But the authors go one step further, claiming that the programs many countries have implemented since 2008 to bulk up domestic rice production merely continue this urban bias. I had never thought of it this way, but I think they have a point. The latest move of West African countries to increase local rice production (in large part through promoting new high-input rice varieties) is motivated not by a desire to improve rural livelihoods or even to improve national food security, but rather to lower rice prices to avoid urban unrest (for more on this, see my last post). If it were otherwise, argues the article, governments would be more inclined to invest in increased production of better-adapted, low-input, widespread staples such as sorghum, cassava, and plantains, instead of new, high-input rice varieties.

Finally, the article insists that in order to strengthen national food security, as important as providing improved seed are levying tariffs on food imports, providing support to farmers, improving infrastructure, and giving farmers better access to credit. It's all just common sense, but it's nice to hear it from someone other than myself.