Tshin Qi Zhou

A0139656R
UTW1001H
Assignment 1: Reflective Summary
The Politics of HungerHow Illusion and Greed Fan the Food Crisis [Paul Collier]

In 2008, Collier argues in his article that we are helpless against increasing world
food demand and should focus on increasing world food supply; thereby lowering
world food prices and suggests three solutions to solve this issue. Drawing from past
success in Europe in the 1800s, he recommends the first solution be widespread
agriculture commercialisation especially for countries with peasant agriculture and
cites Brazil as a successful model. The second would be to lift the ban on genetically
modified (GM) food imposed by Europe and Africa. Finally, he asserts that America
should reduce subsidies on biofuels so that world grain supply would increase.

Collier primarily argues that peasant agriculture should give way to commercialised
agriculture (Page 72, Collier). His article evinces that innovation is difficult to occur
for the former (Page 72, Collier) but ignores that the latter may have adverse impacts.
While we can be sure that large-scale farms makes innovation of food production
easier and the production process faster, there are social implications to this, mainly
the displacement of lowly-skilled peasants who have lost their livelihood and are
forced to move to urban areas in search of employment leading to overrowding in
urban areas (Page 71, Collier).

This is resonated by Bello in his article who argues that But what of the millions of
African peasants who will be displaced by large-scale agrarian capitalism? (Pg 82,
Bello). Furthermore, Collier is expecting profit driven companies to regulate their
policies and not exploit the local populace when he suggests that large companies
could supervise efficient use of land for agricultural purposes (Page 73, Collier).

However, Collier admits that while it is possible for innovation to occur in peasant
agriculture (Page 72, Collier), Africa does not have the capability for that because it
lacks a comprehensive network of research stations that extends support to small
farmers and attributes this phenomenom to the failure of the government (Page 72,
Collier).

What Collier fails to recognise is that this is due to the restrictions implemented upon
them by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) during structural
adjustments. This is backed by Bello who agrees that phasing out of government
controls and support mechanisms under the structural adjustment programmes (Page
68, Bello) has led to a disaster in African agriculture in 1970. He shows that the
Malawian governments subsidies of fertilisers to peasants resulting in bountiful crops
for three consecutive years (Page 78, Bello) was a classic example of the success that
an African government and peasant agriculture could achieve.

In addition, Bello asserts that peasant agriculture in the 1970s had major
breakthroughs (Page 70, Bello), further bolestering the argument that peasant
agriculture is as capable as commercialised agriculture in innovation.

Lastly, this principal argument by Collier is completely refuted by Langs article.

Lang claims that increasing world food supply will not solve the world food problem
because there will still be distortions in markets, access and culture(Page 87, Lang).
He asserts that the overproduction of food has led to the problem of extreme
consuming habits (Page 89, Lang) and that the current food system is unsustainable in

the long run (Page 95). We will have to scrutinise it critically and radically change our
way of thinking of food, especially in the twenty-first century (Lang 2010).

In conclusion, it would be myopic to focus mainly on increasing world food supply by

preferring commericialised over peasant agriculture. Instead, we should look to
tackling this issue via a mutli faceted approach that seeks to change our mindset of
food.

(585 words)

Bibliography

Bello, Walden. Destroying African Agriculture. The Food Wars. London and New
York: Verso, 2009. 68-84

Bunting, Madeleine. How Land Grabs in Africa Could Herald a New Dystopian Age
of Hunger. Guardian Poverty Matters Blog. 28 Jan. 2011. 03 Aug. 2011
http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2011/jan/28/africaland-grabs- food-security

Collier, Paul. The Politics of Hunger: How Illusion and Greed Fan the Food
Crisis. Foreign Affairs, Vol. 87, no. 6 (2008): 67-79.

Lang, Tim. Crisis? What Crisis? The Normality of the Current Food Crisis. Journal
of Agrarian Change, Vol. 10, No. 1 (2010): 87-97.

Sen, Amartya. Why Half the Planet is Hungry. The Observer. 16 Jun. 2002.