Coping With Climate Change: a Food Policy Approach1

• Published date: 01 March 2014
• Date: 01 March 2014
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.18278/wfp.1.1.4

World Food Policy

56

he early drats of Food Policy Analysis were stimulated by the attention to high

food prices following the world food crisis in 1973–74, and the fears of a repeat in

1979–80. But by the fourth f ull drat, in 1982, it became apparent that surplus-

es were returning to world food markets. A volume predicated on a world running

out of food would have been out of date before the ink was dry, and a full-scale re-

vamping of the analytical messages was needed. Ater a nearly complete re-write,

the new theme, which has stood the test of 30 years of market luctuations, was the

need for lexibility to cope with market instability. hat message is even more rel-

evant now, as we learn to cope with a new source of instability—climate change.

Such lexibility is not a natural feature of domestic policymaking, in the food sec-

tor or elsewhere, and providing the analytical tools for understanding how to cre-

ate lexible responses turned out to be a real challenge. he task in this paper is

to ask speciically how climate change would alter the basic message of Food Poli-

cy Analysis. Virtually all of the analysis was focused on national policies and do-

mestic markets, an approach that seems problematical for preventing or mitigat-

ing climate change, but entirely appropriate for designing adaptation strategies.

Climate change is imposing itself as a reality via the increased probability of ex-

treme weather events in general, and also on both global and localized food secu-

rity outcomes in particular. he ecosystem services provided by the climate are es-

sential for all agricultural production. he most important efects of climate change

on agriculture are likely to include a net global loss of agricultural land, changing

crop suitability, an increase in the frequency of natural disasters, and greater tem-

poral and geographic variance in production. It will also have negative efects on

other areas of agriculture broadly interpreted—reducing the carrying capacity of

many rangelands and posing threats to isheries and aquaculture production systems.

Climate change is expected to have highly variable efects on diferent regions; trop-

ical and equatorial regions will bear the heaviest burdens, with some gains in yields

and land availability in temperate regions. Since rural poverty is concentrated in

tropical and, in South Asia, coastal areas, climate change is expected to have a dis-

proportionate efect on the already vulnerable. he challenge is to design, analyze,

and implement in-country “climate-smart agriculture” adaptation projects and pro-

grams, which are now part of the food policy agenda, as well as to improve the open-

ness to trade in agricultural commodities to even out geographical instability. De-

signing appropriate policies for bio-fuels also needs to be on the analytical agenda.

Keywords: climate change, food policy analysis, food price, biofuel and agriculture

Coping With Climate Change: a Food Policy Approach1

C. Peter Timmer2

1 is paper was prepared for the Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society (AARES)

meetings in Sydney, February 2013. Some of the observations on Food Policy Analysis appeared in Timmer

(2010b). I would like to thank Marshall Burke, Wally Falcon, Casey Friedman, Joanne Gaskell, David Lobell,

and Roz Naylor for very helpful comments and suggestions. ese colleagues all know far more than I do

about climate change, and I am learning a lot from them. However, I remain responsible for the views and

shortcomings in this essay.

2 omas D. Cabot Professor of Development Studies, emeritus, Harvard University; Non-resident fellow,

Center for Global Development, Washington, DC.

57

Coping With Climate Change: A Food Policy Approach

Introduction

It has been 30 years since Food Pol icy

Analysis (Timmer, Falcon, and Pearson

1983) was published and more than 35

years since the initial outline for the book

was circulated among the authors. It is fair

to say that the volume has been very in-

uential in thinking about food policy is-

sues since its publication, and it remains in

use as a textbook for a number of univer-

sity courses. Its academic success is a bit

surprising because the audience was not

primarily university faculty (for whom it

seemed too simplistic in methodology and

too anecdotal in presentation). Instead, we

targeted the message at practitioners, an

ill-dened group of analysts in need of an

understanding of how a complicated and in-

terconnected food system actually worked.

Training these practitioners has turned

out to be the main mission of the book,

and one that has continuing resonance.

e early dras of Food Policy Anal-

ysis (henceforth FPA) were stimulated by

the attention to high food prices follow-

ing the world food crisis in 1973–74, and

the fears of a repeat in 1979–80. But by the

fourth full dra, in 1982, it became appar-

ent that surpluses were returning to world

food markets. A volume predicated on a

world running out of food would have been

out of date before the ink was dry, and a

full-scale revamping of the analytical mes-

sages was needed. Aer a substantial re-

write, the new theme, which has stood the

test of 30 years of market uctuations, was

the need for exibility to cope with mar-

ket instability. at message is even more

relevant now, as we learn to cop e with a

new source of instability—climate change.

Such exibility is not a natural fea-

ture of domestic policymaking, in the food

sector or elsewhere, and providing the an-

alytical tools for understanding how to

create exible responses both to high and

low price environments turned out to be

a real challenge. But the relevance of the

approach remains to this day, accounting

for the continued usefulness of an analyt-

ical guidebook that is three decades old.

he Basic Message

There was no mistaking the ambitious-

ness of the primary goal of FPA: rap-

id and sustained poverty reduction.

At the time of draing, there was not even

agreement in the development profession

that such a goal was feasible. Paul Streeten

had published First ings First: Meeting

Basic Human Needs in 1982, eloquently

arguing that rapid growth was not possible

and that development strategy needed to

focus on providing basic needs to the poor.

e focus of FPA on more rapid economic

growth and the policies to enhance ecien-

cy that would bring it about were controver-

sial for a volume that took poverty seriously.

But FPA argued that growth was not

enough. ere were four basic food poli-

cy objectives, and all four were important:

1. Faster economic growth (the “eciency”

objective).

2. More equal distribution of income from

that growth (the “welfare” objective).

3. A guaranteed nutritional oor for the

poor (the “safety net” objective).

4. Secure availability and stable prices in

food markets (the “food security” objec-

tive).

3 Although long out of print, the volume remains

available on-line at a Stanford University website:

http://www.stanford.edu/group/FRI/indonesia/doc-

uments/foodpolicy/fronttoc.fm.html.