The World Food Economy: A 40 Year Perspective on the Past, and a Look Forward

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.18278/wfp.2.2.3.1.8
• Published date: 01 March 2016
• Date: 01 March 2016

121

World Food Policy - Volume 2 Issue 2/Volume 3 Issue 1, Fall 2015/Spring 2016

Introduction

What is the special signicance

of a 40 year perspective, from

the vantage point of 2015? e

answer is mostly personal. In 1975, I rst

taught a course at Stanford University on

the world food economy. It was a course

that had a long history at the Stanford

Food Research Institute, which had been

founded in 1921. Merrill Bennett rst

taught the course, starting in the 1950s.1

Aer Bennett’s retirement in 1960, Bruce

Johnston took over the course and gave

it more of an Asian and African focus.

But Bruce was on sabbatical in Kenya in

1975 and I was asked if I would step in as

a young faculty and teach a course on the

world food economy.

C. Peter TimmerA

e World Food Economy:

A 40 Year Perspective on the Past, and a Look Forward

A is is a lightly edited version of the Keynote Speech I delivered at the World Food Policy Con-

ference, December 17–18, 2015 in Bangkok, ailand. e Conference was sponsored by the ai

Royal Society. I am the Cabot Professor of Development Studies, emeritus, Harvard University, and

Non-Resident Fellow, Center for Global Development, Washington, DC. Fuller details are available in

my book, Food Security and Scarcity: Why Ending Hunger Is So Hard (Philadelphia, PA: University of

Pennsylvania Press) 2015.

1 Bennett’s well-known book, e World Food Economy (New York: Harper and Row), was published

in 1954 and was an outgrowth of teaching the course.

What has changed in the world food economy in the 40 years since 1975? e

basic answer to that question is that ending hunger has turned out to be a

very dicult task. Henry Kissinger stated in 1976, at the rst World Food

Conference, that “within a decade, no child will go to bed hungry.” ere

would be no hunger within a decade. We failed miserably in that promise

and the question then is why? is paper attempts to answer that question.

ere are two basic questions: (1) What has changed, and what has remained

the same? (2) Why is ending hunger so hard? What has changed, obviously, is

an information and communications technological revolution that has radically

reduced the transactions costs of doing business. Even poor households can be

informed instantly about market prices. What has remained the same is that

resource scarcity continues as the dominant theme organizing market activities.

Making markets work for the poor is the only path out of hunger and poverty.

Keywords: Food security, markets, ICT revolution, world food economy,

ending hunger

doi: 10.18278/wfp.2.2.3.1.8