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Food, Agriculture, and Biofuels
More than a billion people in developing countries suffer from chronic hunger. Long a neglected topic, the role of agriculture in promoting pro-poor growth is attracting renewed attention in the United States and internationally. CGD’s work in this area focuses on how rich countries’ agricultural policies and practices impact people and economic development in the poor world.
Three out of four people in the developing world live in rural areas and depend on agriculture to support themselves and their families. Yet, since development traditionally involves moving people from subsistence farming into higher-productivity activities in manufacturing and services, governments and donors have neglected agriculture for decades. The spike in food prices in 2007–08, coupled with the consequent increases in hunger and poverty, returned food security issues to the policy agenda.
Senior fellow Kimberly Elliott, author of Delivering on Doha: Farm Trade and the Poor, focuses on how rich countries' agricultural policies and practices affect poor people in the developing world. Non-resident fellow Peter Timmer has written extensively on the role of agriculture and food security in the economic development process. Non-resident fellow Jenny Aker conducts research on food aid in the Sahel and on the importance of mobile phones on food prices.
CGD research on food and agriculture analyzes several other topics:
- Trade policies and farm subsidies that protect rich-country agricultural producers from competition at the expense of developing countries
- The effect of biofuels production on poor people, including through food prices.
- The impact of rich-world consumption of "fair trade" agricultural products, such as coffee and chocolate, on poor people and on development.
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“No superpower that claims to possess the moral high ground can afford to relinquish its leadership in addressing global disease, hunger, and ignorance,” said former US senator Richard Lugar. “Our moral identity is an essential source of national power… We diminish ourselves and our national reputation if we turn our backs on the obvious plight of hundreds of millions of people who are living on less than a dollar a day and facing severe risk from hunger and disease.”
When you opt to buy fair trade certified coffee at the grocery store instead of uncertified, how much good are you doing? My guest on this week’s Wonkcast, Kimberly Ann Elliott, draws on her recent policy paper, Is My Fair Trade Coffee Really Fair? Trends and Challenges in Fair Trade Certification, to tell me why the answer may be more complicated than you’d think.
Economists, development and otherwise, often assume that people given the right information will make informed decisi
This paper is an introduction to fair-trade markets, trends, and challenges, and the issues brought on by attempts to get products to the mainstream.
This paper details that results of an experiment in northern Ghana in which small-scale farmers were randomly given different kinds of potentially risk-reducing assistance.
This paper presents the results of applying the QuODA methodology to agriculture, explains the limitations of the approach, and compares donor performance with the original QuODA results.
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Money is pouring into the Philippines in the wake of the devastation of Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda).
Are we doing well by doing good?
This CGD Note by C. Peter Timmer explores the alliance between US farmers, processors and shippers that forms the political foundation of the US food aid program. The Note outlines the current winners and losers of US food aid, and argues that surprisingly, the recipients are most often the losers.
Rising commodity prices and tight government budgets are adding to pressures to reduce subsidies for energy and agriculture in many countries. Two new reports, including my recent paper on agricultural and biofuel subsidies, provide fodder for this debate by documenting the extent of subsidies in these sectors and analyzing their negative effects, particularly for developing countries and the poor.
Statement Before The U.S. House Of Representatives Committee On Financial Services: Hearing on Contributing Factors and International Responses to the Global Food Crisis.
Most antibiotics around the world today are fed to farm animals to promote growth and prevent diseases fostered by crowded conditions on factory farms. There is an urgent need to find alternatives to keep animals healthy, and preserve crucial antibiotics for human health. One way to do that would be to create an international treaty not to use antibiotics in livestock feed — and probiotics, like those found in yogurt, may be a stepping stone toward that goal.
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