Economics of Food Security and Global Environment

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  • 食糧問題と地球環境の経済学
  • ショクリョウ モンダイ ト チキュウ カンキョウ ノ ケイザイガク

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<p>The main issue of agricultural development, i. e., how to achieve food security and poverty reduction in developing countries, has been increasingly linked with global environmental issues. First, a main cause of deforestation is found to be the expansion of farmland by poor small farmers to increase food production. Thus, achieving food security is a prerequisite for reducing carbon emissions due to deforestation. Second, tree planting and reforestation for carbon sequestration is carried out by small farmers in many developing countries. Third, the extraction of biofuels from maize, sugarcane, and rapeseed, among other things, has significant implications for global food security. If biofuel production continues to increase rapidly world wide, food prices will increase and, hence, poor food-importing countries, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, will suffer from food shortages and severe poverty. Fourth, it is expected that ciimate change will result in large production losses in agriculture through outbreaks of pests and diseases and frequent occurrence of extreme weather, leading to drought and floods. These arguments imply that the economics of agricultural development and food security in the developing world must be an integral part of the environmental economics. More specifically, this paper argues that improving agricultural productivity in low-income countries in the face of global climate change is necessary to achieve the twin-objectives of reducing carbon emission and the reducing incidence of food insecurity and poverty.</p>

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