GLOBALIZATION AND FOOD SECURITY IN AFRICA

Globalization is important on many different dimensions. However, the focus here is on the economic aspects of globalization, and particularly the role of international trade and its influence on material well being. As seen here, the globalization debate is about the merits of the free market, now raised to a global scale.

With regard to issues of food and nutrition, the advocates of globalization favor market liberalization and export-oriented agriculture. They believe local markets should be strengthened through improvements in physical infrastructure and credit facilities. They favor large-scale operations with high levels of mechanization. They also favor the trend toward increasingly modern food marketing operations, including the use of packaged foods. For the advocates of globalization, the basis of food security is wealth, and the possibility of obtaining food from diverse sources through the open market.

The critics see the intensive penetration of goods and capital from outside into poor countries as another phase of neo-imperialism, a thinly disguised instrument for the exploitation of the weaker peoples of the world. Ghana’s historical dependence on cocoa exports illustrates the risks of over-reliance on global markets. At one time Ghana had committed its agricultural resources almost totally to the export of cocoa, but when world cocoa prices weakened its economy virtually collapsed.

The critics point out that on world markets poor countries are price takers, not price makers, so they are vulnerable to manipulations by those who control the economic system to serve their own interests. In trade, this is demonstrated by the fact that poor countries are regularly paid less than rich countries for the same products ending up on the same markets. In the world of finance, it is demonstrated by the fact that poor countries always tend to suffer much higher rates of inflation than rich countries (Kirshner). Poor countries have very little control over the circumstances they face beyond their borders.

The critics acknowledge that there are advantages to trade and investment from outside, but these are seen as merely the devil’s enticements: candy that is proffered to open the door. The classic case of enticement was the opium trade with China. After the revolution, China wisely slammed its door shut so that it could strengthen itself, and reopen its door only after it had become less vulnerable to outside predators.

Advocates of globalization speak of the need to integrate Africa into the world economy, but critics think their reading of history is distorted. In the critic’s view, the effort has been underway for a very long time. Colonialism had a very negative effect on nutrition status:

The critics see the remedies offered by the advocates of globalization as self-serving. For example the Sub-Sahara Africa Trade Bill in the U.S. was viewed as an attempt to extend the flawed NAFTA model to sub-Saharan Africa. It was described by Randall Robinson of Transafrica as "The Africa Re-Colonization Act".

The critics are concerned not only with the specific negative effects of trade and investment but also the general loss of state power (Latham). Globalization is taking place under the guidance of transnational corporations and their agents in major intergovernmental organizations such as the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The critics fear that their steadily increasing control means the erosion of the power of states as represented by their national governments. These agencies may provide some benefits, but these benefits are delivered on their terms, and primarily to strengthen the global system from which they benefit so handsomely. The poor countries are given no choice but to submit.

With regard to issues of food and nutrition, many critics of globalization want to limit both export and import of foods. Heavy emphasis is placed on small-scale enterprises and local production for local consumption. The diets advocated are simple and natural, and depend to a large degree on home production rather than on the marketplace. The basis for food security is self-sufficiency.

However, while the global economic system benefits some, at the same time it may do harm to others. Current patterns and policies that advantage the strong and disadvantage the weak operate in a system that is already highly skewed. In 1989 the countries with the richest 20% of the world's population received about 82.7% of total global income, while the countries with the poorest 20% of the population received only 1.4%, a ratio of 59 to 1. Moreover, between 1960 and 1989, economic growth in the richest countries was 2.7 times as fast as in the poorest countries. The already wide gap between the rich and the poor, the "North-South gap," is widening even further (UNDP 1992, p. 35).

There is a clear global division of labor, with poor countries, and the poor in rich countries, carrying out mundane, repetitive, physical tasks in fields and factories, or remaining unemployed, and the rich specializing in high technology, high capital, high knowledge industries, and doing no physical labor at all.

Producers from poor countries selling the same products ending up on the same markets regularly get less for their efforts, in wages or in commodity prices, than producers in rich countries. Plantations and factories move to poor countries precisely because their comparative advantage is their disadvantage; that is, their inability to demand high wages. The poor get paid less for the same labor and also for the same products. For example, farmers of poor countries receive much less in real terms for a bushel of grain than farmers of rich countries receive for the same product (UNDP 1992, p. 60; Emmanuel). In not receiving a fuller share of the benefits produced by their labor, workers producing food and other commodities for export in effect subsidize the rich. Exporting underpriced goods is a means for transferring value from poor to rich.

Historically, the economies of many developing countries were distorted by "urban bias". Food prices were kept low, to the disadvantage of food producers, in order to feed the cities and thus promote industrialization. We are now seeing a kind of urban bias on a global scale, with the countries of the north benefiting from underpriced agricultural products from the south.

Trade in itself is not valuable. What is needed is trade at good prices. But poor countries are always squeezed with regard to prices:

What will be the pattern over time? The advocates of globalization suggest the possibility of wealth for all, and the convergence of all participants to a common, comfortable quality of life. However, it is clear that the global environment cannot sustain a high level of living for all. Moreover, rather than seeing any sort of convergence to a common, shared quality of life, we instead see increasing divergence, with steadily widening gaps between rich and poor both within and among countries.

Just as unskilled people frequently become unemployed, poor countries are learning that their services are no longer required in the post-industrial, service-oriented global economy. Industrialized countries

There is an increasingly clear pattern of "jobless growth" through which most of the gains from economic growth go to capital rather than labor. There is increasing disemployment, not only of individuals, but even of countries, as the share held by poor countries in world trade continues to decline. While there is cause to worry about the penetration of Africa by predatory capitalists, there is perhaps even more concern with the fact that so few capitalists show any interest at all in Africa.

We can understand the division between globalization’s advocates and its critics by grasping two connected points:

• free markets do not benefit everyone equally, but are beneficial mainly to the rich and powerful, and
• strategies of self-sufficiency do not benefit everyone equally, but are beneficial mainly to the poor and weak.

Within poor countries, international loans are likely to be of greatest benefit to their middle and upper classes. Debt servicing, however, is likely to have especially heavy negative impacts on the poor and their children, obliging them to do without food subsidies and health and other services, and often pressing them into exploitative working conditions in export-oriented industries.

The amount of money going from south to north for debt servicing greatly exceeds the current amounts of official development assistance going from north to south. Moreover, official development assistance is likely to benefit the rich and middle class rather than the poor in poor countries. Official development aid does not concentrate on the most needy either within countries or among countries. Overall, "the richest 40% of the developing world population receives more than twice as much aid per capita as the poorest 40% (UNDP 1992, pp. 44-45)."

To deal with the economic pressures on them resulting from their heavy debt load in combination with the global recession of the 1980s, many poor countries have had to make substantial policy adjustments. Structural adjustment programs have been pressed on debtor countries by the international financial institutions. These countries have had to reduce their imports, devalue their currencies, and cut government expenditures. In many cases the adjustments have resulted in higher unemployment and lower wages. The attempts to restore the basis for long-term economic growth have had real short-term costs(cf. George 1988; George 1992; World Bank; Bank Information Center; Dejong; Alubo; Türk; NGLS).

The burdens have fallen especially on the poor:

While structural adjustment policies are justified on the grounds that they will yield economic benefits in the long run, poor people rarely get much of a share of those benefits. Growth- and export-oriented development policy is of greatest benefit to the rich and powerful. UNICEF has been pressing for an alternative, "adjustment with a human face." Such adjustment policies would not be carried out at the expense of the poor but would call for a kind of economic growth in which smaller and poorer producers were full participants (Jolly; Cornia; Eberstadt). Careful quantitative analysis indicates that:

The diffusion of benefits does not follow the diffusion of technology proportionately. If a farmer figures out a way to double crop yields through some technological innovation, it is not likely that the farmer’s income or quality of life will double. The small farmer is a price taker rather than a price maker. Innovative farmers who introduce new technologies and increase their productivity will soon find that the prices of their inputs are creeping upward, and the prices they get for their products are declining, at least in terms of real (corrected for inflation) prices. For example, if coffee producers found a way to double their productivity, coffee marketers would increase their profit margins and consumers might enjoy cheaper coffee. The share of benefit retained by these innovative producers would likely be small and fleeting because of their low bargaining power. The political-economic forces conspire to return the weaker players to their marginalized positions regardless of their technological advances. Benefits do not increase proportionately with increasing yield levels (Leisinger). Benefits may increase with increasing productivity in the very short term, when one can entertain the fiction that other things will remain constant. However, things do not remain constant. New equilibria are found, based mainly on the relative powers of the players.

In the aggregate, Burkina Faso and Mali have increased productivity from the introduction of cotton and maize hybrids, but who actually reaped the rewards? Just as the benefits of economic growth tend to flow increasingly to capital rather than to labor, similarly the benefits of technological innovation flow more to capital rather than to labor. When a plantation's crop yield increases, it is the owners and buyers and possibly consumers who will harvest the lion's share of the increased benefit. The plantation workers will get little of that incremental benefit.

When Africa's food supply predicament is viewed mainly as a problem of technology, there is a tendency to lose sight of the underlying forces that cause the food supply problems, forces that are much more political-economic than technological in nature.

The ordinary, normal working of the market system creates wealth, but it also leads to poverty, and thus to concentration and to steadily widening gaps. The way in which the market system concentrates wealth and power in the hands of some and impoverishes others is straightforward.

One's bargaining strength depends on the quality of one's alternatives. Those who have greater bargaining strength tend to gain more out of each transaction than do those who have lesser bargaining strength. Thus, over repeated transactions, stronger parties systematically enlarge their advantages over weaker parties. Bargainers do not move to an equilibrium at which the benefits are equally distributed, but instead move apart, with the gap between them steadily widening. Asymmetrical exchange feeds on itself, making the situation more and more asymmetrical.

It has been argued that liberalization in theory should narrow income gaps (UNDP 1997, p. 89), but there is no evident reason for this. Certainly liberalization/globalization may yield substantial benefits for the poor, but this takes place in a process that benefits the rich even more. Progressive social policies (such as transfer payments from top to bottom in the form of social welfare programs) can help to control or compensate for the gap-widening process, but the market itself is intrinsically a gap-widening mechanism.

This pattern of cumulative divergence is visible in the growth of countries. Those that start with higher gross national products rise faster, while those that start lower rise more slowly. For example, in the 1965-1984 period the low-income economies had an average annual growth rate in their GNP per capita of 2.8%; the lower middle-income economies grew at 3.1%; the upper middle-income economies grew at 3.3%; and the industrial market economies grew at 2.4%.

Expressed in these terms, it may appear that the growth rates were more or less comparable, with the industrial economies growing at a slightly lower rate than the low-income countries. However, these figures are percentages of very different baseline levels of GNP per capita. In 1984, for example, the low-income economies had average per capita income gains of $7.28, while the industrial market economies had average per capita income gains of $274.32. The gains in industrial market economies were more than 37 times those in low-income countries (WDR 1986, pp. 180-181). If we take economic growth to be the indicator of development, then it is the rich countries that are the developing countries!

In voluntary transactions both parties must get some benefit, for any party that did not benefit could refuse to trade. Both parties benefit in the exchange process, but unequally. The rich get richer and the poor get richer too, but more slowly.

When the exchange process is accompanied by inflation, however, the real gains to both parties are diminished. The gains to the poorer, weaker party, being smaller, may as a result become negative. This is especially likely because inflation rates tend to be much higher for poor countries than for rich countries. Thus with the combination of trade plus inflation it is likely that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. The apparent gains from trade for the poor are likely to be wiped out by inflation.

Poverty is endlessly recreated. It is the product of an ongoing marginalization process, not a static condition. If it were not, then surely, with all the development programs that have been undertaken, it would have been eradicated by now. The important forces that cause the persistence of poverty are not only economic but also political, social, and cultural. Those with low bargaining power are likely to remain marginalized because those with whom they interrelate have greater bargaining power.

In this trade between rich and poor, there is a net flow of food from poorer countries to richer countries. In 1986, for example, developed countries received over 75% by value and over 62% by weight of all food imports, while developing countries took no more than 25% and 38% respectively (Abraham). The developed countries import more than they export, while the developing countries export more than they import. The poor feed the rich (Kent 1982; Kent 1997).

Whether this should be viewed as problematic remains a matter for debate. As advocates of the free market would point out, the poor countries are paid for this food, and they would not engage in this production and export of food unless they saw it as advantageous. More specifically, those who feel the prevailing pattern of trade is not problematic would point out that:

• A large share of the international trade in food products is comprised of high value products that are of little interest to consumers in the poorer countries.
• Most food trade is among developed countries. The net flow of food from developing to developed countries is relatively small.
• Foreign exchange earnings from the export of high value food products can be used to import much larger volumes of low cost foods, with a large net nutritional gain.
• There is no systematic evidence that export-oriented countries suffer from higher levels of malnutrition.
• Food exports yield substantial foreign exchange earnings for the exporting countries.

• Food exports can lead to declining food security in poor exporting countries. In Senegalese fisheries, for example, "species once commonly eaten throughout the country are now either exported or available only to the elite (French)."
• Export-oriented food production diverts labor and capital way from production for local communities.
• Although earnings from exports conceivably might be used to import cheap food for those most in need, usually they are not used that way. The poor are not the ones who decide how foreign exchange earnings are spent.
• Central governments promote export orientation in order to increase foreign currency holdings and thus enhance their power.
• The benefits of trade between partners of uneven power will be distributed unevenly, with the result that the gap between them widens steadily.
• The volume of exports from developing countries, and even the price, may not be a good indicator of the extent to which the people of those countries draw economic benefit from the trade. Many export-oriented food production operations in developing countries are owned by people from developed countries. To illustrate, under the Lomé Convention the quotas and tariffs faced by others in accessing the market of the European Union are not imposed on certain African, Caribbean, and Pacific countries (the ACP countries). This privileged access applies to exports of canned tuna from the ACP countries to Europe. Most of the tuna canneries in these countries are owned by the French.
• Excessive production for foreign markets can lead to environmental damage, particularly in monoculture plantation operations.
• Excessive promotion of exports can lead to weakening commodity prices, to the disadvantage of exporting countries.

In some ways, both the advocates and the critics of export-oriented food production are correct. Increasing foreign exchange earnings is of particular interest to governments and to the richer people within poor countries. When a country shifts to increasing export-orientation in its food production operations the benefits are likely to shift from poorer toward richer people within the country. Increasing export orientation can result in a net gain of benefits to the country as a whole, but a net loss to the poor. In principle it is possible to compensate for this negative effect with transfer payments to those who are harmed. The difficulty is that the poor, being politically weak, have limited ability to press for such transfer payments.

Increases in food exports can lead to declines in per capita supply of food in several ways. In some cases, it could be a simple matter of redirecting products that had been consumed locally to buyers abroad who are willing to may more for the products. Often, however, the linkages between exports and domestic supplies are more complicated than that. The export product may be a product (like, say, shrimp, coffee or seed cotton) for which there is little demand in the exporting country. But there may be a linkage in that resources that previously had been used as a source of products for local consumption are now dominated by production for export. Or it may be that the government, interested in increasing its foreign exchange, invests far more of its energy and resources into promoting export production than into promoting food production that would supply local consumers.

International trade may be a good means for generating wealth, but it is usually not a good means for providing basic foods for the poor. Traded food generally is too expensive. In southern Africa the major agricultural commodities traded within the region are maize, tobacco, horticulture, prawns, and sugar (Mataya, p. 101). Of these, only maize and possibly sugar can be regarded as basic food. Other basic foods such as roots, tubers and sorghum are more likely to be produced for local consumption.

Overall, the evidence does not support the generalization that the richer countries of the world are draining the poorer countries of their basic food supplies through trade. Where food supplies per capita are declining, it is due primarily to increases in population size, not to the diversion of products that had been consumed locally. In Bangladesh, for example, while it is true that exports of fisheries products have been rising steadily, in 1990 Bangladesh’s fisheries exports still amounted to only about 3.3% of its total production. It appears that in most countries increasing exports usually come from new production, not from the diversion of products that had been consumed locally.

While the overall global pattern in food trade may or may not be seriously problematic, there are specific cases that surely require further attention. For example, in the 1980s in Malaysia and Suriname, exports of fisheries products generally increased even while total production declined, resulting in significant declines in total fish food supply for local consumption (FAO 1993b).

The effects of food exports on nutrition and food security are sometimes positive and sometimes negative, depending on local circumstances. A large volume of frozen small pelagic fish, canned fish, and other products is imported into West Africa, including Cameroon, Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria, Togo, and Zaire, some of which comes from other developing countries in Africa. Under some conditions increasing fish trade among developing countries could yield improved supplies for the poor (FAO 1993b). However, imports into developing countries are more likely to be used to supply people of relatively high income in those countries, including visitors. The nutritional impacts of enhanced trade among developing countries would have to be judged on a case-by-case basis.

The cooler heads look for something in between. The middle ground lacks ideological purity, but its pragmatism makes up for that by delivering tangible material benefits. In this middle ground government opens the door part way, and tries to exert some control to limit the potential negative impacts of unleashed capitalism.

There are two major difficulties with this. One is that in many poor countries the capacity to control outside forces is limited. The second related factor is that some of one’s own citizens will be tempted to join forces with outsiders and become agents of their exploitation. The foreign devils are difficult enough to identify and evict. But when the devils are home-grown and look the same as you, it is far more difficult to know what to do. When it is one of your own people who tells you that abundance will come from working on an assembly line or on a plantation at meager wages, you face a very deep dilemma.

Outsiders cannot—must not—provide the answers. The solution to the South’s vulnerability has to be in its strengthening itself so that it can more effectively face up to these potentially exploitative devils, both inside and outside. Democracy—real, not just ceremonial—should continue to be nurtured. Leaders should be fairly elected. Decisionmaking should be transparent and open to critical review. Measures should be taken to eliminate corruption.

It does little good to preach in favor of globalization or to rail against it. The task is not to make a single overall judgment as to whether trade and investment are good or evil, but to find ways to benefit from the advantages they have to offer while avoiding their dangers. If we are to help guide national governance in the face of the ongoing globalization process, we need to suggest how governments can respond to it, driving harder bargains and making more informed choices. Perhaps we cannot expect every villager to learn to critically assess the strategies of foreign traders and investors and their agents in the global financial organizations, but we can help governments to treat them in a more discriminating way.

Under the heading of "capacity building", there are things that can be done to systematically enhance governments’ ability to critically assess new proposals for trade or investment. There should be designated agencies within government to assess the country’s trade and investment agreements to assure that they do in fact benefit the country as a whole. Agencies that are given the responsibility to review proposals can be prepared through small seminars that review the relevant literature and apply its insights to recent trade and investment projects in the country. Representatives of local and international nongovernmental organizations can be invited to participate in the exchange of information and ideas. Independent nongovernmental organizations should be permitted to examine the terms of agreements, and to hold public forums on them. Where no such organizations exist, they should be created.

Poor countries should build their capacity to face the forces of globalization not only individually but also jointly. They need a kind of collective security arrangement against the predatory instincts of many of the globalists. In particular, they need to protect themselves from the tactics of the World Trade Organization and the International Monetary Fund. The WTO’s position that selectivity or conditionality in trade relations is an unwarranted violation of the principles of free trade is an attempt to minimize the participants’ discretionary powers. The principles of free trade should not be allowed to negate the principles of state sovereignty. Discretion is absolutely essential if countries are to protect themselves from the negative effects of trade. Similarly, the International Monetary Fund’s insistence on virtually indiscriminate openness to foreign capital takes discretionary powers away from the receivers of capital and leaves it almost entirely with the investors. The WTO and IMF’s approaches are designed to enhance the power of the powerful. Poor countries should stand together in refusing to become passive objects of the globalists’ decisions.

Thus, poor countries, individually and collectively, need to build up the institutional capacity to discriminate between different proposals for trading goods and investing capital to determine whether particular concrete proposals in fact serve their own interests. This may be difficult to do, but it is the only appropriate path. Problems have arisen partly because poor countries have been passive victims of decisions made by outsiders. The task then is to assert a more vigorous role in shaping relationships with outsiders. They themselves have to decide when and how linkage with the global economy is advantageous and when it is dangerous.