“There is a real risk of a ‘food crunch’ at some point in the future, which would fall particularly hard on import-dependent countries and on poor people everywhere.”
-- Alex Evans, Center on International Cooperation

1. Spend more on food and agriculture. The last twenty years have seen a disastrous decline in the proportion of foreign aid that goes to agriculture, from 17 per cent in 1980 to 3 per cent in 2006. Total aid spending on agriculture fell 58 per cent in real terms over the same period. Today, developed country donors urgently need to reverse this trend, and to start plugging the gap left by years of under-investment. The need to increase spending on agriculture also applies to developing country governments, who have similarly overlooked rural sectors in recent years (despite the fact that three quarters of the world’s poor people live in rural areas). In Africa, for example, the average government spends only 4.5 per cent of its budget on agriculture - despite an African Union target of allocating 10 per cent of public spending to agriculture by 2008.

• Local corruption and international corruption.
• Global corporations use developing countries as economic colonies – cheap land, cheap labor, no labor organizations, labor laws not enforced, and ability to avoid environmental regulations. Profits are returned to the “home” country and not used for the benefit of the population of developing countries or the corporation's workers.
• Ability to sell “seconds” -- lowest quality food products – in local markets.
• Low profit margins in food production versus higher profit margins in production of hard and soft goods for export.

2. Invest in a 21st century Green Revolution. The 20th century Green Revolution achieved astonishing yield increases. Now, a 21st century equivalent is needed – one that not only increases yields, but that also moves from an agricultural model that is input-intensive (in water, fertilizer, pesticide and energy use) to one that is instead intensive in its use of knowledge.

3. Genetically modified crops may have a role, but ecologically integrated approaches – such as integrated pest management, minimum tillage, drip irrigation and integrated soil fertility management – often score higher on resilience and equitability, as they put power in the hands of farmers rather than seed companies. Additional funds for public research and development are also vital: the budget of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research has fallen by 50 per cent over the last 15 years, for example.

4. Get the basics in place. In order to thrive, farms in developing countries need access to five key resources: assets (such as land, machinery, or renewable resources like water); markets (for example adequate infrastructure, communication networks that give farmers access to up-to-date price information, or the capacity to meet supplier standards for supermarkets); credit (to prevent small farmers from falling prey to predatory lending, and to improve access to inputs such as fertilizers); knowledge (where there is an urgent need to invest in agricultural extension services to help disseminate R&D findings in the field); and risk management (for example through social protection systems, mechanisms for hedging against bad weather, and improved crop storage systems). Developing country governments and donors alike need to focus on supporting these outcomes.

5. Focus on small farmers. 1.5 billion people live in households that depend on small farms. While arguments for supporting small farms are sometimes dismissed as based on a romantic attachment to peasant agriculture, the evidence shows that small farming can be a viable route out of poverty with the right policy framework. In Vietnam, for instance, small farmers have been able to benefit from high food prices through accessing export markets and to participate in the country’s impressive growth. A key part of the puzzle is mechanisms that can aggregate small farmers’ output and help them to meet supplier standards for supermarkets and other large buyers. In the past, this role was often played by government-run marketing boards, many of which were dismantled in the 1980s and 1990s. Today, the gap they left needs to be plugged – but private companies, NGOs or farmers’ organizations may be just as capable of fulfilling the role as government agencies.

7. Consider an IEA for food. After the first oil shock in 1973, the International Energy Agency was created. Its core mission: to co-ordinate collective action in future oil crises, above all through an emergency response system based on strategic oil reserves in member countries. Today, an equivalent function is needed for food. Part of the reason for the current food price spike is that worldwide food stocks had fallen to unsustainably low levels: the recent easing in prices gives governments an opportunity to build those reserves back up. A global system of food reserves need not entail the creation of a new agency, but to be credible the system would need to be overseen by a disinterested party, such as the World Food Programme. It would also be essential to be clear that the role of any system of reserves would be limited to emergency assistance: not to act as a price support for producers, or a permanent system for managing food aid.