UNDANGAN DISKUSI
Memahami Isu Krisis Pangan Dunia
Krisis
pangan sedang melanda dunia, demikianlah banyak dilaporkan di media
massa. Kenaikan harga pangan dunia telah mencapai 50% dalam kurun waktu
setahun, menurut Food and Agriculture Organization pada sebuah laporan
bulan Mei lalu. Dampak krisis digambarkan sebagai sangat
mengkhawatirkan, mulai dari bahaya kelaparan massal hingga ke kerusuhan
sosial. Menurut World Bank, kenaikan harga pangan tahun ini akan
mendorong 100 juta orang ke jerat kemiskinan. Namun, dalam keadaan ini
ada pula yang melihat sisi positifnya: harga tinggi pangan akan
mendorong investasi di bidang ini, yang bisa berarti ketersediaan
pangan dan harga akan kembali normal.
Sudah banyak forum yang
mencoba mengupas wacana krisis global ini. Yang terbaru mungkin yang
terjadi di website The Economist. Diskusi tersebut menyimpulkan harga
tinggi pangan saat ini bukanlah melulu persoalan, melainkan suatu hal
yang baik atau buruknya perlu dilihat kembali konteks persoalannya.
Bagaimana
memahami wacana hangat ini, dan yang terpenting, bagaimana
menguraikannya agar kita bisa terbantu memahaminya dalam konteks
situasi di Indonesia saat ini?
Untuk itu, Freedom Institute
bekerjasama dengan Friedrich Naumann Stiftung dan komunitas blogosfir
www.cafesalemba.blogspot.com mengundang Anda untuk hadir dan berdiskusi
bersama Prof. Dr. Bungaran Saragih (Institut Pertanian Bogor) dan
Dr. Arianto Patunru (Universitas Indonesia) pada:
Hari/Tanggal: Kamis, 28 Agustus 2008
Pukul: 18.00 21.00 (dimulai makan malam)
Tempat: Kantor Freedom Institute
Jalan Irian No. 8, Menteng, Jakarta Pusat
Untuk konfirmasi kehadiran, silakan hubungi Sdri. Tata atau
Nadya di 021 31909226.
Terima kasih untuk perhatian Anda.
Salam,
Luthfi Assyakanie
Deputi Direktur Eksekutif
The Economist debate: Rising food prices
The Proposition's opening statement
Jul 29th 2008 | HOMI KHARAS
The
media sensationalises the impact of high food prices with images of
hunger and civil unrest in far-flung places like Port-Au-Prince and
Cairo.
But these images miss the point. The world needs more food
and less poverty. In a market economy, higher prices provide the
incentive to produce more.
Ever since Malthus there have been
worries that exponential growth in global population will outstrip
global food supplies. But Malthus was wrong. Only a small part of
todays demand for food is due to population growth, despite the fact
that 90m people are being added to our planet every year. The bigger
impact is felt from the rapid income growth in our $60-trillion global
economy. Much of this growth today is in poor but populous countries,
like China and India. As they become richer, they eat more food. A
chicken in every pot is a realistic dream for billions of the worlds
new middle class.
To
produce this chicken demands an ever-increasing stream of feed-grains.
The three drivers of demand for foodpopulation growth, income growth
and the shifting pattern of consumption towards meatsuggest that food
output might need to be doubled in the next 30 years. This is the
demand story.
For many years, food supply has kept up with and
surpassed demand. Modern agricultural technology, based on cheap fossil
fuels, delivered productivity gains. But for the last ten years, supply
growth has faltered, and with high energy costs it cannot be put back
on track. This was disguised for a time by running down mountains of
grain stored in silos in the bread baskets of the world. But now it is
clear that limits to agricultural expansion at the low prices of
2000/01 are being reached. The reality is that less than one-half of
the worlds land area is suitable for agriculture and in net terms, the
irrigated land area is falling. Soil erosion, salinisation,
acidification and nutrient depletion contribute to declining land
quality. Biofuel crops are taking away arable land from food. The
worlds grain silos are emptying.
The
good news is that higher food prices are exactly what is required to
restore balance in the market. With rising demand and constrained
supply the iron law of economics permits no other response. In a market
economy, when demand exceeds supply, prices rise. Higher prices
discourage consumption, but they also encourage more investment and
enhance production.
Anyone who doubts the link between food prices
and agricultural investment should take a close look at the stock price
of the worlds largest producer of agricultural equipment, John Deere.
While most US shares have taken a beating, John Deeres share price has
doubled and has split two-for-one in the last two years. High food
prices are encouraging farmers to invest heavily in new equipment. This
pattern is being repeated across the world, with investments in
equipment, storage and land improvements.
More
food is already being produced in response to higher prices: forecasts
for cereals production in 2008 by the Food and Agriculture Organisation
show a significant increase. This should come as no surprise. When
prices fell steeply between 1997 and 2002, cereal production declined.
Now that prices have risen back to the levels of the mid-1990s, cereal
production has resumed its upward trend. Productivity is on the rise.
More
profits for farmers does not mean a benefit to humanity. Some have
argued that rising food prices hurt the poorest of the poor. The World
Bank suggested that todays higher food prices could push 100m more
people into poverty.
Unfortunately, the World Banks
flash estimate, which was based on an extrapolation from a nine-country
study, has not stood up to scrutiny. The reality is that the impact of
high food prices depends on each households income and consumption
patterns. Beyond this, the impact also depends on what happens to
labour, land and credit markets. As a further complication, domestic
agricultural prices in most countries do not mirror world prices but
also reflect government tax and subsidy policies. All these factors
have to be taken into account to understand the impact of high food
prices on household welfare.
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has
just completed a study including the three countries with the largest
rural populations in the world: India, China and Indonesia.
Consider
India, which has a long history of subsidising agricultural input and
output prices. According to the ADB, this has led to a system which is
unproductive, financially unsustainable, and environmentally
destructive;
(it) also accentuates inequality among rural Indian
states. Higher world food prices might be just the push needed by
India, along with many other countries, to persuade it to reform its
agricultural pricing system and provide new opportunities for its
desperate farmers.
The
ADB report also analyses China in some detail. It concludes that rural
households in China should enjoy a significant reduction in the
incidence of poverty as a result of high food prices. Although some
urban households will be made worse off, these are the same households
which have seen steady growth in wages in the last few years and have a
middle-class living standard. In fact, a short while ago many analysts
claimed that the greatest risk to Chinas development was the growing
gap between income levels in urban and rural areas. With todays food
prices, that problem has receded.
The outcome in Indonesia appears to be more mixed. Urban
low-income and landless labourers would become poorer, while small and
medium farmers would be better off. Indonesia has large numbers in both
these groups, so many people would be affected. On average, the ADB
simulations suggest that there would be about the same number of
winners and losers, so average national poverty would remain unchanged.
It
is surely true that high food prices will cause hardship to many. The
suffering of those in Cairo, Haiti and much of Africa is real. The
spectre of hunger is ugly. That cannot be denied and should not be
forgotten. Nor should we leap to the conclusion that food prices at
todays levels are here to stay. But for the majority of the worlds
poor, to be found among the 1.7 billion rural residents of India, China
and Indonesia, the dream of a chicken in every pot is becoming more
attainable because world food supply is rising again. That is the
upside for humanity from todays high food prices.
The Opposition's opening statement
Jul 29th 2008 | JOACHIM VON BRAUN
Rising
food prices are not always bad or bad for everyone. Modest increases in
food and agricultural prices above past trends can help generate
investment and foster productivity.
But that is not the situation
with which the world is confronted in 2008. Food prices have increased
drastically: the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United
Nations (FAO) food-price index rose by 50 percent between May 2007 and
May 2008, and price rises have been much higher for certain foods and
areas. Some countries, communities and households may experience an
upside from the recent surge in food pricesindeed, large-scale farmers
who produce grains and oilseeds are all smiles these daysbut many more
will lose.
Ideally, of course, high food prices would be
self-correctingmore production by farmers and a bit of belt-tightening
by consumers would lead prices to an equilibrium that both farmers and
consumers could live with. Also, some do hope that the price crisis
would now trigger positive change in the prevailing protectionist and
distortive agricultural policies. In reality, however, market failures
and new misguided policies are likely to keep food prices high and
volatile for years to come: countries that produce grain surpluses have
increasingly restrictedand even bannedexports; many countries have
shut down promising market innovations, such as futures markets in
commodity exchanges, yet excessive speculation has set in anyway;
public and private investment in agriculture is being mobilised only
slowly. Farmers are facing increasing costs of production. The burden
of adjusting to higher food prices is falling heaviest on the bottom
billion, who could not afford a healthy diet even before the price
crisis.
The
most disturbing consequence of high food prices is an increase inhunger
and malnutrition. Not only are poor people in developing countries
mostly net food buyers, but they spend 50-70 percent of their budgets
on food. As they see the price of staple foods like rice double over a
couple of months, their options for coping consist of reducing or
skipping meals and shifting to even less-nutritious diets. When
children and pregnant women reduce or skip meals, even temporarily, the
consequences for their health and nutrition can be lifelong and
irreversible. Research shows that malnutrition among preschool children
directly affects their ability to learn once they reach school, and
their ability to earn income as adults. Rising food prices also put
severe pressure on food aid. As food prices rise, food aid falls in
terms of both rations and the number of people reached.
Rising
food prices pose threats to the livelihoods of the poor by eroding
their already limited purchasing power. As poor households spend more
on food, they spend less on other goods and services essential to their
health and welfare, such as clean water, sanitation, education and
health care. The actual impact of rising food prices on poor peoples
livelihoods depends on their access to social protection, but in many
developing countries social protection is non-existent or extremely
limited. As a result, many households in distress are forced to take
actions that will make them even more vulnerable in the future, like
selling their productive assets and withdrawing children, especially
girls, from school.
At
first glance, one might assume that the worlds about 400 million small
farmers are among the winners from rising food prices. In fact,
however, most small farmers in developing countries are actually net
buyers of food, so they feel the pinch from rising food prices. Even
many farmers who are net food sellers during and after harvest time
must buy food for the rest of the year. Theoretically, high food prices
increase profits from farmers products, but most small farmers in
developing countries will miss out on this opportunity because they
cannot achieve sufficient economies of scale or they lack access to
efficient markets. Even for farmers who can boost production, higher
profits are far from guaranteed. With rising energy prices, farmers are
paying much more for fertilisers, high-yielding seeds, livestock feed
and transport.
Biofuel
production from grains and oilseeds is a major contributor to high food
prices and likely to remain so. Increased demand for biofuelsstemming
from overly ambitious mandates and large subsidies in industrialised
countriesaccounts for at least 30 percent of the total increase in the
real world price of cereals up to 2007 and probably even more in 2008.
What
started as a hike in food and energy prices has turned into general
inflation and severe strains on the economy as a whole. Most affected
are net food-importing countries, the majority of which have low
incomes. Even food-exporting countries have imported food price
inflation. Now central banks try to address the inflation trends with
general interest rate and monetary policies which, however, do not help
address the root causes of food-price inflation, which was a key driver
of general inflation in many countries in the first place.
The
surge in food prices is also a trigger for social andpolitical unrest.
As prices increase, the poor usually suffer silently for a while, while
the middle class typically has the ability to organise, protest, and
lobby. Since 2007, social unrest related to high food prices has
occurred in more than 50 countries, with some experiencing multiple
occurrences and a high degree of violence.
Under current
conditions, the effects of high food prices on humanity are largely
negative. Now fundamental changes in trade policies, in biofuel
policies, increased investment in agriculture, more agricultural
science and technology, sound social protection and nutrition action,
and improved governance of the food system at national and global
levels are needed to allow people and countries to cope with and grow
out of the food-price crisis. So far these needed actions have not been
forthcoming at sufficient scale.
The Moderator's opening statement
Jul 29th 2008 | JOHN PARKER
Many
public debates consist of people talking past each other. Both of our
protagonists in the food debate, however, start in the same place: that
whether the rise in food prices is good or bad depends in part on other
things.
As Joachim von Braun says for the opposition, Rising food
prices are not always bad, or bad for everyone. It depends, as Homi
Kharas says for the proposition: The impact of high food prices
depends on each households income and consumption patterns. Beyond
this, the impact also depends on what happens to labour, land and
credit markets. In other words, the rise in food prices is not
necessarily good or bad in itself.
But
having agreed on that point, our protagonists stake out their
differences. For Mr von Braun, it is the speed, rather than the fact of
the price increase that matters. Prices have risen so quicklythe food
index of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) rose by 50% in the
year to May 2008, he saysthat people have not been able to adjust. Or
rather, adjustment has taken the form of the poor eating less and
going hungry. Higher food prices have hurt the poor, encouraged social
unrest and created a great deal of wider economic uncertainty, as
countries import inflation.
For Mr Kharas, it is the fact of the
increase that matters more. This is because he focuses on feeding
people tomorrow, rather than today. He argues that the big challenge
for the world over the next decades will be to feed the extra 90m
people who are added to the global population each year; that this
cannot be done using current farm productivity, based on the food
prices that have prevailed for the past ten years or so and that
therefore the world needs higher food prices to drive up investment and
boost agricultural productivity.
The
two men also disagree about how much, or how quickly, higher prices
will feed through to improved productivity. Mr Kharas argues the
benefits are already visible: the FAOs forecast for this years world
cereals harvest, he says, shows a significant rise. He points out that
share prices in farm-machinery companies such as John Deere are
soaring, a sure sign of rising agricultural investment.
Mr von
Braun replies that cack-handed government policies and various sorts of
market failure are harming the smooth self-correction of food markets
and he argues that these distortions may be getting worse because of
higher prices. Large food-exporting countries have been imposing export
bans to keep food at home, for example.
Both
men end by defining their conclusions as matters of balance and
judgment, not principle. Under current conditions, says Mr von Braun,
the effects of high food prices are largely negative, implying that
if conditions were to change, the impact might be different too. And he
enumerates some of the changes he thinks would be desirable.
The
spectre of hunger is ugly, says Mr Kharas. Nor should we leap to the
conclusion that food prices at todays levels are here to stay. The
implication is that there are many losers and even the gains he sees
might not be sustained.
Such fair-mindedness is important in any
debate, but the more so when both sides could define the terms of
debate to their own advantage. The very phrase food crisis may
predispose participants against a proposition that there is an upside
to rising prices. On the other hand, its an ill wind that blows
absolutely nobody any good; there is always some sort of upside. The
question for the audience is how big, and whether it is big enough to
be meaningful.
Untuk debat penutupnya, sila lihat
http://www.economist.com/debate/index.cfm?action=summary&debate_id=10
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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