A Chance for Real Leadership
The global food crisis doesn't look to be going anywhere. Fortunately, some serious suggestions for policy solutions have started to emerge in recent weeks. The one that has gotten the most attention has been that of Paul Collier, a development economist and recent author of the Bottom Billion. His somewhat controversial proposal? Make Africa more like Brazil:
The best solution to a problem is often not to reverse what caused the problem. If you broke your leg by falling off a cliff, it is not a good idea to climb back up. The best solution to the rise in food prices is not to arrest globalisation. China's long march to prosperity is something to celebrate. The remedy to high food prices is to increase supply. The most realistic way is to replicate the Brazilian model of large, technologically sophisticated agro-companies that supply the world market. There are still many areas of the world - including large swaths of Africa - that have good land that could be used far more productively if it were properly managed by large companies. To contain the rise in food prices we need more, globalisation not less.
His argument first appeared in the Times of London a couple weeks ago, but has recently grabbed attention as a comment posted to Martin Wolf's blog with the Financial Times. The Economist and a handful of prominent economists have chimed in as well.
What's interesting about the argument is that it points to the long-term, supply side of the problem, not just demand, and that, as the Economist's blogger noted, calls for more, not less market liberalization.
Both of which could make it a sure-fire winner for presidential candidates in the US looking to show just how they would restore American leadership and credibility. So far, proposals from all three candidates' camps consist mostly of just being nicer in trying to get other countries to do what we want. But here, there's a clear need, action would benefit other, mostly Muslim countries, and the knock-on effects would benefit the world as a whole. Plus the US, as the one of the world's leading agricultrual producers, is perfectly placed to provide the resources and the know-how to get some industrial-scale agriculture going in Africa.
If the candidates really are as tired of the trivial nonsense the campaign has degenerated to as they claim, here's a way to elevate the debate. Someone pledge their support for this. Or come up with something better. The chance for leadership is rarely plainer than this.
Update: Chris Blattman, development scholar and blogger, jumps on the Collier bandwagon, offering skepticism at how difficult the transition would be, but also pointing out a possible model for success:
The best plan might lie in some hybrid between peasant and agri-business production. In northern Uganda, the U.S. cotton giant Dunevant is lending farmers seeds and fertilizer and knowledge, and guarantee a market for any cotton they produce. This is a USAID-sponsored project, one that balances the need for increased output with the political and human realities on the ground.
