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English
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(Box 5–1 continued)
North America and Western Europe
- North America the world's leading source of surplus foodgrain, though the rate of increase in output per hectare and in total productivity slowed in the 1970s
- subsidies for production that are ecologically and economically expensive
- depressing effect of surpluses on world markets and consequent impact on developing countries
- a resource base increasingly degraded through erosion, acidification, and water contamination
- in North America, some scope for future agricultural expansion in frontier areas that can be intensively farmed only at high cost
Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union
- food deficits met through imports, with the Soviet Union being the world's largest grain importer
- increased government investment in agriculture accompanied by eased farm distribution and organization to meet desires for food self-reliance, leading to production increases in meat and root crops
- pressures on agricultural resources through soil erosion, acidification, salinization, alkalization, and water contamination
of linked economic and ecological crises: Industrialized countries are finding it increasingly difficult to manage their surplus food production. the livelihood base of millions of poor producers in developing countries is deteriorating, and the resource base for agriculture is under pressure virtually everywhere.
1. Impact of Subsidies
11. The food surpluses in North America and Europe result mainly from subsidies and other incentives that stimulate production even in the absence of demand. Direct or indirect subsidies, which now cover virtually the entire food cycle, have become extremely expensive. In the United States, the cost of farm support has grown from $2.7 billion in 1980 to $25.8 billion in 1986. In the EEC, such costs have risen from $6.2 billion in 1976 to $21.5 billion in 1986.[1]
12. It has become politically more attractive, and usually cheaper, to export surpluses – often as food aid – rather than to store them. These heavily subsidized surpluses depress the international market prices of commodities such as sugar and have created severe problems for several developing countries whose economies are based on agriculture. Non-emergency food aid and low-priced imports also keep down prices received by Third World farmers and reduce the incentive to improve domestic food production.
- ↑ 'Dairy, Prairie',The Economist, 15 November 1986.
