Food security, agricultural policies and economic growth : long-term dynamics in the past, present and future / Niek Koning.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Koning, Niek, 1948- author.

Series:

Earthscan food and agriculture

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Food security--Economic aspects.

Food security.

Agriculture and state--Economic aspects.

Agriculture and state.

Physical Description:

x, 274 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, 2017.

Summary:

Using a political-economic approach supplemented with insights from human ecology, this volume analyzes the long-term dynamics of food security and economic growth. The book begins by discussing the nature of preindustrial food crises and the changes that have occurred since the 19th century with the ascent of technical science and the fossil fuel revolution. It explains how these changes improved living standards but that the realization of this improvement was usually dependent on government support for smallholder modernization. The author sets out how the evolution of food security in different regions has been influenced by farm policy choices and how these choices were shaped by local societal characteristics, international relations and changing configurations in metropolitan countries. Separate chapters are devoted to the interaction of this evolution with debates on food security and economic growth and with international economic policies. The final chapters highlight the new challenges for global food security that will arise as traditional sources of biomass production and the more easily extractable reserves of fossil biomass become depleted or can no longer be used. Overall, the book emphasizes the inadequacy of current explanations with regard to these challenges. It explores what is needed to ensure a sustainable future and calls for a rethinking of these issues; a necessary reflection in today's unstable global political situation. Book jacket.

Contents:

A long view

Growth and crisis in the pre-fossil era

The big change

How other regions coped

Agriculture and the welfare state : emerging problems

The neoliberal decades

Looking into the crystal ball

Where there's a will, there's a way.

Notes:

" Earthscan from Routledge"--Front cover,

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781138803046

1138803049

9781138803053

1138803057

OCLC:

974792589