Food of the People, by the People, and for the People

In 2000, the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) left some 190 governments struggling to maintain their global competitiveness, but while still adhering to its principles of alleviating poverty and stimulating development in poor countries. In particular, The World Bank (WB) is dedicated to promoting agriculture for development—a roundabout technique that avoids considering the complexities of the food system nor the individual within the poverty alleviation process. The Goals’ places weight on industrialized nations and their capitalist markets, to facilitate agrarian reform and rural development. Meanwhile, underdeveloped and developing nations including but not limited to the 92 Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) members and 450 NGO delegates in attendance during the International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ICARRD) in 2006 view land food sovereignty as the mechanism to eradicate poverty and hunger, especially in rural areas. Naturally, the goal uniting the WB and ICARRD groups’ is that in order to achieve higher opportunities for the poor in the 21st century relative to the 20th, actions must be taken now. Equally supporting the platform of agrarian reform and rural development, the two groups’ deviate on what channels can best achieve this goal effectively and efficiently.

The conventional market-driven reform—the WB platform, emphasizes investment in agriculture as the most effective channel to ensure positive growth for poor regions; thereby, halving poverty levels as planned in MDG. According to the report, agriculture is of immediate concern over future demand for crops and a sustainable environment on a global scale. Agriculture can bolster poorer national economies by engaging the state, the private sector, and civil society to take on collaborative roles on behalf of the rural poor. The state—must work to do the following: combat unfair globalization-driven competition such as dumping, increase access to productive resources such as land while strengthening property rights to improve equity, and develop an enduring social safety net to reduce poverty during economic shocks. The private sector—must attract the following in the interest of food security: promote innovation through the spread of scientific and technological know-how, improve price incentives for investments in rural small-holders, and enhance the performance of producer organizations to augment quality investments. The civil society—as the backbone of any economy—must promote political and macroeconomic stability to ensure a more productive and sustainable small-holding farmer. In general the more qualitative and quantitative options given to the rural farmer, the more possible fear of hunger and starvation will be an international memory. The WB concludes it is the right to be fed (food security) must shift ecological, economic, political, and social activity towards agricultural development to support itself.

The NGO approach—ICARRD criticizes the WB platform’s applicability to the goal of alleviating poverty. Rather than focusing on opening a poor economy to “outside” investment, ICARRD’s report showcases how the rural poor is financially ineligible within the WB’s market-driven-by-agriculture assumptions. The WB’s report assumes that the market will sufficiently increase the poor’s access to resources; instead, the ICARRD report develops the