Food Policy Old and New

The character of the food system and the nature of food policy are both changing, as urbanisation, technical change and the industrialisation of the food system transform the way food is produced, marketed and consumed in developing countries. The challenges are daunting and immediate – and need to be on the agenda of policy-makers throughout the developing world. Policy-makers are used to thinking about the food problem in developing countries in terms of ‘food security’. Their attention has been focused on hunger and malnutrition, food subsidies and feeding programmes, drought shocks and rehabilitation. Those concerns remain valid, especially in the poorest countries. At the same time, a new set of concerns is forcing its way onto the agenda. The changes are summarised in Box 1. Few countries conform exactly to the ‘old’ or ‘new’ characterisations in the table but most – including the poorest – are moving along a continuum from old to new. Urbanisation, industrialisation and globalisation mean that the food system can no longer be viewed simply as a way of moving basic staples from farm to (local) plate. Food is increasingly produced by commercial growers, feeding long and sophisticated supply chains, and marketing often processed and branded products to mainly urban consumers. This change can only accelerate as urbanisation proceeds. For example, there will be an additional 300 million urban dwellers in India by 2020, an additional 200 million in West Africa by the same date: feeding these increasing, and in principle increasingly affluent, numbers will require further transformation of the food system. As in current food security analysis, policies with regard to the production, marketing and consumption of food will be interlinked: the need for an over-arching food policy will be reinforced. Food businesses, including supermarkets, play an increasing role, not only in moving food between countries, but also in food supply chains within developing countries. In parts of Latin