The role of rice in the food security of Asia

It was a pleasure to read an authoritative survey on food security recently. Peter Timmer is an Adjunct Professor at the Crawford School of ANU and was previously at Harvard.

Timmer's article, Food Security in Asia and the Pacific: The Rapidly Changing Role of Rice, is a survey of the changing role of rice in the food security of Asia, the behavioural dimensions of food security, and policy approaches.

OECD predicts: No Malthusian food security crisis anytime soon

Good news it seems! The OECD doesn’t expect a Malthusian food crisis to materialise any time soon. 

Food Security 1 — Asia & the Pacific Policy Studies conference

I was at an Asia & the Pacific Policy Studies conference at the ANU last week. The lowlight of an otherwise excellent conference was the final session on food security. Particularly ordinary was the presentation by Julian Cribb, a science communicator and journalist. The slides or papers aren't available yet, but his talk was consistent with this presentation and his book The Coming Famine.

Food Security 2 — Presentation to the Academy of Social Sciences

In my earlier blog today, Food Security 1, on the food security seminar convened last week by the ANU, I referred to a 2011 symposium organised by the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia, following release of the PMSEIC report on food security.

I presented on the issue of agricultural production in the Murray-Darling Basin in the context of international food security (I was chief economist at the  Murray-Darling Basin Authority at the time). While not criticising the PMSEIC report directly, I pointed out that water (in this case) was just one factor of production, and farmers are adept at maintaining production, even in the face of very sizable changes in input availability or prices.

Food Security 3 — Agricultural productivity growth

At the recent ABARES Outlook 2014 conference, there was an excellent presentation by Ken Ash of the OECD on Policies to Enhance Agricultural Productivity Growth.

Australia’s role in securing the food, water and supply chains of Asia

Dr Ken Henry, (former Treasury Secretary) has provided an insightful and realistic assessment of the role for Australian agriculture in Asia in the latest version of NAB's Corporate Finance Insights.