Part II examines a selection of the debates illustrated in Part I, in order to draw out the key factors that need to be more fully considered in any analysis of the impact of trade and economic reform on the agriculture sector, and as a result on levels of food security.
Chapter 6 provides an overview of the issues and debates reviewed in the following four chapters. These relate to the potential opportunities and challenges faced by agriculture sector producers in developing countries due to economic and trade policy reform, and globalization. The debates consider issues ranging from the appropriateness of unilateral reforms carried out under structural adjustment programmes and their effects on the current levels of productivity within the agriculture sector, to the increasing ability of both international traders and retailers to determine the market opportunities open to producers.
Chapter 7 describes the opportunities open to, and constraints facing, the agriculture sector as a result of the increasingly penetrating drivers of globalization, in particular as they pertain to the export commodity composition of developing countries. A series of policy requirements, both from the perspectives of developed and developing countries is proposed.
In constructing an argument for a more balanced analysis of the institutions required to support the development of the agriculture sectors of developing countries, Chapter 8 discusses a number of gaps in the current orthodox analysis of the constraints to further productivity increases. The chapter argues for a more sophisticated treatment of national political economy institutions, particularly as they influence the roles of coordination and deliberative mechanisms. It also assesses the institutional prerequisites for enabling enhanced productivity in the smallholder agriculture sector.
Part II concludes with two chapters on changes in the structure of markets facing developing country agriculture. Chapter 9 discusses the potential impact of increasing levels of concentration in international commodity markets and the role of transnational corporations in influencing the changing power structure in global commodity chains. Chapter 10 examines the impact that capital market liberalization has had in opening up opportunities for the expansion of the supermarket sector in Latin America and how this in turn has impacted on both the ability of smallholders to access local markets. Both chapters provide a caution against using assumptions of a continuation of the status quo in the structure of both global and local commodity markets in the analysis of the impact of further trade liberalization on food security.
