Pros And Cons Of John Collier

Collier argues that burgeoning food prices worldwide are caused by the inability of food supply to keep up with the increase in food demand, mainly due to the increased prosperity in Asia. Although its governments possess the potential to bring food prices down, they lack the political willpower to overcome protectionist measures, and popular notions in place. Collier then proposes three supply-side solutions - promoting commercial agriculture over peasant agriculture, lifting the GM-crop ban, and America's lift on both biofuel subsidies and on restricted Brazilian ethanol imports.
Collier argues that financially constrained city-dwellers, not self-sustaining farmers, are the real losers. Children, retarded due to a lack of nourishment, could
spell undesirable and perennial repercussions for future generations. As food demand will increase incessantly, sustainable supply-side solutions will be the key to global food supply.
Collier's aforementioned claim of raising food supply through promoting commercial over peasant agriculture is due to the fact that commercial agriculture's technical know-how of production in scale far surpasses that of peasants'.
I agree to a large extent that agribusiness is the answer to adequately provide for an increase in world population, and with it the capacity to meet increasing demand for food that is more inputs-intensive. However, there are certain aspects Collier fails to consider based on this claim.
Firstly, despite agribusinesses' advantages, Collier fails to consider the politics which may arise within the host country, a point McMahon raises as a "potentially explosive situation" (McMahon, p.209). McMahon argues that agribusiness could be affected by revolts if "host countries suffers an internal food crisis" (McMahon, p.209), and even quotes Annan that agribusiness is "a terrible business model" (McMahon, p.209). Thus, I believe by having a contingency plan (such as directing a proportion of produce towards the impoverished victims) in place, Collier could address this issue of political
unrest.
Secondly, Collier briefly discusses that agribusiness "is not perfect" (Collier, p.74), but fails to address the fact that agribusiness might not be financially viable.
In contrast, McMahon gives the example of Karuturi Global - the amount they spent "without harvesting a substantial crop" (McMahon, p.205). In my opinion, this is a crucial aspect to consider, as the financial inviability of large-scale agribusiness would mean a double whammy – inability to secure a new commercial farm, and a waste in investments. Thus, Collier idealistically assumes his model of agribusiness will be a success.
Thirdly, Collier assumes that commercial farming will produce a sufficient food supply for the mass population. However, McMichael argues that food security is not attained as the food industry is in fact “dominated by huge conglomerates which virtually monopolize sales”. (McMichael, p.135) Hence the outcome of monopolizing of sales will only benefit a privileged few, which is a “small fraction of the world's population”. (McMichael, p.141)
Lastly, Collier assumes proper food distribution mechanisms are in place. However, Bello raises the example that infrastructure is indeed underdeveloped in Senegal, which has negative implications on “(ensuring) coordinated and sustainable systems” (Bello, p.80). Hence, an increase in food supply is meaningless if access to them presents another
challenge.
In conclusion, ensuring food security for the world is a highly intricate task, one which many unfounded claims would have to be made before any action can be executed. Thus, despite the assumptions made by Collier, I am still in agreement with Collier's claim that substituting peasant agriculture with commercial farming is the answer to tackle skyrocketing global food prices. In this regard, I feel we should find pragmatic solutions around Collier's assumptions towards his claim, whilst keeping in mind and working towards his idealistic claim.