Paul Collier

Assignment 1: Reflective Summary

In The Politics of Hunger, Paul Collier attributed the food crisis faced by the world today to rising income and climatic volatility. To increase the world’s supply of food, Collier proposed three supply-side solutions to boost food supply – the promotion of commercial agriculture over peasant farming, the lifting of the Genetically Modified food ban to increase crop productivity, and the removal of biofuel subsidies to channel more food for consumption instead.

Collier advocates for the commercial production of food over small-scale farming as he argues that large-scale farming is more efficient in food production. He explains that large corporations have the capacity to invest in research and to reap economies of scales. The cost savings and innovation achieved then translate to lower food prices and improve the efficiency of food production, leading to an increase in food

As a contingency measure, land grabbing is occurring “as a global power struggle for food security”. (Bunting) Due to land scarcity, maximizing land use for food production is necessary. At this juncture, I would like to point out a contradicting claim by Collier. Collier claims that land is badly farmed in developing countries, resulting in lower food productivity. In contrast, he describes commercial agriculture to be able to make more productive use of land. With technology, time taken for harvesting and planting is greatly reduced, allowing for mass production of food. Although commercial agriculture is more efficient in food production, it tends to make careless use of land, “leaving bare ground between planted rows.” (Bellow) Collier undermines the benefits of small-scale farming. In fact, small-scale farming can better maximize land use by growing complementary plant species and rearing small livestock populations in the same plot of land, forming a sustainable