Child malnutrition is the most pressing problem of the world, damaging to both children and nations. Malnutrition is costing poor countries up to 3 per cent of their yearly GDP. The pessimistic scenario suggests that child malnourishment will increase from 166 to 175 million children by 2020. Therefore, a detailed analysis of the plight of these children, and the root causes of malnutrition, are of paramount importance. The underlying causes of undernutrition vary from poverty, low levels of education and poor access to health services. The high levels of undernutrition in children and women in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa pose a major challenge for child survival and development. The examples of Thailand, Vietnam and China show that the problem of malnourishment is entirely preventable. Areas of intervention that will be most successful and the key policy priorities for each major developing region need to be identified.

A demand-driven revolution in livestock consumption and production is taking place in many developing countries, impacting on nutrition, health, the environment, and national and international agricultural marketing and research systems. This Livestock Revolution is most evident in China, India and Brazil because of the sheer size of these countries. While China and Brazil have a dominant role in meat production as part of this Livestock Revolution, the revolution will not be limited to China and Brazil, and extends beyond the meat market. The example of India is a case in point. The near doubling of aggregate milk consumption as food in India between the early 1980s and the late 1990s suggests that the Livestock Revolution goes beyond meat production and consumption. Now the critical question for economic managers and planners in countries such as India is no longer whether the Livestock Revolution is manifest in the country or not, but to what extent poor people and smallholders can play a significant part in this enterprise. This article charts the development of the Indian Livestock Revolution and assesses the potential impact of industrialization of livestock production on small farmers especially. It is argued that intensive livestock farming may not be appropriate for India on a number of grounds. There is a risk that the Livestock Revolution, similar to the Green Revolution, will polarize the inequality between rich and poor. Decisive action needs to be taken to ensure that the poor benefit from such developments, and some policy recommendations are made to address such concerns.

No abstract

No abstract

The Uruguay Round established rules that were expected to improve market access for agricultural products and reduced export subsidies and domestic support payments as an opportunity to level the playing field. Major global economic benefits were predicted from the establishment of WTO and Agreement on Agriculture (AoA). But what has happened since the Uruguay Round? Industrialized countries systematically use sub-sidies to skew the benefits of agricultural trade in their favour. The overall level of support to agriculture in these countries has fallen very little. What does free trade mean in a context where the world's largest ex-porter of dairy produce, the EU, is providing subsidies in excess of US $300 billion a year? India is the num-ber one producer of milk and yet cannot compete. The European Union and the United States have invented a category of support—known as the Green Box and the Blue Box in WTO talks—deemed to be decoupled from production and therefore exempt from cuts in subsidies. The persistence of high trade barriers as well as regulatory controls related to food safety and environment make trade rules unfair. The overall feeling is that AoA is an ‘unequal treaty’ as high support continues in OECD countries. There is no level playing field. Agricultural surpluses in rich countries, generated through protection and subsidies and then dumped onto world markets, have hurt agricultural development in developing countries. Developing countries as a whole are projected to increase their net imports of cereals for all purposes to a total of more than 200 million tonnes of net annual imports from the developed countries by 2020. Developing countries like India will become net agricultural importers. It is argued that the Uruguay Round agreements did not go far enough in reducing trade barriers in developed countries, to have a significant impact. It did, however, establish a framework for negotiating further reductions in support. The Doha Round offers the opportunity to level a tilted playing field. Equally important is India improving its own agricultural policies. For years we have discriminated against agriculture.