Dissertation Articles

1) “Don’t starve thy neighbour” (The Economist)

http://www.economist.com/node/16992151?story_id=16992151
- How to rebuild confidence in food markets after pikes in prices

2) “How to feed the world?” (The Economist)

http://www.economist.com/node/16889019?story_id=16889019
- How Brazil re-innovated farming by research, new technologies, opening up
- Success of Brazil’s agriculture:
o Agricultural research
o Capital-intensive large farms
o Openness to trade
o Openness to new farming techniques

3) “How to feed the world in 2050” (FAO report)

http://www.fao.org/wsfs/forum2050/wsfs-forum/en/
- Good questions to investigate about how to feed the growing population

4) “Increased investment in agricultural research is essential” (FAO report)

http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/35686/icode/
- Ideas for ways of improving crop yields and farming techniques
- The role of climate change in improving agricultural techniques

5) “Climate change and bio energy challenges for food and agriculture” (FAO report)
http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/templates/wsfs/docs/Issues_papers/HLEF2050_Climate.pdf
- How climate change affects agriculture
- Its effects on food security

6) World Food Security website

http://www.foodsecurity.ac.uk/issue/index.html
- Outlines the issue
- What is meant by food security
- Why did it happen?

7) Evergreen revolution (An article by Indian Professor Ms Swaminathan)

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0KZH/is_4_14/ai_30123599/?tag=content;col1
- The threats to agriculture are the conservation of soil fertility, water, and land
8) Lessons from the Green Revolution
http://www.foodfirst.org/media/opeds/2000/4-greenrev.html
- What went wrong
 - Why are there more hungry people?

Is there a
solution to
food
security?

What
innovations
can be
applied?

Confidence
in the food
markets -
possible?

Terms and expressions

- Green Revolution
- Fertilizers (tragya)
- Pesticides (novenyvedoszer)
- Future markets and contracts: parties agree to buy an asset on a future date at an agreed
price  used for hedging out the risk. I.e. farmers get into future contracts so that they can
plan how much to plant. Livestock producers also enter such contracts to guarantee a fixed
price and to plan and to cover their feed costs. The contracts have finite lives (unlike equity
that can be held for ever). Futures are mainly used for hedging purposes, i.e. hedging
commodity price fluctuations, or for taking advantage of price movements. The buyer (who
is in long position) agrees to buy the commodity (i.e. wheat) at a fixed rate at a fixed date.
The seller (who is in short position), agrees to sell the commodity at the expiration date of
the contract.