Deterioration of staple food production

Non-food crops (such as tea, coffee, cocoa, flowers, sisal and sugarcane) take up vast tracts of land; and while they may sustain many tropical nations' economies, they also make those nations largely dependent on developed, temperate zone countries – usually the USA and the USSR – to provide their daily staples.

In many developing countries policies are biased against domestic production and in favour of imports of staple foods, which are also often themselves subsidized, or the expansion of cash crops, which means increased area devoted to their cultivation. Some food aid policies and subsidized exports by developed countries compound the biases against sound agricultural development.

More than 50% of the Caribbean's arable land is planted with crops for export; 66% in Guadeloupe; and 30% of land in East Java grows sugarcane.

The global grain supply has basically remained stagnant since 1990, while the world's population has increased by 420 million people. The problem is compounded by increasing grain-intensive meat production and consumption, particularly in Asia.

1. Even though there is sufficient cropland to feed the world, people in developing countries go hungry because much of their land belongs to the rich, and the rich grow luxury cash crops for export to the middle and upper classes in the developed countries. (This practice was established by colonial rule in the 17th and 18th centuries). Even if developing countries were to achieve zero population growth, their people would still go hungry unless the land was distributed to local farmers and cash export crops were replaced by local food crops.

2. Despite rising affluence, our likely world population of 10 billion people won't be able to live as high on the food chain as the average American. There simply won't be enough food.

1. Lack of production for domestic consumers
2. Detrimental international repercussions of domestic agricultural policies
3. Food insecurity

1. Shortfalls in agricultural crop production
2. Imbalance between agricultural exports and imports
3. Dependence on import of staple foods due to transnational corporations

1. Vulnerability of least developed countries
2. Dependence on external resources

1. Stigmatization of manual labour
2. Neglect of agricultural and rural life
3. Natural disasters
4. Misuse of agricultural resources for production of animal feed
5. Mismanagement of food resources
6. Limited farm mechanization
7. Insufficient fertilizers for agricultural development
8. Instability of production of food and live animals
9. Ineffectiveness of foreign aid
10. Inappropriate cash crop policy
11. Inadequate development of enterprises in developing countries
12. Inadequacy of food aid
13. Excessive reliance on mineral fertilizers
14. Dumping of food
15. Disadvantages of mechanized food production in developing countries
16. Degradation of agricultural land by cash crops
17. Adverse effects of high-yield grain in traditional agricultural settings

1. Unproductive utilization of plantation space

1. Reducing production of non-food crops
2. Reducing incidence of malnutrition
3. Producing non-food crops
4. Increasing global food production
5. Importing staple foods

1. Dependence
2. Overproduction
3. Deterioration