Ewing-Chow, Michael; Slade, Melanie Vilarasau --- "A case study of regional food security: APTERR" [2016] ELECD 281; in Ewing-Chow, Michael; Vilarasau Slade, Melanie (eds), "International Trade and Food Security" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2016) 62

Book Title: International Trade and Food Security

Editor(s): Ewing-Chow, Michael; Vilarasau Slade, Melanie

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781785361883

Section: Chapter 4

Section Title: A case study of regional food security: APTERR

Author(s): Ewing-Chow, Michael; Slade, Melanie Vilarasau

Number of pages: 17

Abstract/Description:

As this book will further explore, climate change and environmental degradation pose a critical challenge to food security policies. When the significant increase in human population growth is also taken into account, a Malthusian scenario where global supply of food fails to keep up with demand, once held at bay by faith in scientific advancement in agricultural techniques, becomes alarmingly possible if not probable. Unilateral policies by individual States to address this dystopian future will not be sufficient. Collective action at the international level either by multilateral agreements, joint action within existing international institutional structures or specific regional approaches will have to be explored as a set of responses for enhancing global food security. One of the authors of this chapter was fortunate enough to be involved in the creation of a regional initiative to address the problem. While regional arrangements are only one of several options available, they often represent the low hanging fruit for collective food security initiatives. First, they often deal with the same staple food – in the case of Asia, it would be rice.