The evolving global agri-food system and African–Eurasian food flows

Abstract

Agriculture, long a backwater development topic, erupted onto the global stage in 2007–2008 when food riots broke out across globe. The ways in which governments responded (by blocking grain exports, intensifying domestic food production with new technologies, and exploring new sources of food in other countries) exposed and reinforced a longer-term trend of deepening connections between the food economies of Eurasia and Africa. These ties are deeply synergistic, involving back and forth flows of food and agriculture-related commodities, inputs, investment capital, and ideas. This paper surveys the geographic literature on two inter-related themes: the global food crisis and the New Green Revolution, with a particular focus on Asian–African connections. It highlights the way in which this research has been evolving over time and the contributions of the geographic lens relative to other disciplinary perspectives. While most of the paper is constructed as a critical review of the literature, the section on the New Green Revolution does include some of the author’s original research.

Keywords:

• Africa
• Asia
• food security
• global food crisis
• Green Revolution