The emergence of the contemporary food system with particular reference to the role of transnational corporation and how their activities impact on food security in developing countries

This paper has attempted to demonstrate a link between TNC activities and whether or not these impact on food security in developing countries. This analysis illustrates that there is a negative correlation between TNC activities and food security in the countries under study. In the light of this, pursuing food security should become the main aim of development policies in these countries. Future policies will have to try to increase food production by incorporating small producers into the process of accumulation, while at the same time also trying to increase the incomes of wage labourers. I would agree with Gacitua (1991: 401) who asserts that "Higher income levels and employment opportunities are essential for the achievement of better nutritional levels. Earnings generated by agricultural exports have to be redistributed by expanding the labour force and the consumption capacity of the population with increased salaries and the creation of new jobs." Another important factor is that the state has to develop agroindustrial infrastructure, rural services, and favourable technical, credit and price policies, to enable small cultivators to benefit from better prices, and improve staple food production. At the moment large numbers of rural populations are only tenuously integrated into wider markets, and yet at the same time their TI livelihoods are affected and determined by wider economic and political processes. (Hewitt de Alcantara, 1993: 2; Gacitua, 1991: 401) Hence, a solution to this problem would be to integrate "small peasant producers and marginal consumers into the market." (Tubiana, 1989:42) In order to do this domestics systems will have to be protected from "unstable world markets which are too competitive for producers who do not have the benefit of massive state transfers." (ibid:43)