ABSTRACT
Anthony Chisholm (Australia) 1 , opening the discussions, said that the report on water and land resources in relation to global food supply by Rosegrant, Ringler and Gerpacio (hereafter the IFPRI study) had a succinct central message: world cereal prices will continue to decline, in real terms, and land degradation does not pose a threat to global food production. However, water scarcity could threaten projected growth in agricultural production. He noted that two important assumptions are underlying the IFPRI model. First, the global yield growth rate for all cereals will decline from 1.5 per cent per year in 1982-94 to 1.1 per cent in 1993-2020 and, second, that China's GDP grows at 6 per cent per year, a lower rate than China has achieved over the past 15 years. Other things being equal, he said that the first assumption would tend to raise world prices, the second to lower them. All exercises of this type are sensitive to assumptions and highlighting them clearly is important. The other feature of the work is that it does not appear to reflect the implications of the final Uruguay Round agreement. That is likely to raise international food prices; it may only be a modest 2-4 per cent higher in a decade's time, though it is a factor that should enter the picture. It is also worth noting that there is no real consideration of the impact of climate change, where the vulnerability could mainly be with developing countries.
