Security of supply (food)
By security of supply will in a state with food to ensure that there is always sufficient food available to the demand at any time to cover.
General
Security of supply is to be understood as a national objective in terms of protection against supply crises . Certain resources such as those in the energy industry ( energy security in the electricity , gas or water supply ) have been identified in economic policy, where the state wants to guarantee the population and companies that these resources are available at any time when required. The Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) defines the security of supply according to the understanding of the EnWG as permanent and sustainable demand coverage through uninterrupted supply along the entire value chain . It is about securing the balance of generation and consumption in the electricity supply system in the sense of balancing supply and demand on the electricity market .
Food is one of the basic physical needs of humans. Therefore , security of supply ( English food security ) must also be striven for with food, especially with agricultural products , in order to prevent deficiency diseases or famine . Here, self-sufficiency is particularly important , i.e. the autonomous and independent supply of the population with local agricultural products. This is even measured using the economic indicator of the degree of self-sufficiency . It is about the readiness to deliver at any time through the agricultural production of agriculture , which like no other economic sector is heavily dependent on the weather .
In November 1974, the World Food Conference in Rome discussed systems to food reserve and the development of self-sufficiency with the problem of "wheat as a weapon" ( English food weapon ).
Legal issues
Security of supply is a legal term , because according to Section 1 (1) EnWG, the BMWi must continuously monitor the security of supply and monitor the current and future relationship between supply and demand on the German energy market (natural gas and electricity) and on the international market.
In § 1 LwG it is regulated accordingly that the population must be guaranteed the best possible supply of food. For this purpose, agriculture is to be put in a position with the means of general economic and agricultural policy - in particular trade , tax , credit and price policy - to compensate for the natural and economic disadvantages that exist for it compared to other economic areas and to increase its productivity to increase.
According to Art. 39 TFEU, there are five objectives of the common agricultural policy in European law , namely to increase productivity, ensure a fair standard of living for farmers, stabilize agricultural markets , and ensure supplies and deliveries to consumers at reasonable agricultural prices .
Agricultural products
The degree of self-sufficiency in agricultural production in Germany developed as follows for some agricultural products:
| Agricultural product | 1978 in% |
2001 in% |
2018 in% |
|---|---|---|---|
| Grain | 84.0 | 129.0 | 112.4 |
| Potatoes | 94.0 | 108.0 | 148.0 |
| sugar | 129.0 | 136.0 | 161.0 |
| Beef and veal | 100.0 | 161.0 | 98.2 |
| pork meat | 88.0 | 88.0 | 119.2 |
| Poultry meat | 58.0 | 64.0 | 98.9 |
| Eggs | 79.0 | 75.0 | 71.9 |
| cheese | 90.0 | 107.0 | 123.9 |
| butter | 135.0 | 79.0 | 423.2 |
Security of supply is established for all agricultural products with a degree of self-sufficiency of> 100%, while with <100% complete self-sufficiency is not guaranteed. The degree of self-sufficiency sometimes fluctuates considerably over time, which - with rather constant consumption - can be attributed to the effects of the weather, which can lead either to record harvests with overproduction ( supply overhang ) or crop failures ( supply gaps ).
Although the level of self-sufficiency provides information about what proportion of the food consumed in the country comes from domestic production, it does not take two issues into account:
- Despite the high level of self-sufficiency in agricultural products, some people can go hungry because of poverty because they cannot pay for food.
- The volatility of the degree of self-sufficiency does not allow any conclusions to be drawn as to whether sufficient self-sufficiency will still be possible in the future - for example in the event of poor harvests.
Whether agricultural protectionism can contribute to greater security of supply is irrelevant.
economic aspects
The economics are struggling to find a definition for security of supply and its integration into an economic concept. In the energy industry , the International Energy Agency (IEA) defined security of supply in 2001 as “the physical availability of supplies to meet demand at a given price”. At a “given price”, however, is problematic because this also includes significantly inflated lunar prices , which are unaffordable for large parts of the population. If one replaces this with “reasonable prices”, this also raises concerns, because economically within the framework of the equilibrium theory , moon prices are also to be regarded as reasonable. Moon prices typically occur during supply crises when there is a supply gap , as was the case with energy crises .
In the case of agricultural products or food in general, however, the security of supply, which can be seen in the degree of self-sufficiency, does not only depend on current production. Rather, the market potential from unused production capacities and stocks also contribute to security of supply. Security of supply is also guaranteed by the state through the storage of emergency stocks ( civil emergency reserve ). The optimal level of security of supply is achieved when the costs of security (such as storage costs ) are equal to the opportunity costs of a supply failure, weighted with their probability of occurrence for a certain period of time. The cost of a supply crisis depends on the elasticity of supply and demand and the magnitude of the shock .
Security of supply is a positive external effect in strategically / politically important areas such as food, energy, iron / steel, shipyard capacities, defense technologies, etc. The problem of security of supply plays a major role in shaping the German agricultural market policy and the initial EEC agricultural market policy. As a consequence of historical experiences with the supply crises from the two world wars and the respective post-war years, the goal of security of supply was included in the Agriculture Act in September 1955, along with others. Another phenomenon that is likely to have an impact on global security of supply is investments by some states in foreign land through land grabbing .
Supply crises
Security of supply is particularly at risk in supply crises. These represent a threat to or disruption of the supply, as in the case of natural disasters or wars . A supply crisis is a scenario in which significant parts of the people living in Germany no longer have access to food via the free market and therefore have to be supplied by the authorities. The Federal Government writes on this: “The occurrence of such a supply crisis is to be regarded as unlikely today. Most conceivable damage events in the areas of 'extreme weather conditions', 'technical faults', 'other natural disasters' and 'releases of hazardous substances' are unlikely to lead to a supply crisis in the foreseeable future. Since the establishment of the Federal Republic of Germany, such events could always be dealt with with the means of disaster control. Nevertheless, the occurrence of a supply crisis cannot be completely ruled out today. ”For this purpose, the Food Security Act (ESG) and the Food Provision Act ( EVG) were combined to form a Food Security and Provision Law ( ESVG ), which came into force on April 11, 2017. A supply crisis according to § 1 Abs. 1 ESVG therefore exists when the Federal Government has determined that the coverage of the vital need for food in essential parts of the federal territory is seriously jeopardized (in the case of tension according to Art. 80a GG or in a case of defense according to Art. 115a GG or as a result of a natural disaster, a particularly serious accident, an act of sabotage, an economic crisis situation or any other comparable event) and this risk cannot be remedied, not in time or only with disproportionate means without sovereign intervention in the market.
A supply crisis can also occur in the context of a severe pandemic , when workers become ill and / or epizootic diseases occur en masse, such as the Hong Kong flu between 1968 and 1970 when food shortages arose . The COVID-19 pandemic has led to delivery bottlenecks for some food and hygiene items in many countries since March 2020 , but it has not escalated into a supply crisis. The cause was shelf gaps that arose due to increased rotation of goods , which was due to hamster purchases . The production can not be increased in the short term to the extent that the excess demand created.
International
European Union
The common agricultural policy of the EU is also based on the basic idea that a free internal market with agricultural products can not be realized without dirigistic interventions with regard to the income situation of farmers. In January 1962, an agreement was reached on a uniform price setting for most agricultural products, the preference for EU agricultural products, the stabilization of the income situation of farmers and the establishment of a guarantee fund for agriculture. The aim of self-sufficiency is hidden behind the preference for EU agricultural products, while security of supply is laid down in Article 39 (1d) TFEU. The EU member states are then obliged to ensure security of supply. In the internal market, the goal of security of supply requires an adequate production of basic foodstuffs, and externally a trade policy that guarantees an adequate supply of external agricultural products. On the one hand, the supply of end consumers with food must be ensured, on the other hand, the supply of the processing industry with agricultural products must be guaranteed.
Switzerland
The Swiss according to government 102 Art. Para. 1 Swiss Federal Constitution the order, the National Economic Supply "and to ensure essential goods and services in the event of power-political or military threats of severe shortages, which is unable to meet even the economy. According to the constitution , the federal government must take precautionary measures for this ”. One such measure is the operation of so-called compulsory stocks .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Johannes Böske, On the Economics of Security of Supply in the Energy Industry , 2007, p. 27
- ↑ Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology, Monitoring Report of the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWi) according to § 51 EnWG on security of supply in the field of grid-based supply of electricity , 2011, p. 3
- ↑ Reinhard Wesel, Symbolic Politics of the United Nations: The “World Conferences” as Rituals , 2004, p. 204
- ↑ Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Tables on Agriculture , March 2019
- ↑ Ulrich Koester, Grundzüge der Landwirtschaftlichen Marktlehre , 1981, p. 195 f.
- ↑ Ulrich Koester, Grundzüge der Landwirtschaftlichen Marktlehre , 1981, p. 355
- ↑ Johannes Böske, On the Economics of Security of Supply in the Energy Industry , 2007, p. 26
- ^ IEA, Toward a sustainable energy future , 2001, p. 76
- ↑ Johannes Böske, On the Economics of Security of Supply in the Energy Industry , 2007, p. 26
- ↑ Johannes Böske, On the Economics of Security of Supply in the Energy Industry , 2007, p. 29
- ↑ Johannes Böske, On the Economics of Security of Supply in the Energy Industry , 2007, p. 34
- ^ Ernst Klett Verlag (Ed.), Social Science Information for Teaching and Study , Volume 22, 1993, p. 223
- ↑ Alfred Strothe Verlag (Ed.), Agrarwirtschaft: Sonderheft , issues 157–159, 1997, p. 23
- ↑ BT-Drs. 18/10943 of January 23, 2017, draft of a law to revise the law to ensure nutrition in a supply crisis , p. 1
- ↑ BT-Drs.18 / 10943 of January 23, 2017, draft of a law to revise the law to ensure nutrition in a supply crisis , p. 1
- ↑ Anika Klafki, Risk and Law , 2017, p. 269
- ↑ Karl-Werner Hansmann (Ed.), Europa 1992 , 1990, p. 9
- ↑ Claus Dieter Classen, in: Thomas Oppermann / Claus Dieter Classen / Martin Nettesheim (eds.), Europarecht , 2009, § 25 Rn. 11
- ↑ ECJ , judgment of November 16, 1989, Az .: Case C-131/87, Slg. 1989, 3743, 3770, Rn. 23/24 = NJW 1990, 2925
