In today’s world, growing attention has been drawn to the question of whether nations should strive for complete self-sufficiency and reduce the amount of exotic foods from import or not. I strongly disagree with this idea, I contend that there are a lot of detrimental effects when authorities solely rely on domestic production to feed the entire population, which is not only unviable geography, but also limits economic developments.
On the one hand, a country misallocates resources, just investing in agriculture to supply enough food for residents, which can hinder economic growth. This means that the government will focus on cultivation and rearing livestock rather than some areas, such as services or technology that have many opportunities to develop and earn money, especially in the era of globalization. In fact, if Singapore, which is a technological nation, focuses on agriculture, it will waste high-quality human resources. Besides that, applying autarkic policies will gradually create trade isolation. Since international trade is a two-way street, if countries try to limit imports, they cannot foster international cooperation, leading to stagnation of the economy.
On the other hand, providing food for the population as a whole is dramatically unfeasible. Some countries have adverse weather conditions, which cannot promote agriculture. Moreover, the number of people all over the world has witnessed a significantly upward trend, leading to the increase of food consumption; therefore the domestic supply cannot meet the growing citizens’ demands. For example, Japan not only has mountainous terrain, scarce arable land, but also is susceptible to natural disasters, so cultivating is hard and cannot have high productivity and quality. Thus, importing agricultural products from other countries is necessary to ensure food security, and mitigate risks of crop failure.
In conclusion, focusing on domestic agriculture also offers many advantages, but people completely based on self-sufficiency and national agriculture, which is an impractical policy, can hinder the economic advancements and have negative impacts on food supplies. As a consequence, national offices should introduce some food security policies that are suitable for particular situations of each country to balance between production and importing products.