Food Security, trade specialization, and violence in Colombia (1916-2016)

Abstract

Socioeconomic and historical approaches can contribute to the understanding of the relationship between food security, agricultural trade, and armed conflicts in developing countries. While the market-based perspective advocates that trade is a useful way to maintain food security nationally, other works suggest that trade liberalization and agro-export specialization have threatened food security since the 1980s, especially the self-sufficiency capacity. In Colombia, this agrarian change to agro-export specialization and food dependence has also been linked to the surge of the second wave of violence (c. 1980). Is there a dichotomy between trade and self-sufficiency during the Colombian twentieth century? Did armed conflict contribute to the specialization in agro-exports during the Second Globalization? This work contributes to the dichotomic debate between food security and agricultural trade with a more nuanced view along throughout the twentieth century and confirms a long-term relationship going from violence and international prices towards tropical specialization.