Stakeholders in food and health practice questions.

A European supermarket chain agrees in advance the variety, quality standard, volume and price of green beans grown by smallholders in Kenya for export. Which arrangement is this?

• A producer marketing cooperative
• Contract farming
• Fairtrade certification
• Large-scale foreign land acquisition

Answer: Contract farming

Contract farming leaves the land in the grower's hands but transfers decisions about what, how and when to produce to the buyer, which is where power in the chain sits. Growers gain a secure market but carry the risk of rejected consignments.

The EU's Common Agricultural Policy has long supported farm incomes, and at times surpluses have been sold onto world markets. Which consequence for farmers in lower-income countries is most commonly argued from this?

• World cereal prices rise, so their incomes increase
• Guaranteed EU purchase contracts protect them from falling prices
• World prices are depressed, undercutting their own produce
• Their yields rise because EU farm technology is transferred to them

Answer: World prices are depressed, undercutting their own produce

Subsidised surpluses add supply to the world market, weakening the price signal that would otherwise reward unsubsidised producers. This is the core of the dumping argument in trade negotiations over agriculture.

Several countries have introduced a levy on sugar-sweetened drinks, structured so that manufacturers pay more per litre above a sugar threshold. What is the primary intended mechanism?

• Reformulation by manufacturers to fall below the threshold
• Raising revenue to fund the treatment of obesity alone
• Prohibiting the sale of any drink containing sugar
• Transferring the entire cost to low-income consumers

Answer: Reformulation by manufacturers to fall below the threshold

A tiered levy gives producers a financial reason to change the recipe, which shifts the whole market rather than relying on individual consumers to choose differently. Evidence from several countries shows reformulation to be the larger effect.

The World Health Organization sets guidelines and coordinates outbreak response, but cannot compel a member state to act. What does this constraint reflect?

• Health policy remains a sovereign national responsibility
• The organisation has no scientific expertise of its own
• Member states contribute no funding to the organisation
• International health regulations have never been agreed

Answer: Health policy remains a sovereign national responsibility

The WHO's authority is normative and technical rather than coercive: it can declare, advise and coordinate, but implementation depends on governments. This is why compliance varies and why its budget structure, dominated by earmarked voluntary contributions, shapes what it can prioritise.

Pharmaceutical patents grant a period of exclusivity on a new medicine. What is the central tension this creates for global health?

• Exclusivity funds research but keeps prices above what poorer countries can pay
• Patents prevent any research into diseases of poverty from taking place
• Patents are granted only in low-income countries, not in high-income ones
• Generic manufacture is illegal everywhere once a patent expires

Answer: Exclusivity funds research but keeps prices above what poorer countries can pay

Without exclusivity there is little private incentive to fund development; with it, the price during the patent period excludes many who need the medicine. Compulsory licensing and voluntary licence pools are the mechanisms designed to relieve that tension without removing the incentive.

Long-term food aid delivered as shipments of grain from a donor country has been criticised on economic grounds. What is the main criticism?

• It can depress local prices and undercut the farmers it aims to help
• It reaches recipients faster than any cash-based alternative
• It cannot be used in emergencies where markets have collapsed
• It is always more expensive for the donor than purchasing locally

Answer: It can depress local prices and undercut the farmers it aims to help

Free imported grain competes with the local harvest, so producers face lower prices exactly when they need investment. In acute emergencies with no functioning market, in-kind aid remains necessary, which is why the criticism is about prolonged programmes rather than emergency response.