Legal Backing of Food Security as a Major Component of the National Security of the Republic of Kazakhstan

Associate Professor of Customs, Fiscal and Environmental Law Department at Al-Farabi Kazakh National University, Almaty, Republic of Kazakhstan

*Corresponding Author:

Aigarinova GT
Associate Professor of Customs
Fiscal and Environmental Law Department at Al-Farabi Kazakh National University
Almaty, Republic of Kazakhstan
E-mail: gulnar._80@mail.ru

Received Date: September 02, 2013; Accepted Date: November 06, 2013; Published Date: November 08, 2013

Citation: Aigarinova GT (2013) Legal Backing of Food Security as a Major Component of the National Security of the Republic of Kazakhstan. J Civil Legal Sci 2:106. doi:10.4172/2169-0170.1000106

Copyright: © 2013 Aigarinova GT. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

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Abstract

This article considers the legal issues of food security as a major component of national security of the republic. The problem of food security is the top priority of the economic policy strategy of any state, the effectiveness of this solution influences social, political, and ethnic stability in society. Food security and nutrition is everyone’s business. Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life. By analyzing the existing legislation in the area of food security, the author identifies weaknesses and gaps, suggesting ways to improve it.

Keywords

Food Security; National Security; Agriculture; Public Resources; Economic Security

Introduction

The problem of food security is the top priority of the economic policy strategy of any state, the effectiveness of this solution influences social, political, and ethnic stability in society. Food security, as an integral part of national security depends considerably on public resources aimed at preventing imbalance in the market, production and social environment of the country. Formation of public resources for all types of food, public grains resources and other strategically important agricultural products in the right quantities, depending on the needs of the population, is able to provide food security. The global financial crisis that affected the agricultural sector and the economy, created a real threat to global food security, and this in turn requires a reform of existing mechanisms and development of new ones to ensure food security at the international and national levels. Economic, political, and social security in the modern world is based on three aspects of security - food, energy and finance. According to the UN, more than 925 million people around the world suffer from hunger. This represents 12.5 percent of the world population (every eighth person). Of these, the vast majority - 852 million people - live in developing countries, where 14.9 percent of the population is starving. The number of hungry people in the world remains unacceptably high. Given the current rate of the population growth, global food production must increase by 70% by 2050, while the population of the world to this time should reach 9 billion people [1].

In addition to improving the timeliness and accuracy of the hunger estimates, there is a need to address the fact that malnutrition is more than merely a caloric food deficit. There is a growing recognition that hunger is a complex phenomenon that requires a multifaceted concept for its measurement and a whole suite of indicators that can capture the multiple symptoms and consequences of malnutrition [2].

Largely unstable position of world food markets is due to the fact that the system of world food production is not only dependent on the global and local weather and climatic factors, but also on the imperfect world financial system.The ongoing recovery of agriculture is under very difficult conditions. It is very strongly influenced by changes in the legal field, on the basis of which the legislation of Kazakhstan should be improved, in particular, regulatory issues in land law, veterinary and phytosanitary, and ensuring food security [3]. This is primarily due to the formation of the Customs Union and the adoption of the relevant framework agreements.

The Main Part

From the Message of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev to the people of Kazakhstan: “Improving the welfare of citizens of Kazakhstan is the main goal of public policy,” Food security is declared to be the priority of the State policy of the country [4]. Food security of the country as a whole and its constituent regions is an integral part of economic security in the national security of the country, and as such describes the economic stability and independence of the existing system, as well as its ability to provide basic primary needs of its citizens without compromising national and state interests. In this case, food security is not limited to only economic security, since it is in close relationship with other aspects of national security.

Food security also requires deep research in the field of agriculture. Coordinated efforts in biotechnology are created to improve the crops, innovative strategies in processing and production in agriculture, the promotion of new technologies in the food industry and investment in R & D projects in this area could serve as a guarantor of food security of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

The arrival of low-cost and high-quality imported food is always on the domestic market will weaken the Kazakh agricultural producers, and then trigger a rise in food prices, affecting the income of both urban and rural residents and worsen the economic access to food. In accordance with this threat, the law should define strict barriers to prevent the entry into our market of dangerous and substandard food products, both in the form of raw materials for its production, and in the form of products, ready to eat. This problem is of paramount importance. Codex Alimentarius, or the food code, has become a global reference point for consumers, producers and processors of food products, national authorities to the Food and international trade in food. This code has had an enormous influence on the views and attitudes of producers and processors of food and the level of awareness among the end users - the consumers.

The arrival of low-cost imported food of not always the highquality will weaken the position of local farmers, and then it will trigger a rise in food prices, affecting the income of both urban and rural residents and worsen the economic access to food. In accordance with this threat, the legislation should define strict barriers to prevent the entry of dangerous and substandard food products into our market, both in the form of raw materials for its production, and in the form of products, ready to eat. This problem is of paramount importance. Codex Alimentarius, or the food code, has become a global reference point for consumers, producers and processors of food products, the national authorities on the Food control and international trade.

This code has had an enormous influence on the views and attitudes of producers and processors of food and the level of awareness among the end users - the consumers. Its influence spread to all continents, and contributed to the protection of public health, and protection of the integrity of food is really not measurable. Low-and middleincome countries indicated that these standards are very important for the health of consumers, as they ensure the safety of food products, whether imported or domestic production, and to facilitate trade, on both domestic and international markets. Countries with high levels of income and more developed internal systems of legislation and food control, made the emphasis on the role of the Codex Alimentarius Commission to facilitate the export and import of food safety products [5]

The national interests of the Republic of Kazakhstan in the field of agriculture include: provision of the required amount of its own food, and maintaining the normative level of state food reserve, ensuring the quality of produced and sold food and food safety, and making sure that there be necessary subsistence, and a decent standard high quality healthy living, expansion of competitive food products with a focus on exports, the state control of the food market, including accounting and control of production, foreign and domestic supply, stocks of food. Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life [6]. According to the law of the Republic of Kazakhstan “on state regulation of agriculture and rural areas”, the criteria of food security are:

1) Physical availability of food commodities;

2) The availability of food products;

3) Food safety guarantee.

In summary, the state of food security in the country is determined by: the physical availability of food - availability of food throughout the country on time and in the required range, this means, the availability of food throughout the country at a time and in an amount sufficient to meet the needs of the population, economic access to food - the level of income, regardless of social status and place of residence of a citizen, allowing to buy food, at least at a minimum level of consumption, which means the ability of the population to buy food according to the physiological norms of consumption at current consumption patterns of food, the price system, income, social benefits, food safety for consumers - the prevention of the production, sale and consumption of low-quality food products that can harm the health of the population [6].

Sustainability indicators of food security system are the level of quality and food safety.

In recent years, this problem was especially important because there has been a low level of quality of local food products coming to market.

No less of a problem is the receipt of the domestic food market of imported goods, which do not always meet the requirements of a quality suitable for shelf life and safe for health. The products of this quality, because of the low purchasing power, has great demand. Often these products are produced from genetically modified raw materials. All this contributes to poor health of the nation.

The existence of these factors is caused, first of all, by the inefficient system of state control and supervision over the quality of food [7].

The most common definition of food security is the ability of the state to guarantee the satisfaction of the population’s quality food at a level that ensures its normal life. At the same time, the number of publications, the problem of food security is actually reduced to the problem of the country’s food self-sufficiency and, as a consequence, to the state of the domestic agricultural sector and the level of agricultural protectionism. However, food security is not only defined by these factors, but by the overall economic situation in the country. Low real incomes of many people make food unavailable in sufficient volume in normal life, and have a negative impact on the quality of food. Weak effective demand of the population limits the development of national food production. National security is one of the main functions of the state. Food security, in turn, is an essential component of the national security of any country. Food security is the key element of economic security. Importance of food security is due to the role of food supply to maintain social and economic stability in the society. It is important to the physical and economic access to food for the population, consumption, quality and structure of the diet, food quality. No less important are the problems of the country food selfsufficiency, independence from food imports, formation of state food reserves in case of emergencies (natural disasters, wars, epidemics, etc.) and to provide food aid to the poor. Thus, food security is caused by the level of economic development of the country in general and the agricultural sector, in particular the social, agricultural and food policy, and foreign states, and also depends on the availability of an effective system of food control [8].

In general, food security is a concept with political, social and economic aspects. With particular importance is the role of the state in the regulation of social and economic processes in this area, the forms and methods of such regulation.

Food security should be considered in terms of the reliability of the food supply of the population (stable form of food resources and their consumption), and from the point of view of maintaining the internal and external national interests, sovereignty in the food sector (avoiding critical dependence of Kazakhstan from other countries or communities in the issues related to food, protection of economic interests of domestic producers and consumers, ensuring their interests). In addition, there is another aspect of food security - it is the willingness of the state to the prevention and elimination of the system of providing the population with food-related food emergencies [7].

A key role in ensuring food security play measures, first, to ensure the growth of real incomes, improving its standard of living, and secondly, on the sustainable development and operation of the agricultural-food sector of the economy, and third, the effective regulation of foreign trade agricultural products, raw materials and food, and above all their imports, in order to protect the domestic food market, the economic interests of domestic producers from unfair competition.

Conclusions

By analyzing the existing legislation in the area of food safety and food quality, the following conclusions can be made:It should be noted that in the developed countries to ensure food security special legislation is adopted. At the national level the main tools of the food security needs to be legislation. It should be noted that food security is the main component of national security - in the country which is governed by separate legislation, regulations and technical regulations, there is no holistic legal documents, which would clear objectives, tasks, subjects, measures to ensure food security of the State. In light of the upcoming changes in the world economic system: the growth of the prices of all food products, food shortage, crisis, affecting all sectors of the economy - there is a serious threat to national food security, which makes it necessary to develop and adopt regulations governing the mechanism of food Security of the Republic of Kazakhstan. It should be noted that the received law must comply with the Codex Alimentarius, or the food code, which is a global reference point for consumers, producers and processors of food products, national authorities to the Food and international trade in food.

Currently, state control and supervision over the quality and safety of food is carried out by different government departments such as the State Sanitary and Epidemiological Service, the State Veterinary Service and the Committee for Technical Regulation and Metrology, Ministry of Health and others. This creates administrative barriers to domestic producers and leads to an increase in consumer prices for food, and undermines accountability for achieving results - to ensure food safety for human health and life. In order to ensure the safety and quality of food you should create a centralized state control and supervision over the quality and safety of food products under the Ministry of Agriculture. Given the urgency and the need for a new agricultural policy, as well as the high degree of responsibility to the people of the country’s food supply, it is proposed to convert the Ministry of Agriculture to the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security Committee. Also, the present Ministry should work closely with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), which has a leading role in international efforts to defeat hunger.

We should introduce a system of social protection, to enable the most vulnerable populations to participate in the economic process, to invest in and benefit. Social protection measures can contribute to the improvement of the nutritional value of the diet of small children - investing in the future in order to grow a healthy, strong and educated generation. Hunger and malnutrition can be eliminated through effective social protection measures in conjunction with the overall economic growth.

And also on the basis of already adopted laws, a comprehensive program of food security should be developed, which will determine the mechanism of support not only from the standpoint of physical and economic access to food. It is necessary to guarantee a certain level of legal food prices. This adjustment should be done by removing the maximum markups to the purchase price of wholesale trade fairs. This should encourage the reduction of unnecessary intermediary links and create the necessary legal framework for the expansion of direct contacts with the wholesale link. Legislation should include regulation on the pricing of machinery, equipment for the village, energy resources, transportation costs, fertilizers, to restrict monopolistic behavior of organizations repair techniques and to provide other production services.

To ensure food safety, the development of commodity-performance component, including the creation of large logistics centers, is creating a powerful monitoring system for the quality of goods entering the domestic market.

References

1. Committee on world Food Security. (2012)
2. Monitoring Food Security (2011) Round table to review methods used to estimate the number of hungry. FAO Headquarters.
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4. Improving the welfare of the citizens of Kazakhstan - the main goal of public policy (2008) Message from the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan NA Nazarbayev to the people of Kazakhstan. Journal of Politics and Law
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