Technical
background
documents 1-5
Volume 1
FAO, 1996
1. INTRODUCTION
2. FOOD SECURITY ISSUES AT THE COUNTRY LEVEL
3. SUMMARIES OF COUNTRY EXPERIENCES IN FOOD SECURITY
4. CONCLUSIONS
The preparation of the World Food Summit technical background documents (TBDs) has mobilized, in addition to FAO's own staff contribution, a considerable amount of expertise in the international scientific community, drawn from partner international institutions and governmental or non-governmental circles. The process has been monitored at FAO by an internal Reading Committee, composed of staff selected ad personam and established to ensure that the whole collection meets appropriate quality and consistency criteria.
The present document has been edited by FAO’s A.A. Gürkan and K. Stamoulis using contributions elicited from K. Savadogo and T. Reardon (Burkina Faso); J.Y. Lin (China); A.A. Buainain (Costa Rica and Ecuador); N.S. Randhawa (India, Indonesia and Thailand); D. Tschirley and M.T. Weber (Mozambique); M. Allaya (Tunisia); H. Kasnakoglu (Turkey); B. Weisel (Zimbabwe); T.S. Jayne, L. Rubey, M. Chisva and M.T. Weber (Zimbabwe); and M.M. Mamba (southern Africa). After initial review within the Reading Committee, the case-studies were circulated to peer reviewers in the countries included in the study. Much appreciated comments and advice have been received from J. Mora (Costa Rica), F. Recalde (Ecuador), C. Gopalan (India), A. Valyasevi and A. Siamwalla (Thailand), T. Jaouadi (Tunisia), A. Eryilmaz (Turkey) and M. Smulders (Zimbabwe and southern Africa).
While grateful for the contributions received from all reviewers, the FAO Secretariat bears responsibility for the content of the document.
This paper provides a sample of country experiences in improving food security. Each example summarizes the major food security issues specific to the case and analyses briefly the various approaches adopted through time to tackle them. Most of the countries presented have realized significant and sustained betterment in the national level of food availability and household food security since the early 1960s. A few others provide an occasion to illustrate achievements in certain aspects of food security, although not exhibiting a general improvement in average food availability or household food security. Finally, an example of a successful international effort to prevent a major food security crisis in southern Africa illustrates the nature of actions that can avert widespread famine following a natural disaster.
FAO’s Committee on World Food Security defined its objective as ensuring “that all people at all times have both the physical and economic access to the basic food they need”. To this end, it was recognized that three conditions need to be met: ensuring adequacy of food supply or availability, ensuring stability of supply and ensuring access to food at the household level, particularly by the poor. The International Conference on Nutrition in 1992 added a nutrition dimension in expressing the objective that “all people at all times have access to safe and nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life”.
If it were possible to differentiate the effects of sanitation, health and care from those of food security, indicators of nutritional status would provide the most direct way of assessing the status of food security at the individual level. However, given the severe restrictions on data related to the phenomenon, per caput food availability (known as the average daily energy supply, or DES) and measures based on FAO estimates of proportions of the population who are chronically undernourished are used as the main indicators of food (in)security in this paper.
Burkina Faso fully realized its vulnerability in the wake of the drought spell that hit the Sahelian zone from the late 1960s to the mid-1970s. Since then, a mix of policy measures, including macroeconomic policies (the restructuring of public finance), soil conservation and water harvesting, new land settlement, household-level income generating and transfer measures, have been successful in curbing food insecurity and promoting human welfare. Indeed, despite the extensive variability over the years in both DES and food production, since the early 1990s the household food security situation in the country has improved significantly.
China is highly acclaimed for its ability to feed over one-fifth of the global population with only one-fifteenth of the world’s arable land. Starting from a level of 1 500 Calories at the beginning of the 1960s, China had increased average DES to over 2 700 Calories by the early 1990s, achieving this almost exclusively through increases in domestic production. The Chinese experience, especially the post-1978 reforms, demonstrates the importance of incentives and of a conducive institutional framework in maximizing the effects of agricultural infrastructure, as well as of research on new technologies and their successful dissemination.
Costa Rica has steadily improved its food security over the past 30 years. Part of the reason for this has been the strong policy emphasis on anti-poverty. Although macroeconomic problems led to policy adjustments that reduced the production of some traditional crops, the shift in emphasis to export-driven growth allowed financing of food imports which facilitated progress in improving average DES, currently close to 3 000 Calories.
In Ecuador, where the main indicators of food security show substantial improvement over the last three decades, per caput food production and availability have developed along a cyclical path similar to that of macroeconomic indicators and policies. The impact of changing macroeconomic and sectoral policies was especially strong on per caput food supply, which declined under increasing macro imbalances prior to the 1980s and has significantly improved with the implementation of stabilization and structural policies since then.
India is considered a low-income country with a per caput gross national product (GNP) of approximately US$300. It has had an economic growth of around 5.2 percent per annum since the early 1980s, three points above the average annual population growth for the same period. Despite rather wide variability in food availability since the 1960s, India has maintained a determined effort to develop domestic food production, reduce aid dependency and improve household food security throughout this period. DES currently stands at only 2 400 Calories and the prevalence of poverty is still high, but extensive use of targeted anti-poverty measures has reduced vulnerability to famines and preserved a minimum status of food security even in poorer areas of the country.
Indonesia, where economic growth has been strong in the past two decades, has pursued a successful policy of self-sufficiency in rice, the major food staple of the country, since the late 1960s. This has been successful in achieving food security, as DES increased from just under 2 000 Calories by that time to around 2 700 by the early 1990s, and the status of household food security improved significantly. Part of the success can be attributed to the holistic approach to agricultural policy adopted by the government so that marketing interventions were complemented by research, dissemination and provision of high-yielding varieties of rice and requisite modern input packages.
Mozambique, after nearly a decade of economic liberalization, and only four years after the country’s devastating civil war, remains among the poorest countries in the world. Hunger is a stark fact of life for large numbers of households. Yet this should not hide the promising progress made in recent years towards sustainable food security, which can be seen in increased DES despite rapid dramatic reductions in food aid; lower and more stable prices for the principal domestically produced staple, white maize; and a food system that now provides consumers with a broader range of low-cost staples from which to choose.
Thailand’s use of macroeconomic stability, an outward-looking development strategy and universal primary education, among other ingredients, allowed its economy to grow at about 7 percent per annum over three decades. While food production growth paralleled overall economic development, neither DES nor household food security improved to the same extent. In fact DES hovered above 2 000 Calories until the late 1980s, but had not yet reached 2 500 Calories by the early 1990s. The increased production has been made possible by extensive land expansion without a substantial improvement at the intensive margin. Increasing intensity, tackling environmental threats, improving diversity and addressing rural poverty remain important policy objectives towards sustainable food security.
Tunisia has undergone rapid food security improvement since the beginning of the 1960s, thanks to a sound underlying economic and social process significantly influenced by public action. DES increases, from about 2 000 Calories at that time to nearly 3 500 today, were achieved essentially through food imports because of severe natural constraints affecting agricultural production. With extensive social safety nets at the household level, it has been possible to translate increased food availability into improved food security for much of the population.
Turkey is one country in this paper that has maintained a relatively high level of food availability and security throughout the period reviewed. Most of the achievements in this respect took place prior to the 1960s, with extensive government intervention in all aspects of the most important agricultural markets. Currently, food security problems relate to achieving a nutritionally balanced diet rather than to energy availabilities. Despite increased efforts to liberalize agricultural markets, reducing public intervention continues to be difficult, placing considerable strain on government budget and general price levels.
Zimbabwe did not witness significant improvements in average food availability and household food security over the past three decades, which placed the country among those still vulnerable. Productivity in the food sector has been on the decline since the early 1970s, and especially in the 1980s as a result of changing agricultural policies. More recently, structural changes in the marketing of maize, the principal food crop, removed some of the constraints on the markets, resulting in substantial betterment for the food security of the most vulnerable population groups through reduction in the prices of the staple food crop.
Southern Africa has periodically been wrecked by droughts, most recently in 1991/92 and 1994/95. The 1991/92 drought, in particular, which devastated the subregion’s agricultural production and induced unprecedented import requirements, will probably be remembered as the worst for several decades. During this disaster, the subregion experienced a reduction of aggregate food crop production of up to 50 percent less than the normal output. The cereal deficit of the subregion more than doubled and some 18 million people were facing the spectre of starvation. Efficient early warning, rapid regional coordination and adequate international support resulted in a successful relief effort, avoiding widespread food shortages and famine.
These case-studies illustrate the importance of the policy environment in shaping the economic and social processes that ultimately determine the food security status of the people in any country. Where implemented, direct measures aimed at the vulnerable have proved their worth, but the multiplicity of policy objectives pursued within any setting must be politically, socially and economically feasible in order to succeed. For most of the countries reviewed, the 1980s was an era when financial and economic constraints were most binding. In countries that reduced protection to the agricultural and food sector, the transition has been painful during the initial phases, with food insecurity increasing. Whatever the appropriate policy, however, establishing safety nets for the vulnerable, and preserving them in times of economic hardship, continues to be an indispensable component for alleviating food insecurity.
