Ensuring Food Security

• Author: Maros Ivanic/Will Martin
• Position: Consultant/Lead Economist in the World Bank's Development Research Group
• Pages: 37-39

Trade policy must be complemented by other measures to ensure food is available to all

Page 37

Prices of key agricultural staples rose sharply in late 2007 and early 2008 and, despite recent declines, remain well above the average levels of the past two decades. Many analysts suggest that factors such as the new demand for food to produce biofuels will keep prices high. That would be bad news for the poor, and nearpoor, who spend a very large share of their incomes on staple foods. our estimates suggest that food price increases between 2005 and the first quarter of 2008 raised the number of poor by more than 100 million, even while improving the overall lot of some poor people who are net sellers of food (Ivanic and Martin, 2008).

Some analysts and officials say that high food prices, and shortages in some poor countries, are rooted-at least in part-in the liberalization of global trade in agricultural products, which encouraged countries to substitute domestic production of basic foodstuffs for higher-value export crops.

To improve food security-to ensure that a country's people are fed-should governments adopt trade and other policies to encourage domestic production of staples and raise self-sufficiency? Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen argues that food security and self-sufficiency are not the same. Food security is not determined by where the food is produced, but by whether individuals have access to it (Sen, 1981). His study of major 20th century famines found that acute food insecurity can occur even when ample food is available in a country. He also noted that authorities can enhance security by allowing imports of food when prices would otherwise have risen.

Food security is influenced by trade policy- both domestic and global. And trade policies are but one type of measure that affects the access that poor people have to food. As the Page 38 world tries to revive trade negotiations to lower global trade barriers, we look at food security in developing countries in the short and the long term and its links with trade policy.

Short-run food security issues

Even temporary problems of food affordability can seriously threaten poor people, who have few discretionary nonfood expenses to cut when food prices rise and frequently lack savings or access to credit to tide them over in a crisis. To deal with short-run food affordability problems, governments generally have available three broad approaches: providing social safety nets, intervening to reduce food prices, and ensuring supply by maintaining...