Assessing the effect of food retail subsidies on the price of food in remote Indigenous communities in Canada

The Canadian government currently subsidizes food retailers in the 25 remote communities in Nunavut through the Nutrition North Canada program. The program expects each dollar of the food subsidy to be fully passed on to the consumer in the form of lower prices. Unfortunately, existing audits and reviews of the program have failed to determine the pass-through rate of the subsidy. Using regression analysis on food price data in each of the 25 communities, subsidy rates, and covariates that control for community characteristics, we overcome the limitations of past research and provide the first-ever estimate of the pass-through rate of Nutrition North in Nunavut. Our results suggest that most, if not all, of the subsidy is passed on to the consumer in lower food prices.     

Regional trade,government policy and food security: Recent evidence from Zambia

Given heavy dependence on rainfed maize production, countries in East and Southern Africa must routinely cope with pronounced production and consumption volatility in their primary food staple. Typical policy responses include increased food aid flows, government commercial imports and stock releases, and tight controls on private sector trade. This paper examines recent evidence from Zambia, using a simple economic model to assess the likely impact of maize production shocks on the domestic maize price and on staple food consumption under alternative policy regimes. In addition to an array of public policy instruments, the analysis evaluates the impact of two key private sector responses in moderating food consumption volatility – private cross-border maize trade and consumer substitution of an alternate food staple (cassava) for maize. The analysis suggests that, given a favorable policy environment, private imports and increased cassava consumption together could fill roughly two-thirds of the maize consumption shortfall facing vulnerable households during drought years.     

Urban agriculture,poverty, and food security: Empirical evidence from a sample of developing countries

Urban agriculture may have a role to play in addressing urban food insecurity problems, which are bound to become increasingly important with the secular trend towards the urbanization of poverty and of population in developing regions. Our understanding of the importance, nature and food security implications of urban agriculture is however plagued by a lack of good quality, reliable data. While studies based on survey data do exist for several major cities, much of the evidence is still qualitative if not anecdotal. Using a recently created dataset bringing together comparable, nationally representative household survey data for 15 developing or transition countries, this paper analyzes in a comparative international perspective the importance of urban agriculture for the urban poor and food insecure. Some clear hints do come from our analysis. On the one hand, the potential for urban agriculture to play a substantial role in urban poverty and food insecurity reduction should not be overemphasised, as its share in income and overall agricultural production is often quite limited. On the other hand, though, its role should also not be too easily dismissed, particularly in much of Africa and in all those countries in which agriculture provides a substantial share of income for the urban poor, and for those groups of households to which it constitutes an important source of livelihoods. We also find fairly consistent evidence of a positive statistical association between engagement in urban agriculture and dietary adequacy indicators.     

Egypt: Food security and food aid

This article examines the multifaceted notions of food security and food aid through a case-study of a rather exceptional country in political terms - Egypt. Egypt has achieved a high degree of food security with lessened reliance on domestic production and has become one of the largest recipients of cereal food aid. The analysis considers significant questions about the interdependence of food security and food aid, the maintainability of an externally dependent food system, its implicit resource costs and its internal distribution and equity impact.     

Wheat markets,food aid and food security in Afghanistan

In Afghanistan, after two decades of civil strife and successive droughts from 1998 to 2002, large inflows of food aid, distributed mainly to returning refugees and through food for work programs, have helped offset production shortfalls of wheat, the country’s major staple. At the same time, private international trade from neighboring countries, especially Pakistan, has also played a major role in augmenting wheat supply and stabilizing prices.     

Poverty, food security, and nutrition in Central Asia: a case study of the Kyrgyz Republic

This paper attempts to provide insights into poverty, food insecurity, and malnutrition in Central Asia in the period following independence, and presents the available evidence from household-level data in the Kyrgyz Republic. It finds that although some improvement has been made in recent years, significant levels of poverty, food insecurity, and child malnutrition still exist. The paper argues that, in the short run, efforts should be made to protect vulnerable groups by investing in information generation and building capacity to design and implement food security and nutrition policies and programs. Increasing the speed of policy reforms and investment in productivity-enhancing agricultural research and rural infrastructure are fundamental for long-tern sustainable development in Central Asia.     

Toward a food secure future: Ensuring food security for sustainable human development in Sub-Saharan Africa

Food security remains a top development priority and global concern. It is enshrined in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in Sustainable Development Goal two. Food security is also a core component of the human development and capability paradigm, since food access and entitlements are critical for reinforcing essential human capabilities. In introducing this special issue, this paper argues that agriculture is central to improving food security and reducing poverty in Africa. It suggests that realizing the potential of agriculture in Africa requires rapid increases in land productivity and increases in agricultural yields. A science-based approach that integrates gender and sustainability is critical to meet this goal, through the design and implementation of policies that improve the availability farm inputs and farm technology. The paper concludes by introducing the papers in this special issue.     

Disaggregating food consumption parameters : Designing targeted nutritional interventions

This article is concerned with a new nutritional intervention strategy, which is based on the belief that malnourished people eat different types of food to the well-nourished. The calculation of disaggregated food consumption parameters can identify ‘inferior’ food commodities; and the subsidization of these commodities will target intervention to those most in need. The effectiveness of this policy depends on the understanding of its theoretical basis. The author introduces the policy maker to this by reviewing the theoretical basis for consumption analysis, and then several key studies.     

Conflict,food price shocks,and food insecurity: The experience of Afghan households

Using nationally-representative household survey data and confidential geo-coded data on violent incidents, we examine the relationship between conflict and food insecurity in Afghanistan. Spatial mappings of the raw data reveal large variations in levels of food insecurity and conflict across the country; surprisingly, high conflict provinces are not the most food insecure. Using a simple bivariate regression model of conflict (violent incidents and persons killed or injured) on food security (calorie intake and the real value of food consumed), we find mixed associations. But once we move to a multivariate framework, accounting for household characteristics and key commodity prices, we find robust evidence that in Afghanistan levels of conflict and food security are negatively correlated. We also find that households in provinces with higher levels of conflict experience muted declines in food security due to staple food price increases relative tohouseholds in provinces with lower levels of conflict, perhaps because the former are more disconnected from markets. Gaining a better understanding of linkages between conflict and food insecurity and knowing their spatial distributions can serve to inform policymakers interested in targeting scarce resources to vulnerable populations, for example, through the placement of strategic grain reserves or targeted food assistance programs.     

Assessing the impact of migration on food and nutrition security

Migration has become a key component in the livelihood strategies of an increasing number of households across the developing world and remittances have expanded dramatically in the last decade. This has come at a time when an increased emphasis has been placed on reducing malnutrition to achieve Millennium Development Goal (MDG) targets. While this is the case, there has been little attention on the interface between migration and nutrition even though migration can influence nutrition through a number of channels. The objective of this special issue is to present state-of-the-art analyses of the link between migration and nutrition in developing countries. In this paper, an overview of the conceptual and empirical issues in identifying the link between migration and nutrition are considered. Further, the results from seven country case studies are synthesized and policy implications are drawn.     

Postmodern conceptualizations,modernist applications: Rethinking the role of society in food security

Food security studies, while giving ever more attention to issues of perception and local knowledge in food outcomes, have yet to engage in a systematic discussion of the role played by society in food outcomes. While contemporary studies of food outcomes address issues of the social, especially as social structures relate to access to and production of food, this literature lacks an accompanying theory of the social that might lend it broad, cross-contextual coherence.     

Migration and food consumption patterns in Ghana

This paper examines the link between migration and food consumption patterns in Ghana, which has a history of widespread migration and high levels of poverty. Data from 4130 households from the nationally representative 2005/2006 Ghana Living Standards Survey are used for the analysis. Since migrants self-select into migration, an instrumental variable approach is taken to analyze the relationship between migration and total food expenditures per capita, food expenditures across a range of food categories and shares of food expenditures across these categories. Overall, the results indicate that migration does not substantially affect total food expenditures per capita, and has minimal noticeable effect on food expenditure patterns. Looking at results in different settings, the analysis indicates that only in high migration regions does migration appear to increase overall food expenditures resulting in a shift towards the consumption of potentially less nutritious categories of food, such as sugar and beverages and eating out of the home. The results raise questions about the value of migration for improving the food consumption of migrant sending households.     

Food security and nutrition challenges in Tajikistan: Opportunities for a systems approach

Despite progress in poverty reduction achieved over the last two decades, Tajikistan’s food security situation remains challenging. Recent studies and analyses have highlighted progress as well as areas that require increased attention from the Government of the Republic of Tajikistan and international development partners. The paper argues that a systems approach that takes into consideration policy interventions by different sectors is required to more effectively improve access and affordability of healthy diets, contributing to a better food security and nutrition situation of the population.     

Trade and food policy: Case studies from three Pacific Island countries

There is growing interest in the use of trade policy to create a healthier food supply. Eighty percent of chronic disease deaths occur in low and middle income countries, and a responsive food policy is an absolute necessity. In this paper we analysed three trade-related food policy initiatives to reduce the supply of fatty meat in the Pacific, in order to help public health workers understand how to effect policy change in sectors beyond the health portfolio. We found that policy uptake and implementation were easier with advocacy, tailoring the policy to the political context, the selection of policy tools that align with Government priorities (e.g. trade commitments) – ideally tools that are already used by trade policy makers in other contexts – and a broad justification for the policy initiative. Barriers to policy success included a focus only on health concerns (not taking into account policy issues of other sectors), limited engagement from other sectors in proposing and developing these cross-sectoral policies, and lack of a clear enforcement mechanism.     

Trade liberalization and food security in Nepal

Among South Asian countries, Nepal liberalized most extensively during the 1980s and 1990s on both domestic and external fronts. In South Asia, Nepal has the lowest per capita income, highest dependence of population on agriculture and second highest poverty rate. At the same time, Nepal has the lowest average tariffs in South Asia and has taken several steps to downsize its public food distribution system and remove a host of agricultural subsidies. The outcomes from these policy reforms in Nepal are mixed. Aggregate indicators of food sufficiency and security (per capita food availability, extent of malnourishment) show improvement in Nepal since liberalization. Relative to other South Asian countries, Nepal is doing better on some indicators, like extent of undernourished population, while on other indicators, like stunting of children, Nepal is actually doing the worst. More importantly, the gains from liberalization across regions in Nepal have been uneven. The reason for such an uneven outcome is lack of complementary policies from the government that would lead to spatial integration of markets (e.g. the creation of physical and marketing infrastructure). Liberalization has in effect reinforced the ex-ante hierarchy across regions in Nepal. The paper then reviews the role and reform of the Nepal Food Corporation (NFC) within this broader context.     

Disentangling the consensus frame of food security: The case of the EU Common Agricultural Policy reform debate

This article addresses which food security frames can be identified in the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) post-2013 reform process, and which actors deploy particular food security frames. The concept of frames refers to relatively distinct and coherent sets of meaning attributed to a concept, such as food security. The article shows that in the European Union (EU) food security is a consensus frame which can be broken down in six conflicting and overlapping sub-frames and which has complicated the debates about the future of the CAP. We demonstrate that during the CAP-reform debates of 2009–2012 a variety of food security arguments were deployed by a broad range of stakeholders, who attached different meanings and made different claims about the relationship between the CAP and food security. Inductive frame analysis reveals that the consensus frame of food security can be broken down into six conflicting and overlapping sub-frames: (1) the productionist frame, (2) the environmental frame, (3) the development frame, (4) the free trade frame, (5) the regional frame, and (6) the food sovereignty frame. Each of these frames was invoked by a specific group of stakeholders, whereby the productionist and environmental frames were deployed most often. The European Commission, meanwhile, invoked various frames at the same time in its communications. As a result of these various framings of the relationship between the CAP and food security, a clear political vision on this relationship is lacking. We conclude that politicians and policymakers may need to develop a coherent vision on what food security entails, and on how the CAP could contribute to both European and global food security.     

Indigenous peoples’ nutrition transition in a right to food perspective

In indigenous communities the nutrition transition characterized by a rapid westernization of diet and lifestyle is associated with rising prevalence of chronic disease. Field work and literature reviews from two different policy environments, Argentina (Jujuy) and Canada (Nunavut), identified factors that add to indigenous peoples’ disease risk. The analytical framework was the emerging human right to adequate food approach to policies and programmes. Indigenous peoples’ chronic disease risk tends to increase as a result of government policies that infringe on indigenous peoples’ livelihoods and territories, undermining their economic system, values and solidarity networks. Policies intended to increase food security, including food aid, may also fuel the nutrition transition. There is a need to explore further the connection between well-intended policies towards indigenous peoples and the development of chronic diseases, and to broaden the understanding of the role that different forms of discrimination play in the westernization of their lifestyles, values and food habits. Food policies that take due account of indigenous peoples’ human rights, including their right to enjoy their culture, may counteract the growth of chronic disease in these communities.     

Managing food price risks and instability in a liberalizing market environment: Overview and policy options

Managing food price risks and instability is a major challenge in the midst of ongoing food market reforms. Key findings from the papers in this special volume revolve around five broad areas: (i) the sources and magnitudes of food price instability in different country contexts; (ii) the economic and social costs stemming from price instability; (iii) the lessons from food market reforms to date; (iv) the design of policy reforms in ways that promote efficient and stable market development and protect the interests of the poor; and (v) potential policy responses to food price instability in a liberalizing market environment.     

From food availability to nutritional capabilities: Advancing food security analysis

This paper has a threefold objective. First, it provides a comprehensive review of different approaches to analysing food security. Second, it highlights the added value provided by the capability approach and the human development paradigm. Third, it proposes a methodology to assess food security through this approach. Our proposal entails three basic steps: (1) analysis of food entitlements; (2) analysis of nutritional capabilities and (3) analysis of the capability to be food secure. In this way, we can move beyond income, entitlement or livelihood related frameworks, and identify the root causes of food insecurity. Food insecurity can be the result of a lack of education, health or other basic capabilities that constitute people’s wellbeing. This, therefore, allows situating the study within the broader area of wellbeing and development.