The Thrifty Food Plan and low-income households in the United States: What food groups are being neglected?

Food assistance programs in the United States provide low-income households with the resources to purchase a healthy, nutritious, and palatable diet, if they buy the market baskets of food outlined in the Thrifty Food Plan. This study compares the cost of these baskets with actual spending on food at home by low-income households. Simulations reveal at-home food spending by low-income households to represent only 86% of what is needed to follow the Thrifty Food Plan. Married couples with children and female-headed households with children spend only 73% and 82%, respectively, and just 43% and 50% for at-home fruits and vegetables.     

Are SNAP benefits adequate? A geographical and food expenditure decomposition

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) provides resources to supplement household food expenditures in order to achieve a nutritious diet. Determining the amount of support required - or extent of food expenditure poverty -- entails comparing available resources for food to a nutrition-determined threshold. Clearly the value of the threshold will affect the degree of food expenditure poverty. If the threshold value is inaccurate, the calculated degree of poverty will be inaccurate. USDA uses a threshold for setting SNAP benefits that does not vary geographically or temporally, so consequently (food expenditure) poverty may be understated or overstated in different regions and time periods. This article compares food expenditure poverty estimates for SNAP participants when geographical differences in the threshold are ignored versus not ignored. In addition, the article decomposes household food expenditures into Food-Away-From-Home (FAFH), Food-at-Home (FAH), personal funded FAH, and SNAP funded FAH in order to assess the degree to which each of these contribute to reducing food expenditure poverty. The general findings are that all food expenditure poverty measures are worse when geographical differences are taken into account. In addition, the analysis shows that FAH expenditures, and in particular SNAP FAH expenditures, contribute the most to reducing food expenditure poverty in SNAP households. The policy implications are that food expenditure poverty is currently underestimated in the US by ignoring geographical differences in thresholds, but the food expenditure poverty would be even worse without SNAP benefits. Geographical adjustments to the national threshold could help reduce food expenditure poverty across regions.     

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.     

First of the month effect: Does it apply across food retail channels?

In this study we use detailed daily scanner data on household food purchases to examine monthly food expenditure patterns across food retail channels. We compare food expenditure patterns in high and low-income households comparing those where Supplementary Nutrition Assistance (SNAP) is received in the first 10 days of the month versus households which receive SNAP over the first 15 days of the month. We find that food expenditure patterns vary systematically across the month within different retail channels by income and SNAP payment schedules. Low-income households in early SNAP distribution areas decrease their grocery and mass/club/superstore expenditures at the end of the calendar month and supplement this decrease with increased food expenditures in convenience stores and food away from home. Households in staggered SNAP payment areas show far fewer systematic patterns given the more distributed payment system.     

Food self-sufficiency: Making sense of it,and when it makes sense

Food self-sufficiency gained increased attention in a number of countries in the wake of the 2007–08 international food crisis, as countries sought to buffer themselves from volatility on world food markets. Food self-sufficiency is often presented in policy circles as the direct opposite of international trade in food, and is widely critiqued by economists as a misguided approach to food security that places political priorities ahead of economic efficiency. This paper takes a closer look at the concept of food self-sufficiency and makes the case that policy choice on this issue is far from a straightforward binary choice between the extremes of relying solely on homegrown food and a fully open trade policy for foodstuffs. It shows that in practice, food self-sufficiency is defined and measured in a number of different ways, and argues that a broader understanding of the concept opens up space for considering food self-sufficiency policy in relative terms, rather than as an either/or policy choice. Conceptualizing food self-sufficiency along a continuum may help to move the debate in a more productive direction, allowing for greater consideration of instances when the pursuit of policies to increase domestic food production may make sense both politically and economically.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

Prospects for food demand and supply in Central Asia

Central Asia has experienced massive economic and social shocks during the past decade following the dissolution of the former Soviet Union. Demand for cereals, particularly for staple cereals and meats, has fallen significantly even as production and productivity have plummeted. Although agricultural reforms were launched in 1991, the performance of the agricultural sector has been weak across the region. Prospects for food security in Central Asia appear mixed. Projections indicate that a growing and urbanizing population in Central Asia with rising incomes will increase demand for cereals by 32% between 1995 and 2020 to reach 24 million tons, and for meat by 47% to reach 2.9 million tons. Improvements in crop productivity will be essential to meet the increases in demand projected for the region. Cereal production is forecast to keep pace with demand such that Central Asia will be virtually self-sufficient in cereals. However, national food self-sufficiency or food security does not necessarily translate into household or individual food security. Moreover, self-sufficiency comes with a high price-tag of opportunities foregone and inappropriate use made of resources. Given the growing enthusiasm for food self-sufficiency in Central Asia, it is imperative that research be undertaken to assess the full costs and benefits of such a policy.     

On the costs of food price fluctuations in low-income countries

Conventional welfare measures of the costs of food price fluctuations in low-income countries are extended to allow for both economic growth and food security effects. The analysis reveals that growth and food security effects may dominate more conventional welfare costs of food price fluctuations, although estimating the empirical magnitude of the effects is hampered by the lack of consensus on the extent to which food price fluctuations actually reduce economic growth and food security. Even if the welfare costs of food price fluctuations are high there are many challenges to the design and successful implementation of price stabilization schemes.     

The food security challenge

The article first describes current market conditions and the nature of the food security challenge they present. Second, the article considers the kinds of food security measures which have been or could be taken with respect to improving LDC operations in commercial grain markets, using reserves to achieve supply and price stabilization objectives and making food aid a more effective instrument for food security.     

Farming fish for profits: A small step towards food security in sub-Saharan Africa

In addition to volatile fluctuations due to seasonal or regional factors, food security has two main components; access and availability. This paper presents a diagrammatical model to indicate how aquaculture, particularly private sector aquaculture, can contribute to these components of food security in sub-Sahara Africa. Food accessibility is increased when commercial aquaculture generates employment. Without such employment the poor might never translate their need for food into effective demand. Food availability is increased, either immediately when aquaculture output is sold in the domestic market, or later when the foreign exchange earned from aquaculture exports is used to import food.     

Food risk and the poor

This article consists of two parts. The first is a theoretical linkage of the risky performance of food production with the risky incomes of consumers, especially poor people, to result in what is termed “food risk”. The second features some empirical estimates intended to illustrate and quantify these conceptual risks.     

Policy coherence and food security: The effects of OECD countries’ agricultural policies

There have been important changes to agricultural policies in many OECD countries over the past decade and the international spill-over effects of support and protection have diminished. Now would be a good time to eliminate remaining distortions and put in place more efficient alternatives, including social safety nets and tools to help farmers manage risk. This would lock in the benefits of reform and simultaneously address charges of policy incoherence. In the context of high food prices, new issues have emerged with potential implications for food security. They include export restrictions, the use of biofuel mandates, and the opportunities and threats presented by increased foreign investment in agriculture. On these issues, as well as in terms of conventional support mechanisms, policies in emerging economies (in particular the BRIICS) are increasingly important. A pro-active agenda for policy coherence would involve not just eliminating policies that distort trade, but also enacting positive measures to increase food availability, for example by raising agricultural productivity, using resources sustainably, and eliminating waste and over-consumption. Across countries, there are important gains to be realised from knowledge sharing, and from multilateral action to provide global public goods – not least smoother functioning of the multilateral trading system.