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.     

Sri Lanka: Food aid as a resource transfer

Sri Lanka is used as a case study to consider: the significance of food aid in the long run as a resource transfer; the extent to which food transfers have substituted for or been additional to commercial imports; the significance of donor programming for recipient country food policy. The article finds evidence that food aid has represented an important resource but is now of diminished significance; it has largely provided balance-of-payments support rather than additional cereals imports; but unresponsive programming by donors seriously reduced the effectiveness of food aid as a transfer and food security mechanism.     

Food aid as a tool of development: The experience of PL 480, Title III

This article reviews the experience of the US Food for Peace Program (PL 480) under Title III, with the objective of identifying some of the limitations and possibilities of using food aid as a development tool. It will argue that while multi-year agreements are inflexible, the settings in which the agreements are to be implemented are turbulent and uncertain. Combining food aid with development also makes severe demands upon the administrative capacity of both field missions and recipients, resulting in a reluctance on the part of both to initiate agreements.     

Persistent myths about emergency seed aid

Seed interventions are the major agricultural response during emergency and recovery phases of humanitarian relief. They are implemented by diverse agencies, and widely promoted: for instance the FAO alone managed 400 such projects between 2003 and 2005. However, seed aid suffers from a lack of critical attention, perpetuating widespread myths among practitioners, policymakers, and the larger humanitarian community. This paper challenges five predominant myths about seed aid: (1) seed aid is needed whenever food aid is; (2) seed aid can do no harm; (3) disasters wipe out seed systems; (4) effective implementation is a straightforward logistical exercise, and; (5) improved seed is the best form of aid. These myths are juxtaposed with recent empirical work across a range of countries, particularly in Eastern and Southern Africa. The perpetuation of such myths highlights a serious absence of scrutiny of emergency seed aid, and helps explain why such aid is repeated year after year in many sites, with little apparent positive effect. The paper argues that the invisibility of seed aid is a major cause for the lack of oversight and concludes that donors and farmer beneficiaries must become centrally involved in seed aid governance.     

Empirical forecasting of slow-onset disasters for improved emergency response: An application to Kenya’s arid north

Mitigating the negative welfare consequences of crises such as droughts, floods, and disease outbreaks, is a major challenge in many areas of the world, especially in highly vulnerable areas insufficiently equipped to prevent food and livelihood security crisis in the face of adverse shocks. Given the finite resources allocated for emergency response, and the expected increase in incidences of humanitarian catastrophe due to changing climate patterns, there is a need for rigorous and efficient methods of early warning and emergency needs assessment. In this paper we develop an empirical model, based on a relatively parsimonious set of regularly measured variables from communities in Kenya’s arid north, that generates remarkably accurate forecasts of the likelihood of famine with at least 3 months lead time. Such a forecasting model is a potentially valuable tool for enhancing early warning capacity.     

Mauritania: The cost-effectiveness of EEC food aid

The value of EEC food aid to Mauritania is assessed. Given such factors as poor record keeping, political instability as a unique import/export situation, the authors conclude that only one of the three commodities supplied under the 1978 EEC programme could be considered cost effective.     

Ethiopia: Food for work or food for relief

This article examines the aims, context and experience of food aid projects in Ethiopia. The major focus is a case study of an Ethiopian food-for-work project — the largest in sub-Saharan Africa — and favourable conclusions are drawn. Factors are identified which have made for this apparent success. Since one factor is local food shortage, consideration is also given to the proposition that the concept of ‘relief aid’ needs a wider definition than heretofore.     

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.     

Towards a global food aid compact

Existing international mechanisms governing food aid are dysfunctional and outdated. A reasonably straightforward alternative could readily rectify the problem of an ineffective global food aid governance system. In this paper, we outline the basic design of such a Global Food Aid Compact.     

Nutrition policies and programmes: a decade of redirection

This article assesses the effectiveness of nutrition programs and policies since the World Food Conference, 10 years ago. The authors perceive several distinct approaches. Just before the World Food Conference, nutrition programs had passed through an era of enchantment with technological solutions (single-cell protein, oilseed protein isolates). Supply was regarded as the problem; protein inadequacy as the crisis. None of the technological fixes had much of an impact on the malnutrition problem. This contributed to a willingness to entertain a much broader approach to nutrition. The new paradigm manifested itself 1st as a movement toward integrated nutrition planning. The national planning process was assumed to be the appropriate vehicle for applying this methodology. However, integrated nutrition planning threatened, conflicted with or at least brought pressure for change in the administrative and political reality of governmental organizations. Moreover, the nutrition community's capacity to respond to the demands flowing from the new paradigm was limited. The difficulties encountered in trying to achieve full integration led to a reexamination of working within traditional sectors but addressing the problem in several key sectors simultaneously, such as health and agriculture. The past decade also saw a move toward analyzing and improving the design and implementation of various kinds of nutrition interventions. The emphasis was on understanding and dealing with the administrative, economic and political realities of such efforts. Incorporation of consumption and nutrition considerations in the analysis and formulation of food policies in some countries is 1 of the important achievements of the past decade. This overwhelmingly economic approach focuses on pricing policies and market effects, recognizing that poverty and purchasing power are central to the malnutrition problem. Analysis of macrofood policy has filled an important void, giving a more concrete and inclusive view of food security. Nutrition progress during the next decade will require the development community to confront a changed environment and several key challenges, namely the surge of conservative politics in the early 1980s, and the severe economic problems most countries face. There is a need to be realistic about the tenacity of the problem and the multiple barriers to implementation of nutrition policies. The challenges face both national governments and development agencies. There is agreement that, during the decade since the World Food Conference, the field of nutrition has gone through a metamorphosis and that there has been progress. However, the development community still faces an unfinished nutrition agenda.     

The economics of food aid under subsistence farming with an application to Malawi

We investigate how food-aid affects price and production of staple food, with a partial equilibrium model with non-separable production and consumption. The model captures the key characteristics of sub-Saharan Africa subsistence economies. Simulations generate negative but also positive food-aid elasticities of production. Conditions are identified which mitigate the negative impact and support a positive impact. The share of domestic food production in total staple food demand (+) and the share of income from staple food production in total household income (−) are key determinants. Price and production equations, estimated with a panel of district data of the Malawi maize market for the period 1999–2010, show a small positive impact of food-aid. Large negative impacts of food-aid are not likely given production and income shares and behavioural responses.     

Does food aid have disincentive effects on local production? A general equilibrium perspective on food aid in Ethiopia

This paper examined impacts of food aid on domestic food production employing a computable general equilibrium modelling technique and using data from Ethiopia. The simulation experiments have shown that food aid has unambiguous disincentive effects on domestic food production. The removal of food aid caused a modest increase in food prices but this stimulated food production. Employment and income generation effects of the latter outweighed the adverse effect of the former. Consequently, the removal of food aid led to improvements in aggregate household welfare. Contrary to some concerns in the food aid literature that any reduction in food aid would hurt the poor, the simulation experiments suggested that actually poor rural households and urban wage earners are the ones who benefit most in absence of food aid but entrepreneurs are more likely to encounter a marginal welfare decline. We have distinguished between in-kind food aid and cash equivalent transfers in order to isolate the disincentives that in-kind transfers would make to domestic production from those that are related to household purchasing power problem. The expansionary effect of removing food aid becomes significantly larger when it is accompanied by cash equivalent payments because the latter would provide demand side stimulus to agriculture while the removal of in-kind transfers would stimulate supply side, with the supply and demand side effects reinforcing each other. In our modelling framework, the only adverse effect would be a modest deterioration in the external current account, because the expansionary effects of food aid would cause imports to rise but exports to fall.     

Food shopping orientations in Turkey: Some lessons for policy makers

Modernization of food retailing systems will continue to be among the major public policy problems facing the governments of developing countries. Throughout the developing world efforts are instigated by central and local governments to increase the efficiency of distribution systems. Unfortunately, many decisions are made without due regard to an understanding of consumers' food shopping orientations. The article first seeks to determine the grocery shopping habits and life-style orientations of a representative sample of female Turkish grocery shoppers. Second, the implications of the study are presented for policy makers who view introduction of large self-service supermarket-type stores as a panacea of Turkey's food retailing system.     

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.     

Food additive regulation in the UK

This paper reviews the use, regulation and testing of food additives in the UK. Comparisons are drawn with other industrialized countries. In particular, the reasons (both explicit and implicit) for the use of additives are examined and the institutional mechanisms for their control are described. Since regulatory policy is dependent on toxological expertise, the contribution and adequacy of toxological science is considered. Present regulations are viewed to have been too heavily influenced by the food industry at the expense of the protection of the consumer, and several possible avenues for reform of both toxological science and regulatory policy are explored.     

Review: Food loss and waste in Sub-Saharan Africa

The research, development practitioner, and donor community has begun to focus on food loss and waste – often referred to as post-harvest losses (PHL) – in Sub-Saharan Africa. This article reviews the current state of the literature on PHL mitigation. First, we identify explicitly the varied objectives underlying efforts to reduce PHL levels. Second, we summarize the estimated magnitudes of losses, evaluate the methodologies used to generate those estimates, and explore the dearth of thoughtful assessment around “optimal” PHL levels. Third, we synthesize and critique the impact evaluation literature around on-farm and off-farm interventions expected to deliver PHL reduction. Fourth, we suggest a suite of other approaches to advancing these same objectives, some of which may prove more cost-effective. Finally, we conclude with a summary of main points.     

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.     

Food supply in Peru: Dependence and transnational monopolies

The Peruvian food supply system is characterized by the stagnation of agricultural production, by the increasing control of oligopolies and by dependence on imports. Traditional consumption patterns are changing and this has contributed to the national agricultural stagnation, the agro-industrial oligopoly and the increasing vulnerability of the country's food supplies. Against this background, the author reviews current strategies and policies for farming and food and resources. An alternative reform of the food supply system is then proposed.     

Food aid,domestic policy and food security: Contrasting experiences from South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa

Food aid, both for short-term emergency relief and as program food aid that helps address medium-term food “deficits”, is often a major component of food security strategies in developing countries. This study reviews the experience with food aid of four major recipients of food aid (India, Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Zambia) regarding food production, trade, markets, consumption and safety nets, as well as the policy responses to food emergencies. The widely varying experiences of the study countries suggest that food aid that supports building of production and market enhancing infrastructure, is timed to avoid adverse price effects on producers, and is targeted to food insecure households can play a positive role in enhancing food security. However, food aid is not the only, or in many cases, the most efficient means of addressing food insecurity. In many cases private markets can more effectively address shortfalls in food availability and cash transfers may be a viable alternative to food transfers in-kind.     

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.