Problem related to food security in three points
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1. Introduction
This note highlights some salient issues for consideration in the context of the WTO negotiations on agriculture in relation to incorporating food security concerns in a revised WTO Agreement on Agriculture. It presents recent data on the state of food insecurity, the basic objective and requirements for enhancing food security in those parts of the world (countries) with large proportions of food insecure people, and discusses the requirements for enhancing food security in relation to the WTO Agreement on Agriculture.
Food security as defined by the 1996 World Food Summit is a situation in which all people at all times have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life. Indicators of food security can be defined at different levels - for the world as a whole, for individual countries, or for households. Ultimately, however, food security concerns the individual and its principal determinant is the individual’s entitlement to food - ability to produce and/or purchase food.
At the national level, adequate food availability means that on average sufficient food supplies are available, from domestic production and/or imports, to meet the consumption needs of all in the country. Similarly, as in the case of individuals, purchasing power at the national level - the amount of foreign exchange available to pay for food imports - is a determinant of national food security.
The opposite to food security is food insecurity. Food insecurity can be transitory (when it occurs in times of crisis), seasonal or chronic (when it occurs on a continuing basis). A person can be vulnerable to hunger even though he or she is not actually hungry at a given point in time.[2]
2. The state of food insecurity
An indication of the absolute and relative number of people living with hunger and fear of starvation (chronic food insecurity) in developing countries is presented in Table 1. The data, which are based on the latest estimates of undernourishment (as an indicator of chronic food insecurity) around the world by the Inter-Agency Working Group on Food Insecurity and Vulnerability Information and Mapping System (FIVIMS), indicate that 792 million people in 98 developing countries were not getting enough food to lead a normal, healthy and active life.
Another 34 million people in the industrialized countries and especially in countries in transition also suffer from chronic food insecurity. Overall, the bulk of the chronically food insecure people (undernourished) live in countries with very low per capita incomes, with countries in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia having the highest proportion of undernourished.
3. The link between food security and poverty
The common bond of undernourished and vulnerable people is poverty. Their incomes are too low to provide adequate nutrition.
Table 1 also provides information on the proportion of people, by country, living on less than $2 a day, a benchmark defined by the World Bank as the upper poverty line.[3]As will be noticed, there is a high degree of correspondence between the proportion of people below the poverty line and the proportion of undernourished people across countries.
Similar information is also provided in Table 2, by region, on the number of people living on less than $1 a day, which is the World Bank’s lower poverty line. In 1998, about 1.2 billion people were below this lower poverty line, 98 percent of whom were in developing countries. Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia had the highest proportion of poor people, respectively 46 percent and 40 percent of their populations
This note highlights some salient issues for consideration in the context of the WTO negotiations on agriculture in relation to incorporating food security concerns in a revised WTO Agreement on Agriculture. It presents recent data on the state of food insecurity, the basic objective and requirements for enhancing food security in those parts of the world (countries) with large proportions of food insecure people, and discusses the requirements for enhancing food security in relation to the WTO Agreement on Agriculture.
Food security as defined by the 1996 World Food Summit is a situation in which all people at all times have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life. Indicators of food security can be defined at different levels - for the world as a whole, for individual countries, or for households. Ultimately, however, food security concerns the individual and its principal determinant is the individual’s entitlement to food - ability to produce and/or purchase food.
At the national level, adequate food availability means that on average sufficient food supplies are available, from domestic production and/or imports, to meet the consumption needs of all in the country. Similarly, as in the case of individuals, purchasing power at the national level - the amount of foreign exchange available to pay for food imports - is a determinant of national food security.
The opposite to food security is food insecurity. Food insecurity can be transitory (when it occurs in times of crisis), seasonal or chronic (when it occurs on a continuing basis). A person can be vulnerable to hunger even though he or she is not actually hungry at a given point in time.[2]
2. The state of food insecurity
An indication of the absolute and relative number of people living with hunger and fear of starvation (chronic food insecurity) in developing countries is presented in Table 1. The data, which are based on the latest estimates of undernourishment (as an indicator of chronic food insecurity) around the world by the Inter-Agency Working Group on Food Insecurity and Vulnerability Information and Mapping System (FIVIMS), indicate that 792 million people in 98 developing countries were not getting enough food to lead a normal, healthy and active life.
Another 34 million people in the industrialized countries and especially in countries in transition also suffer from chronic food insecurity. Overall, the bulk of the chronically food insecure people (undernourished) live in countries with very low per capita incomes, with countries in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia having the highest proportion of undernourished.
3. The link between food security and poverty
The common bond of undernourished and vulnerable people is poverty. Their incomes are too low to provide adequate nutrition.
Table 1 also provides information on the proportion of people, by country, living on less than $2 a day, a benchmark defined by the World Bank as the upper poverty line.[3]As will be noticed, there is a high degree of correspondence between the proportion of people below the poverty line and the proportion of undernourished people across countries.
Similar information is also provided in Table 2, by region, on the number of people living on less than $1 a day, which is the World Bank’s lower poverty line. In 1998, about 1.2 billion people were below this lower poverty line, 98 percent of whom were in developing countries. Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia had the highest proportion of poor people, respectively 46 percent and 40 percent of their populations
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