USAID: Food Aid and Food Security

Food Aid and Food Security

February 1995

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Preface
Executive Summary
Introduction
Food Security
Measures to Improve Food Security
Food Aid
Food Aid Policy Agenda
Food Aid Management Objectives
Program and Management Policy Conclusions
Wednesday, 11-Jul-2001 16:48:37 EDT

II. Food Security

A. Definition of Food Security.
People are "food secure" when they have regular access (either through production or purchasing power) to sufficient food for a healthy and productive life.
Drawing on the 1990 legislative reforms to P.L. 480, USAID in 1992 issued a broad definition of food security: "When all people at all times have both physical and economic access to sufficient food to meet their dietary needs for a productive and healthy life." This definition further notes that "three distinct variables are central to the attainment of food security: availability, access, and utilization." These variables are interrelated.
Food availability is achieved when sufficient quantities of food are consistently available to all individuals within a country. Such food can be supplied through household production, other domestic output, commercial imports or food assistance.

Food access is ensured when households and all individuals within them have adequate resources to obtain appropriate foods for a nutritious diet. Access depends upon income available to the household, on the distribution of income within the household and on the price of food.
Food utilization is the proper biological use of food, requiring a diet providing sufficient energy and essential nutrients, potable water, and adequate sanitation. Effective food utilization depends in large measure on knowledge within the household of food storage and processing techniques, basic principles of nutrition and proper child care.

B. Food Insecurity Today
Global agriculture currently produces ample calories and nutrients to provide all the world's people healthy and productive lives. However, food is not distributed equally to regions, countries, households and individuals. A substantial share of the world's supply of calories and nutrients is allocated to diets rich in animal protein. At the same time, many families have insufficient food to meet their basic needs and must be considered chronically food insecure.
Food aid can help meet a fraction of the needs of the poor. However, improved access to food--through increased agricultural productivity and incomes--is essential to meet the food needs of the world's growing population. Agricultural productivity includes measures across the entire spectrum of the food system which reduce food costs in real terms and increase incomes.
If historical patterns hold, rising incomes will result in increased effective demand for food, and, in turn, increased production. In a world where there are already many food insecure people, this process will create additional uncertainty about food supplies for the poor, especially if food prices also rise. However, it also means there is real potential for expanding the incomes of the poor if ways can be found to improve their productivity both on and off the farm.
South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa are the regions most affected by chronic food insecurity.
African food security has declined in the 1980s due to rapid population growth, economic stagnation, and civil strife. The combination of growing population and lagging food production in sub-Saharan Africa points to an impending crisis for the region. During the decade of the 1990s, the food gap in Africa is expected to more than quadruple to 50 million tons of grain equivalent, an amount far beyond either the ability of African nations to import or developed countries to supply through food aid.
While the trends in South Asia are not as disquieting, food insecurity will remain a significant problem. Crop yields are increasing at a slower rate than over the past three decades. By the year 2025, the cereal food gap alone in Asia is expected to be 255 million tons.¹
Basic economic statistics and more complex indexes including measures of nutritional status can be used to evaluate the food security status of a population. At the simplest level, per capita income growth, per capita food production, the percentage of total household income spent on basic foods, and the percentage of the population falling below the country's poverty line are useful indicators. For example, a six year decline in per capita income in several African countries is indicative of growing food insecurity. Similarly, per capita food production declined in twenty-six African countries, without any significant growth in the industrial or service sector to compensate for production, employment and revenue losses. Among the poorest Asian households, sixty to seventy percent of income is spent to purchase basic foods.
FAO has prepared a food security index. It derives from four measures:

the proportion of the population, on average during the course of the year, who do not have enough food to maintain body-weight and support light activity;
the magnitude of the food gap of this undernourished group from the national average requirements for dietary energy;
an estimate of the extent of risk associated with facing temporary annual shortfalls in dietary energy supplies; and
the effects of cereal food aid shipments.²

Food insecurity today has a devastating impact on families and on the countries in which they live. Where the food insecure make up a substantial portion of the total population, as they do in some parts of South Asia and in Africa, the impact can overwhelm a country's development opportunities. Food insecure people are, by definition, unable to lead healthy and fully productive lives. They drain the social service budgets of the poorest developing countries, and they lack the simple physical energy needed to contribute fully to their own livelihood.
The most pernicious impact of food insecurity, however, is its toll on children. Severe malnutrition results in very high infant and child mortality and, for those children who survive, there are many life-long medical complications, including mental retardation. Recent research has also demonstrated that even mild-to-moderate malnutrition significantly raises the risk of mortality in children. Since this mild-to-moderate malnutrition is so much more common in the poorest countries, this means it is prominent in total child mortality.
C. Causes of Food Insecurity
Many factors interact to create food-insecure situations: chronic poverty, low agricultural productivity, high rates of population growth, civil conflict, poor infrastructure, ecological constraints, inappropriate economic policies, limited arable land and even cultural practices developed over many years. These are not discrete, independent factors, but related elements of the food security equation.
The chief cause of food insecurity is chronic poverty: persistent lack of economic opportunity either to produce adequate food or to exchange labor for the income to purchase adequate food.
In some countries, such poverty results from the unequal distribution of economic opportunities and benefits due to political exploitation or poor economic policies. In others, poverty results from pervasive failure of the national economy to grow and as a result to generate broad based opportunities to produce food or income.
A related major factor affecting food security is the underlying dynamic of population growth. Approximately 100 million people will be added to the world population every year for the foreseeable future. By the year 2025, the population will total 8.5 billion, of whom 7 billion will live in developing countries. Sub-Saharan Africa will grow from 500 million today to 1.2 billion by 2025.
Although global rates of undernutrition are falling, rapid growth of population in some countries and regions inflates the number of malnourished, and weakens the capacity of these countries to become food self-reliant through domestic production and commercial imports. The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) reports that the annual number of births is declining in Latin America; births will peak in Asia in the mid-1990s (the year 2000 for South Asia) and then begin to fall. However, in Africa the annual number of births will continue to rise well into the next century.
Agricultural output, is another major factor in the world hunger equation.³ In Africa, for example, food production increased by 33% in the 1980s, but per capita output of food actually declined as population growth outstripped increased food production.
A related factor contributing to food insecurity is poor infrastructure. Improved on-farm productivity will not increase food security if farm production is unable to make it to market. Farm-to-market roads, for example, may be poor to non-existent, hampering distribution and access to food. Sufficient and well-functioning infrastructure is essential to facilitate exchange and access to markets.
Inappropriate policies which result in disincentives to local production and efficient marketing are another cause of food insecurity. Often local farmers have no incentive to invest in sound agricultural or environmental practices because of price controls, insecure land tenure and/or overly centralized government structures which stifle local initiative. Private food distribution may be discouraged by excessive regulations and by unfair competition from subsidized and inefficient government-run parastatals.
Food insecurity can be exacerbated by disease, poor water and sanitation systems, inadequate nutritional knowledge, and cultural conditions which affect consumption patterns. The integration of food security initiatives with other health and education programs can effectively address many of these problems. UNICEF recently estimated that child nutrition could be enhanced as well or better through prevention of diarrheal disease as through supplementary feedings.
Civil war and ethnic conflicts also threaten food security by cutting off whole segments of a country's population from food supplies and disrupting traditional agriculture. Chronic food shortages in the Horn of Africa have been exacerbated by civil conflict.
D. Food Insecurity in Emergencies
All countries confront natural disasters at one time or another. All countries experience some form of political conflict. However, food insecure countries are particularly vulnerable. The sense that they will not be able to feed themselves and their children is one of the most important "tripping mechanisms" in inducing families to leave their homes and become refugees or internally displaced. In Africa, the number of refugees and internally displaced has risen from one million in the early 1970s to over twelve million now.
The demand for emergency food aid has grown dramatically. Between 1989 and 1993, world-wide emergency food needs have doubled from $1.1 billion to $2.5 billion per year, according to the World Food Program (WFP). One of the reasons for this phenomenon is the increase in protracted emergencies. "Complex disasters" ⁴ are placing continuing burden on relief agencies: e.g., Sudan since 1983, Angola since 1989, Somalia since 1991. In 1992, NIS and Eastern Europe became new recipients of U.S. food aid, and now constitute a large share of total aid (22% this year). Additional short-term needs tied to civil strife in Bosnia, Rwanda, Haiti, and elsewhere will likely continue to place growing demands on food resources.

¹ The "food gap" is the difference between needs and domestic consumption and imports. Estimate noted in "Sustainable Agriculture for a Food Secure World", Conway Panel, CGIAR Oversight Committee.
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² Attachment I provides FAO's index.
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³ See Attachment II for a breakdown of agricultural growth rates needed to: 1) maintain status quo consumption; and 2) meet nutritional requirements.
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⁴ "Complex disasters" are emergencies which combine natural disasters (such as famine, earthquake, flooding) with ongoing civil conflict. As a result, complex disasters tend to be less amenable to resolution or amelioration, and consequently involve donor assistance over longer periods of time.
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Last Updated on: July 11, 2001