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Boosting Food Security
This leads us to the discussion of food
security, identified as a critical area by
international organizations, intergovernmental
organizations, such as the
G-20 major economies, national governments
and many nongovernmental
organizations. The 1996 World Food
Summit, held in Rome, concluded:
“Food security exists when 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.”
When there are international price
spikes in key agricultural products,
concerns are well-founded that an
increase in what people in poor countries
pay for basic staples will exacerbate
poverty. During the 2007–08
surge in food prices, an estimated
additional 300 million people found
themselves among the food-insecure.
Nevertheless, when food prices were
at their lowest level in recent years
in 2002, there were still 833 million
food-insecure individuals.
In developing economies, food
security is ultimately a problem
of poverty: Households are food-
insecure because they are poor. A rise
in the price of food will hurt households
that are net food purchasers and
lack alternative means of income support
outside agriculture. The policy
implications are clear: To render such
households more food-secure, they
must diversify their income sources.
In sum, agricultural growth is
essential to poverty reduction and
food security. Agricultural productivity
as well as accommodating institutions,
infrastructure and policy
measures are important sources of
progress in this area. This is not to say
that development in less-developed
countries is uniquely about agriculture;
manufacturing and services also
help reduce poverty rates and ultimately
become increasingly important
as countries’ incomes rise above
the lowest levels. Moreover, policy
also plays a direct role (for example,
targeted poverty reduction programs
such as Oportunidades in Mexico or
Bolsa Família in Brazil) and an indi-
rect role (for instance, conservative
monetary policies that keep inflation
low and liberal trade policy that allows
developing economies to specialize in
labor-intensive goods).
Nevertheless, a focus on agriculture
is usually necessary for any effective
poverty-reduction scheme. The battle
to achieve the first of the U.N. Millennium
Development Goals—halving
global poverty by 2015—will be
fought in the countryside of most
nations. n
Dalila Cervantes-Godoy is an agriculture
policy analyst in the Development
Division of the Trade and Agriculture
Directorate at the Organisation for
Economic Co-operation and Development
in Paris. Michael G. Plummer ’82 is the
Eni Professor of International Economics
at the Bologna Center, currently on leave
of absence from SAIS, and head of the
Development Division of the Trade and
Agriculture Directorate at the OECD.
The views in this article are uniquely
those of the authors.
2011–2012 53