Per Pinstrup-Andersen

Food security: definition and measurement

The term “food security” has been used over time to mean different things. This brief article discusses the various meanings attached to the concept and suggests that it can be a useful measure of household and individual welfare, particularly if combined with estimates of household food aquisition and allocation behavior. If nutritional security is the goal of interest, estimates of access to food should be combined with estimates of access to clean water and good sanitation. Anthrometric measures are likely to be more appropriate than food security estimates to target policies and programs to improved child nutrition.

Maternal and child undernutrition: effective action at national level

80% of the worlds undernourished children live in just 20 countries. Intensified nutrition action in these countries can lead to achievement of the first Millennium Development Goal (MDG) and greatly increase the chances of achieving goals for child and maternal mortality (MDGs 4 and 5). Despite isolated successes in specific countries or for interventions--eg, iodised salt and vitamin A supplementation--most countries with high rates of undernutrition are failing to reach undernourished mothers and children with effective interventions supported by appropriate policies. This paper reports on an assessment of actions addressing undernutrition in the countries with the highest burden of undernutrition, drawing on systematic reviews and best-practice reports. Seven key challenges for addressing undernutrition at national level are defined and reported on: getting nutrition on the list of priorities, and keeping it there; doing the right things; not doing the wrong things; acting at scale; reaching those in need; data-based decisionmaking; and building strategic and operational capacity. Interventions with proven effectiveness that are selected by countries should be rapidly implemented at scale. The period from pregnancy to 24 months of age is a crucial window of opportunity for reducing undernutrition and its adverse effects. Programme efforts, as well as monitoring and assessment, should focus on this segment of the continuum of care. Nutrition resources should not be used to support actions unlikely to be effective in the context of country or local realities. Nutrition resources should not be used to support actions that have not been proven to have a direct effect on undernutrition, such as stand-alone growth monitoring or school feeding programmes. In addition to health and nutrition interventions, economic and social policies addressing poverty, trade, and agriculture that have been associated with rapid improvements in nutritional status should be implemented. There is a reservoir of important experience and expertise in individual countries about how to build commitment, develop and monitor nutrition programmes, move toward acting at scale, reform or phase-out ineffective programmes, and other challenges. This resource needs to be formalised, shared, and used as the basis for setting priorities in problem-solving research for nutrition.

The impact of the green revolution and prospects for the future

This article addresses some of the issues considered to be of great importance for continued success of the Green Revolution. The most recent data on its impact on food production are discussed first. Then follows a discussion of the impact on production fluctuation. Current evidence of the impact on poverty and nutrition is summarized in the third section. Recent research has shown that the multiplier or linkage effects of technological change may be very important for assuring a desirable path of self-sustaining growth. This issue is dealt with in the fourth section, followed by a discussion of the role of women in technological change, an important growth as well as equity issue which has received little attention until recently. Then follows a brief assessment of the actual and potential environmental effects. A number of other issues with important implications for the future contribution of technological change, such as future control over germplasm, organization of and control over the international agricultural research institutes, the needs for institutional and policy changes in many developing countries, and the need for new technology to facilitate a solution to the acute food problem in Sub-Saharan Africa, are discussed in the last section

Global land acquisition: neo-colonialism or development opportunity?

Increasingly, developing nations which are land rich are sanctioning the sale or transfer of user rights of large tracts of farmland for foreign investment. While this issue is of relatively recent origin, caused in large measure by the recent global food crisis and related to desires by food importing countries to have greater control over their food supply, the impact on food security could be very significant. Because of the newness of the matter, most of the available evidence is found outside traditional academic literature. Poor, smallholder farmers without formal land titles currently occupy much of the land sold in these transactions, threatening the internal food security of the lessor state. Factors driving the global acquisition of land include development aid shortfalls, the global food crisis, the burgeoning middle class in middle- and high-income nations, and the increasing acceptance of biofuels as a viable alternative source of fuel by governments of these nations. The risks associated with the global acquisition of land on food security of the seller country are manifold. This article reviews the current literature available on the subject and makes policy suggestions for equitable investment and benefit-sharing for all stakeholders. Opportunities and risks abound but if the risks are mitigated, then the global acquisition of land has the potential to be an unparalleled development opportunity for lessor states.

Food security and sustainable use of natural resources: a 2020 Vision

Abstract At the threshold of the twenty-first century, widespread poverty, food insecurity, and environmental degradation cause severe human suffering and threaten to destabilize global, regional, and national economic and ecological conditions. If these trends continue unabated, the world will not be a pleasant place to live for most of humanity. The International Food Policy Research Institute has developed a 2020 Vision of a world where every person has economic and physical access to sufficient food to sustain a healthy and productive life, where malnutrition is absent, and where food originates from efficient, effective, and low-cost food and agricultural systems that are compatible with sustainable use and management of natural resources. With foresight and decisive action, we can create the conditions that will permit this vision to be realized by 2020. There are several challenges to assuring food security and sustainable use of natural resources: (i) widespread poverty and inadequate human resource development, which inhibit peoples capacity to grow and/or purchase the needed food; (ii) large increases in developing-country populations, especially in urban areas, which will substantially increase food needs; (iii) gross under-investment in agricultural research in developing countries and inadequacies in availability of and access to agricultural inputs–such as water, fertilizer, pesticides, energy, research, and technology, which leads to lagging yield increases in more-favored areas and low and variable yields in less-favored areas; (iv) degradation of natural resources—such as soils, forests, marine fisheries, and water—which undermines production capacity; (v) inefficient functioning of markets and inadequate infrastructure as well as weakened capacity of developing-country governments to perform their appropriate functions; and (vi) insufficient domestic resource mobilization—savings and investment—and declining international assistance, which restrains economic growth and development. These challenges can be overcome and the 2020 Vision of food security and sustainable use of natural resources realized if all relevant parties—individuals, households, farmers, local communities, civil society, private sector, national governments, and the international community—take appropriate action and change their behavior, priorities, and policies. Priority actions include investing more in poor people, accelerating agricultural productivity, assuring sound management of natural resources, strengthening the capacity of developing-country governments to perform appropriate functions, and expanding and realigning international development assistance. The worlds natural resources are capable of supporting the 2020 Vision, if current rates of degradation are reduced and replaced by appropriate technological change and sustainable use of natural resources.

The Potential Impact of Changes in Income Distribution on Food Demand and Human Nutrition

A procedure is developed to estimate nutritional and food demand implications of changing consumer income distribution. Findings from an empirical application to the population of Cali, Colombia, suggest that changes in income distribution can effectively improve human nutrition, even in the absence of food supply expansions. These same changes also have a large impact on the demand for individual food commodities. In societies where significant changes occur in income distribution, commodity demand projections preferably should be based on individual stratum rather than on average estimates of price and income elasticities.

Bt-cotton and secondary pests

Bt-cotton seed has been effective to control the damage of bollworm in Chinese cotton production since 1999, reducing the need for pesticides and increasing incomes of Chinese farmers. Field data collected in 2004 indicates that these benefits have been eroded by increasing the use of pesticides aimed to control secondary pests. The combination of Bt-cotton seed and other forms of biological pest control may help farmers regain the economic and environmental benefits of previous years. Failure to find a solution, may lead to the discontinuation of the use of Bt-cotton seed in China and elsewhere.

Food policy research for developing countries: emerging issues and unfinished business.

Abstract In order to be relevant and timely, food policy research must address expected future knowledge gaps and information needs. Identification of emerging policy issues and related future information needs to play an important role in setting priorities for such research. This article presents results from extensive consultations with various stakeholder groups in the area of food policy research. Eleven emerging issues and eight issues of unfinished business were identified as issues requiring priority in future food policy research for developing countries. These issues outline both future food policy priorities for the developing countries and priorities for supporting policy research. The impact of globalization, risks and opportunities associated with new technology, and food safety concerns are expected to be at the forefront of the policy agenda for the next several years.

Nutrition-sensitive food systems: from rhetoric to action

Action to improve the nutrition sensitivity of food systems—and thereby increase the nutritional value of food for people around the world— off ers substantial but underused opportunities. The rhetoric about such opportunities brought about by the global food crisis in 2007–08 has not resulted in much new action, for at least two reasons. First, goals other than improved nutrition are pursued by strong economic and political interests in both the agricultural sector and the postharvest value chain. Farmers and other economic agents in food systems aim to make money subject to reasonable levels of risk, and governments pursue policies that are compatible with the interests of politically powerful stakeholder groups. Malnourished populations are rarely among these interests. The very high value of improved nutrition to societies should be supported by alignments to create compatibility between nutrition and economic goals for farmers and processors, and political momentum has to be created to foster policy interventions that make food systems nutrition sensitive. Governments could pursue two kinds of policy action: they could either change the behaviour of farmers, consumers, food processors, and other economic agents in the system through incentives, regulations, and knowledge; or they could accept present behaviours and introduce health-specifi c and nutrition-specifi c interventions to compensate for any nutritional damage done or improvements forgone. Although changing of behaviour is likely to be more cost-eff ective and sustainable, the second option is the most common. For example, food-system policies and the private sector promote inexpensive calories and expensive nutrients, resulting in overweight and micronutrient defi ciencies. Health and nutrition-specifi c interventions, such as treatment of chronic diseases and micronutrient supplementation, are intro duced to remedy problems that could have been avoided. The appropriate policy interventions to change behaviour will be context specifi c and might include agricultural research to increase productivity of fruit and vegetable cultivation and reduce micronutrient defi ciency; taxes on sugar, sweeteners, and fat to reduce the prevalence of obesity; regulations for advertising and promotion; and education about nutrition. In highincome and rapidly growing low-income countries, the agricultural sector has become or is rapidly becoming a supplier of raw materials for the food processing industry, rather than a provider of food for direct consumption. As this transition proceeds, the potential for improvements to nutrition through nutritionsensitive food systems moves from agriculture to the post-harvest value chain. The transition amplifi es health and nutrition risks by promotion of what Monteiro and colleagues call “ultra-processed” foods, resulting in unhealthy dietary patterns. However, policy action to regulate and incentivise the food industry to avoid such negative health and nutrition eff ects and change consumer preferences is very scarce. A second reason for lack of action to improve nutrition is the fi xation of the health and nutrition community on randomised controlled trials (RCTs) as the only legitimate source of evidence. Unfortunately, RCTs— the gold standard in health research—are generally impossible to apply to the food system except in small, usually unimportant, projects. Health and nutrition eff ects resulting from agricultural and other foodsystem policies and programmes are very diffi cult to assess with RCTs, partly because treatments cannot be randomised and because the eff ect pathway is long. Yet the most promising opportunities for improvement of health and nutrition are undoubtedly found in such policies, and not in home gardens and other minor projects which are amenable to study within the framework of randomised trials. Published Online June 6, 2013 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/ S0140-6736(13)61053-3

Food security and nutrition monitoring: A conceptual framework, issues and challenges

Abstract This paper provides an overview of the concepts, issues and challenges that planners and policy makers face in designing food security and nutrition monitoring systems and using their outcome in the formulation of policies and intervention programmes. The principles involved in various types of monitoring systems are outlined after a brief review of their objectives. This is followed by a description of necessary steps in implementing a monitoring system and possible flows of information and its use in various stages of decision making. Identifying relevant issues in designing different types of food security and nutrition monitoring, future challenges facing governments, academic institutions and donor agencies in developing sustainable monitoring systems are discussed. Presenting some of the leading research issues in improving the design and implementation of food security and nutrition monitoring, some guidelines for evaluating their performances in meeting the objectives of improved policy making and reduced food insecurity and malnutrition are provided. The paper concludes that a monitoring system which is simple, user-driven, based on existing institutional structures which increases the capacity for analysis and interpretation and has the commitment of relevant decision makers for using the information in policy design is more likely to be sustainable and successful.