FOOD SECURITY

Course- Pakistan Economic Policy

SUBMTTED TO – SIR ZIA ABBAS RIZVI

Submitted by – Aqsa Sarfaraz – 22204
Mubaraka Quaid Joher - 20827
Food Security

Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................................3
Impact of food insecurity............................................................................................................................4
Food Security in Developing countries.......................................................................................................5
Food Market Policies in Developing Countries..........................................................................................5
Pakistan’s Food Security...........................................................................................................................12
Food security in Developed Countries......................................................................................................14

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Food Security

LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL

Date: 22 April 2020

Sir Zia Abbas Rizvi,
Course Lecturer,
Institute of Business Management, Karachi.

Subject: Submission of term report on “Food Security”

Respected Sir,
We are pleased to submit the report entitled “Food Security” as part of our course
requirement. This report enabled us to gain meaningful insights, hence it was a challenging yet
a fruitful and interesting experience. This report has aided to our knowledge regarding the
subject and it proved to be a learning experience.
We have attempted to incorporate each aspect of the subject matter required from our end.
However, if there are any shortcomings, we will gladly look into it. Kindly accept our efforts and
we are hoping our report meets your approval.

Sincerely,
Aqsa Sarfaraz
Mubaraka Quaid Joher

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Food Security

Introduction
Food security is defined as the availability of food and one's access to it. A household is
considered food secure when its occupants do not live in hunger or fear of starvation. The
World Food Summit of 1996 defined food security as existing "when all people at all times have
access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life". The concept of
food security is defined as including both physical and economic access to food that meets
people's dietary needs as well as their food preferences.
Food security incorporates a measure of resilience to future disruption or unavailability of
critical food supply due to various risk factors including droughts, shipping disruptions, fuel
shortages, economic instability, and wars.
Food stability refers to the ability to obtain food over time. Food access refers to the
affordability and allocation of food, as well as the preferences of individuals and households.
Food availability relates to the supply of food through production, distribution, and exchange.

Things affecting food security today include

 Global Water Crisis - Water table reserves are falling in many countries (including
Northern China, the US, and India) due to widespread over-pumping and irrigation.
 Climate Change - Rising global temperatures are beginning to have a ripple effect on
crop yields, forest resources, water supplies and altering the balance of nature.
 Land Degradation - Intensive farming leads to a vicious cycle of exhaustion of soil
fertility and decline of agricultural yields.
 Greedy Land Deals - Corporations and Governments buying rights to millions of acres of
agricultural land in developing countries to secure their own long-term food supplies.

Food insecurity
Food insecurity is the absence of food security and applies to a wide range of phenomena, from
famine to periodic hunger to uncertain food supply. Hunger can be experienced temporarily by
people who are not food insecure, as well as those who are. In the literature and this note,
hunger is often used to refer in general terms to MDG1 and food insecurity. 10% of world
hunger is acute, when lack of food is short term, and is often caused when shocks such as
drought or war affect vulnerable populations. Chronic hunger is a constant or recurrent lack of
food and results in underweight and stunted children, and high infant mortality. ‘Hidden
hunger’ is a lack of essential micronutrients in diets and affects >2 billion people worldwide

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Impact of food insecurity

Hunger, poverty and disease are interlinked, with each contributing to the occurrence of the
other two. Hunger reduces natural defenses against most diseases, and is the main risk factor
for illness worldwide. People living in poverty often cannot produce or buy enough food to eat
and so are more susceptible to disease. Sick people are less able to work or produce food. The
UN Standing Committee on Nutrition concluded that nutrition is an essential foundation for
poverty alleviation, and also for meeting MDGs related to improved education, gender equality,
child mortality, maternal health and disease. Hunger is a major constraint to a country’s
immediate and long term economic, social and political development. Food security is also seen
as a prerequisite for economic development. Losses in labor productivity due to hunger can
cause 6-10% reduction in per capita gross domestic product (GDP). Undernourishment pre-birth
and of young children is associated with poor cognitive development, resulting in lower
productivity and lifetime earnings potential. The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimate that one
third of the world’s people do not reach their physical and intellectual potential due to
micronutrient deficiencies caused by food insecurity.

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Food Security in Developing countries

Although food in developing countries is overwhelmingly produced in rural areas, a
disproportionate share of the food insecure live in these areas, where incomes, and hence
economic access to food, are much lower than in urban areas.13 Yet with rapid urbanization in
most developing countries, urban food insecurity is a growing problem. A common feature of
many of the food insecure in both urban and rural areas is their reliance on markets to obtain
most of their food. While the urban poor’s reliance on food markets is widely recognized, it is
less well known that the majority of the rural food insecure, including not only the landless but
frequently the majority of small farmers, are net buyers of basic staples. Thus, improving the
efficiency of both urban and rural food markets in order to drive down the real cost of food to
poor consumers’ needs to be a central element of any strategy to reduce chronic food
insecurity.
Policymakers are often confronted with the dilemma of higher food prices to induce increased
food production and the food security of low-income consumers, as higher prices impose a
heavy cost on this group of consumers. A variety of short-and long-term policy options have
been used by governments to promote food security in the developing world. Some measures
affect food availability on local markets, others the individuals' entitlements to obtain food,
while others tend to influence food utilization, i.e., how many nutrients an individual obtains
from a given supply of food.

Food Market Policies in Developing Countries

food constitutes a substantial share of the expenditure of both rural and urban populations,
developing countries tend to employ diverse policy measures to influence agricultural prices.
These policies, which normally have direct impacts on food prices and food availability, are
discussed below.

Price and Trade Regulation Policies

The rationale behind government-administered consumer prices for staple food (issue prices) is
either to improve food access through lower market prices for consumers, or to stabilize
consumption in times of upward price shocks by imposing price ceilings. The majority of
developing countries have historically maintained low food prices to help urban consumers and
to foster industrialization through lower wages. In pursuing these objectives, two paths of food
price subsidies have generally been followed. These include universal price subsidies that
benefit net food buyers, and limited access subsidies, where rationed quantities are granted at

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concessional prices. Universal price subsidies have generally been criticized as inefficient since
all individual’s profit from general food subsidies. The greater share of rationed food grains has
generally been distributed to the politically vocal and well-organized groups, which include the
urban population, government employees, and industrial workers.
While these beneficiaries have normally supported the cheap price policies, escalating fiscal
expenditures for food subsidies and occasional political pressure from multinational donors
have compelled most developing countries to liberalize food markets over time. Discrimination
against the agricultural sector through non-compensated cheap food price policies has been
continually criticized because of its negative impact on farm households' welfare and farm
investments, thus harming the current and future food security of most rural households (e.g.,
Schultz 1964). To encourage domestic food supply and improve local food availability, some
governments of developing countries have offered producers higher than market prices,
determined producer price floors, or subsidized farm inputs. Higher procurement prices have
the ability to lift food-insecure farmers above the food security threshold, while price floors are
designed to prevent farmers just above the food security threshold from falling into insecurity
through declines in farm incomes. In particular, Asian countries with rice as the main staple
food have effectively employed price stabilization policy as a food security tool (Timmer and
Dawe 2007). An issue that usually accompanies procurement price increases is the extent to
which these higher prices are passed on to domestic consumers. If no sufficient compensation
is given to consumers, rising food expenditures tend to impair the food security of net food.
Buyers such as the urban population and rural workers not engaged in food production. This
negative impact may be low in the case of foods that have small relevance to dietary
requirements and contribute less to households' expenditure. For example, while Kenyan
consumers have had to face higher retail prices for sugar, price increases in staple foods, such
as rice in Asia or wheat in northern Africa and the Middle East, have commonly not been fully
passed on to consumers.
Efficient price stabilization policies should normally incorporate factors that affect a country's
specific price and production risks, e.g., if it is landlocked or prone to droughts and floods.
Given that decision makers are usually subjected to rent-seeking activities of special-interest
groups, it is not surprising that the procurement and issue prices that are chosen tend to be
suboptimal (Dixit and Josling 1997; Rashid, Cummings, and Gulati2007). Trade restriction
regimes have commonly been employed in the form of quotas and tariffs. Import and export
trade restrictions for the food sector have historically been implemented to reduce dependency
on foreign imports. Current import restrictions such as quotas and tariffs generally offer net-
food-importing countries the opportunity to respond to world market price fluctuations.

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for example, developing countries recently had to deal with the sharp increases in world food
prices, particularly for staple cereal foods. These price increases resulted in food crises in some
regions, as the number of undernourished persons increased significantly. The trend of a
declining proportion of undernourished people in the developing world has been reversed in
the late 2000s. In Latin America and the Caribbean, where absolute numbers of undernourished
persons had previously been reduced, the number of malnourished people increased
significantly. Declining global food prices in 2009 could not prevent a further increase in the
number of undernourished, which indicates massive income losses due to the global economic
recession (FAO 2009). These estimates only capture part of the food-insecure population since
food insecurity also includes people who are not currently suffering from malnourishment but
are at risk of falling below the healthy nutrient state thresholds (NS) in future periods (Barrett
2002).
The food price increases resulted in some countries reexamining their liberalized agricultural
trade policies and intervening by imposing food price controls and trade restriction policies. For
instance, Argentina, China, India, Russia, and Thailand restricted food exports in the wake of the
price increases, while food-importing countries reduced their tariffs and taxes on food and
agricultural imports to improve domestic food supply (Wodon and Zaman 2008). Timmer and
Dawe (2007) argue that such measures helped in stabilizing domestic rice prices in Bangladesh
and as such circumvented high levels of inefficient public procurement. Some authors have
argued that tightening export restrictions tends to discourage local food production and also
intensifies the burden on the food-importing countries. For example, von Braun 2008 points out
that the elimination of export bans could reduce international grain price fluctuation and
reduce price levels by 30 percent.

State Engagement in Storage and Trade

Government engagement in holding strategic food reserves may be justified on food security
grounds and probably market failures in domestic private stockholding. Two strategic objectives
of public buffer stocks can be derived from these justifications: (1) to reduce year-to-year
domestic harvest fluctuations, in which government stocks are mostly substitutes for
international trade flows, and (2) to smooth consumption in the presence of significant
seasonality in agricultural markets (Siamwalla 1988). Available evidence reveals that public
buffer stocks are in most cases more expensive than procuring food from international markets.
If prices of public grain reserves are stickier than prices on the open markets, public storage
authorities have to cope with large consumer switches between publicly provided food and
food from the open market (Krishna and Chibber 1983). Thus, measures to prevent supply gaps
at all times require inefficiently large precautionary food inventories, with large opportunity
costs. Although grain price fluctuations have not increased since the 1970s and the traditionally

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thin international rice market has considerably expanded and become more stable since the
1990s, the significant impact of a few key players, such as China, the United States, and
European Union, on the world market has raised new doubts on the reliability of international
trade (Calpe 2004; Byerlee, Jayne, and Myers 2006).
During liberalization periods, public buffer stocks have in some countries proved to be hardly
dispensable. To be effective, modern public grain reserves generally require a well-informed,
as well as professional, management with good analytical capacities. The empirical evidence
suggests that mismanagement and decisions based on wrong production estimates have led to
catastrophic outcomes in the past (e.g., Charman and Hodge 2007).
Although advanced information technology may provide more efficient tools for data handling,
public buffer stock authorities need to deal with decreased information spillovers they obtained
from the former public and now privatized state trading enterprises. In markets where private
stockholders do not have significant market power, probably a more efficient way to achieve
consumption smoothing during the marketing season is to subsidize private grain storage
(Siamwalla 1988).The objectives of state trading enterprises (STEs) usually include pursuing
cheap food policies, supporting farm gate prices, stabilizing domestic prices through food
transport between regions, subsidizing lower-income groups, and in some cases providing
farms with needed inputs. Direct participation of the state in agricultural markets is mostly a
means to support and complement administered pricing policies. The operation of STEs can be
economically justified in the presence of market failures. Rashid, Cummings, and Gulati (2007)
discuss four commonly accepted types of market failure in this context; (1) weak infrastructure
and limited flow of information, (2) risk mitigation for technology diffusion, (3) thinness and
volatility of international markets, and (4) inability to participate in international markets, e.g.,
due to low foreign exchange reserves. They demonstrate for six Asian countries (Bangladesh,
India, Indonesia, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Vietnam) that all of these justifications of STEs
have become less persuasive over time. This stems from the fact that other implemented policy
measures, such as public work programs for building road infrastructure, investment in
agricultural research and prospective macro policies, as well as exogenous developments such
as reduced price volatility in international rice markets and advances in information technology,
have substantially reduced the market failures that costly STEs were initially meant to
circumvent. In contrast, private traders have become more and more effective in coping with
food crises.
STEs have commonly operated at significantly higher unit costs than the private sector (e.g.,
Rashid, Cummings, and Gulati 2007). This inefficiency partly stems from services to remote
areas that may not be adequately covered by private traders and hence may have to rely on
safety net support in a privatization scenario. A major political incentive to further operate STEs
is the flexibility to enact political mandates promptly without parliamentary scrutiny (Dixit and

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Josling 1997). With this quick and direct government response tool, governments have,
however, been tempted to solve food crises with unforeseen and immense food transport
activities. Such STE actions, as well as abruptly adjusted preferential arrangements for STEs,
have the potential to seriously discourage private traders from participating in food trade. For
example, the reduction of food imports tariffs for STEs during the food crises in 2004 in
Madagascar resulted in a dramatic breakdown of commercial food imports, which substantially
worsened the food supply situation at local markets (Dorosh 2008).
On the other hand, domestic food distribution systems have shown to be prone to fundamental
design errors. For instance, the shift in India's Public Distribution System from universal food
rations to targeted food rations has reduced the access of poor households to public food
rations, probably because private ration shop owners store fewer public food rations owing to
less expected demand (Kochar 2005).

Agricultural Market Liberalization

the disappointing results of expensive regulation policies on food security in the 1960s and
1970s, many developing countries have made efforts to liberalize their agricultural markets.
Support for trade liberalization is based on conventional welfare analysis, which shows that
price controls undermine the functioning of prices as indicators of scarcity and, thus, result in
welfare losses. Regulatory limits on trade, privately held stocks, and food processing
furthermore discourage private investments and prevent private actors from pursuing their
optimal strategies.
However, Timmer and Dawe (2007) point out that price stabilization policy can help ensure
food security when access to credits and insurances is incomplete. Myers 2006also asserts that
when the theoretical welfare model is extended by allowing for discontinuous jumps in the
utility function at low nutrition levels, welfare gains can be obtained through price stabilization
policies. These gains can be of considerable magnitude, especially for the poor with nutrition
intake close to the food security threshold. Nevertheless, the inability of these policies to
overcome the fundamental problems of market failures, their obstruction of efficient private
entrepreneurs' engagement, and excessive rent-seeking behavior have usually made them an
increasingly expensive instrument.
Kherallah et al. (2000) show that the market reforms undertaken by developing countries have
largely contributed to food security in these countries, although some of them found
themselves stuck in the transition process. For example, private traders in Bangladesh were
able to stabilize food markets after the government had fully liberalized the markets for the
major crops in the early 1990s (del Ninno, Dorosh, and Subbarao2007). However, considerable
threat to food security was observed in cases where producer subsidies were withdrawn
without efforts to diversify the incomes of affected producers, and particularly in remote areas

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where market forces could not fill the gap left by the STEs. This was the case in Malawi at the
end of the 1980s, where the abolition of agricultural input subsidies and the closure of many
markets of the state marketing board resulted in a national food crisis (Harrigan 2008). On
realizing the emergencies that emerge through liberalization, governments have commonly
stopped or reversed further transition, so that regulation and government agencies still play a
significant role in agricultural markets in many developing countries.

Public Safety Nets for Food Access

With public actions in food markets on the retreat, the role of the state is increasingly seen as
the provider of public insurance. The shift toward approaches that aim at helping households
meet their individual nutrition demand also marks a significant shift from supply-side policies to
food access policies. Two common instruments for public insurance in developing countries are
supplementary feeding and public works programs. Supplementary feeding programs have
been widely used in developing countries with significant focus on infants, children, and
pregnant or lactating mothers as target groups. They are commonly operated in cooperation
with NGOs, and a large share of the employed food comes from international sources, like food
aid (Barrett 2002). Intervention designs range from controlled feeding at health facilities, over
home-visiting physicians who supervise nutrient intake, to take-home rations.
In a comprehensive meta-analysis, Dewey and Adu-Afarwuah 2008 investigate the effects of a
multitude of complementary feeding interventions for children on diverse health outcomes in
developing countries.
The results of feeding interventions on children's behavioral development are mixed, with two
out of four studies reporting significant improvements in the infants' ability to walk by 12
months. Feeding interventions mostly enhanced the children's micronutrient status for iron and
vitamin A. These findings suggest that feeding interventions can be effective, but this largely
depends on how the local context, particularly household behavior, is taken into account. To be
effective, large-scale feeding intervention programs thus need a carefully thought-out design,
which may involve considerable costs in implementing.
Given the general insufficiencies of physical infrastructure and fluctuating rates of
unemployment and underemployment in developing countries, labor-intensive public work
programs have been increasingly considered as a promising instrument with few opportunity
costs (Dev 1995). For example, the government of Ethiopia has committed to spend 80 percent
of their food assistance resources on food for work projects (FDRE1996). Public work schemes
have been used in South Asia since ancient times to ensure food entitlements, and have proved
to be relatively successful (Clay 1986; Dev 1995).
Two food-security-related purposes are pursued through the establishment of public work
programs. The first, short-run purpose is to smooth food consumption by providing a cash or in-

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kind wage. The particular domain of public work provision is during the slack season and in the
face of covariate shocks like droughts and floods, where market demand for unskilled labor
usually breaks down (Barrett 2007). When rightly timed, these programs have the ability to
overcome market failures in the financial market. The second is the construction and
maintenance of assets that foster future economic growth. The created assets usually include
road and social infrastructure, reforestation, or on-farm improvements such as irrigation,
water, and soil conservation. Most of these assets have public good characteristics, and are
therefore not sufficiently provided by market forces to meet the social optimum. The rationale
for building on-farm assets is to overcome market failures that hinder farmers from investing.
The choice of what to construct is not trivial, and many top-down planning approaches that did
not incorporate local advisers have often resulted in poorly developed infrastructure (Holden,
Barrett, and Hagos 2006).
An indirect effect of public work on food access is its potential to drive up market wages
because of (1) its characteristic as a reservation wage, and (2) productivity gains through the
built assets that increase labor demand (Abdulai, Barrett, and Hoddinott 2005). The design of
public work programs is knowledge-intensive and requires proper adjustments to the local
economic environment. This requires setting a wage rate high enough to ensure adequate
nutrition for the sparticipants but low enough to minimize inclusion errors (attracting food-
secure people) and crowding out workers of regular jobs. It is, however, important to mention
that if the increase in demand for food accompanying the additional employment of low-
income people is not met by an increased food supply, the employment-based increase in real
income will be substantially reduced by higher prices (Mellor 1978).

Measures to Optimize Food Utilization

Some developing countries have employed food fortification measures with micronutrients
such as iodine, vitamin A, iron, and zinc to optimize food utilization. The advantage of these
measures is that they can improve nutrition status without necessarily altering food access.
While in most cases nutrient requirements can be met with foodstuffs accessible on local
markets, it has been found that enrichment with iron is often the only option to meet the
requirements of infants, given the high costs of iron rich food (Dewey and Adu-Afarwuah
2008).Common approaches in developing countries are the fortification of salt with iodine;
wheat flour with iron, vitamin B and B, and niacin; milk and margarine with vitamin A and D;
and sugar with vitamin A. Fortified food is also often provided in supplementary feeding
programs, like the nutrient supplementation of the large-scale Mexican Progress program
(Rivera et al. 2004). In general, micronutrient fortification has proven to be a cost-effective
instrument that has the ability to reach large shares of the population at very low costs, as
shown by iodized salt, which costs about 5 cents per person per year (Barrett 2002).

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Nutrition education programs are an alternative method to micronutrient fortification, and

attempt to achieve a more balanced nutrient intake by improving food consumption patterns.
This is an especially promising approach when aimed at persons who are responsible for the
preparation of food for other household members. In their systematic review on developing
countries, Dewey and Adu-Afarwuah 2008 concluded that the impact of nutrition education
interventions for mothers had rather modest impacts on child weight and growth. However,
while child morbidity was not affected in two studies, an efficacy trial in Brazil reported
significant decreases in diarrhea and respiratory infections.

Pakistan’s Food Security

Pakistan’s food security policies can be grouped into supply-side and demand-side policies. But, main
focus remained on the supply side that resulted in a significant increase in productivity of food crops.
Infrastructure was developed and improved for irrigation, markets, markets’ accessibility (roads),
agricultural research, development, and extension. Besides infrastructure development, various other
tools were used to intervene in agricultural market such as support prices, government procurement
strategies, restricting domestic and international movement of particular commodities (especially
wheat), and other administrative measures (Zaidi, 2005). This increased productivity that resulted in
improved rural household income that improved nutrition, health, and the overall well-being.

Supply-Side Policies
In supply-side policies, priority was always given to wheat self-sufficiency because it is the staple food.
Subsidies were announced at production (input subsidies especially on fertilizers) and harvesting (output
support priced usually fixed before planting season) stages to ensure its availability both at household
and national levels (Ahmad and Farooq, 2010).

Government has withdrawn support price for major commodities except wheat and sugarcane with
some exceptional years for cotton (Zaidi, 2005). Wheat is purchased from Punjab and Sindh provinces
because these are the major wheat-producing provinces through Pakistan Agricultural Storage and
Supplies Corporation (PASSCO) and provincial Food Departments (GOP, 2016). wheat purchased,
support prices, and total expenditure incurred during 2000–01 to 2015–16. This increased the
production of wheat by 34% compared to that in 2000–01.

The input subsidy on fertilizers comprised the major share of input subsidies. Government spent huge
amount on subsidizing fertilizers. Most recently, under the Prime Minister’s agricultural package, 20
billion rupees were allocated to reduce fertilizer prices. Farmers purchased fertilizers at reduced prices,
which ranged between Rs. 200 and Rs. 500 per bag (GOP, 2016).

Demand-Side Policies

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the demand-side policies targeted poverty. Various projects were launched to eradicate poverty,
hunger, and malnutrition including Village Aid Program (1952–61), Rural Works Programs (1963–72),
Integrated Rural Development Program (1972–79), People Works Program (1972–82), Five Point
Program (1985–88), Social Action Program (1993–94 and 1997– 2002), Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund
(PPAF), Benazir Income Support Program (BISP). Under these programs, various hunger and poverty
eradication strategies were formed that increased public sector spending on health, nutrition,
education, water sector, and other social development programs such as sewerage and sanitation in
slums and rural areas. Furthermore, the emphasis was on increased welfare of children and woman.
Overall objective of these policies remained on ensuring adequate food supply. Overall, food availability
remained satisfactory.

Currently, the government is working on the draft of Agriculture and Food Security Policy. As the name
suggests, the main emphasis will be on ensuring food availability as it has been followed historically. The
aim and objectives of the draft policy are to create a modern efficient and diversified agricultural sector
for sustainable food supply; ensure employment and sustainable income especially for rural residents;
utilizing resources in an efficient and sustainable manner; adapt climate change mitigation methods; and
ensure sustainable access to food for the population (GOP, 2017).

It can be concluded that the governments in Pakistan have considered food availability as the most
important element of their policies. Hence, the supply-side policies dominated the policy scenario. Even
the demand-side policies were indirectly focusing on food availability. Due to this the production of
crops and livestock products have increased many folds. Recently the governments have also focused on
demand-side policies, which has shown a positive result. For a comprehensive food security policy, it is
necessary that food security be defined at national and regional levels and relevant data may be
collected for assessing the ground realities.

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Food security in Developed Countries

Four components build the framework of food and nutrition safety;
1. Availability of food
2. Accessibility of food
3. Use and utilization
4. Stability
According to Food and Agriculture Organization of United Nations (FAO, 2006) nutrition security is
defined as “a situation that exists when secure access to an appropriately nutritious diet is coupled with
a sanitary environment, adequate health services and care, in order to ensure a healthy and active life
for all household members.
Food insecurity is the 21st century hunger in developed countries. Food insufficiency is inadequate
amount of food intake due to lack of resources including money.
Food insecurity has existed in developed countries such as USA and Canada for decades earlier than
2008. The tools used to measure food security then, did not reflect the experience of the household’s
food security hence lack of comprehensive data measuring food security in developed countries. Prior to
the year 2000, the food security was based on the company’s GDP of which most of the developed
countries had high GDP, which has since being affected by the economic downturn in 2008.A lot of the
developed countries have high debt that subsequently impacted food security resulting in many of the
households’ food insufficiencies evidenced by the rise in number of food aid organisations. The GDP is
also related to purchasing power parity (PPP) of individuals or households. When the GDP was low and
national debt was increasing the PPP was affected and more populations in developed countries relied
on food aid through food banks in Australia and Europe, and food stamps in USA and Canada. Food
insecurity and food insufficiency was evident in the developed countries as there was an increase in the
use of food aid by many of the population groups in developed countries.
According to several surveys, in UK, the factors that lead the population to access food aid are sudden
reduction in household income as a result of loss of job, pay cut, and changes in social security
payments. These led to continual low household income, households in high debts which was difficult to
repay leading to legal lawsuits, and the households had to adjust their lifestyle by changing shopping
and eating habits, cutting on expenditure, turning to money lenders or families for income, as well as
food aid.
Canada is one of the countries reported to enjoy high standard of living whilst hunger and poverty
seemingly thought to be remote. Data published in 2000 by Wilson and Steinmann indicated that a

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number of food banks have been increasing regularly and the huge number of food bank
understandably linked to persistent food insecurity in Canada. The Canadian National Population Health
Survey 1998/99 reported that 35 % of people in low-income households reported some form of food
insecurity and 14 % of people in the middle-income households were food insecure at least once a
month.
Two main frames dominate the way developed countries define the problem of food insecurity and the
way government and other key stakeholders’ respond—societal benefit and food waste mitigation.
Societal benefit frames household food security in terms of how both individuals and society benefit
when all members of society are food secure. Countries with high levels of food security benefit socially,
economically, environmentally, and politically. The economic cost of food insecurity is not routinely
reported in developed nations however estimates to date suggest they are substantial. Costs related to
food insecurity in 2011 in the US were $167.5 billion related to lost productivity, public education
expenses, avoidable healthcare costs, and the cost of charity to keep families fed. Food insecurity is
associated with a range of physical and mental health issues which contribute significantly to healthcare
costs, for example cardiovascular disease and obesity. There is a clear relationship between housing
instability, food insecurity and access to health care amongst low income families. Reducing food
insecurity would see improvements in health, employment, productivity, and economic viability, and
reductions in health care costs. This framing should inform arguments about the need for an urgent
response to food insecurity in developed countries, as the cost of inaction is likely to be far more
deleterious. The complexity of social disadvantage contributing to poverty, through exposure to
adversity throughout the life course and often across generations, should inform the responses to food
insecurity.

Each developed country has its own social protection systems or social welfare safety net which, due to
reconstructions and cut backs to basic entitlements has meant that food banks have become secondary
extensions of weakened social safety net. The inadequacy of developed countries’ social protection
systems is rendering people vulnerable to food insecurity, as demonstrated by increased food insecurity
rates in these countries. In fact, Social protections systems, not the least unemployment and child
benefits must be recalibrated to take into account the real cost of living and ensure adequate food for
all, without compromising on other essentials” ,Food banks can provide emergency food assistance but
do not, in and of themselves, offer pathways out of food insecurity in developed nations.

The experience of being food insecure and seeking food assistance in rich countries can have negative
impacts on the individual as it is traumatic, stressful, and detrimental to one’s health and wellbeing. In
all societies, “to be mentally healthy you must value and respect yourself”. People who use food
assistance in rich countries say they experience stigma, shame. It is the inequality within rich countries
that fosters feelings of inferiority, even before needing to seek food assistance. Independence is a core
value in Western culture, people who need help to meet a basic need, such as food, are viewed as
dependent and dependency is humiliating .This is understandable as needing food assistance and the
ways it is currently delivered is not considered socially acceptable, nor should it be in a wealthy country
Trying to address household food insecurity with community-based food interventions is not effective
when solutions likely lie upstream in social protection policies

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From this, it can be concluded that besides the efforts made by developing countries to measure,
monitor and eradicate hunger and food insecurity, it is now a global issue affecting developed,
developing and undeveloped countries.

Food Insecurity Experience Scale

Food Agriculture Organization has designed the Food insecurity experience scale (FEIS) to suite food and
nutrition security indicators. FEIS is an experience-based metric of severity of food insecurity measured
by the responses given by people on their ability to access adequate food.
The FIES scale has been used in developed countries such as America and Canada and developing
countries - South Africa, Latin America and undeveloped countries like Nigeria and from the data
collated there is alarming evidence to support the emergency of food insecurity and food insufficiency in
developed countries.

Ballard and co-workers in 2013 summarized the response obtained using FIES scale to indicate
household vulnerability, access to food and degree of food insecurity. From the responses, it could be
seen that In US most of the people who were food insecure were also overweight In European countries
there are high rates of obesity. Food insecurity and overweight, therefore, need to be taken as
conjoined public health issues. The paradox of food insecurity among the plenty might be due to a
number of factors;
 Uncertainty of food availability which can trigger overeating to stock up for future food scarcity
 Depressive symptoms – stress and uncertainty of lacking consistence may cause symptoms of
depression and disordered eating patterns
 Families with food insecurity live in areas with low quality food shops
 Cheaper cost of energy-dense foods and due to less disposable income, family with food
insecurity would not be able to consume the healthy foods such as fresh fruits and vegetables,
thus end up gaining weight

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Research data and online media publications have reported on emerging hidden – hunger in developed
countries and an association between food insufficiency and obesity. The most commonly reported
factor has been lack of money or resources to access appropriate nutritious diet for the whole
household.

Food Security in USA

According to the Economic Research Service (ERS) of the United States Department of Agriculture
(USDA), a reported 11.8% of US households (15 million households or 40 million people) were food
insecure at some time during 2017. This can be further broken down into households that have low food
security and households that have very low food security. Among households with children, 11.1% of
households with children have low food security with 6.8% of the children being food insecure. And
4.43% having very low food security.
Food insecurity can have severe impacts on the physical and mental well-being of a person, especially a
child. Food insecurity for a child can lead to "increased hospitalizations, poor health, iron deficiency,
developmental risk and behavior problems, primarily aggression, anxiety, depression, and attention
deficit disorder ". These complications can then lead to poor academic performance, subsequent health
disparities and poverty in the child's future. In order to curb these problems, there are policies and
programs made by the government in an attempt to curb these food insecurities.

Causes of food insecurity in the US

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Food Security

Food insecurity isn’t prevailing because of lack of food, there are numerous causes that aid to
the increase of food insecurity in the United States;
 Food deserts - The USDA reports that 23.5 million people live in food deserts: low-income areas
more than one mile from a supermarket or large grocery store (or 10 miles in rural areas),
severely limiting access to fresh food. Don't own a car? Then getting to a grocery store is even
more difficult. A lack of reliable public transportation can exacerbate the issue.
 Poverty - Insufficient income to regularly buy food is the leading cause of food insecurity. It
prevents families from accessing enough food or healthy food. Governmental policy allows junk
food made with high-fructose corn sugar and refined commodity crops to be less expensive than
fresh fruits and vegetables.
 Gender inequality. According to the USDA, 10.5 percent of households headed by a single
woman were food insecure in 2016. Pew Research Center recently reported that women earn
83 percent of what men earn on the dollar.

Policies and programs to curb food insecurity in the

United States
The Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) under the USDA is a federal agency that focuses on giving
nutritional aid to people that are suffering from food insecurity. The FNS provides service to 1 in 5
Americans currently has numerous domestic nutrition assistance programs, some of which are listed
below.

1. Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) - One of the known food assistance programs
is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or more commonly known as SNAP. It was
previously known as the Food Stamp Program, and it provides assistance for low- and no-income
people in the United States. A person of low income must apply to their residential state to
determine if they are eligible for SNAP. If they are found eligible, they will receive an Electronic
Benefits Transfer (EBT) card where they will receive monthly payments that can be used to buy
food from participating stores (FNS). In 2017, the average SNAP benefit received by a recipient
was around $126 per month, to sustain the cost of $1.40 per meal per person.

2. National School Lunch Program (NSLP) – This program provides low-cost or free lunches to
eligible students in public and nonprofit private schools and residential child care institutions
(FNS). According to FNS, over 30.4 million children participated in the NSLP. The schools that
provide free or reduced lunch are reimbursed for each meal served. Children can be eligible for
the NSLP if their household participates in certain Federal Assistance Programs like SNAP. They
can also be eligible if their household income meets well below the poverty line.

3. School Breakfast Program (SBP) - The School Breakfast Program is a federally assisted meal
program operating in public and nonprofit private schools and residential child care institutions.
It began as a pilot project in 1966, and was made permanent in 1975. The School Breakfast
Program is administered at the Federal level by the Food and Nutrition Service. At the state level,
the program is usually administered by state education agencies, which operate the program

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through agreements with local school food authorities in more than 78,000 schools and
institutions.
4. Special Milk Program (SMP) - The Special Milk Program (SMP) provides milk to children in schools
and childcare institutions who do not participate in other federal meal service programs. The
program reimburses schools for the milk they serve.

5. Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) - The Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) is a federally-
funded, state-administered program. SFSP reimburses program operators who serve free healthy
meals and snacks to children and teens in low-income areas.

6. Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) – The Special
Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) provides federal grants
to states for supplemental foods, health care referrals, and nutrition education for low-income
pregnant, breastfeeding, and non-breastfeeding postpartum women, and to infants and children
up to age five who are found to be at nutritional risk.

7. Senior Farmers' Market Nutrition Program (FMNP)/(SFMNP) - The Seniors Farmers' Market
Nutrition Program (SFMNP) is designed to:
 Provide low-income seniors with access to locally grown fruits, vegetables, honey and herbs.
 Increase the domestic consumption of agricultural commodities through farmers' markets,
roadside stands, and community supported agricultural programs.
 Aid in the development of new and additional farmers' markets, roadside stands, and
community support agricultural programs.

8. Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACSFP) - The Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP)
reimburses child and adult care institutions and family or group day care homes for providing
nutritious meals and snacks to the children and older adults or chronically impaired persons with
disabilities in their care. Child care centers, adult day care centers, day care homes, afterschool
care centers, and emergency shelters receive cash reimbursement for serving meals and snacks
that meet Federal nutritional guidelines to eligible children and adult participants. Eligible
children include infants and children through age 12 in child care centers and day care homes.
Children of migrant workers are eligible through age 15. Eligible adults are enrolled in adult day
care and are at least 60 years of age or physically or mentally impaired. In afterschool care
centers and emergency shelters, children through age 18 are eligible.
9. Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP) - The Commodity Supplemental Food Program
(CSFP) works to improve the health of low-income persons at least 60 years of age by
supplementing their diets with nutritious USDA Foods. USDA distributes both food and
administrative funds to participating states and Indian Tribal Organizations to operate CSFP.
10. -Temporary Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) - The Emergency Food Assistance
Program (TEFAP) is a federal program that helps supplement the diets of low-income Americans
by providing them with emergency food assistance at no cost. USDA provides 100% American-
grown USDA Foods and administrative funds to states to operate TEFAP.

11. Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations (FDPIR) - The Food Distribution Program on
Indian Reservations (FDPIR) provides USDA Foods to income-eligible households living on Indian

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Food Security

reservations and to Native American households residing in designated areas near reservations
or in Oklahoma. USDA distributes both food and administrative funds to participating Indian
Tribal Organizations and state agencies to operate FDPIR.

12. Food Assistance for Disaster Relief (FADR) - Providing food to people in need
of assistance following a storm, earthquake, flood or other disaster emergency.
13. Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program (FFVP) - The Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program (FFVP) is a
federally assisted invitation-only program providing free fresh fruits and vegetables to students
in participating elementary schools during the school day. The FFVP helps schools create
healthier school environments by providing healthier food choices, expanding the variety of fruits
and vegetables children experience, and increasing children’s fruit and vegetable consumption in
order to combat alarming rate of obesity among the population.

Food security in Singapore

Singapore is the ninth-most developed nation in the world and also one of the most peaceful. When it
comes to the economy, Singapore’s is high-income and one of the world’s most competitive economies
in the world. The city-state has one of the world’s highest GDP growth rate at 7.7% since gaining
independence from Malaysia in 1965. As Singapore has shifted from Third World to First, the nation has
shaken off the widespread hunger and food insecurity that prevailed at independence. Yet, this
“developing world” version of widespread hunger and endemic deprivation has been replaced by a very
first-world problem: hunger and food insecurity afflicting individuals or pockets of neighbourhoods,
even in one of the world’s wealthiest nations. Former GIC economist Yeoh Lam Keong, calculated a
number of between 10 and 12 percent Singaporean citizens and permanent residents were poor. From
this it can be estimated that between one in ten and one in seven Singaporeans live on an income below
what is needed to secure basic necessities. Through research it was concluded that people were not just
struggling, but that incidents of actual hunger and food insecurity were not infrequent, people were
failing to put food on the table. These groups of Singaporeans include;
 Single parents forced into debt, forgoing paying rent and utilities, and sacrificing sufficient food
for themselves so that their children might have enough to eat.
 Elderly people who went to bed early to avoid the pain of an empty stomach. 
 People with serious disabilities who had formerly depended on parents who were now aging,
sick, and no longer able to provide.
As a small country with limited natural resources, Singapore imports over 90 per cent of its food
requirements for its 5.8 million inhabitants. One of the main concerns for Singapore is that key products
are imported from just one or two source countries. For example, according to the Singapore
Department of Statistics, a large portion of Singapore’s pork imports (57 per cent) is from Brazil while
the rest are from Indonesia’s Pulau Bulan and Australia. Singapore imports most of its vegetables from
Malaysia (46 per cent) and China (28 per cent), while most of Singapore’s eggs come from Malaysia, with
a minority (27 per cent) from local farms. All of Singapore’s fresh chicken is imported from Malaysia
while 84 per cent of all frozen chicken comes from Brazil. Singapore’s per capita food consumption is
comparable with that of other developed countries and sometimes even higher in the case of certain
food products, e.g., poultry (chicken and duck) and hen eggs. Singaporean consumers tend to demand

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Food Security

high quality poultry, pork, seafood, vegetables and fruits particularly as a consequence of income
growth. As such, there is a pressing need to ensure that Singapore is able to secure a minimal amount of
these food items during a crisis. Any disruptions in key parts of the food supply chain can have
significant consequences.
With increasing incomes and a growing population, Singapore’s food demands will grow to place an
enormous strain on current resources. As it is, Singapore is the tourist and transportation hub of
Southeast Asia and boasts a very large food service industry with a vast array of hotels, restaurants,
airline caterers, integrated resorts, ship handlers, hospitals and clubs. The country’s multi-racial society
and the presence of a large population have led to a diverse and rich variety of food types being made
available to consumers.
Just as urban cities all over the world rely on their hinterlands and rural areas for food supplies,
Singapore depends primarily on its own ‘hinterlands’. The island state of Singapore, consists of a land
area comprising ‘heartlands’ (urban settlements with gardens) and six delineated agricultural
‘hinterlands’. Unbeknown to many, agriculture in Singapore still remains a part of the country’s total
economic activity. Though it accounts for only 0.2 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product
(GDP) and employs a mere 0.2 per cent of the workforce, agricultural systems on the island are
intensive. At present, agriculture in Singapore takes place in its hidden hinterland of agrotechnology
parks or modern agriculture estates. There are six such parks in Singapore. These parks cover a land area
of 1,465 hectares (ha) and nearly 700 ha (1.6 per cent of Singapore’s total land area) have been
allocated to over 200 farms for the production of livestock, eggs, milk, aquarium and food fish,
vegetables, fruits, orchids, ornamental and aquatic plants, as well as for the breeding of birds and dogs.
The modern farms in these agrotechnology parks develop, adapt and showcase advanced technologies
and techniques for intensive farming systems, and for the export of high value and quality products and
services to other tropical countries in the region.

Risk scenarios affecting Singapore’s food security

For an urban, high-income and net foodimporting country like Singapore, food insecurity results mainly
from threats to its food availability dimension. The higher the degree of import dependence, the higher
the risks the country is exposed to.
 Supply lockdown in exporting countries (e.g., in cases of disease outbreaks or extreme weather
in the exporting countries)
 High intensity conflict (e.g., war) – The duration of such disruptions is often hard to determine.
In such cases, sourcing for alternative sources of food is most pressing.
 Low intensity conflict (e.g., regional socioeconomic instability or terrorist threats) – Usually, such
cases lead to longterm disruptions in food supplies. Having a variety of food choices as well as
food sources is usually important in surviving such conflicts.
To meet such challenges, the Singapore Food Agency (SFA) was formed in April last year to focus solely
on food-related issues. Securing the country’s food security is its core mission.
Singapore has planned for food supply disruptions for years, putting in place a comprehensive strategy
after the food crisis of 2007 and 2008, which saw the global prices of food shoot up dramatically due to
trade shocks, rising oil prices and food stocks diverted to produce biofuels.

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Food Security

As a result of all its planning, Singapore topped the Global Food Security Index of 113 countries by the
Economist Intelligence Unit in 2018 and 2019. Before that, it had been in the top three positions of the
index which measures affordability, availability, quality and safety of food source in each country for
several years.
However, when climate-related and natural-resource risk factors were taken into account, Singapore fell
to 12th place in the 2019 index.
The main challenge, which is unavoidable given the size of the city-state, is dependence on foreign
produce to a very high percentage. The Republic currently imports more than 90 per cent of the food it
consumes. For any nation, forming a viable food security strategy is usually a fine balancing act between
self-reliance and self-sufficiency.

Singapore’s Road Map to Food Security

Singapore is forced to belong to the second category because it does not have that luxury of natural
resources, ample land and water. It has to be self-reliant, using explicit policies to safeguard its food
supplies while having some domestic production capability of its own
In maintaining food security, it is important to ensure that everyone in Singapore has access to safe and
nutritious food at affordable prices in the short and long term. As the national authority that ensures a
resilient supply of safe food, the Agri-Food & Veterinary Authority of Singapore (AVA) reviewed
Singapore’s Food Security Roadmap after wide consultations with industry partners and other
government agencies to address food security for Singapore in a holistic manner.
Singapore’s Food Security Roadmap consists of core, supporting, and enabling strategies. Food source
diversification remains a key strategy to bolster supply resilience, along with strategies to offset
limitations in diversification, such as local production. Under the roadmap also are various supporting
strategies like R&D, food wastage reduction, and enabling strategies such as emergency planning, cross-
government coordination as well as communication and public education efforts.

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Food Security

Source Diversification
 Source diversification is Singapore’s core strategy. Today, Singapore sources food from more
than 170 countries. Diversification builds flexibility into the system, by enabling countries to tap
on other sources quickly even when a key supply source is affected.
 Singapore works with importers to proactively explore new sources through trade missions. To
diversify, they work closely with the industry through various platforms such as business cluster
meetings and regular dialogues with members from the industry to share information and to
understand their concerns. They also adopt a strategy to maximize safe sources of food supply.
To do this, they look toward accrediting viable alternative sources while keeping existing ones
open, even in the face of disease or food contamination at source.
Optimizing Local Food Production
 Local production is another core component of Singapore’s Food Security Roadmap. However,
with land and resource constraints, they are working closely with farmers to raise their
productivity and intensify the use of limited farmland through adopting technology and
automation.
 To support farmers in boosting their productivity, a S$63 million (approx. US$ 45.4 million)
Agriculture Productivity Fund was launched in 2014. The aim of the Fund is to help farmers
enhance their capabilities and invest in new farming systems, equipment and infrastructure.
AVA also helps to provide extension services such as technical assistance and training for
farmers, and conducts R&D in partnership with research institutions and the industry. Such
work paves the way for new, innovative systems and technologies that can improve our local
farm production resilience and productivity.
 In the face of challenges such as climate change, agricultural practices can transform and
become more resilient with the aid of technology and innovation. A more progressive farm
sector will also be key to attracting a new generation of “agri-specialists” to write the next
chapter in global and regional food security efforts.
 Singapore is moving in this direction and developing strategies for local farm transformation.
Even though the agriculture sector is small in Singapore, Singapore would like to contribute and
play our part in global food security. We envision our farms of the future to be high-tech,
innovative, highly intensive and productive, able to do more, with less. As an urbanized state,
Singapore promotes the development of urban farming solutions and progressive farming
technologies, and sees potential to contribute in this as a “living lab” for food production
technologies.

Food wastage reduction

 Food wastage reduction plays an important role in food security. Reducing food wastage,
redistributing unsold/excess food and recycling food waste are important components of our
national waste management strategies.

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Food Security

 To avoid wasting food at the onset, Singapore launched a publicity and outreach programme in
Nov 2015 to encourage the adoption of smart food purchase, food preparation and food storage
habits by consumers. The programme features distribution of educational materials,
community-led initiatives and resource packages for schools.
Other supporting and enabling strategies
 Singapore works with the industry to conduct public education to promote product substitutes
(frozen meat, egg powder and liquid eggs) and local farm produce (eggs, fish and vegetables) to
enhance food supply resilience. Raising consumer awareness of food alternatives can help to
buffer against supply disruptions, while promotion of local produce will help to sustain local
production. This is done through events such as cooking demonstrations at Food Expos,
supermarkets and community roadshows, as well as farm tours and cooking classes at
community centres.

Food safety
 Food safety is an integral part of food security. As the national authority for food safety, AVA has
an integrated risk-based food safety system in place to ensure that food is safe from production
to just before retail. AVA’s Veterinary Public Health Centre was endorsed as Southeast Asia’s
first World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) Collaborating Centre for Food Safety in 2014
and supports our food safety programmes. With food safety as a shared responsibility, AVA
actively engages industry and consumers in food safety standards and practices across the food
chain.

Recommendations
 The FAO estimates that one-third of the food produced each year is wasted or lost. All the food
that is lost or wasted every year could feed more than twice the nearly 800 million people who
are food insecure. Strict food wastage reduction policies must be implemented to save unsold
excess food. Along with NGO’s and governments, restaurants, eateries and hotel should come
forward and develop programs to donate food being wasted on a daily basis.
 Government assistance should be provided to low income households along with people living
below the poverty line, the criteria to attain assistance for basic necessities should not be
limited to below the poverty line.
 Food prices should be regulated and healthy nutritional food should be made affordable and
accessible for everyone.
 People should be educated as to what their dietary intakes, sound food practices and food
hygiene are.
 Local production should be optimized by making full use of the resources available.
 Fertilizers should be used more efficiently.
 Modern technology for production of food should be used which would generate higher yield as
well as employment opportunities.

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Food Security

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Food Security

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