UNIT 7: FOOD SECURITY

Contents
7.0 Aims and Objectives
7.1 Introduction
7.2 Food Policy
7.3 Food Security
7.4 Food Aid
7.4.1 Effects of Food Aid
7.5 Food Security in Ethiopia
7.0 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
The purpose of this unit is to introduce you with the food police and food security issues and
to discuss the positive and negative effects of food aid in developing countries. Finally food
security in Ethiopia will be briefly discussed.
When you have completed this unit, you will be able to:
 understand the concept of food security.
 examine the importance and problems of food aid.
 understand major causes of food insecurity in Ethiopia.
 have some concepts on Ethiopia food security strategy.

7.1 INTRODUCTION
All the groups of the policy instruments discussed in the previous units are predominantly
concerned with influencing the domestic production of agricultural commodities and are less
concerned with the demand or consumption side of agricultural markets. This unit provides a
brief overview of food policy and food security. The concept of food security causes of food
insecurity in Ethiopia, and some basic ideas about food aid will also be discussed.
7.2 FOOD POLICY

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Definition: Food policy concerns the integration of state actions affecting the supply,
distribution, and consumption of food inorder to ensure continuity of access to enough food
for all the people in a country.
In the above definition supply refers to total food availability, including domestic production,
commercial imports and food aid. Distribution refers to the operation of food marketing
systems. Consumption refers to the ability of people to acquire food given their patterns of
employment and incomes, and the levels and trends of food prices.
Food policy is essentially about the balance between food availability and food requirements.
This balance has international, national, household, and individual dimensions. A surplus of
food at the international; level does not guarantee that all countries possess sufficient food for
their populations to obtain an adequate diet. Like wise, self-sufficiency in food at the national
level does not guarantee access to food for social groups and households who lack the
purchasing power to buy the food.
Ideas about food policy have changed, especially in the relative emphasis that is placed on
food availability versus food entitlement. While in the past, attention was focused on lack of
food availability, and on increasing domestic production, the current emphasis is on the
command of people over food. The term food entitlement focuses on the non-monetary and
monetary command of people over food. It also focuses on the kinds of change, such as
natural disasters or adverse price movements, that can reduce food entitlement to below a
minimum acceptable level interms of nutrition.

7.3 FOOD SECURITY

The concept that helps to foster an integrated approach to food and nutrition problems is that
of food security. This places stress on the avoidance of under nutrition or starvation as the
fundamental food policy goal. It implies putting in place a set of instruments and mechanisms
that seek
i) to overcome existing long term nutritional deprivation in vulnerable groups of the
population

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ii) to avert short term nutritional deprivation resulting from adverse natural events or sudden
changes in the capacity of people to acquire enough food.
Definition
Food security is access by all people at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life. Its
essential elements are the availability of food and the ability to acquire it. Food insecurity,
inturn, is the lack of access to enough food.
There seems a general consensus on the basic principles of food security.
i) The definition emphasis access to food rather than the supply of food. This is consistent
with the concept of food entitlement, and it focuses on whether people have sufficient
command over food, and thus on methods to supplement this entitlement where it is
deficient or absent.
ii) The definition emphasizes the access to food by all people, implying that an aggregate
view is insufficient, the situation of individuals and social groups at risk is of critical
importance.
iii) The definition refers to both availability of food and ability to acquire food, corresponding
to the food availability versus food entitlement distinction. This definition of food security
owes much to the shift away from thinking about food problems solely interms of available
food supply.

7.4 FOOD AID

What Does Food Aid Mean?
Food aid refers to the provision of food or cash to purchase food in times of emergency or to
provide longer-term solutions in areas where food shortages exist. Food aid can also be
targeted at creating food security – a situation in which people need not be vulnerable to
hunger and starvation
Food aid to developing countries has been an important dimension of foreign assistance since
the mid-1950s. With a value of more than $3 billion per year, food aid constitutes nearly 10
percent of total official development assistance (ODA). About 45 percent of food aid is used
to provide emergency relief in times of severe food shortages, 30 percent supports specific
development projects, and the remaining 25 percent is program or non project food aid. The

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latter is given as hard currency assistance to buy imports of food, usually cereals, and most
often, from the donor country.
The role and effects of food aid have been controversial because of food aid’s many purposes.
While food aid fulfills a humanitarian and development mission, it also provides a means for
donor countries to dispose of surplus commodities and to develop new markets. As with any
foreign aid, food aid serves the foreign policy objectives of donors. While this multiplicity of
objectives has added instability over time to food aid allocations, it also has strengthened the
political support for maintaining food-aid programs within the donor countries.
Critics of food aid have argued, among other things, that unrestricted cash donations would be
preferable to food. While it is clear that recipients would prefer cash, many donors treat food
aid as an addition to, rather than a component of their economic assistance. It is highly
unlikely that donor budgets would be expanded by the value of food aid if the latter were
eliminated.
Food aid is provided both bilaterally and multilaterally. The United States share of total food
assistance has been about 60 percent in recent years with the European Community
contributing about 15 percent, Canada 10 percent, and other countries the rest. About one-
fourth of food aid is funneled through multilateral organizations, primarily the World Food
Programme of the United Nations.
7.4.1 Effects of food aid
The positive and negative effects of food aid on recipient countries have been studied and
debated for many years. On the positive side, food provides real resources that can be used to
investment and employment. Food aid can have a disproportionate but positive effect on
disadvantage groups, notably by supporting specific nutrition or food-for-work projects or by
providing food to the poor for free or at concessional prices. Food also can
be used to help recipient governments support storage and stabilization schemes to provide a
small buffer against poor production years.
Food aid also can have adverse effects on the recipients. These potential adverse effects of
food aid can occur in a number of ways:
1. disincentive effects on local agricultural production through reduced prices because
of greater supply,

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 2. dependency effects because the government can substitute food aid for agricultural
development programs, and
3. the uncertainty of food aid quantities from year to year.
The disincentive issue has been examined empirically in several studies. In theory, additional
supplies could depress food prices and discourage production. Some empirical studies have
found this to be the case, but many other studies have not. The disincentive effect is
minimized if food aid is given or sold to those who otherwise could not afford the food.
Transferring food is like transferring income. The quantity of the aid compared to the
country’s overall food production is important. For example, it appears that there has been a
disincentive effect in Egypt due to the large quantities of aid shipped, but it is extremely
difficult to sort out the impact of food aid from the many policy induced distortions.

The idea that food aid creates dependency has not been examined as frequently. Food aid is
not different from other aid in that, by providing resources, it may lead to less effort to raise
revenues domestically or to promote agricultural development. Conditions are usually placed
by donors on program aid that minimize this possibility. A second part of the dependency
argument is that over the long run, food aid leads to more food imports and changes in
preferences away from domestically produced foods. There is some evidence that this
preference effect may be occurring, although it is difficult to separate changes induced by
food aid from those that occur because of income growth.
Uncertainty in food aid delivers has been criticized. Many donors have moved to longer-term,
programmed food aid, a policy that improves its development impact and removes some of
the year-to-year uncertainty.
Food aid can be used in a positive way by recipients to further both agricultural and overall
economic development. And, of course it can play a major life saving role during short-term
emergencies. It appears that the potential positive development role of food aid has not been
fully exploited, though some efforts are under way to improve its development contribution.
Most donor countries find public opinion is generally supportive of food aid. And, food aid is
not as costly as it may seem because it reduces the costs associated with price-support
programs in developed countries. However, stronger multi-year commitments are needed if
food aid is to be a more effective development tool.

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Food aid is given by donors from the surplus food mountains that are accumulating among the
major industrial countries as a result of enormous subsidy payments, open and concealed, and
other protective measures for the benefit of their own farmers. The Common Agricultural
Policy (CAP) of the European Community is perhaps the best-known example. These
policies have been rightly criticized as harmful to developing countries, harmful to the
industrial countries, and harmful to North-South relations in the world economy. Historically,
food aid is inextricably linked with the existence of these surpluses.

In any case, the idea that the government s of developing countries eagerly seize on food aid
as an opportunity to neglect domestic food production is hardly plausible politically.
Developing countries, particularly those whose independence is relatively recent, are very
keen to establish and safe guard their national sovereignty. Dependency on food imports and
specifically on food aid is clearly incompatible with this political priority objective.
There are three other major criticisms of food aid, which will have to be dealt with more
briefly. These relate to harmful effects on local food producers through lower prices, the
inferiority of food aid to financial aid, and the distortion of consumption patterns and the
creation of “taste dependence.”
i) The first of these criticisms, that food aid tends to depress local food prices and thus
provides disincentives for local food producers, has dominated the earlier discussions largely
because it relates to the image of free-market prices determined by the interplay of supply and
demand on which all economists have been nurtured by the economics textbooks. But there
are many answers to this criticism.
First, food prices in developing countries are normally not determined by the interplay of
supply and demand in a “free market”; they are normally determined by regulation, often
combined with a monopolistic or strong position of marketing boards or similar parastatal
bodies.
Second, as already pointed out, much, perhaps most of food aid replaces commercial imports
and hence does not add to total supply.
Third, we have already pointed out that food aid, by making possible an expansion of the
economy, should lead to an increase in demand for food which should offset the increase in
supply, even in a free-market analysis.

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Fourth, the additional revenue obtained by the government from food aid should enable it to
use such additional resources to support local agricultural, by subsidizing inputs such as
fertilizers, or by creating rural infrastructure providing better links with urban markets, or
most directly by offering higher prices to local food producers. The latter action would in fact
establish a dual price structure of cheap, subsidized food in the urban areas and higher prices
for local food producers, with the difference covered from the revenue or counterpart funds
arising from food aid.
Fifth, it should always be possible for the donors of food aid to link it with a policy dialogue
and food strategy that provides proper- that often means enhanced- incentives to local food
producers.
Sixth, insofar as food aid consists of “ triangular transactions,” buying food from other
developing countries, such as maize from Zimbabwe or rice from Thailand, it would have a
positive effect on food production and incentives to local food producers in such food-
exporting developing countries. Triangular transactions are an increasingly significant feature
of food aid and deserve to be more fully developed.
Seventh, among the complex and numerous incentives and disincentives for local food
production, price is only one of many factors and not nearly as important as the economic
textbooks and the neoliberal doctrine of “ getting prices right” as a universal remedy for
underdevelopment would suggest. If food aid helps to finance agricultural research, or
agricultural extension services, or through public works and feeding programs helps to make
farmers’ families better fed and healthier, or through school meals gives incentives to farmers
to send their children to school, that would normally be an important factor in raising
productivity in food production on a sustainable basis. But the critics are right in drawing
attention to the need for encouragement of local food production, including proper output
prices for local producers.
ii) The second criticism was that food aid is an inferior substitute for financial aid. Here again
there are some brief answers:
First, food aid is at least partially additional to, rather than substitute for, financial aid. There
are political and commercial as well as humanitarian and legal reasons (such as international
commitments under the Food Aid Convention), which make donors inclined to give food aid
where they would refuse to give an equivalent amount of financial aid.

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Second, to the extent that food aid replaces commercial imports, it sets free foreign exchange
and is there for equivalent to or even better than financial aid-better because the foreign
exchange released is not subjected to conditionality.
Third, financial aid is also often tied both by commodity and source of supply. Fourth, food
aid is superior to financial aid in that a higher proportion of it goes to the poorer developing
countries; and in spite of great difficulties of reaching the poorest of the poor, it is likely that
food aid benefits the poor in the recipient countries more than does financial aid. But once
again, the critics have served to remind us that food aid ought to be additional and specific
and not at the expense of financial aid.
iii) Finally, the distortion of consumption patterns: Here the chief answer to the critics must
be that this shift in consumption patterns, say toward wheat and dairy products, is mainly a
result of urbanization. The data do not suggest any clear correlation between the amount of
food aid and shifts in consumption patterns.
To sum up, the voice of the critics in this debate has been too loud and strident and the voice
of the defenders has been too muted. The defenders should listen carefully to the critics-but
the critics should listen equally carefully to the defenders. Food aid is a fact of life and more
likely to expand than to contract, so the natural approach should be to develop and improve it.
A healthy debate is an essential part of this process.
7.5 FOOD SECURITY IN ETHIOPIA
The Ethiopian government has prepared a comprehensive Poverty Reduction strategy Paper
(PRSP), also known as “Sustainable Development and poverty Reduction
Programme”(SDPRP). In the SDPRP, the government has reaffirmed that the “reduction of
poverty will continue to be the core agenda of the country’s development “. In the context of
establishing the nexus between policies and development programmes on one hand and
poverty on the other, issues of food security and agricultural development have been well
reflected and areas requiring action are projected, in the SDPRP. The severity of the chronic
crises faced by millions of the population calls for renewed commitment of all and joining of
hands with the government to deal with the situation in an emergency mode, also linking with
the actions stipulated in the SDPRP. It is therefore acknowledge that food security

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programmes are subset of poverty reduction interventions and integral part of the fulfillment
of its objectives.
Causes of food insecurity
Foods security refers to access by all people at all times to sufficient food for an active and
healthy life. Combinations of factors such as adverse changes in climate, poor technology,
soil degradation, and policy induced as well as program implementation problems have
resulted in serious and growing problems of food insecurity in Ethiopia. The extent of food
insecurity in Ethiopia in recent years has become alarming and its coverage in drought periods
has reached as high as 45 percent of the population. Although the food insecurity is
predominantly chronic, it is frequently aggravated and turns out to be more acute, and on the
average over five million people are enlisted for a daily relief food per annum over the last
decade, even when the weather and market conditions appear to be normally good. This
condition in Ethiopia leads to a shift between chronic and acute food insecurity expressed by
broad and deep crisis, which
* This section is totally taken from “the New coalition for food security in Ethiopia. Food
security programme, Vol. 1, prepared by the Ethiopian Government.
often is the characteristic of drought prone areas with low and variable rainfall, high
population density and natural resource endowments.
Since the country is dependent on agriculture, crop failure usually leads to household food
deficit. The absence of off-farm income opportunities, and delayed food aid assistance, leads
to asset depletion and increasing levels of destitution at household level. Over the last fifteen
years this situation has resulted in importing an average of 700-thousand metric tons of food
aid per annum to meet food needs.
The major causes for transitory and chronic food insecurity in Ethiopia are outlined below.
a) Recurring Drought
Agricultural development in Ethiopia heavily depends on rainfall where the pattern is of
erratic and unpredictable nature. For most smallholder faming and pastoral system, rainfall is
the major source of moisture for crop and livestock production; however, the frequency of
drought has sharply increased its occurrence, i.e. every three to five years. Moreover,
utilization of water resources is ill developed. Irrigation and water diversion schemes are less
practiced; hence, food production has seriously been affected.

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b) Limited source of alternative incomes
Limited sources of alternative income options have left the majority of Ethiopian households
susceptible to ill developed copping mechanism. Since rural poverty is wide spread and very
few government resources are available, emergency response capability is limited. However,
even with such limited relief intervention a serious dependency syndrome is created among
the beneficiaries.
c) Population pressure
Uncontrolled growth rate of rural population has brought about significant pressure on land.
Food production and productivity has not increased significantly to cope up with increased
population resulting in the average aggregate household consumption level not to exceed six
months.
d) Limitation in technology
Agricultural intervention had followed the same pattern of service deployment in the areas of
fertilizer, improved seed and pesticides provision, lacking comprehensive package of
interventions at household level orientation. Provisions of new technologies are at
rudimentary stage, moreover, the capacity of technology multiplication centers is limited to
disseminate the existing technologies.

e) Lack of product diversification and market integration

Diversification in the production pattern is limited mainly focusing on food crops. Less
attention is given to cash crops, livestock and livestock products. Markets are not integrated,
as a result, price differentials between farm gate and terminal markets vary significantly in
favor of the later; consequently, sustainable adoption of technology could not be observed.
The agricultural output marketing indicates that production is challenged by low market
prices including inadequate market information system and inadequate rural road network.
f) Limited capacity in planning and implementation
Implementation capacity is limited by the virtue of lack of technical skilled manpower and
appropriate incentive mechanisms. The provision of extension services too has not been
adequate in terms of coverage and quality of services. Development agents (DAs) to farmers

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ratio to deploy appropriate service and monitoring is far from adequate. Moreover, the
problem is aggravated by resource constraints and lack of appropriate incentive mechanisms.
g) Environmental degradation
Natural resources are the basis for accelerated agricultural development and for meeting the
food security and other basic necessities of its people. Environmental degradation is one of
the most severe problems affecting food security in Ethiopia. Cultivation of steep lands in the
absence of conservation practices, poor farming practices and continuous cropping without
nutrient recycling, overgrazing and improper land use practices are among the causes for
accelerated soil erosion (amounting to over 1.5 billion tons/year ). In addition, crop residue
and dung are increasingly being used to meet rural household energy needs, rather than being
used for encroachment are responsible for sever loss of precious biodiversity and heavily and
negatively impacting on water resources, infrastructure stability (roads, etc.) and ultimately on
the overall economy.
h) Limited access to credit
Credit stimulates, supports and accelerates the use of technological innovations, which will
increase production and productivity. Further more, improvement of marketing system and
promotion of micro-enterprises and other income generating activities can be facilitated
efficiently only if they are backed up with sound credit system. Currently, the development of
micro-finance institution is at an infant stage, some of them lack strong capital base,
experience and capacity in credit management. In addition to the lack of resources for an
advance payment, most of the food insecure group cannot manage to replay the credit.
The government of Ethiopia has taken major steps that have a vital role on the effectiveness
of food security programs. Some of the measures that have created the enabling environment
for the implementation of food security programmes are highlighted below.
Sustainable Development and Poverty Reduction Programme (SDPRP)
The overarching objective of the government’s poverty reduction strategy is to reduce poverty
through at the same time maintaining macroeconomic stability.
The broad thrust of Ethiopia’s strategy during the sustainable development and poverty
reduction programme (SDPRP) period thus consists of:
- Overriding and international focus on agriculture as the sector is source of livelihood for
85% of the population where the bulk of the poor live. The government gives overriding

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 primacy to the welfare of rural population. Agriculture is also believed to be a potential
source to generate primary surplus to fuel the growth of other sectors of the economy
(industry);
- Strengthening private sector growth and development especially in industry as means of
achieving off-farm employment and output growth (including investment in necessary
infrastructure);
- Rapid export growth through production of high value agricultural products and increased
support to export oriented manufacturing sectors particularly intensified processing of
high quality skins/leather and textile garment;
- Undertake major investment in education and strengthen the on going effort on capacity
building to overcome critical constraints to implementation of development program;
- Deepen and strengthen the decentralization process to shift decision-making closer to the
grass root population, to improve responsiveness and service delivery;
- Improvements in governance to move forward in the transformation of society, improve
empowerment of the poor and set framework/ provide-enabling environment for private
sector growth and development;
- Agricultural research, water harvesting and small scale irrigation;
- Focus on increased water resource utilization to ensure food security;
Rural Development Policies and Strategies
The Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia seeks to develop a free market economy, which
would ensure rapid development, extricate the nation from dependence on food aid, and make
the poor the main beneficiaries of the fruits of economic growth.
The Federal Food Security Strategy
The Federal Food Security Strategy rests on three pillars, which are:
(1) Increase supply or availability of food;
(2) Improve access/entitlement to food;
(3) Strengthening emergency response capabilities.
The detail aspects of the strategy are highlighted as follows:
Agricultural production in mixed farming systems: This is aimed at enhancing supply or
availability of food through increasing domestic food production where moisture availability
is relatively better. Subsistence farming has to be transformed into small-scale commercial

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agriculture. Household based integrated and market oriented extension package would be
employed. In chronically food insecure areas, however, in view of the fact that there is severe
moisture stress, soil degradation and farmland scarcity ensuring household access to food only
through own production would be a difficult task. Accordingly a comprehensive asset
building mechanisms should be in place to augment production-based entitlement.

Pastoral development: Pastoral communities basically depend on livestock for their

livelihood. Increases in livestock and human population, however, put pressure on rangeland,
resulting in soil erosion and deforestation. Vulnerability of pastoral communities to disaster is
ever increasing. With regard to pastoral communities the national strategy places emphasis on
livestock development, strengthening livestock marketing, agro-pastoralism and
sedentarisation.
Micro and small- scale enterprise development: As stipulated in the federal food security
strategy (FFSS) the government will do everything in its capacity to promote micro and
small- scale enterprise. The government will assist the growth of micro and small scale
enterprises through initiating industrial extension service, development of the necessary
infrastructure, encouraging competitive marketing of inputs and outputs and utilize tax
incentives for selected commodities to shift the consumption pattern.
Additional entitlement and targeted programs: One of the focuses of the FFSS is to
enhance food entitlement of the most vulnerable sections of the society. Under entitlement
there are three elements: supplementary employment income support schemes, targeted
programs for the disadvantaged groups and nutrition intervention.
Emergency Capability: The government is committed to strengthen the early warning
system, surveillance and monitoring inorder to increase the capacity of Ethiopian Strategic
Food Reserve (ESFR), food and relief distribution among others to enhance the emergency
response capability of the country

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