Milling & Baking News - April 5, 2011 - 64

Washington 

Struggling to ﬁnd food security
BY ROBBIN S. JOHNSON

For the second time in four years, the world is struggling through skyrocketing food and staple commodity prices, aggravated by rebounding oil prices. The disruption is widespread, with pain especially acute for the poor. Even U.S. wholesale food prices jumped 3.9% in February, however, the largest one-month increase since November 1974, the month when the ﬁrst World Food Conference convened in Rome. Little has been achieved in response to periodic food crises, in part because the issue of food security is too often thought about only one-dimensionally: shortages. When these ease, the issue also recedes on most policy agendas. It would be useful if this time were different. Thinking about food security three-dimensionally might help improve policy

responses. The three dimensions of food security, some of which touch us all, are abundance, safety and sustainability. Restoring, maintaining abundance The issue of scarcity often has led to misconceptions about what is needed to restore and maintain abundance. One common policy mistake is to emphasize self-sufﬁciency as the best strategy for a country desiring to ensure its own food security. Instead, the focus of policy should be on efﬁciency: making local food production, storage, handling and distribution systems more efﬁcient; making food aid ﬂow more efﬁciently and expeditiously to people who otherwise cannot afford to meet their needs; and bringing down trade barriers — both those blocking access to markets and those impeding access to supplies — so that food ﬂows from surplus to deﬁcit regions more efﬁciently and effectively. A second common policy mistake is to see periodic food crises in Malthusian terms — the specter of population — and income-driven demands outrunning the world’s ability to feed itself. When harvests recover, the false Malthusian diagnosis is again tamped down. But the real food security issue
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is not about the limits to production; the world produces enough calories to feed everyone comfortably. Rather, it is about inequality. When supplies tighten and prices rise, people of moderate means or better adjust their diets by substituting less expensive foods. The poor, however, already are spending as much as half or more of their meager incomes on commodity staples. They have neither an income nor a dietary backup plan. In the short term, they need better food safety nets. Longer term, they need the economic growth that propels them out of poverty and creates room for occasional belt-tightening. A third common mistake is to respond to fears of shortage by hoarding. Problematic enough at the level of individuals, it is potentially catastrophic when countries engage in it, which they do by locking up food supplies for themselves exclusively. The “land grabs” of several years back were an unfortunate manifestation of this temptation. This time around, there has been a more sensible policy thought — assuring open access to supplies. Asia-Paciﬁc Economic Cooperation economies, for example, are hearing this idea advanced by their private sector advisers in the form of calls for an end to export restrictions and creation of a high-level Food Policy Dialogue. Such ideas would bear — and share — more fruit than hoarding. Ensuring food safety Food safety is an often neglected aspect of food security, in part because it may not manifest itself prominently at times of global shortage. But inadequate food safety can threaten food security both directly and indirectly. The most direct expression comes through food-borne diseases. Large-scale outbreaks, such as avian inﬂuenza a few years back, are the most visible points of contact. Food contamination through bacteria, microbes or fungi may sicken or kill people while eroding more general conﬁdence in the supply chains needed for food security. Another source of food insecurity is nutritional deﬁcits. Often these accompany caloric shortages, but they may coexist alongside plenty. This is especially true for vulnerable segments of the

population, like infants and children, pregnant women or, too often, girls in poor circumstances generally. Such nutritional deﬁcits cause millions of deaths per year as well as stunted mental and physical development. It is the silent and often hidden face of food insecurity. An expansive deﬁnition of food security that includes diet-borne diseases also should be considered. If the purpose of adequate food supplies at reasonable cost is to support healthy, active lives, then diets that are too calorie dense or are part of unhealthy, inactive lives is another form of food insecurity. More than one billion people globally today suffer from this problem, the United States leading the way. Sizing up sustainability Food security also has an inter-generational dimension — the obligation to conserve resources for future generations. Conservation of soil and water is becoming an increasingly important aspect of food security, requiring current generations to meet their food needs without jeopardizing the capacity of future generations to meet theirs. It also is becoming clear that agriculture is responsible for substantial greenhouse gas emissions. Estimates suggest that it accounts for about 14% of such emissions directly and as much as another one-sixth through land-use changes. Moreover, pressure on biodiversity and natural habitats as well as the degrading of lands through irresponsible farming practices compound these pressures. Agriculture and farming-dependent societies also are at the frontier of risk from adverse and rapid climate change, as this would imperil agriculture’s capacity to adapt. We have grown comfortable with the ability of technology and sound management practices to meet new challenges, but there is nothing certain about this adaptability being able to accelerate in the face of sudden reversals. Thinking of food security in terms of abundance, safety and sustainability may help us avoid the mistake of putting the issue aside when the latest crisis recedes. It also pushes us to acknowledge the inter-connected character of food security: all of us, not just the poor, have a stake in ending this scourge. MBN

Robbin S. Johnson, a fellow with the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, is a contributing editor at Sosland Publishing Co.
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