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| | Food Security: A Timely Political Issue
Following the 2007/2008 food crisis, which provoked “hunger riots” in many countries, the international community has shown renewed interest for global food security. As a result, the topic now returns to the political arena, as shown by various statements that bring up, or structure their thinking around, this key concept. Among such pronouncements, we note the most recent report by Olivier de Schutter, United Nations Special Rapporteur for the Right to Food, the resolution by European Parliament Member Mairead McGuinness adopted on January 13, 2009, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s address on the future of agriculture delivered on February 19, 2009 in Daumeray, in Western France.
In this context, we thought pertinent to outline some facts to define food security, to examine its history and to differentiate it from similar terms with which it is often mistaken. Lastly, this article will attempt to provide an analytical review of indicators currently used to assess the state of global food security. Food security certainly represents tomorrow’s major strategic concern. Momagri’s works to develop an indicator to be used by the forthcoming rating agency it pioneers, which will determine the optimal situation between food security and economic competitiveness for each nation.
1. Definition
Today’s most commonly accepted definition of the concept of “food security” is the one given at the 1996 World Food Summit:
“Food security is guaranteed when, at all times, all people benefit from economic, social and physical access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their nutrition needs and food preferences, so that they can lead an active and healthy life.” Resulting from a lengthy development process (please see below note #2, concept history and development), this definition is also the most complete, although its cautious wording implies a consensual aspiration that works against its accuracy.
Nevertheless, this definition fully satisfies the multidimensional aspect of food security, which can be considered in terms of quantity as well as quality according four characteristics: food availability, food access, stability of both availability and access, and healthiness.
The following chart illustrates the various components of food security as we know it today, along with the variants that influence it.
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Note: Except when otherwise indicated, most definitions used in this documents are those used in official documents issued by international organizations, so that their universal vocation upheld. This is why, if most of these terms relate to food security at the international level, they can also easily be used at national levels.
2. Concept History and Development
The concept of food security is far from being unique and universal. It has greatly evolved since its introduction in the 1970’s: over 30 definitions were recorded between 1975 and 1991, which shows the diversity of approaches. It seems it evolved from very economic and quantitative considerations to more humanistic and qualitative considerations.
a. From a macroeconomic and quantitative concept…
If worrying about famines and malnutrition represents an age-old political concern, the actual concept of “food security” only appeared in the mid-70’s, during the 1975 World Food Summit, following the global 1973/74 food crisis that left a mark on people’s minds.
At that time, the major preoccupation was food supply; and the definition first given was essentially based on notions of quantitative availability and access at national levels, that is to say the search for adequate balance between supply and demand. Food security was then defined as:
“The ability at all times to supply the world with basic products to sustain food consumption growth while controlling fluctuations and prices.” (1974 World Food Summit) b. …To a microeconomic and qualitative notion
Subsequent contributions on poverty made by some thinkers––among which the study of famines1 by Professor Amartya Sen and a series of FAO reports focusing on access to food–– played a part in altering the definition from a macroeconomic level to a microeconomic standpoint. We thus went from a concern of supply sufficiency/insufficiency to a concern of satisfying demand at the family level, with the recognition of the accessibility of food resources and the capability of the most impoverished to feed themselves (see Amartya Sen’s Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation, 1981).
The concept of food security was then enhanced and defined as: “The capability to ensure that the food system provides the whole population with adequate long-term food supply”.
Several years’ later, advancement in nutrition science that emphasized food and nutrition balance as well as an increase in food disasters (such as the SEB and more recently melamine-tainted milk) led to the concept latest transformations. Food security thus passed from a purely quantitative dimension to a value that is also qualitative: One considers that food security is assured if micro-nutrient contents as well as food sanitary and hygienic conditions are as secured as the quantity and nutritional balance (proteins, lipids and glucose) of food rations.
We are now even seeing a trend, particularly in developed countries where the possibility of famines and food shortages has long been a thing of the past, to downgrade food security to this sole qualitative, if not sanitary, aspect. In fact, this meaning is the one preferred by the European Commission’s “food security policy”, which was reformed in the early 2000’s and whose only objective is to guarantee the sanitary security of agricultural products from “pitchfork to table fork”.
c. Toward the definition of an inalienable right based on the concept of food security?
The recent development of a food security concept toward a notion that is both qualitative as well as quantitative kicked off new thoughts regarding ethics and human rights. Today, it is understood as a sine qua non condition for man’s well-balanced and fair development and access to complete and adequate food is naturally and increasingly considered as a universal and inalienable right.
Already written in the 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the “right to food” is now recognized by the constitutions of over 40 nations and, according to the FAO, could represent a judicial right in some 54 countries 2.
This approach opens up a new outlook in legal terms, in as much as Article 56 of the United Nations Charter stipulates that national governments must implement all necessary measures leading to the full and total compliance with human rights. As indicated by Oliver de Schutter3, United Nations Special Rapporteur for the Right to Food, this requirement does not only entail the rejection of measures that are contrary to human rights, but it also imposes the adoption of a proactive approach to defend them.
With this approach involving rights and responsibilities, the concept of food security could become the base of a study process from the standpoint of a possible evaluation of national and international public policies. In that respect, several projects have been considered, including the approach adopted by Olivier de Schutter to assess the relevance of the Doha Round. His latest report, which was presented at the 10th session of the Human Rights Council on March 9, 2009, examines the issue of agricultural trade liberalization with the point of view of the human right to adequate food, as recognized by official publications 4
3. Misleading cognates: “food self-sufficiency” and “food sovereignty”
As “food self-sufficiency” and “food sovereignty” are often subject to confusion in people’s minds, it is necessary to run through their differences.
a. Food self-sufficiency
Food self-sufficiency is the ability to meet the food requirements of a population by the sole national production.
Representing an unavoidable component in the search for economic and political autarky––as was the USSR’s goal while fighting the US––food self-sufficiency proves to be a dangerous practice for nations, because it puts them at the mercy of any climate hazard that could strain crops.
The two concepts are basically different:
1. Food security is a larger concept that self-sufficiency in as much as it includes the possibility to alter a nation’s import capacity, and not solely its national production;
2. On the other hand, they do not have the same objectives: While the only goal of food security is to meet, in the best production conditions possible, the various food needs of the population, food self-sufficiency places on similar grounds the goal of political independence, which gives it a more political significance. This latter point corresponds to the main difference between the two concepts.
b. Food sovereignty
Food sovereignty is a concept that was developed and first introduced by “Via Campesina” at the FAO Food Summit held in Rome in 1996.
It is presented as the international “right of populations, of their nations or unions, to define their agricultural and food policies without dumping towards third countries . »5
Conversely to food security, food sovereignty therefore conveys a more political perception because of:
1. The concept roots: Created and carried out by the international movement “Via Campesina”, the concept has since been picked up by various anti-globalization organizations that use it to impose their viewpoints. This “right” is not formally recognized by the international legal dogma or by international institutions.
2. The concept significance and scope: Food sovereignty is in essence political in as much as it translates, according to its initiators, into the right of a country or people to implement agricultural policies that are best adapted to their populations, whether we consider:
• The objectives of food security by guaranteeing supply through local production and protection mechanisms (such as custom duties);
• But also the sociopolitical issues, such as land availability for impoverished farmers, if needed for an “agrarian reform and mechanisms to secure land use rights” (sic).
As stated by its initiators, the goal is to encourage the return to local agricultural activities intended in priority to supply local, regional and national markets. According to anti-globalization circles, this approach grants greater economic, social and environmental efficiency than agribusinesses and large field crops.
If this concept sometimes comes up in official speeches––in the manner of French Agriculture Minister Michel Barnier, who used it on February 20, 2009 in one of his statements regarding the French Antilles––it nevertheless remains very connected to the anti-globalization constituency and thus has a strong political meaning.
4. Food Security Indicators
In 1997, the FAO initiated a technical consultation to standardize the use of indicators intended to assess the state of food security worldwide.
These indicators, which currently are grouped under the designation “Food Insecurity and Vulnerability Information and Mapping Systems (FIVIMS), have greatly fluctuated in the course of time depending on the development of the food security concept.
For a long time, indicators that were used were only macroeconomic tools; today, they remain marked by such prevalence. Indeed, the FAO keeps using as a matter of priority the seven indicators developed by the 1975 World Food Summit. The basis of these indicators were used by the organization to evaluate consequences of food security of the Uruguay Round, which, just like the Doha Round, anticipated trade liberalization6. These indicators are as follows:
1. Global grain supplies as a percentage of global gain consumption trends;
2. Ratio between availabilities and needs of the five major grain exporting countries, which measures the capability of the five major grain exporting countries to meet import demand for wheat and other types of grain;
3. Ultimate supplies as a percentage of total consumption for major grain exporters;
4. Grain production variations in China, India and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS);
5. Grain production variations in Low-Income and Food Deficit Countries (LIFDCs), the 80 developing nations considered the most vulnerable to fluctuations of food supply and international prices;
6. Grain production variations in LIFDCs with the exception of China and India (highly affecting the level of indicator 5);
7. Variations of export prices for major grain products. Besides the fact that they only relate to grain, these indicators only give an idea of food availability in macroeconomic terms and at the global level, based on consolidated data. The qualitative and individual aspect of food security is consequently omitted, with the inaccuracies and biases it implies.
More recently7 , in line with the above-mentioned conceptual evolutions of the definition, food security indicators were enhanced to include microeconomic indicators seeking to assess the state of food situation, availability of food resources for the most impoverished (GNP per capita, portion of the population under the national poverty level, etc...) as well as the health condition and quality of nutrition. In fact, the 26th Session of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) in 2000 approved the addition of seven indicators for the global study of food security:
• Percentage of undernourished people;
• Average per capita Energy Availability from Food (EAF);
• Proportion of grain, root and tuber products in total EAF (to assess the quality of a population’s average diet: A high percentage outlines a diet lacking diversity, thus inadequate, and a higher probability for undernourishment for a great number of people on that type of diet);
• Life expectancy at time of birth (that measures the availability to food products and their good nutritional use, just as do the three following indicators);
• Death rate for children younger than five;
• Proportion of underweight children younger than five;
• Percentage of adults with a Body Mass Index (BMI) lower than 18.5. Yet, three problems linger:
1. On one hand, indicators still remain imprinted with the prevalence of macroeconomic indicators in spite of improvements. For instance, indicators measuring the access to food products concentrate on a country by country approach: per capita GNP, average annual growth rate, per capita GNP on a par with purchasing power, Gini index (the measure of inequality in revenues in given society), etc… But the issue of access to food also involves infrastructures (density and quality of the road system) that are only partially or completely omitted.
2. On the other hand, most microeconomic indicators are not yet systematically used, mainly because we are faced with a problem of availability and reliability of data. For instance, the latest indicator added by the CFS––the percentage of adults whose body mass index (BMI) is inferior to 18.5––had to be discarded for lack of data. The issue of data availability and quality is all the more problematic since food insecurity is very often the privilege of developing countries that do not benefit from a governmental statistical system as advanced as that of wealthy nations.
3. Lastly, we are also faced with the issue regarding the analysis of consolidated data obtained by these indicators, which continue to be increasingly countless and complicated.
In this respect, we must question the pertinence of superimposing rough indicators. It might be interesting to define some consolidated indicators, from which it would be possible to assess the impact of any national or international policy on food security. That is the task that momagri is intending to achieve in the framework of its project to launch a rating agency devoted to agriculture: Provide clear and precise indicators that serve as a guide to political decision-making and prevent political choices with disastrous consequences for international food security, and the current Doha Round is the most distinctive example of such consequences.
by Paul-Florent Montfort, Analyst, momagri
1 According to Professor Sen, famines are not caused by a lack of food but are also due to uneven access generated by distribution systems. Developed in his first work, Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation (1981), this concept will be the foundation of Amartya Sen’s key theory––capabilities, that is to say the means available to man to realize his potential.
2 Charlotte McClain-Nhlapo, 2004, Implementing a Human Rights Approach to Food Security, April 2, 2004, IFPRI’s Africa by 2020 Conference, Policy Brief 13
3 See report by Olivier de Schutter, “Building Resilience: A Human Rights Framework for World Food and Nutrition Security”, United Nations General Assembly, September 8, 2008, p. 20, points 39-40.
4 Concretely, such approach causes a modification of indicators: instead of using consolidated values (such as GNP/habitant) as yardstick for the impact of trade liberalization, it leads to stressing the needs of the most defenseless people who live in situations of food insecurity. Economic indicators are then totally different (see Section 4, Food Security Indicators).
5 According to a « Via Campesina » publication on food sovereignty delivered at the latest social forum in Porto Alegre.
6 See FAO’s “Assessment of the Impacts of the Uruguay Round on Agricultural Markets and Food Security” CCP 99/12 Rev., Rome, October 1999.
7 The first official documents mentioning this were dated in the first decade of the 21st century: see the reports of the 26th and 27th Session of the FAO’s World Food Security Committee in 2000 and 2001. | |
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