WHAT DRIVES CHANGES IN FOOD SECURITY
Source- Flickr: Akram Ali/CARE Bangladesh Strengthening the Dairy Value Chain (SDVC) project
This entry is cross-posted from ReSAKSS-Asia. If you’d like more information, please visit http://www.resakss-asia.org/
The article is written by Peter Warr, Head of Arndt-Corden Department of Economics, John Crawford Professor of Agricultural Economics, and Director of Poverty Research Centre at Australian National University. The orginal article is published as a ReSAKSS-Asia working paper.
Food security is a particular concern for Asia. The first reason is the sheer size of Asia’s undernourishment problem. According to a recent FAO report, of the 868 million people estimated to be undernourished in the world, 564 million, or 65 percent of the total, reside in countries of Asia (FAO 2012). Undernourished people constitute 14 percent of the population of Asia. The problem is particularly alarming with regard to children. Among several Asian countries the incidence of childhood stunting exceeds 40 percent.
A second reason is the dependence of much of Asia on a single crop. Rice is the staple food of the majority of Asia’s poor and accounts for a large proportion of their household budgets. The global market for rice is also particularly thin, making international price volatility more pronounced than for most other staple foods. This explains why Asian countries were so greatly alarmed by the huge increases in the price of rice during the 2007- 2008 food price crises.
