14. Assessment of feasible progress in food security

Technical background document
Executive summary
© FAO, 1996

1. Introduction

1.1 This document attempts to define the magnitude of the task involved in pursuing and accelerating improvements in world food security. While recognizing the priority of poverty reduction in all situations, it makes the case that for the countries with very low per caput food supplies and high undernutrition, progress towards improved food security requires, in the first instance, increases in food supplies. Since most of these countries have a high dependence on agriculture, increasing their agricultural production and promoting more general rural development is the key to increasing both incomes and food supplies. The paper analyses what this means for the key food and agriculture variables (production, consumption, trade, investment). It then discusses what should be the focus of policies to maximize the chances that progress towards food security in all countries will be achieved, drawing on the conclusions of the companion technical background documents.

2. Feasible targets for reduction of undernutrition

DEFINING THE MAGNITUDE OF THE TASK AHEAD

2.1 World Food Summit companion paper 1 entitled Food, agriculture and food security: developments since the World Food Conference and prospects for the future, presents the current estimates of the incidence of undernutrition and the outlook to 2010.⁽¹⁾ It concludes that in the normal course of events undernutrition in the developing countries would continue, affecting some 680 million persons, or 12 percent of their total population, in the year 2010. It also indicates that lack of progress would appear, as it does now, in the form of persistently very low levels of per caput availabilities of food for direct human use [or dietary energy supplies (DES), a proxy for consumption] in many countries, most of them in Africa and South Asia. The importance of this indicator for evaluating and monitoring the food security status of the different countries was explained in companion paper 1. The relevant text is reproduced here for ease of reference (Box 1).

2.2 In practice, combating undernutrition will involve a combination of measures to increase average DES and reduce inequality, with more emphasis on the former in countries with DES levels close to the undernutrition thresholds. At such levels there is limited scope for reducing the proportion of the population below the threshold, though it is self-evident that whatever little food is available should be distributed as equitably as possible. Such scope is progressively enhanced at higher DES levels. This is illustrated in Table 1 with stylized numbers.

2.3 It follows that the success or otherwise of efforts to achieve progress in food security will be measured against the yardstick of what happens to the per caput DES in countries that are lagging in this respect. It also follows that the debate concerning the realism and feasibility of any commitments to be agreed upon at this stage can be informed by a better understanding of the magnitude of the task involved in raising DES in the countries with very low levels at present.

2.4 The following example is an illustration: a typical country showing high undernutrition is characterized by a DES level of about 1 800 Calories, a historical record of declines in this variable, a population growth rate of around 3 percent per year and often high dependence on agriculture. With such a low DES, a fairly equal distribution of access to food would leave 48 to 64 percent of the population undernourished (Box 1). A drastic reduction of the incidence of undernutrition requires that the DES be raised to around 2 700, with a low inequality of access. If this DES level were to be achieved by the year 2010, it would imply an annual growth rate of 2.2 percent in per caput food supplies. Together with population growth, it would mean that achievement of a significant reduction in undernutrition would require that conditions be created such that the country. s aggregate food demand would grow at over 5 percent a year. If growth in incomes were to be the main driving force behind the growth in food consumption, the required gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate would need to be very large, perhaps over 8 percent per annum.

2.5 The preceding example is an extreme case, though not the most extreme, since there now exist countries with DES in the 1 600 to 1 800 Calorie range. However, it is not far from being representative of conditions characteristic of the situation in several countries.There were 16 countries with DES of under 2 000 Calories in 1990-1992, the average being 1 850 Calories. Their aggregate population was 307 million, projected to grow at 2.7 percent per year. Increasing this group. s average DES to 2 700 Calories by 2010 would require aggregate food consumption to grow at about 5 percent per annum in the period 1990 to 2010.

2.6 This way of viewing things makes it evident that progress towards improving food security in countries characterized by such adverse initial conditions (very low DES and high population growth) must manifest itself in either of two ways:

" very fast growth in aggregate food consumption in these countries;

" for the world as a whole, a growth rate of aggregate food production such that it will be sufficient to meet the normal growth of world food demand plus the additional demand generated by the accelerated growth in food consumption of the lagging countries.

2.7 It is argued below that the capability of the world as a whole to grow this additional food will probably not be a binding constraint to making further progress in food security. This is because the additional consumption involved is a minuscule proportion of aggregate world food supplies, those produced currently or those projected for 2010. In the end, winning or losing the battle to improve food security in the lagging countries will depend on whether conditions can be created for them to increase their aggregate food consumption at the required growth rates.

2.8 In considering what are feasible objectives for reducing undernutrition, the outlook for income growth and poverty reduction in many of the countries with severe food security problems is, however, not encouraging. Indeed, the latest World Bank assessment has a baseline GDP growth forecast for sub-Saharan Africa (where many of these countries are located) of 3.8 percent per year from 1996 to 2005 (0.9 percent per year in per caput terms) (World Bank, 1996a). Under the circumstances, it is difficult to visualize how conditions can be created in these countries for their food consumption to grow at 5 percent per year. This paper continues by defining objectives that are ambitious but that have a realistic possibility of being achieved if extraordinary measures, such as those the World Food Summit may consider, are taken.

A MODEST GLOBAL OBJECTIVE WITH A HIGH PAY-OFF

2.9 A DES level of 1 850 Calories (the average of the countries discussed above) is close to the threshold used for defining undernutrition. It follows, almost axiomatically, that significant proportions of the population have DES levels below the threshold, that is to say, they are undernourished according to the definition used here (see Box 1 and FAO, 1996). It also follows that even modest gains in average DES (e.g. to 2 200 or 2 300 Calories) have the potential to raise a large part of the population that is undernourished to a level above the threshold, reducing the incidence of undernutrition significantly, by about two-thirds in terms of the percentage of the population affected and, given population growth, by about two-fifths in terms of absolute numbers. It all means that efforts to enable these lagging countries to take the first steps towards raising DES in the not-too-distant future (by the year 2010) from the present very low level (1 850 Calories) to medium-low level (2 300 Calories) can have a high pay-off in terms of reducing undernutrition while at the same time pursuing an objective that remains within the bounds of realism.

2.10 Given these considerations, the following rule is used to define objectives for DES increases between 1990-1992 and 2010:

" DES objectives for those countries that in the FAO study World agriculture: towards 2010 (WAT 2010) (FAO, 1995) have a projected DES of over 2 700 Calories in the year 2010 depend in several cases on redefined equity objectives, but the overall energy objectives need not be adjusted for the purpose at hand.⁽²⁾

" For the countries expected to have DES below 2 700 Calories in 2010, the commitments should endeavour to raise it by 20 percent (1 percent per annum) between 1990-1992 and 2010, by a higher proportion if needed to reach a minimum of 2 300 Calories, and by a lower one if it suffices to reach 2 700 Calories. This set of objectives is hereafter termed the . normative. DES level for 2010.

2.11 The implications of these objectives are revealed in Table 2. It is clearly seen that their achievement could almost halve today. s numbers of undernourished people or reduce by over one-third the numbers projected to exist otherwise in 2010.

CAN THE WORLD PRODUCE THE ADDITIONAL FOOD?

2.12 This question is posed by many observers. The answer is probably an unequivocal yes, because the additional amount of food required is really very small compared with the large aggregate increase in world production that is projected to meet the increase in effective demand generated mostly by the growth of the world's population.⁽³⁾

2.13 Table 2 shows that the countries where food consumption must be higher than expected under the WAT2010 projections would have an aggregate population of just under 3 billion in the year 2010 and a projected per caput cereals consumption of 184 kg (up from 174 kg in 1990-1992 and 161 kg of 20 years earlier). Cereals provide 60 percent of the total DES availabilities of these countries. Assuming that this percentage would continue into the future, to achieve the DES objectives presented in the preceding section 200 kg of cereals would be required for each person, that is an additional 16 kg per person or 46 million tonnes more in total. At present, these 46 million tonnes are 8.5 percent of the projected consumption of this group of countries in 2010; 3.1 percent of that of all developing countries; and 2 percent of that of the whole world (Table 3).

2.14 That this small additional increase in world consumption could have such a large impact on reducing undernutrition should come as no surprise for at least two reasons. First, it is assumed that the increase will be concentrated in the countries with very low current levels of nutrition and with a similar situation projected for the year 2010. (For several of these countries, this implies growth rates of 4 to 6 percent annually in aggregate consumption of cereals between 1990 and 2010.) Second, raising the national average DES of these countries from the present 1 700 to 1 900 Calories and the projected 1 800 to 2 000 Calories (i.e. remaining close to or below the undernutrition threshold) to 2 300 Calories in 2010 would shift significant proportions of their populations above the threshold, even without changes in distribution (see Box 1).

Table 2

2.15 As already mentioned, the additional production of 46 million tonnes would represent only 2 percent of the approximate 2.3 billion tonnes that the world is projected (in WAT2010) to produce in 2010 (see Box 2, reproduced with slight modification from companion paper 1). The growth rate of world production from 1990-1992 to 2010 would need to be 1.6 percent per annum rather than 1.5 percent. If measured from the depressed levels of more recent years (the average of 1995 and forecast 1996) of 1 770 million tonnes, the growth rate for 1995-1996 to 2010 would need to be 2 percent per annum, rather than 1.9 percent per annum.⁽⁴⁾ Achieving this higher growth rate would certainly not tax the capacity of the world to produce the required additional food. But this is poor consolation, because the real problem remains how to achieve the hefty food consumption increases in the lagging countries, while all the other countries would be making progress as projected.

Table 3

FROM FOOD SUPPLIES TO ACCESS TO FOOD

2.16 Here, the most important consideration is that the additional food be produced in ways that also contribute to development and generate incomes for the poor. This topic is discussed further below. It suggests that every effort should be made to produce as much of the additional food as possible in the countries targeted for accelerated growth in their consumption. A rough country-by-country examination of the additional consumption needs implied by these higher consumption targets, in combination with fairly optimistic assumptions about domestic production and access to imports (including food aid), indicates that if the growth rate in the production of cereals of Group 1 as defined in Table 2 could be raised from the 3.2 percent per annum projected in WAT2010 (itself an optimistic prospect for this group) to 3.8 percent and that of Group 2 from 2.4 to 2.7 percent, the additional production would deliver 60 percent of their additional needed consumption. The balance would have to be covered by net imports, which for these two groups would increase from the 24 million tonnes of 1990-1992 to about 70 million tonnes in the year 2010, instead of the 50 million tonnes for 2010 projected in WAT2010. Their aggregate cereals self-sufficiency would decline from 93 percent in 1990-1992 to 88 percent in 2010. The additional export supply is considered within the bounds of possibilities of the main exporting countries (or those that could become so, e.g. the former centrally planned economies) to generate export surpluses (see Table 5 in companion paper 1).

NORMATIVE OBJECTIVES IN THE LIGHT OF HISTORICAL EXPERIENCE

2.17 The normative objective used in this paper to explore the possibilities of making progress in food security may be modest in terms of reduction in the incidence of undernutrition (reducing it by half between 1990-1992 and 2010); it is, however, very ambitious in terms of the additional demands (i.e. over and above those implied by the WAT2010 projections) placed on the countries for achieving accelerated growth in food consumption and, in most cases, also in production. Is its achievement feasible? This question is particularly relevant for the countries in Group 1 of Table 2. An examination of historical experiences suggests that the following observations may be made:

• In the past, some of these countries had achieved per caput DES levels over the 2 300-Calorie minimum used here for 2010.
• For most countries, current (1990-1992) DES levels are the minimum or near the minimum recorded in the last 30 years. There is a high correlation between this phenomenon and the prevalence of unsettled political conditions, which suggests that there is significant scope for progress in food security during an eventual recovery period if more peaceful conditions prevail in the future.
• It was noted earlier that progress in raising DES must manifest itself in terms of fast growth rates in aggregate food consumption and, in most cases, production. Concerning the latter, particularly production of cereals, the historical record shows that periods of ten to 20 years of fairly fast growth, mostly during periods of recovery (usually from troughs associated with war, drought or bad policies), have not been uncommon.⁽⁵⁾ If conditions are created for the onset of a period of recovery, policies and efforts to achieve the high growth rates required could bear fruit.

MARKING ACCELERATED PRODUCTION GROWTH HAPPEN: INVESTMENT REQUIREMENTS

2.18 Investing in agriculture is, of course, not the only prerequisite for increasing output. Secure property rights, functioning of markets and removal of disincentives, for example, are as important and indeed are essential for investment to take place. Still, the human-made capital assets of agriculture, such as irrigation, livestock, tree crops and machines, must be in place if production is to increase.

2.19 This section endeavours to analyse the extent to which the further progress towards food security in lagging countries postulated in the preceding sections would raise the investment requirements above the estimates made in the WFS companion paper 10 Investment in agriculture: evolution and prospects, where the requirements for achieving the WAT2010 outcomes are analysed. While gross investment in primary agriculture in the developing countries amounted to US$77 billion annually in recent years, somewhat higher levels (US$86 billion per year over the projection period) would be required to support the production growth envisaged in the WAT2010 study.

2.20 Relevant indicators useful in analysing further requirements to reach the normative targets are presented in Table 4. These show that a US$86 billion gross investment per year is about 11 percent of the average annual gross value of agricultural production⁽⁶⁾ for the projection period and that, roughly, each US$1 increase in output requires gross investment of just over US$4. Table 4 also presents estimates of the extent to which gross investment in primary agriculture would need to be higher in order to achieve the postulated acceleration in the production growth in the two groups of lagging countries. It is estimated that for the developing countries as a whole, gross investment in primary agriculture would need to be US$92 billion rather than $86 billion. While this is only a ⁽⁷⁾ percent increase for the developing countries as a whole, here again the issue is that such investments must be 30 percent higher in Group 1 and 17 percent higher in Group 2.

2.21 The WFS companion document 11 Food production and environmental impact provides estimates for gross investment requirements in the post-production sectors and for public support and infrastructure (other than irrigation, which is included in the estimate of requirements for primary agriculture). These estimates lead to aggregate gross investment requirements for all three purposes of US$166 billion (nearly twice the estimate for primary agriculture alone) as an annual average over the projection period. By analogy, achieving the normative food consumption objectives in the lagging countries could require that their aggregate gross investments be US$71 billion per year over the projection period (rather than US$60 billion as in the baseline projection).

Table 4

3. Focusing the policy response: the primacy of agriculture and rural development for food security in countries with high levels of undernutrition

3.1 From the foregoing discussion it is evident that if the food security problem were one of the capability of the world as a whole to produce more food, it would probably have been solved. In the event, the real problem is that aggregate food supplies must increase very fast in the countries with too-low DES at present and indeed in those that are projected to be still in that situation in the foreseeable future. Therefore, attention should be focused on the real problem: how to implement policies that would create conditions for rapid increases in the DES of the lagging countries.

3.2 DES is not a policy variable that can be operated on directly, for example by merely increasing aggregate availabilities through production, trade and/or transfers. More food must not only be supplied, but also demanded, and indeed it will not be forthcoming unless there is effective demand for it. Still, in the panoply of possible interventions to improve food security, there is place for policies aimed at increasing supplies even in the presence of demand constraints. The requirement here is that such growth in supplies must be generated in ways that also stimulate demand. For the world as a whole, this means increased production through productivity-increasing technologies which lower production costs and prices. When this happens, the prospects for overall development improve, and as a consequence, so do the prospects that poverty could be lower than it would be otherwise. In addition, demand is stimulated on the part of the people with still positive, and often relatively high, price elasticities of demand, precisely the low-income people with grossly unsatisfied food needs. Historical experience shows that part of the gains made in world food consumption have been largely the result of such declines in production costs and in the real price of food.

3.3 However, such a whole-world approach has its limits because the poor and undernourished are concentrated in parts of the world that are often insufficiently integrated into the world economy for them to benefit fully from productivity gains elsewhere. For example, throughout most of the last two decades and until quite recently, the world markets sent out signals (falling real prices) that world food supplies were overabundant while food security in Africa was deteriorating and South Asia was making only meagre progress. The poor and the undernourished just do not have the economic muscle to send distress signals to world food markets which would provoke the required response by farmers, policy-makers and donors. In practice, the demand-stimulating effects of efforts to increase global production will be maximized when such efforts are directed precisely at increasing production in the countries and regions with food security problems and with the majority of their populations making a living in agriculture and the rural economy. This point is further elaborated below.

3.4 The preceding discussion notwithstanding, raising DES in the lagging countries is best viewed as a policy objective (rather than a policy instrument), the achievement of which depends on changes in a host of other variables, some of which are policy variables properly in the domain of government action. Such policy variables range from the very general, conditioning the overall societal environment (governance, minimization of conflict, rule of law, status of women) and the macroeconomic (sound public finance, exchange rate, trade and competition policies) down to specific interventions affecting the status of the poor (social policy and safety nets, equitable access to resources and opportunities) and those directly related to food production and income generation and distribution in agriculture (provision of public goods such as primary education, infrastructure, agricultural research, land tenure, protection of the productive potential of land and water resources).

3.5 Naturally, problems and initial conditions differ widely among countries and so will the policies, but some generalizations can be made (see Chapter 4). The common denominator of all policies aimed at improving food security is the fostering of development, maximizing its poverty-reducing effects and reinforcing them by social policies, some of which will be specific to the food sector, such as food-for-work programmes. Within this array of interventions, there is a special and predominant place for those directly relevant to food and agriculture, because the great majority of countries with a high incidence of poverty and food insecurity problems are agrarian societies with high concentrations of poverty in the rural sector. In such cases, fostering development and reducing poverty are to a considerable extent tantamount to fostering agricultural and rural development. Historically, countries in this class have rarely moved to a higher level of development without first, or concurrently, passing through an agricultural revolution. This is one of the fundamental lessons of history which has often been neglected but which is again gaining currency (see Box 3).

3.6 Viewed from this standpoint, the emphasis on measures to improve agricultural productivity and rural development in the lagging countries and, through it, to increase food supplies from local production as much as possible finds its justification in the broader developmental context. In such countries, the incomes of the majority of the population, and indeed of the poor, and hence the demand for food, depend on gains in agricultural productivity, both directly and indirectly (through the linkages of agriculture to the overall economy). Emphasizing agriculture and the rural economy in the lagging countries at this stage of their development is certainly no expression of agricultural fundamentalism, nor does it express an abstract preference for self-sufficiency. The intention is rather to foster self-reliance in the process of fulfilling the above-mentioned conditions for increasing DES; food must be demanded as well as supplied. At the same time, interventions cannot be limited to primary agriculture. Rather these agricultural interventions must be seen as an important component of the wider array of interventions for fostering development, as mentioned above. Interventions in the more narrow field of food and agriculture must encompass all the agro-allied sectors, both upstream and downstream. Producing more food in the hinterland is of little use (and in any case is not feasible) unless the surplus can be stored, transported and marketed. This topic was discussed in the preceding section in connection with the investment requirements for increasing production and for supporting such increases with investments in the post-production sectors and in infrastructure.

4. The wider policy context for improving food security

4.1 The paper has thus far focused on countries with high levels of undernutrition and the predominant role of agriculture and agricultural policies in many of these countries. In this section more general policies in all countries are considered. As noted, policy responses to the many and interrelated causes of food insecurity will vary among countries.7 In most cases, actions must be directed towards removing interlinked and critical constraints through complex sets of interventions. There is no silver bullet of universal applicability that can be prescribed. But some generalizations can be made, as follows.

4.2 The achievement of sustainable improvements in food security primarily depends on what happens in the national economy, given the international economic environment.⁽⁸⁾ What national governments do or do not do and how they do it matters. But all constituents of civil society (farmers, other food producers and other actors in the food chain, their professional associations, consumers, non-governmental organizations, local institutions, research bodies and businesses) must be mobilized and must find the conditions that provide them with the necessary incentives, opportunities, information, space for initiatives and confidence in the future. Of particular importance are the following aspects of good governance.

" A participatory approach to the selection of political leaders and to the body of law that governs relationships within a society has often proved to be conducive to food security. Side by side with such forms of government, access to the facts is a prerequisite for transparency and for providing the information on which the people can base their decisions and actions.

" Governments must ensure political stability without resorting to oppressive means and must ensure that social justice and equity are an inviolate part of governance. Political instability, civil strife and wars, in addition to exacting a toll in death and human suffering, destroy and drain national resources needed for productive activities that maintain and increase the standards of living of the nations. citizens.

" A major sap on the strength of a nation. s productive capacity can be caused by the entrenchment of graft and corruption anywhere in the political or economic system. An important prerequisite for these systems to operate effectively and efficiently is the absence of such activities. Only governments can ensure that such activities either do not gain a foothold or are stamped out.

4.3 Historical experience shows that countries that have managed macroeconomic policies to achieve broad-based and efficient growth have achieved impressive improvements in food security. Fiscal, monetary and trade policies are among the most powerful instruments national governments can use to influence economic, social, institutional and natural-resource systems. The manner in which governments control these economy-wide policies influences whether or not agriculture prospers, poverty declines and food security increases.

4.4 Economies cannot function well enough to provide food security when inflation is rampant, interest rates are excessive, exchange rates are overvalued, government budget deficits deteriorate and external debt and arrears accumulate. Inappropriate macroeconomic policies contributed heavily to the economic crises and sharply falling growth rates experienced by many countries in recent decades. By contrast, those countries that managed macroeconomic policies to maintain low and stable deficits, moderate inflation and interest rates and competitive exchange rates were able to avoid macroeconomic imbalances and economic crises.

4.5 Food insecurity is a problem of a lack of access resulting from either inadequate purchasing power or an inadequate endowment with the productive resources that are needed for subsistence. The immediate attack on food insecurity must place heavy emphasis on poverty alleviation and in the longer term poverty elimination to generate the effective demand that is the economic engine of food production growth. Experience has shown that global food production has increased to match the growth of effective food demand, and there is general consensus that with appropriate policies (and with an expected slowdown in the growth rate of effective demand as indicated by projection studies) this can be the case for at least the next 20 or 30 years. Progress towards improved food security requires an increase in the effective demand on the part of the poor. This necessitates that either the market-derived or the transfer-based incomes of the undernourished increase. One of the most important ways of improving access to food is to place at the centre of national strategies policies that upgrade human resources, expand employment and productive work opportunities and improve access to productive resources. In addition, specific actions which vary from one country to another are needed, including nutrition-related transfer programmes and direct nutrition interventions.⁽⁹⁾

4.6 The limitations of the world. s natural-resource endowments dictate that much of the future growth in food production must come, just as it did in the past and indeed more so, from the spread of more technically advanced agriculture generating higher output per unit of land and water. If productivity cannot be increased in this way it will not be feasible to increase production, because the alternative of bringing more land under the plough simply does not exist, except in a few cases in Africa, Latin America and some developed countries. The spread of such high-yielding agriculture is not always devoid of adverse effects on agricultural resources and the wider environment as well as on the fabric of society. Existing technology and more relevant knowledge that can be generated offer possibilities to minimize such effects and eventually shift agriculture on to a more sustainable path. For this to happen, the research focus has to be broadened to cover more varied crops, animals and agro-ecological environments as well as to ensure the participation of all stakeholders in the research choices made.⁽¹⁰⁾ Experience shows that although the spread of yield-increasing technologies was accompanied in some cases by management failures leading to adverse environmental effects such as deforestation and soil mining, such effects would have been even more severe if instead people had tried to increase production through land expansion, an alternative which, as noted, did not exist in the majority of countries.⁽¹¹⁾ In the end, if the technologies had not spread the outcome would have been much lower production and greater environmental degradation as well as much more severe food security problems.

4.7 It follows that a good part of the required increases in global food production will come from those countries and regions where high productive potential or technology and investment can transform the potential of the existing resources, thereby enabling major additions to food output within the sustainable capacity of ecosystems. These actual or potential surplus areas are found in both developed and developing countries; a major effort is called for to develop further policy, technology and infrastructure conducive to the required advances in food production. As noted earlier, in the countries that are highly dependent on agriculture, food and agricultural production is essential not only for generating food supplies but also for generating incomes and providing a strong basis for overall economic growth. Many countries or regions within countries, however, have few opportunities for generating income-earning employment outside agriculture or low potential for producing economically the food required for the needs of their growing populations without causing, under current conditions, further damage to a fragile and overstretched natural-resource base. No doubt, domestic and international help is needed to obtain the maximum sustainable production from such resource-poor areas and to accelerate their transition towards a more diversely based development. Early action is necessary to identify the geographic areas throughout the world where natural resources are being used more intensively than sustainability considerations permit and those where intensity could still be enhanced in a sustainable manner. Furthermore, action is needed to adopt the necessary policies and programmes to encourage transformation in the use of natural resources to enable the production of food and other agricultural products in a lasting manner.

4.8 In the longer term, it is obvious that the problems of rural poverty and food insecurity cannot be solved by agricultural development alone. Resources (land, water and capital) are insufficient to allow a continually growing agricultural labour force to become increasingly productive. But even if the resources were sufficient, there would not be enough demand growth to maintain agricultural prices at levels that would make agricultural employment remunerative. Thus, labour must not be locked into agriculture at declining income levels, but must rather be drawn from agriculture into other areas of employment (either rural or urban) by higher wages. At the same time, increasing productivity would allow a smaller agricultural labour force to earn higher incomes in an agricultural sector that is competitive on the basis of comparative advantage.

4.9 Accomplishment of this long-term objective requires governments to ensure that the overall development policy does not discriminate against agriculture. It requires that public investment be focused on providing infrastructure and public goods, including transportation, communication, education and health care that make private investment more attractive. Public investment should support research and access to technology but guard against adopting factor or product market policies that reduce the efficiency of these markets and bias the adoption of technology away from the factor endowments and natural comparative advantage of the country. Finally, both consumers and producers must have access to global markets. The following are some examples of overall development areas where government policies have to play a role.

" Market-oriented economic systems are required to ensure the efficient allocation of national resources. The role of government is to establish and enforce the rules of the game, to create and sustain a stable economic environment that is conducive to the full participation of the private sector in economic activity.

" Human-resource development with equitable access to opportunity is a necessary condition for social and economic progress and development. Redressal of discrimination against women and their empowerment to participate and be efficient agents in economic life are an integral part of efforts to develop human resources. It is the responsibility of the State to combat illiteracy, ill health and undernutrition and to create the conditions within which human potential can be achieved. Assurance of literacy, health and adequate food with proper nutrition are indeed investments in human capital.⁽¹²⁾

" A market-oriented economic system depends on effective and efficient transportation and communication systems that tie the nation together and link it to the rest of the world and also provide possibilities for the flow of inputs, goods, services, capital and information. Efficient and safe processing, storage and distribution of food determine access to healthy food for all at affordable prices. Investment in these systems may be public, private or a combination of the two, but it is the responsibility of government to ensure that this investment occurs.⁽¹³⁾

" Research into and development of new technology and the adaptation of existing technology for innovation by those that can use it profitably and sustainably are necessary to ensure that an economy maintains its national and international competitiveness. Investment in such activities must be continuous and at adequate levels to keep the productive capacity of a nation from falling behind that of other nations. Governments are responsible for creating the necessary climate and institutions to make sure that this happens.

4.10 As indicated earlier, making progress towards food security involves the further growth of food imports by the developing countries. At the same time, to promote overall development it will probably be necessary to take advantage of the more general gains from trade. This must be recognized in policy-making, and opportunities for expanding agricultural and non-agricultural trade must be seized. The reforms ushered in by the Uruguay Round provide such opportunities, and more can be expected following the planned resumption of multilateral trade negotiations in agriculture.⁽¹⁴⁾ However, the policy reforms leading to more exposure to trade present problems as well as opportunities for food security. If such reforms lead to higher variability (e.g. following the reduction of global food stocks) and/or higher prices . two phenomena recently observed . in world markets, they must be supplemented by policies to protect the food security of the vulnerable countries and population groups from adverse impacts. At the international level, this requires, among other things, effective implementation of the Uruguay Round Decision on Measures Concerning the Possible Negative Effects of the Reform Programme on the Least-Developed and Net Food-Importing Developing Countries. The decision envisages an assistance package to these countries should they experience negative effects in terms of the availability of adequate supplies of basic foodstuffs from external sources on reasonable terms and conditions. For future multilateral trade negotiations in agriculture, food security issues need to continue to have a prominent place among the non-trade concerns taken into consideration.⁽¹⁵⁾ In parallel, it will be important to enable the developing countries to be well informed and equal partners in such negotiations.

4.11 Many countries with continuing food supply and undernutrition problems are countries experiencing low and variable levels of rainfall. This gives special importance to the role of improving water capture and control both in increasing food production and in reducing the variability in production and farmers. incomes.⁽¹⁶⁾ A water-centred strategy for food production is feasible as techniques of soil moisture conservation, water harvesting, lowland development, prudent exploitation of aquifers and small- and large-scale irrigation in the private and public sectors have proven potential. Proper irrigation development can help to contain or perhaps alleviate the threats of hunger, poverty, unemployment and environmental degradation by reducing or even eliminating shifting cultivation and cultivation on marginal lands. Investment in irrigation, especially on a large scale, has been looked upon unfavourably as a development tool in recent years. However, the latest analyses indicate that when well planned and implemented within the context of good management and participatory approaches, a policy environment conducive to profitable agricultural production and an adequate physical and institutional infrastructure, investment in irrigation can yield competitive returns. It is the responsibility of government to ensure the existence of an appropriate policy environment (including the treatment of water as a scarce economic good) and to provide investment capital or incentives to ensure the necessary infrastructure and to cover the public-good component of large irrigation projects.

4.12 There are many ways in which governments can improve the nutritional well-being of those of their citizens who need assistance. Examples are direct income transfers, targeted or general food subsidies, targeted food distribution and feeding programmes and food-for-work programmes.⁽¹⁷⁾ Such safety-net programmes need to be well designed and implemented in order to avoid disadvantages which in the past sometimes limited their usefulness in contributing to the long-term solution of the problem of food insecurity. Food assistance that removes hunger will contribute to food security. When provided to individuals with critical needs at special times in their lives or at certain times of the year, food assistance can have a significant positive impact on their food security in the longer term. In cases of emergency, food assistance is crucial for the survival of those affected by natural or human-made disasters. In such cases, assistance is best provided in the context of preparedness strategies and a continuum from relief to rehabilitation and development.

4.13 The long-term solution for food insecurity is the eradication of poverty. There will of course always be groups and individuals in every society who for various reasons are unable to be economically self-reliant, and it is the generally accepted role of government to provide for them. Poverty eradication involves both economic growth and the reallocation of productive resources (or access thereto) or income. There is reasonable agreement that economic growth is necessary for poverty reduction at the national level, but also that economic growth alone will not eradicate poverty. Rather, specific poverty-reduction and income-increasing programmes need to be undertaken. Wealth and income redistribution policies may be a part of the poverty eradication programme, but they are usually politically problematic because the redistribution is from those with political power to those without.

4.14 Two politically more viable and often economically more effective forms of redistribution of wealth and income are increasing access to productive resources and investment in human capital. The investment in human capital in the form of education, health services and improved access to food (better nutrition) is an effective way of increasing the productivity and mobility of people in the long term, is politically more saleable, is relatively easily targeted and is thus often the superior approach to poverty eradication and hence to achievement of food security.

Bibliography

FAO. 1995. World agriculture: towards 2010. N. Alexandratos, ed. Chichester, UK, John Wiley and Sons, and Rome, FAO.

FAO. 1996. The sixth world food survey. Rome.

Lewis, W.A. 1953. Report on industrialization and the Gold Coast. Accra, Gold Coast, Government Printing Office.

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). 1996. Economic accounts for agriculture. Paris.

United Nations. 1993. World population prospects: the 1992 revision. New York.

World Bank. 1995. A strategic vision for rural, agricultural and natural resources activities of the World Bank. Washington, DC, USA.

World Bank. 1996a. Global economic prospects and the developing countries 1996. Washington, DC, USA.

World Bank. 1996b. From vision to action in the rural sector. Washington, DC, USA. (Internal document)

Annex: Commitments and agreements by the 1974 World Food Conference

The World Food Conference of 1974 and the International Conference on Nutrition (ICN) of 1992 are the most significant milestones in the United Nations. quest to create a world free from hunger and malnutrition. The commitments arising from these historic events have guided national policies and programmes and international actions and cooperation that directly affect the adequacy and accessibility of food supplies at global, national, community and household levels. Both conferences recognized that hunger and malnutrition are caused by a complex interaction of economic, agricultural, environmental, social and political factors that affect the production, availability and consumption of food, and both provided frameworks within which the international community could work to address these problems. Since 1974 several other high-level international fora have also addressed various issues that are of fundamental importance to food security.

In general, the commitments arising from the World Food Conference present a shared view of the causes of hunger and malnutrition and provide consistent approaches towards addressing them. Highlights of the findings and commitments arising from the meeting are provided below.

THE WORLD FOOD CONFERENCE

The conference adopted the Universal Declaration on the Eradication of Hunger and Malnutrition, which solemnly proclaimed that . Every man, woman and child has the inalienable right to be free from hunger and malnutrition. . This declaration stressed the need for governments to work together to increase food production and ensure its more equitable and efficient distribution among and within countries and called on governments to develop appropriate food and nutrition policies within overall socio-economic and agricultural development plans. The removal of obstacles to food production was called for along with policy reforms related to agriculture, tax, credit, investment and rural structures and the assurance of gender equality and people. s participation. The conference indicated the need for all countries to promote the rational exploitation of marine and inland water resources; conserve the natural resources while expanding water and land resources for agricultural production; to promote advancement of food production technology and the sharing of research results; to ensure the availability of affordable agricultural inputs, including fertilizers, chemicals, seeds and credit; and to prevent food wastage. The conference also called on States to stabilize world food prices, to avoid detrimental effects on the food exports of developing countries and to reduce or eliminate trade barriers affecting developing countries. Finally the conference stressed the fundamental need to ensure the availability of adequate global food reserves, including emergency reserves, and called for coordinated approaches to monitoring and meeting food aid needs, based on the Global Information and Early Warning System for Food and Agriculture (GIEWS) and the International Undertaking on World Food Security.

To achieve these ends the World Food Conference adopted a number of resolutions to guide individual and collective government action. At the heart of these was Resolution I, . Objectives and strategies of food production. , which resolved that all governments . should accept the goal that within a decade no child will go to bed hungry, that no family will fear for its next day. s bread, and that no human being. s future and capacities will be stunted by malnutrition. and should incorporate this goal into overall national and sectoral plans. This resolution also affirmed that a minimum agricultural growth rate of 4 percent per annum was needed in developing countries to meet this goal and called on developing countries to give high priority to agricultural and fisheries development; to formulate food production and utilization objectives, targets and policies for the short, medium and long term; to undertake agrarian and socio-economic reforms; and to develop adequate infrastructure and mechanisms to support agricultural, social and financial services and markets in rural areas.

The resolution also called on developed countries to increase assistance to agriculture, especially in the least-developed countries; to ensure that sufficient and affordable agricultural inputs be available to developing countries; and to expand food production to meet world demand, but without impeding or delaying increased food production in developing countries for domestic consumption or export. All countries were to reduce the wastage of food and agricultural and fisheries resources, and international agencies were requested to promote and increase their support for food and agricultural development.

The remaining resolutions expanded these general commitments and called for explicit action regarding the following areas.

" Priorities and strategies of food production: emphasized agrarian reform, integrated rural development, people. s participation, gender equality and adequate policy and financial support and technical assistance.

" Fertilizers: called for support for the International Fertilizer Supply Scheme; increased and improved capacity for fertilizer production and imports in developing countries; and research and programmes to improve the efficient utilization of mineral fertilizers and other sources of plant nutrients.

" Food and agricultural research, extension and training: covered strengthening of national programmes in priority areas of production, especially for small farmers and marine producers and including traditional food crops; improved international and institutional cooperation ensuring exchange of data and experiences and adequate transfer of technologies and including goal-oriented research, use of remote sensing technologies and protection and use of plant and animal genetic resources; extensive programmes of basic, applied and adaptive research with rapid dissemination of results; enlargement of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) system; and a several-fold increase by 1985 in resources devoted to agricultural research, extension and training.

" Policies and programmes to improve nutrition: emphasized the need for specific policies and programmes to improve food consumption patterns based on assessments of nutritional problems and their causes; expanded and improved programmes of nutrition education, basic health care, environmental sanitation, supplementary and emergency feeding and consumer protection; increased production and utilization of non-cereal vegetable foods; and increased international cooperation and assistance to promote the development of intersectoral food and nutrition plans, to reduce micronutrient deficiencies, to control and monitor food contamination, to promote applied nutrition research and to establish a global nutrition surveillance system.

" World soil charter and land capability assessment: stressed the application of appropriate soil protection and conservation techniques by governments, and calls on FAO to produce an assessment of land that can be brought into cultivation and to consider establishing a world soil charter.

" Scientific water management . irrigation, drainage and flood control: emphasized studies on the potential for water management; rapid expansion of irrigation where appropriate; reclamation of water-damaged land; research and training on water use and management; flood protection and control measures; and the establishment of appropriate drainage systems.

" Women and food: required the full integration of women in decision-making regarding food production and nutrition policies; full access to medical and social services, education and training opportunities and agricultural technologies and information; and promotion of equal rights and responsibilities for men and women.

" Achievement of a desirable balance between population and food supply: coupled the need to grow and to distribute equitably sufficient food with commitments to adopt rational population policies ensuring couples the right to determine the number and spacing of births.

" Pesticides: emphasized international coordination to ensure the supply and safe use of pest control products and to ensure increased research and dissemination of information on integrated pest management (IPM).

" Programme for the control of African animal trypanosomiasis: called on FAO to initiate, as a matter of high priority, a comprehensive, international, long-term control programme.

" Seed industry development: stressed the need to promote the production, distribution and use of improved seed in developing countries.

" International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD): recommended the establishment of a voluntary fund to finance agricultural development projects primarily for food production in developing countries.

" Reduction of military expenditures for the purpose of increasing food production: called for compliance with the United Nations General Assembly resolutions to reduce military expenditures and the application of increasing sums of the released funds to finance food production in developing countries and to establish emergency food reserves.

" Food aid to victims of colonial wars in Africa: called for increased aid for relief and rehabilitation in Africa.

" Global Information and Early Warning System for Food and Agriculture: endorsed the establishment of the system in FAO and requested full governmental participation.

" International Undertaking on World Food Security: endorsed implementation of the undertaking directed primarily at establishing adequate national and regional food reserves.

" An improved policy for food aid: recommended the implementation of forward planning of food aid by donors to ensure at least 10 million tonnes of grain per year; increased contributions of commodities and cash resources, particularly to assist the most seriously affected countries and population groups; and more effective use of the World Food Programme (WFP) in coordinating food aid, especially emergency food aid.

" International trade, stabilization and agricultural adjustment: stressed the importance of expanding and liberalizing world trade, especially in food, and the need to reduce trade barriers and to ensure favourable terms of trade for the least-developed countries and those affected by economic crises.

" Arrangements for follow-up action, including appropriate operational machinery on recommendations or resolutions of the conference: included recommendations to establish the World Food Council, to establish the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) as a standing committee of the FAO Council and to reconstitute the Intergovernmental Committee of WFP as the Committee on Food Aid Policies and Programmes to report to the World Food Council; and requested FAO to implement relevant resolutions of the conference, particularly on fertilizers, pesticides and the establishment of GIEWS; the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) to consider arrangements for implementing the conference resolutions on nutrition within the United Nations system; the CGIAR and the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) to take the lead in implementing the resolutions on research; FAO, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to organize a consultative group on food production and investment in developing countries; and FAO, IBRD and UNDP to consider establishing an international mechanism similar to the CGIAR to address extension services, agricultural credit and rural development approaches.

Notes

⁽¹⁾ For further information about the commitments and agreements of the World Food Conference, see the Annex.

⁽²⁾ This does not imply that such progress can be expected to come about automatically. TheWAT2010 study makes it clear that this is not so. It spells out the rather demanding requirements for such progress to occur (whether in the countries expected to achieve significant improvements or those with only meagre prospects) in terms of concrete agricultural variables (e.g. land use, yields, irrigation, food imports) and policies, both domestic and international. Such requirements are spelled out in 1 companion documentFood, agriculture and food security: developments since the World Food Conference and prospects, Tables 6 to 12. A more extensive discussion is given in the full study (FAO, 1995).

⁽³⁾ See WFS companion paper 4 Food requirements and population growth.

⁽⁴⁾ World production of cereals has been nearly stagnant in the first half of the 1990s, fluctuating in the range of 1.71 to 1.79 billion tonnes. This raises the issue of whether the 2.33 billion tonnes world production projected for 2010 inWAT2010 is still a plausible outcome. This issue is addressed in Box 2.

⁽⁵⁾ Examples of countries with extended periods of cereals production growth rates of over 5 percent per annum are: Ghana, 8.1 percent (1980-1995); Nigeria, 8.1 percent (1978-1995); Uganda, 7.0 percent (1984-1995); Morocco, 6.7 percent (1977-1991); and Chad, 5.7 percent (1980-1995). More important, there are a number of countries that raised their DES by more than 1 percent annually over a period of two decades. Examples for the period 1970-1990 are: Algeria, 59 percent; Tunisia, 43 percent; El Salvador, 36 percent; China, 35 percent; Mauritania, 35 percent; Iran, 33 percent; Indonesia, 31 percent; Myanmar, 25 percent; Burkina Faso, 24 percent; United Republic of Tanzania, 21 percent; and Yemen, 21 percent.

⁽⁶⁾ Available data for the countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD, 1996) indicate that the ratio of gross investment to gross value of output ranged in 1993 from 6.5 to 25 percent, with a high of 42 percent for Japan. Some of the differences in agriculture of the developed and the developing countries make for higher ratios in the former (mainly the more capital-intensive nature of production, which makes for heavy capital expenditures just for replacing capital stock; indeed much of the investment in the developed countries is for replacement purposes) and others make for lower ratios (mainly the much lower growth rates in production and the lower shares of value added to gross value of output).

⁽⁷⁾ See WFS companion paper 2 Success stories in food security.

⁽⁸⁾ See WFS companion paper 3 Socio-political and economic environment for food security.

⁽⁹⁾ See WFS companion paper 5 Food security and nutrition.

⁽¹⁰⁾ See WFS companion paper 6 Lessons from the green revolution: towards a new green revolution.

⁽¹¹⁾ For example, it would have taken about 7 million hectares of (harvested) land more to achieve the 1993/95 world production of cereals had cereal yields been only 1 percent lower than they actually were.

⁽¹²⁾ See WFS companion paper 5 Food security and nutrition.

⁽¹³⁾ See WFS companion paper 8 Food for consumers: marketing, processing and distribution.

⁽¹⁴⁾ See WFS companion paper 12 Food and international trade.

⁽¹⁵⁾ See WFS companion paper 12.

⁽¹⁶⁾ See WFS companion paper 7 Food production: the critical role of water.

⁽¹⁷⁾ See WFS companion paper 13 Food security and food assistance.