The incidence of malnutrition in Asia, particularly in East Asia, has fallen considerably during the past two decades of rapid economic expansion - an achievement unlikely to be completely erased by the current financial crisis. However, the region still accounts for nearly two-thirds of the chronically undernourished in the world. South Asia alone is home to about one-third of the world's malnourished; about one out of every five persons in the region is chronically undernourished. Underweight children below five years old, expressed as a proportion of this age group, is as high as 67% percent for Bangladesh, 53% for India, and about 38% for Pakistan and Sri Lanka (UNICEF 1997). FAO estimates indicate that, by 2010, Asia will still account for about one-half of the world's malnourished population, of which two-thirds will be from South Asia.
The factors determining food security can be grouped into those relating to the adequacy of food availability and those relating to the stability of food supply and of access to food. Adequacy means that the overall supply, if it is evenly distributed, should cover overall nutritional needs in terms of both quantity and quality.
Stability of food supply presupposes environmental sustainability, implying that there is a societal commitment to use natural resources judiciously so as not to compromise future sources of food security (Ruel et al. 1996).
Access has to do with household entitlements to food supplies. Highly inequitable income distribution, inadequate opportunities for raising the returns to the poor's productive assets (mainly labour), and inefficient marketing systems inhibit entitlements, especially among the poorest of the poor.
Stability of access presupposes improvement in these factors, including the promotion of various formal and informal safety nets aimed at securing food access in times of distress (e.g., supply shocks, illness of family heads). The reduction of risks related to access enhances the capacity of vulnerable households to avoid poverty traps, into which some are drawn even when others, who may be similar, are not. The nutrition-health-productivity link is one pathway by which people can fall into poverty traps (Dasgupta 1997). Another pathway arises from the fact that the poor are far more constrained than the rich in obtaining credit (Hoff and Stiglitz 1993), thereby limiting their scope to smooth consumption during periods of economic difficulties. Food-for-work and relief programmes are two popular examples of public response to instability in access. Provision of credit to certain target groups is another. These and other options for reducing risks of insecurity are examined in this report.
From a policy viewpoint, it is useful to identify the immediate, underlying and basic causes of food and nutrition insecurity. It is also helpful to be cognisant of the limits and scopes of certain public actions for addressing food insecurity vis-à-vis other development goals. Put differently, what policy options are available for developing countries to achieve food security while enhancing their capacity to achieve long-term economic growth and development? This question necessitates moving beyond the adequacy-stability divide and making the distinction between short-run food security and long-run food security, alternatively, support-led security and growth-mediated security (Dreze and Sen 1989, Ravallion 1992, Anderson and Roumasset 1996). Long-run or growth-mediated security has to do with the development of human capabilities for meeting food and other basic needs; economic growth, especially if it is broadly based, enhances the attainment of these capabilities. Short-run or support-led security recognises social concerns other than growth; public and private support systems (e.g., food aid programmes) reflect society's aversion to starvation and other less terminal forms of nutritional deprivation. Of course, in practice, the distinction is not always sharp. Most programmes aimed at reducing household food insecurity have both short-run and long-run dimensions. Food-for-works programmes, for example, usually emphasise short-term considerations (i.e., the short-run income effects of the programme for the food-insecure), while recognising that they also induce long-run food security via their effects on asset formation (e.g., infrastructure) and hence labour productivity.
The distinction is important, however, because it highlights possible trade-offs between short-run and long-run benefits (and costs) of public action for enhancing household food security. For most of the developing Asian countries, especially those in early stages of transition from a centrally planned to a market economy, tight fiscal resources demand a serious recognition of these trade-offs. As ample evidence documented in this report shows, the failure to recognise these trade-offs has too often led to erosion of initial gains from public action programmes. In many countries, excessive reliance on support-led measures has not only induced unintended incentive (behavioural) effects, including rent-seeking activities, but also "crowded out" public investments critical to the generation of long-term sources of productivity and growth. Support-led measures have too often been poorly designed, resulting in excessive leakages of programme benefits to unintended beneficiaries. At the same time, there are claims, though often anecdotal, that growth has bypassed the poorest of the poor, or that the growth has been trickling down to them too slowly.
The distinction is even more useful in understanding the nature of food insecurity in rural areas where, despite rapid urbanisation, nearly three-fourths of the poor continue to live. The significant majority of them depend on agriculture for meagre employment and incomes. Productivity in agriculture is still low despite recent advances in technology, and access to basic human needs-education, drinking water, health care, and sanitation-is far less available in rural areas than in urban areas. There is wide agreement that agricultural production growth will continue to be a key component of poverty alleviation strategies in developing Asian countries. Yet, for these countries, the usual sources of production growth have been largely diminished: agricultural land frontier for virtually all these countries has been closed, cultivable land per worker is fast declining, and upward shifts in productivity arising from the Green Revolution have slowed down (and, in some areas, been exhausted). Moreover, population growth, together with inappropriate farming practices, is exerting tremendous pressure on the natural resource base. In the face of these developments, public investments in agricultural R&D is declining, partly a consequence of the donor community's "aid fatigue."
This report seeks to assess recent experiences, policies, and select issues on food security in Asian developing countries. It draws in large part from the sub-regional and sectoral studies prepared for the upstream study, as well as from many other studies - both published and unpublished - on the subject. The next two sections focus on the long-term aspects of food security, specifically examining the recent evidence on growth-poverty-equity link and identifying the major influences to food production and consumption growth in the region. The report then discusses short-term aspects of food security, focusing on the role of food-linked and employment-with-asset-creation-linked income transfers in reducing risks related to instability in command over food. In the fourth section, the report examines the implications on food security of a number of critical issues and recent developments within and outside the region, including globalization, urbanization, environmental degradation, and governance. Finally, the report describes areas for regional collaboration and the role of FAO.
The Asian financial crisis has brought to the fore critical issues on growth strategy, reform measures, and requisite governance structure for sustainable development. Much has been said about these issues since the onset of the crisis in the second half of 1997. One common theme, for example, is the view that private resource misallocation, spawned by a heavily distorted policy regime and a weak governance structure (especially in the financial sector), is a major factor precipitating the crisis. Much less is known about the impact of the crisis on poverty and food security in Asian developing countries, though this report is not intended to fill this gap. Rather, the report aims to highlight the lessons from East Asia’s experience vis-à-vis poverty alleviation, recognising that the East-Asian-miracle story is real - notwithstanding the crisis - and remains a fundamental framework for thinking about food security and poverty alleviation, while not downplaying the problems leading to the financial crisis.
