Famine and food security are at opposite ends of a spectrum. It is only in modern times that entire societies, as opposed to privileged members of those societies, have been able to escape from chronic hunger and the constant threat of famine (Fogel, 1989, 1991). Many countries in the developing world, especially in Africa and South Asia, have not managed this escape. In these countries, understanding the factors that cause widespread hunger and vulnerability to famines, and the mechanisms available to alleviate their impact, remain important intellectual challenges (Ravallion, 1987, forthcoming; Sen, 1981; Dreze and Sen, 1989). Participants at the World Food Conference in Rome in November, 1996, will focus much of their attention on these challenges of coping with hunger (USDA, 1996).
There is a different way to pose the question, however. Rather than asking how to cope with hunger and famine, the question might be how to escape from their threat altogether. As Fogel has emphasized, this is a modern question that is only partly answered by the institutional and technological innovations that are at the heart of modern economic growth (Kuznets, 1966) Without these innovations, to be sure, the modern escape from hunger to food security would not have been possible. But the record of economic growth for the Third World since the 1950s shows that even in countries with relatively low levels of per capita income, government interventions to enhance food security can lift the threat of hunger and famine. The countries most successful at this task are in East and Southeast Asia, although the experience in South Asia has been instructive as well.
