Achieving food security through a "macro" strategic approach involves active development of the agricultural and rural economy to link and stimulate rapid economic growth, poverty alleviation, and stability (see Figure 1). In turn, each of these three elements is a primary input into food security at both the macro and micro levels.
The mechanisms behind this strategic approach to food security are not well understood analytically or quantified empirically. The basic arguments, however, are straightforward. Improvements in agricultural productivity that are stimulated by government investment in rural infrastructure, agricultural research and extension, irrigation, and appropriate price incentives contribute directly to economic growth, poverty alleviation, and stability (Timmer, 1992, 1995).
For the large countries of Asia, investments to raise the productivity of domestic rice producers brought greater stability to the rice economy at the macro level, mostly because reliance on the world market was destabilizing in relation to domestic production. Expanded rice production and greater purchasing power in rural areas, stimulated by the profitable rice economy, improved the stability of food intake of rural households.
The dynamic rural economy helped to reduce poverty quickly by inducing higher real wages. The combination of government investment, stable prices at incentive levels, and higher wages helped reduce the substantial degree of urban bias found in most development strategies (Lipton, 1977, 1993). Equity is nearly always enhanced when urban and rural areas compete equally for policy attention and resources.
Once the process of rapid growth is under way, political tensions are inevitably induced by a structural transformation that takes place too rapidly for resources to move smoothly from the rural to the urban sector (Anderson and Hayami, 1986; Timmer, 1993). The agricultural sector is less prone to these tensions if the gap between rural and urban incomes does not widen too much. All successfully growing countries have had to find ways to keep this gap from widening so much that it destabilizes the political economy and jeopardizes continued investment.
A third set of mechanisms connects growth in agricultural productivity with more rapid economic growth in the rest of the economy. An entire body of literature exists that analyzes the role of agriculture in economic growth (Johnston and Mellor, 1961; Eicher and Staatz, 1990; Timmer, 1992, 1995). Specific linkages that have been identified in this literature work through the capital and labor markets, as analyzed by Lewis (1955); through product markets, as specified by Johnston and Mellor (1961); and through a variety of non-market connections that involve market failures and endogenous growth models (Timmer, 1995).
In turn, economic growth, poverty alleviation, and stability are linked to each other through the "virtuous circles" reviewed by Birdsall, Ross and Sabot (1995). Greater stability of the food economy contributes to faster economic growth by reducing signal extraction problems, lengthening the investment horizon, and reducing political instability (Ramey and Ramey, 1995; Dawe, 1996). In the other direction, stability contributes to equity and poverty alleviation by reducing the vulnerability of the poor to sudden shocks in food prices or availability. Greater equity also stimulates investment in human capital, especially in rural areas (Williamson, 1993; Birdsall, et al., 1995), thus speeding up economic growth.
Figure 1 The "Development Trilogy" and the Rural Economy
One important outcome of the strategic approach illustrated in Figure 1 is the achievement of food security. This occurs when economic growth has raised the poor above a meaningful poverty line and when stabilization of the food economy prevents exogenous shocks from threatening their food intake. In this approach, food security is sustained by the productivity of the poor themselves, but this security continues to depend on public action to maintain a stable macro environment, including the food economy, as the precursor to that productivity.
