Food Security and the Environment

Food Security and the Environment To appear in E. Page and M. Redclift (eds.) Human Security and the Environment: International Comparisons. Edward Elgar. Forthcoming Colin Sage 1. Introduction The 1994 Human Development Report lists seven main threats to human security: economic, health, environmental, personal, community, political and food security (UNDP 1994). Food security touches on all the dimensions of human security: economics, social relations, health, community development and structures of political power, and the environment. Consequently, food security has to be approached in a holistic way that recognises the complexity of intersecting multidimensional processes operating at all spatial scales (from the global to the individual), and in ways which are temporally discontinuous. Almost 800 million people in the developing world do not have enough to eat, and a further 34 million people in the industrialized countries and economies in transition also suffer from chronic food insecurity (FAO 1999). Food insecurity is used here to mean a dietary intake of insufficient and appropriate food to meet the needs of growth, activity and the maintenance of good health. In addition to those suffering from chronic hunger many millions more experience food insecurity on a seasonal or transitory basis. Prolonged protein-energy malnutrition results in undernourishment with loss of body weight, reduced capacity to work and susceptibility to infectious, nutrient-depleting illnesses, such as gastro-intestinal infections, measles and malaria (Kates 1996). Even mild undernourishment in children can lead to delayed or permanently stunted growth (DeRose and Millman 1998). There are almost 200 million children in the world displaying low height-for-age with almost half of the children of South Asia failing to reach the weights and heights considered to represent healthy growth (FAO 1999).  Although we should keep in mind the victims of food insecurity, the purpose of this Chapter is not to map the extent and regional incidence of hunger and malnutrition, or to describe the occurrence, structural causes of and humanitarian response to episodes of starvation. There is an extensive literature devoted to the study of famine and other extreme events and there is no reason to review it here See inter alia. Devereux (1993), de Waal (1989 and 1997), Sen (1981), Dreze and Sen (1989), Walker (1989), Field (1993).. Rather, the purpose is more conceptual and seeks to trace the development of the term "food security", to understand the way it is used at different geographical scales, and to explore points of intersection with other dimensions of human security. The Chapter draws to a close with a critical evaluation of the way in which food security has come to serve as a label for a variety of rural development interventions by bi-lateral and non-governmental agencies. 2. The Changing Notion of Food Security Food security is a concept that has evolved considerably over time, according to Hoddinott, and there are "approximately 200 definitions and 450 indicators of food security" (Hoddinott 1999). In some ways its diversification and evolution mirrors the growth and proliferation of meanings attached to the term sustainable development which, as Redclift observed, has been invoked in support of numerous political and social agendas (1994). In part the multiplicity of meanings attached to food security can be attributed to the boundary nature of the concept (Clay 1997). First, not only has it served as an object of study for various social science disciplines (most especially development economics, geography and sociology), but it has been a touchstone for more applied work in the agricultural, environmental and health sciences. Secondly, in terms of national policy and planning food security overlaps a number of sectors concerned with agricultural production, the environment, food marketing, nutrition, public health and social welfare. Finally, food security has been increasingly used by the aid community to label a variety of development interventions including relief efforts, food aid support, agricultural development, environmental rehabilitation, health and social development programmes as well as support of general economic policy (Clay 1997). We shall return to examine this third aspect in some detail later in the chapter. Food security first appeared as a policy concept at the 1974 World Food Conference and its definition reflected the supply-side concerns and uncertain international conditions of the time. Food security was defined in the Proceedings of the Conference as the "availability at all times of adequate world food supplies of basic foodstuffs .. to sustain a steady expansion of food consumption .. and to offset fluctuations in production and prices" (Clay 1997, 9). A prevailing air of neo-Malthusianism in many food policy circles was heightened by the world food crisis of the early-mid 1970s. A conjunction of circumstances, partly triggered by the occurrence of a drought across many major grain producing regions of the world, led to heavy demand on international grain markets, including secret purchases by the Soviet Union to offset its own domestic harvest failures. The unfolding humanitarian disasters in South Asia, the Horn of Africa and across the Sahel put increased pressure on emergency grain stocks that had been reduced in anticipation of the promise offered by the Green Revolution. These disasters, resulting in the deaths of more than two million people (Dyson 1996) did, however, stimulate detailed analyses of the intersection of hunger, famine, environmental causes (drought, flood, land degradation) and the coping strategies of those affected. Probably the single most important contribution to shifting the prevailing view of food security - though it was a term he eschewed himself - was the publication of Amartya Sen's Poverty and Famines (Sen 1981). In this seminal work Sen demonstrates that hunger and starvation are not conditions that must inevitably require a decline in food availability; rather they reflect the circumstances of people not being able to secure access to food. This can be explained, argues Sen, by understanding people's entitlement relations. On the basis of their initial endowments in land, other assets and labour power, a person has entitlements to his own production, the sale of labour for wages or the exchange of products for other goods (eg food). Under "normal" conditions these entitlements provide the basis for survival, but new circumstances may unfavourably impact upon them. Thus a drought-induced collapse of the local labour market severely impacts those whose main entitlement to food is drawn from the sale of their labour. Furthermore, a rise in grain prices affects all those who purchase their food needs and who may simultaneously experience a collapse in the production or price of their own commodities. While Sen acknowledges the strict legal and market framework that governs the operation of entitlement relations, he later develops the notion of extended entitlements which encompass non-legal, cultural and intra-household conventions (Dreze and Sen 1989). While this highly condensed summary does no justice to the sophistication of Sen's corpus of work on entitlement relations - nor, indeed, to the wider debate that ensued following publication of Poverty and Famines - the purpose is simply to highlight how this helped to change the nature of food security analysis by the early-mid 1980s. Sen's intention, to replace preoccupation with the arithmetic of food supply with concern for the identity and capacity of the food insecure, converged with an upwelling of rural, community-based, household-level studies. Important research themes of this period included analysis of the strengths of local farming systems and the environmental and technical knowledge that underpinned them; gender relations and intra-household divisions; and the complex of activities collectively subsumed by the notion of "livelihood strategies". Efforts to better understand people's access to food inevitably involved analysis of those factors mediating or constraining their ability to fulfill needs. As a series of food crises unfolded in Africa during the 1980s researchers sought to identify the role of drought (the Sahel and Southern Africa), conflict (Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan, Mozambique) and economic collapse. While the period marked a tendency often to draw an overly deterministic causal relationship, it is now well recognised that such events can act as "triggers" that tip already stretched and vulnerable local societies into acute distress. In this respect making the distinction between transitory and chronic food insecurity highlights the significance of periods of intensified pressure associated with environmental hazards, civil conflict or economic collapse, from long-term structural poverty, hunger and malnutrition (Clay 1997). Thus the 1980s witnessed a growing interest in household-level food security using livelihood- and gender-analysis to understand how vulnerable individuals and households cope with environmental, economic and political uncertainty whether chronic or on seasonal, periodic or irregular time scales. Moreover, recognising the influence of external factors, such as economic shocks, on local food provisioning systems underlined the importance of appreciating the interconnections between the individual, local, regional, national and international levels. This has effectively meant that food security analysis can be applied at a variety of scales from the global to the household levels, with each requiring its appropriate policy measures to ensure it is achieved. We will return to this aspect below. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s food security was concerned with basic foodstuffs, principally high calorie staples such as cereals and tubers, to resolve problems of protein-energy malnutrition. By the late 1980s, however, health and nutrition research had begun to substantially redefine the relationship between food intake and nutritional wellbeing such that the latter could not simply be inferred from calorie consumption. A better understanding of human physiological capacity to utilise food intake revealed the crucial role played by disease, especially gastrointestinal infections, which impair the body's ability to absorb both micronutrients and calories. The relationship between malnutrition and infection has been described as reciprocal and synergistic where "disease leads to a deterioration in nutritional status at the same time that malnutrition increases susceptibility to disease" (DeRose & Millman 1998: 8). The earlier view that increases in calories should effectively translate into better nutrition was further undermined by the increasing recognition of the importance of micronutrients. Deficiencies of iron, iodine and vitamin A, in particular, were seen as not only affecting large numbers of people, but that their consequences are severe. Iron deficiency, for example, which may affect up to two billion people worldwide (The Economist 1996), is associated with a lack of physical energy and difficulties in concentration. Iodine deficiency is thought to be responsible for an estimated 655 million cases of goitre and six million people suffering from cretinism. Meanwhile a deficiency in vitamin A was estimated to affect some 231 million children in 1994, being a major cause of childhood blindness and causing increased susceptibility to respiratory and diarroheal diseases (DeRose & Millman 1998) We should note here the efforts currently underway by biotechnologists to genetically engineer increased levels of vitamin A in rice. Swiss scientists developed the modified grain by inserting genes from a daffodil and a bacterium into rice plants that then have sufficient beta-carotene to meet total vitamin A requirements in a typical Asian diet. Work is now underway at the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines to breed this genetic modification into suitable Asian varieties of rice (World Bank Development News, January 18-21, 2000). The degree to which genetic engineering will improve food security for the poor remains a contested area.. Given these developments it is hardly surprising that the term food security has undergone a substantial reconstruction in order to create a singular, universally-relevant definition so beloved of the international policy community. Moreover, social and cultural influences over food preferences have rightly made notions of food security more context specific and, therefore, increasingly complex. Consequently, at the 1996 World Food Summit the Plan of Action adopted a suitably extended definition which states that: "Food security, at the individual, household, national, regional and global levels is achieved when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life." (FAO 1997). In this process of definitional refinement and specificity, food security has come to be seen as part of a wider concern for human welfare and social security - and not only in the poorest countries of the world. Indeed, there is growing recognition that food insecurity can affect significant numbers of people in the technologically-advanced industrial societies with long-established welfare states, underlining that hunger, here as elsewhere, is a function of inequality, poverty and the failure of entitlements (Riches 1997, Kohler et al. 1997). Yet there has been surprisingly little cross-fertilisation of knowledge between policy analysts and community activitists concerned with food poverty in developed welfare states and those concerned with food security in the developing world. It is apparent that there is a much more politically-engaged, empowerment-driven approach from the first camp. Consider, for example, this definition offered by the Community Food Security Coalition based in the United States: "Food security can be defined as the state in which all persons obtain a nutritionally adequate, culturally acceptable diet at all times through local non-emergency sources. Food security broadens the traditional conception of hunger, embracing a systemic view of the causes of hunger and poor nutrition within a community while identifying the changes necessary to prevent their occurrence. Food security programs confront hunger and poverty". (Community Food Security Coalition 2000). This more empowerment-oriented definition demonstrates that food security engages directly with questions of social justice, health, nutrition and local development. Food policy analysts have, for example, highlighted the difficulties faced by low-income urban communities marked by limited mobility in getting access to fresh, healthy food. Confronted by the policy of supermarkets to relocate to edge-of-town sites, the term "food deserts" has been used to describe those urban areas of social exclusion deprived of suitable food retail outlets (Lang & Caraher 1998, Furey et al. 2000). This combines with a range of other barriers faced by those on low incomes in accessing healthy foods (Caraher et al. 1998). The recognition that food poverty forms part of a wider framework of human insecurity and social injustice is part of a more general restructuring of priorities. This, according to Clay, reflects a paradigmatic shift from the modernist agenda and its preoccupations with growth and development, to broader public policy concerns with risk, insecurity and uncertainty (Clay 1997). The evolution of food security within public policy debates continues to develop such that a strong and concerted case is being made by which the right to adequate food should be clearly established as a human right under international law (Kent 2000). Article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights affirms "the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living for himself and his family, including adequate food, clothing and housing….". Indeed, Objective 7.4 of the Plan of Action issued by the World Food Summit calls upon the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, " to better define the rights related to food in Article 11 of the Covenant and to propose ways to implement and realize these rights … taking into account the possibility of formulating voluntary guidelines for food security for all" (FAO 1997: 122-3). However, as Kent observes, there is currently no mechanism or commitment to ensure the fulfillment of food as a human right. International human rights instruments are concerned primarily with the responsibilities of states to their own people, not to people elsewhere. Yet there needs to be put in place an institutional framework that would act to support national governments in dealing with malnutrition amongst their people. This would be established by a clear international obligation to provide assistance underpinned by the creation of a regime of hard international nutrition rights. Such a course of action may be idealistic but is vital if a genuine commitment to universal food security is to be achieved (Kent 2000) The interested reader is encouraged to consult George Kent's superb tutorial on Nutrition Rights: The human right to adequate food and nutrition located at: http://www2.hawaii.edu/~kent/tutorial2000/titlepage.htm. 3. The Multiple Scales of Food Security The preceding discussion has demonstrated that food security has both spatial and temporal dimensions, and has come to possess ever more complex and context-specific definitions. This section schematically outlines some of the issues surrounding food security at different spatial scales, with particular reference to human security and environment. 3.1 Global Food Security As we have seen, much of the early debate around food security was concerned with the broad global picture concerning aggregate food supply, rates of population growth and world trade issues. There remains a strong interest in monitoring developments at this level, usually as medium-term prospective scenario-building exercises (see Box 1). However, the range of variables that exercise some bearing on global food security have arguably grown in number and complexity. There is little reason to speculate here on food supply constraints and demographic matters, but I do wish to draw out two areas that will have some bearing on global food security: the world economy and global environmental change. In the first case, it is apparent that the language of the 1970s with its reference to "world trade issues" can no longer convey the diversity of forces that influence the international supply and demand of food in a highly integrated global economy. Indeed, the past 25 years have witnessed enormous change to the political and economic landscape. For example, just a quarter of a century ago perhaps up to 1.5 billion people laboured under various forms of rural collectivization. These stretched geographically and institutionally from the market-induced incentives in parts of Eastern Europe, through the large state farms based on wage labour of the Soviet Union to the people’s communes of China (Bideleux 1985). The failures of centralised state economic planning to deliver adequate supplies of food and other consumer goods ultimately brought about the “collapse of communism” and led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union. It has also encouraged a move toward more market-based agricultural systems in China, Vietnam and Cuba. Yet whereas Bideleux was able to highlight Soviet Central Asia’s striking success with rural collectivization in providing food security for the region during the 1970s, the situation faced by the Central Asian Republics today is grave, with up to one-third of Tajikistan's population (around two million people) apparently in the grip of acute food insecurity (Babu and Pinstrup-Andersen 2000, Jackson pers.comm.). Meanwhile, for much of the "long-standing" developing world this intervening period has seen the onset of the debt crisis and the imposition of structural adjustment programmes, economic stabilisation measures and trade liberalisation regimes. Under the world trade agreement countries are expected to remove import controls, eliminate subsidies to domestic producers and maximise efforts to produce for world markets. On the basis of available evidence it is apparent that while there are some winners, the poorest countries remain vulnerable to the volatility of market prices set on trading floors in London, New York and elsewhere, and to the dominance of transnational corporations (McMichael 1999, Watkins 1996). The relocation of certain types of agro-food production to areas where the factors of production, particularly labour, cost less is leading to a new international division of labour (Goodman and Watts 1997). We return to this in the next section. If food security is linked to economic prosperity, as a result of sufficient income providing adequate exchange entitlements, then a time of economic crisis can lead to widespread food insecurity, particularly for those groups without access to their own production. This became apparent in South East Asia in 1997 with the onset of the currency crisis that brought to an end the rapid economic growth which had been sustained since the 1980s (Burch and Goss 1999). While financial analysts were largely caught unawares by the South East Asian crisis, demonstrating that economic forecasting has arguably become a hazardous business, there are some underlying factors which will exert enormous influence over the global economy, and therefore, over the state of food security. Probably, the single most strategic influence, other than a global war, is the price of oil. There is surprisingly little appreciation of the degree to which past economic prosperity can be attributed to the plentiful supply of cheap energy. Moreover, the industrial refraction of oil and gas has underpinned the productivity achievements of industrialized agriculture which has long been dependent upon synthetic fertilizers. The present global food system involves the continuing expansion in the volume of international trade in agricultural products and increasing use of air freight to transport them to countries of consumption. The energy intensity of air freight is thirty-seven times greater than shipping for every tonne-kilometre (SAFE Alliance 1994). Yet market prices will soon reflect the fact that the current decade not only marks the midpoint in the consumption of total global conventional oil reserves, but that the Middle East share of the global oil business is close to the level that it was during the oil-price shocks of the 1970s. (Campbell 1997,1998). The medium-term consequences of a sharp rise in oil prices for global food security have yet to be widely debated. A second major area which further complicates forecasts about world food prospects is presented by both systemic and cumulative aspects of global environmental change. Climate change and stratospheric ozone depletion are examples of systemic global change, while the depletion and contamination of freshwater resources, deforestation, desertification and dessication of semi-arid environments, soil depletion and biodiversity losses are examples of discrete environmental changes that exert a cumulative effect at the global scale. The connections with food security are manifold, although the precise nature of interrelationships are likely to be complex and uncertain. For example, the concern of atmospheric scientists with the thinning of the stratospheric ozone layer is that this will be translated into increased penetration of ultraviolet radiation to the earth's surface. It is understood that increased UV radiation can weaken the human immune system leaving people more susceptible to infectious disease, while the effect on agricultural crops may be to lower yields (Mintzer and Miller 1992). The consequences of climate change for global food security remain uncertain, although increasingly sophisticated scientific models are being used in scenario building exercises. The balance of evidence points to a discernible human influence on the world's climate resulting from the rising atmospheric concentrations of anthropogenically-derived carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases (Houghton 1997). As a result climate change is likely to have very different effects on crop yields from region to region around the globe. Employing a range of models (including Hadley Centre global climate scenarios, crop simulation and world food trade ) Parry and colleagues have sought to assess the consequences for world food security. They identify increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide as having generally positive effects on crop growth, however, there are a range of other effects that will result in considerable latitudinal variations in crop yields. Generally, the rise in ground level temperatures will lengthen the growing season at mid to high latitudes and should increase yields. On the other hand, increased evapotranspiration and soil moisture losses due to warming will be exacerbated in many regions by a projected fall in precipitation levels that will threaten crop yields. For the developing regions of the low latitudes climate change brings not only warming, which is a concern where crops may already be close to their limits for heat and water stress, but greater variability. This will present an enormous challenge in regions where there is already considerable vulnerability and more limited adaptive capacity. As a consequence, their study projects a marked increase in the numbers of people at risk from hunger in Africa where declining production as a result of climate change will by the 2080s result in between 55 and 70 million hungry people (Parry et al. 1999). The complexity and uncertainty inherent in such scenario-building models have stimulated others to focus more upon improving our understanding of present vulnerability to hunger to infer lessons for coping with future climate change (Bohle, Downing, Watts 1994). A vulnerability approach has the further advantage of understanding the consequences of cumulative global environmental change, ie. how particular regional populations are affected by and coping with the depletion of freshwater, land degradation, loss of biodiversity and so on. In some respects it might be useful to speak of a co-evolution of vulnerability with these broader processes of global environmental change that makes it a multidimensional and multilayered condition. Bohle et al draw from Robert Chambers' work to highlight three basic coordinates of vulnerability: the risk of exposure to crises, stress and shocks; the risk of inadequate coping capacity; and the risk of limited potential of recovery from crises and shocks. As they explain: "From this vantage point, the most vulnerable individuals, groups, classes and regions are those most exposed to perturbations, who possess the most limited coping capacity and suffer the most from the impact of a crisis or environmental perturbations (such as climate change), and who are endowed with circumscribed potential for recovery. Vulnerability can be, in other words, defined in terms of exposure, capacity and potentiality. Accordingly, the prescriptive and normative response to vulnerability is to reduce exposure, enhance coping capacity, strengthen recovery potentiality and bolster damage control (ie minimize destructive consequences) via private and public means" (Bohle, Downing, Watts 1994). We shall return to the issue of vulnerability in the discussion of food security at the local level which would seem the most appropriate place to address ways of reducing exposure and enhancing resilience. Yet, it is important to note the effort and resources expended in mapping vulnerability at the global scale and to ask how these constructively contribute to the elimination of hunger. For example, the World Food Summit of 1996 mandated the establishment of a Food Insecurity and Vulnerability Information and Mapping Systems programme which brings together a wide range of global and national information systems for use by multi-and bi-lateral development agencies. It draws on existing systems such as vulnerability assessment mapping, a GIS-based tool that has been used by agencies such as the World Food Programme in identifying particular sub-national spaces (regions, provinces, districts) characterised by poor nutritional status or vulnerable to food shortages arising from regular crop failure (WFP 1999). The FIVIMS on-line report provides a broad-brushed picture of global hunger, together with national-level profiles of vulnerability that reveal the diversity of circumstances under-pinning food insecurity. However, it is difficult to comprehend the added-value that the costly FIVIMS project is expected to deliver as its list of vulnerable groups amount to a roll-call of the usual suspects: victims of conflict (refugees, war widows and orphans etc), marginal populations in urban areas (unemployed, beggars, orphans etc), people belonging to at-risk social groups (ethnic minorities etc) and so on (FAO 1999). It arguably provides further evidence for some critics that such high-cost exercises do little to address the fundamental causes of hunger and simply reinforce the accusations that the agencies supporting such work are entirely out of touch with reality on the ground (Hancock 1989, De Waal 1997). This is not to deny that remotely-sensed data might have some value in detecting long-term and widespread environmental degradation or annual changes in vegetation growth conditions which have a direct bearing on crop and range-land productivity. They are a useful tool in monitoring trigger events in famine early warning systems, but they offer no insight into social and economic deprivation which underpins vulnerability (Walker 1989). Nevertheless, a good example of a global study using remotely-sensed data is the recent mapping work conducted by the International Food Policy Research Institute which has highlighted the extent of soil degradation on the world's agricultural lands. The unprecedented scale of agricultural expansion during the 20th century and intensification over the past three decades has, in IFPRI's view, undermined the productive capacity of many agroecosystems with soil fertility declining and water for irrigation becoming scarcer. Using satellite imagery, the global assessment estimates that up to 40 per cent of agricultural lands worldwide are seriously affected by soil degradation, and in Central America almost 75 per cent of crop land is seriously degraded (IFPRI 2000).  Box 1: World Food Prospects: Critical Issues for the Early 21st Century A recent study by the International Food Policy Research Institute, which is a member of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) projects the following by 2020: A global population of 7.5 billion with the world's urban population doubling to 3.4 billion. Per capita incomes are expected to increase in all major developing regions. Thus meeting the food needs of a growing and urbanizing population with rising incomes will have profound implications for the world's agricultural production and trading systems. Developing countries will account for 85% of the increase in global demand for cereals and meat to 2020, although per capita consumption of cereals in the South will be less than one-half that of someone in the North, and around one-third for meat products. A demand driven "livestock revolution" is underway in the South with demand projected to double between 1995 and 2020. This will cause a strong demand for cereals for livestock feed, in particular maize, which will overtake demand for wheat and rice by 2020. This is projected to require a 40% increase in grain production over 1995 levels by 2020. Food insecurity and malnutrition will persist in 2020 and beyond with 135 million children under five years of age malnourished (down 15% from 160 million in 1995). However, 40 million of these children will live in Sub-Saharan Africa, an increase of 30% over 1995 levels. In summarising, the authors of the study observe that the world food situation is mixed but could be significantly worse with a "deterioration of key variables such as water availability, land quality, human resource development, and technological innovations" (p.18). They also discuss six critical emerging issues which could significantly influence the world food situation during the early part of this century. These issues are: new evidence on nutrition and policy (including micronutrients); low food prices; world trade negotiations; the potential of agroecological approaches; the potential of modern biotechnology; and IT and precision farming. P.Pinstrup-Andersen, R.Pandya-Lorch, M.Rosegrant 1999 World Food Prospects: Critical Issues for the Early Twenty-First Century. Food Policy Report 2020 Vision. International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington, D.C. 3.2 National Food Security It is at the national level where the notion of a secure food system can be best grasped, and Barraclough has outlined the essential features of such a system: The capacity to produce, store and import sufficient food to meet the basic needs of all the population; Maximum autonomy and self-determination (without implying self sufficiency) in order to minimise international market fluctuations and political pressures; Reliability, so that seasonal, cyclical and other variations in access to food are minimal; Sustainability, so that the ecological system is protected and improved over time; Equity, so that all social groups have access to adequate food (Reproduced in FAO 1996). While these features would appear to offer a consensual basis for building national food security, it is apparent that under the current liberalized world trade environment, countries are under pressure to pursue measures that do not enhance their "autonomy and self-determination". The imposition of structural adjustment programmes, for example, were designed to ensure that indebted countries met their international financial obligations and reformed their state sectors rather than strengthened national food security. Yet it has been shown that the process of structural adjustment changes national food availability, as currency devaluation increases the price of imported food and changes the price of food relative to the price of labour. This has important implications for the ability of households to secure access to food, especially under rapidly changing social and economic conditions, as well as reducing their capacity to invest in agriculture through the increased costs of imported chemical inputs (DeRose 1998). World Bank, IMF and WTO directives to engage with the principles of comparative advantage by promoting exports and lifting restrictions on foreign competition in domestic markets have, moreover, raised questions about the benefits for national food security. Dorosh, for example, argues that trade liberalization has made a positive contribution to food security in Bangladesh in recent years, by augmenting domestic supplies and stabilizing prices (Dorosh 2001). Yet the trade entitlements of many agricultural commodity exporters remain vulnerable to the declining and fluctuating fortunes of commodity values. Elsewhere, some countries have sought to diversify into new agro-export lines, such as fresh horticultural produce. One such example is Kenya where exports of high-value horticultural crops, including cut flowers, increased by 58 per cent in the five years to 1996, accounting for ten per cent of total national export earnings (Barrett et al. 1999). Yet, although export-oriented agricultural production may yield foreign exchange earnings which can be used to import large volumes of food from elsewhere, there are at least two caveats. First, export agriculture diverts resources (land and water), labour and capital from production for local consumption; and, secondly, export earnings may not be used to buy food for the poor, but used on high prestige development projects. Of course, proponents of liberalization argue that the problem is not one of trade, but of government policy. A range of government interventions are consequently needed to: promote domestic food production alongside export agriculture; ensure the free and effective operation of markets; enhance the availability and value of labour; and, above all, ensure the availability of welfare safety nets for the poor. The question remains to what degree governments have either financial provision or room for manoeuvre for such policies especially under current multilateral trade regimes. Besides, the way in which the state utilises foreign exchange earnings (as well as domestic revenues) may not reflect the key principles of food security. This has been observed especially in the case of those oil-rich economies where the bonanza from hydro-carbon exports has been accompanied by the stagnation or decline of the agricultural sector. Andrae and Beckman's study of oil-induced economic growth in Nigeria and its increasing dependence upon large-scale imports of American wheat revealed the complex interplay of internal and external forces which caused food insecurity to develop alongside the conspicuous prosperity from oil revenues (Andrae & Beckman 1986). More recently, attention has been drawn to the high incidences of rural malnutrition in some regions of Venezuela, a long-standing, high-volume oil exporter (FAO 1999). Food security is most at threat, of course, under conditions of chronic political instability, civil conflict and war. Messer reports that in 1994 there were at least 32 countries in which people suffered malnutrition and acute food shortages as a result of armed conflict, and there were at least 10 more countries where hunger persisted in the aftermath of war, civil disorder, or conflict-related sanctions (Messer 1998). War triggers displacement of civilian populations, dispossessing them of their means of livelihood and effectively resulting in a collapse of their entitlement relations. Besides the deliberate use of hunger as a weapon of war, the “scorched earth” strategy of military combatants may turn the communities through which they have passed into highly vulnerable and dependent societies. The appropriation of food stocks, the slaughter and destruction of livestock and other productive assets, and the placing of land-mines in fields all serve to reduce the capacity of local communities to feed themselves for many years to come. The role of appropriate humanitarian aid in situations of chronic political instability and conflict has become a topic of considerable debate (Anderson 1999, Macrae and Zwi 1994). The relationship between conflict and food insecurity is complex, but an examination of those countries in Africa which have suffered drastic famines in recent years - Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia, Mozambique - reveals that conflict is a common cause which dwarfs all others in its impact. Although these civil conflicts originate from within the political realm, they are pursued by recourse to military hardware rather than through negotiation. In this regard, these societies have been severely harmed by militarization. In sub-Saharan Africa this is a debt-incurring mechanism since none of the countries produces its own military hardware. Countries where military expenditure exceeded 20% of the total government budget in 1980 were headed by Ethiopia (43%), Chad and Mozambique ((29%) and Zimbabwe (26%) (Raikes 1988). Although political regimes in these countries have changed since this data, the principle of militarization still holds in much of Africa, to the extent that de Waal speaks of the development of political economies based upon militarized asset-stripping (de Waal 1993). It is hardly surprising that such structures impose enormous difficulties for local societies to build a more food secure future. 3.3 Local Food Security: Toward Sustainable Livelihood Security It is at the local and, most especially, the household and individual levels where the notion of food security is best operationalised. Based on the preceding discussion it should be understood that food security means adequate access to food that is culturally and nutritionally appropriate throughout the year and from year to year. Adequate access does not, of course, imply self-sufficiency in food production but depends upon sufficiently robust entitlement relations that can meet food needs through trade of products or labour, inheritance, transfer or production. However, even assured access to food at the household level does not mean food security for individuals. This will depend upon the intra-household allocation of food between its members as well as the biological utilization of that food for nutritional wellbeing. In the first case it has long been recognised that some individuals go hungry in households enjoying aggregate food security, while some individuals are well nourished even in households which are food insecure overall (Millman and DeRose 1998). In very general terms these differentials may follow divisions based on gender and age, with males and wage earners being favoured over girls and children being weaned (Kates 1996). Secondly, the biological utilization of food for conversion into capacity for work and physiological maintenance requires not only an adequate diet, but also a healthy physical environment that does not place individuals at risk of contracting disease (Hoddinott 1999). Consequently, adequacy at the aggregate level (eg the community or the household) does not necessarily guarantee food security at the lower level (the household or the individual). Understanding the specific factors that constrain its achievement can only be understood through detailed empirical analysis at local level. As we shall see in the next section, however, there is a tendency for many outside agencies to introduce food security projects into communities without a sufficiently thorough understanding of the dynamics of undernourishment at local level. Clearly, the prospects for food security at local level are “framed” by a number of important external factors. Principally amongst these are the institutional structures and policies of government, business and the market. There is also the cohesion and stability of civil society, including relationships of trust and cooperation, and the existence of welfare safety nets amongst the poor. Thirdly, the physical environment plays a large role in determining the types of activities that can be pursued by rural households (Hoddinott 1999). As the prospects for food security at household level will depend upon its endowments in land, labour and other assets, and because we cannot project aggregate food sufficiency to individual security, it becomes less useful to focus only upon the achievement of this objective at this level. Indeed, some households may not prioritise increased quantity or quality of their food consumption, but place more store on sending their children to school. Just as there has been some appreciation of “insider definitions” of famine which more accurately reflects the experience of the victims (de Waal 1989), so there needs to be greater sensitivity toward alternative interpretations of food security based on local understandings and priorities. For these and other reasons, a concern with food security at household level has increasingly given way to a focus on livelihoods, livelihood security and sustainable livelihoods. The concept of sustainable livelihoods has proved an especially useful, and increasingly popular, one with the capacity to integrate a range of important variables at the household level (Sage 1996). Chambers and Conway have defined sustainable livelihoods as follows: “A livelihood comprises the capabilities, assets (stores, resources, claims and access) and activities required for a means of living; a livelihood is sustainable which can cope with and recover from stress and shocks, maintain or enhance its capabilities and assets, and provide sustainable livelihood opportunities for the next generation" (Chambers and Conway 1992, pp.7-8). The sustainable livelihoods concept embodies a number of core principles which has made it such a popular and robust idea amongst researchers and analysts as well as development practitioners. For example, it can be said to be poverty-oriented and people-centred, in that it starts with an appreciation of the capabilities, resources and constraints of the poor and seeks to build upon existing strengths. Secondly, it is holistic and understands the importance of complexity and diversity in the construction of more secure livelihood outcomes. Thirdly, it starts from the need to recognise and understand the context of vulnerability in which the rural poor exist. Sources of vulnerability comprise: Seasonality - which is largely determined by the prevailing rainfall pattern that distinguishes periods of intense agricultural activity from prolonged dry spells of relative underemployment; Shocks - the occurrence of natural hazards, such as drought, unseasonal rainfall, pest infestation, conflict, epidemics and so on, which can destroy assets directly or force people to abandon their homes or dispose of assets (livestock, land) as a short-term survival measure; Trends - include high population growth rates, increasing landlessness and conflict over resources, and other trends (economic, political) which can have long-term consequences for livelihoods. (DFID 2000). The need to reduce people’s vulnerability to these diverse sources of risk might involve various forms of action. For example, policy initiatives that include efforts to reduce conflict, provide social safety nets at times of stress, or generally improve institutional responsiveness. On the other hand helping people to become more resilient and better able to withstand shocks and stress is a central objective of the sustainable livelihoods approach. This would involve building up the assets of rural households making them more robust and enabling them to diversify their portfolio of livelihood strategies. Increasingly, assets are being viewed as comprising more than tangible stocks: stores of food, cash savings, or items that can be converted into food (eg jewellery); or resources such as land, livestock, trees and so on. Rather, it includes: human capital, the skills, knowledge and capacity to pursue different livelihood options; social capital, the relationships of trust and cooperation that provide the basis for safety nets amongst the poor; and natural capital, that provides for resource flows and services that support local livelihoods, in addition to the financial and physical capitals representing tangible stocks of savings, income and equipment needed to support livelihoods (DFID 2000). Naturally, each household will have different asset endowments and will combine these assets in different ways to generate positive livelihood outcomes. Assets can be created through supportive policies (investment in basic infrastructure, health and education, reform of property rights) and appropriate development interventions (skills training, environmental rehabilitation, credit schemes). They can also be destroyed by the different sources of vulnerability (trends, shocks and seasonality). Generally speaking, the greater and more diverse the asset endowment of a household, the more options are available to develop multiple livelihood strategies, and the greater is the chance of securing food security. Consequently, building sustainable livelihood security is a way of ensuring human security in all its manifold dimensions. Yet, as we shall see in the next section, this cannot be done by blueprint design. 4. Food Security Interventions: Case Studies “The international arrangements to underpin food security are in disarray” (ODI 2000:1). This is the opening sentence of a Briefing Paper that outlines the failure of food aid to combat poverty, improve food consumption and raise the nutritional and health status of poor and vulnerable people. While emergency relief plays a vital role in limiting nutritional stress in acute crises caused by conflict or natural disaster, food aid is otherwise a very clumsy instrument in contributing to food security. Yet food aid and food security have gone hand in hand insofar as many food security programmes have been underpinned by the disbursement of food commodities. While there has been a welcome loosening of arrangements for funding food security projects, with increased use of finance rather than commodities, many projects remain subject to the short-term thinking implicit in the disbursement of food aid. Moreover, food security is increasingly being used as a label to cover a variety of rural development interventions, some of which have marginal or questionable impacts on the nutritional status of target populations. The tendency for projects to specify a number of non-complementary objectives under the label “food security” diminishes the vital importance of ensuring access to food by all people, especially the poorest, at all times. Combine this with the failure of such projects to engage in nutritional assessment or to use other measures of food security involving the monitoring of food availability, seasonal coping strategies or other indicators of stress, justifies the assertion that food security is indeed in disarray. This does, of course, demonstrate the significant disparity between food security researchers and development practitioners, particularly Northern non-governmental organizations (NGOs) which engage in food security projects as a means to access donor resources and which take a rather more pragmatic line. Many of these NGOs have experience of disbursing food aid through emergency relief programmes and this partly colours their perceptions of food security interventions. However, donors themselves are culpable as they support food security programmes often with only short-term commitments (of one or two years duration), usually accompanied by the current conditionalities of development aid that demonstrate best practice (addressing the needs of women, environmental sustainability, equity and participation, poverty-targeting etc). The whole package might then be tied into one of the prevailing fads of the development industry, such as microfinance. Unsurprisingly, such projects emerge as blueprint designs where the coherence of a local food security intervention strategy is lost within a package of non-complementary objectives that are to be attained within an unrealistic time frame and evaluated with reference to a range of inappropriate indicators of achievement. Thus there is a tendency toward spurious quantification (numbers of “beneficiaries”, length of terracing constructed, trees planted) rather than with better identification of the poor and tracking qualitative changes in their access to, and consumption of, food. Some of these shortcomings are discussed within two case studies below The case studies presented here draw on recent project evaluation work conducted for a European NGO working in collaboration with a US partner on a food security programme funded by the European Union. The observations made here have been echoed by recent publications (Hoddinott 1999, Hoddinott and Morris1999, Clay et al 1998).. 4.1. The Pakistan Food Security Project The overall objectives of the Pakistan Food Security Project (FSP) can be summarised as: Increase agricultural production of traditional food crops as well as new and diversified, market-oriented crops Create and strengthen the capacity of farmer-managed revolving funds within the framework of community based organisations. Provision of food aid through school and supplementary feeding programmes to education, training and welfare organisations. The agricultural component is ostensibly designed to improve the food security of poor farmers through the provision of agricultural inputs on credit. The objective is to increase productivity of food crops and to diversify into more market-oriented agricultural production. Improvements in food security would thus result from higher yields obtaining from existing crops, and from increased flows of food and/or cash arising from involvement in new crops and livestock production. The project has provided the following inputs: wheat, vegetables, potato and maize/fodder seeds; chemical fertilisers; hand tools; pesticides; goats and heifers. The value of these inputs has then served to capitalise revolving funds which are, eventually, to be managed by the community based organisation (the CBO). There are no explicit objectives to establish more sustainable farming practices through low external input systems or through improved resource management. Rather, the concern is with strengthening existing systems of agricultural production with the expectation that these will yield greater food security. However, many of the farmers are heavily involved in the production of non-food cash crops, such as sugar cane, cotton and tobacco, and indicate more enthusiasm for maintaining or increasing their involvement with these crops rather than with wheat, potatoes or vegetables. Consequently, there is something of a paradox in a food security project working with farmers producing non-food crops in areas of high agricultural potential. The project is not engaged in the food-deficit (and rain-fed) areas of the mountainous north, or of the variously semi-arid, drought-prone or desert areas of the country where agriculture is more risk-prone and rural households more vulnerable to food insecurity. supports, and effectively subsidises, high external-input farming systems engaged in the production of agro-industrial crops rather than low input cropping systems of food for local consumption. has not commissioned a thorough analysis of the marketing implications of its efforts to increase and diversify production, leaving farmers vulnerable to the power of intermediaries in regulating market prices so that they fail to benefit from their efforts. Has not established whether benefits are reaching the poorest. Indeed in the project localities there appears to be a high degree of differentiation with a few small land owners, but many more securing access to land through renting or sharecropping. The assumption that food security will be improved through the distribution of seeds and fertilisers effectively excludes the landless and sharecroppers who work with providers of inputs and primarily benefits those who own land. The capital stock of the revolving fund represents the value of the agricultural inputs supplied to the project. The objective of the fund is to create a line of credit for small producers in order to increase food production and to diversify sources of household income. However, there is a risk to the capital stock from loans being concentrated in high cost, high risk but occasionally lucrative activities such as cotton production. Over the preceding three years there have been two major crop failures, while in the third year merchants refused to buy from farmers at prices set by the state. Safer returns find lending moving away from agriculture and towards economically diversified activities, such as small shops, tailoring, dressmaking, and food preparation for sale. There is a need to ensure a diversified portfolio of lending, so that the revolving fund of a CBO is not “exposed” to unnecessarily high risk, yet the funds are to help strengthen food security rather than being tied up in more speculative – and riskier – agro-industrial commodities. Another area of concern is with regard to data-gathering, monitoring and evaluation. It is disturbing to conduct a project evaluation and to find a lack of basic socio-economic data which would help to establish answers to such questions as: Who are the poorest? Are they benefiting from the project through access to credit? Is this being translated into nutritional improvements for household members? Are there other poverty alleviation and food security interventions which might be appropriate? The need for better local-level data is apparent in many projects, and it is partner NGOs, in collaboration with local people, that are best placed to perform baseline and end of project evaluations in order to measure project achievements. Importantly, there needs to be a much better understanding of the dynamics of poverty at village level in order to avoid projects being hijacked by the better-off. Appropriate monitoring systems also need to be put in place which look at seasonal stress and other dimensions of vulnerability. 4.2. Central America This project is located in a region of marked seasonality of rainfall such that almost half the year is limited by the lack of available moisture for crop production. The goal of this project is to improve food security for 3,000 resource-poor households by reducing their vulnerability to production losses and by diversifying sources of income. The project objectives can be summarised as: Developing more sustainable systems of agricultural production and improving post-harvest management; Strengthening the capacity of community-based and counterpart organisations and the participation of women; Contributing to income generation through the provision of credit. Since inception, the project has experienced significant disruption and delay due to the effects of El Nino and, most especially, Hurricane Mitch which, in October 1998, cut across Central America leaving 9,000 dead and 3 million homeless. The first phase of the project was tied to a number of specific credit instruments including the distribution of vegetative material for use in soil conservation. About 90% of the fruit trees, plants and saplings provided on credit died under the prolonged dry season caused by El Nino. The greater part of the project’s activities are concerned with introducing soil conservation measures and with supporting agricultural diversification. Despite the marked seasonality of rainfall which imposes such a constraint on agricultural production, there has been limited support for the installation of measures to capture water for small-scale irrigation systems during the dry season. The provision and management of credit forms a very significant part of the project, with the capital fund for loans constituting slightly more than half of total EU funding. Counterpart funding covers the further cost of salaries for credit specialists, and other administrative personnel. The credit element of the project is developing in quite different ways across the three countries. In El Salvador savings and loans cooperatives have been created and they appear to be moving swiftly away from lending to agriculture in favour of more secure loans for micro-enterprise and commercial activities. In Nicaragua and Honduras solidarity groups of up to 10 people are responsible for borrowing, distributing amongst themselves and repaying the loan. Preliminary observations seem to suggest that many borrowers are absorbing credit to bolster consumption, then repaying loans through temporary wage labour migration. The project is consequently heavily influenced by the current orthodoxy that small scale agriculture would be more productive if it could benefit from a strategic injection of funding. While there are undoubtedly examples where this would be true, as a generality it is a fallacy. If a line of credit was linked to on-farm experimentation, such that groups of producers themselves developed new techniques or cropping systems that would benefit from a small strategic investment, it would be clear that they had full responsibility for, and ownership over, the exercise. Yet the credit element of the project is tied to the transfer of technologies designed elsewhere. The distribution of large amounts of trees and plants without careful preparation created indebtedness at a stroke. It is not apparent that the credit is contributing to food security. Indeed, in their need to ensure the capital stock is not diminished, cooperatives in El Salvador are seeking out more secure borrowers than small farming households. It is undoubtedly the case that rural people in the region have insecure livelihoods and are vulnerable to a range of uncertainties: economic, socio-political and, it appears above all, natural hazards such as flood, drought and seismic events. Despite the devastation wrought by Hurricane Mitch, rural people have developed strategies and capabilities to adapt and survive the many difficulties that they face. One of these difficulties is the strongly seasonal nature of the annual agricultural cycle when, in the absence of rains, rural people are left with few economic options other than to migrate in search of work. However, the tried and trusted strategies of seasonal employment in the sugar cane or coffee harvests, or as casual labour in the towns and cities, are becoming more difficult. This makes the task of finding new ways to overcome the marked seasonality of the region and to lessen dependence upon temporary migration ever more urgent. This surely is the principal task facing food security interventions. 5. Conclusion The case studies demonstrate a tendency for food security interventions to manifest many of the worst characteristics of a blueprint project with a top-down imposition of priorities uninformed by local understandings, and driven by the need to reach unrealistic targets. The projects appear to foster dependency by rural people on introduced technologies and bury their capacity to learn, adapt and innovate. There appears to be too little discussion of what might constitute local understandings of food security and to develop, through participatory means, more locally appropriate production strategies and technology portfolios. There is also too little understanding of the nutritional dimension of food security at individual and household level and a failure to track changes in people’s access to food. I have been suggesting that food security is in danger of losing its value through being used as a general label to cover a variety of rural development interventions. Recent events have illustrated the vulnerability of people in Central America to climatic hazards. It is likely to be the case that, under the processes of anthropogenically-induced global climate change, major perturbances to pre-existing cycles will take place. In other words, the appearance of El Niño may become more frequent and its consequences possibly more far-reaching. Hurricanes in the region may also increase in severity as ocean temperatures rise. Existing rainfall patterns may change. These are all circumstances that point to a deepening of poverty, an increase in vulnerability and an intensification of food insecurity unless project interventions are designed, from the outset, with enhancing people’s capacity to cope. This means making agricultural and livelihood systems more resilient and better able to withstand stress and shock. It cannot be for projects to impose the elements of such systems on rural people, but to work with them in genuinely collaborative ways to design more robust systems capable of providing sustainable livelihoods and food security even in the face of environmental uncertainty. Perhaps as Chen and Kates suggest, the issue of climate change may itself bring to the forefront the need to improve food security not only at the global level, but for the most vulnerable households and individuals now as well as in the future (Chen & Kates 1994). Finding ways to improve adaptation will be the key to building food and other dimensions of human security within a warmer, more crowded, more complex and potentially more insecure world.  Bibliography Anderson, M. 1999 Do No Harm: How Aid Can Support Peace – Or War. Boulder: Lynne Rienner. Andrae, G. and Beckman, B. 1986 The Wheat Trap: Bread and Underdevelopment in Africa. London: Zed Press. 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