Food security, agriculture, and poverty in Asia
Food security is back on the global agenda, triggered by alarm over the international food price surges of 2007-08. The international price of rice temporarily tripled, and wheat and maize prices more than doubled. For those poor people who are net purchasers of food and for the governments and other institutions concerned with their welfare, food price fluctuations like these are deeply alarming. They raise the prospect that poor people in particular may be unable to obtain the food they need. A central policy question for Asia and other food-insecure regions of the world is how to respond to the threat posed by food insecurity. In particular, is it more effective to promote improvements in agricultural productivity or to pursue price interventions aimed at promoting food self-sufficiency at a national level? This paper present some recent evidence on undernourishment and some other dimensions of food security in Asia and elsewhere that are relevant for this question. The key underlying research questions are: what drives changes in food security; and what does this imply for agricultural and food policy?
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