Official market of inputs and outputs of Alternative market supply channels for inputs and
smallholder sector goes through ADMARC at for markets is creating new opportunities
low fixed prices


1.2.1 Food Security Terminology

 Although the term "food security" is freely used in Malawi, there is some confusion about
 what the term actually means. The widely accepted definition of food security is: enough food
 consumption by all people at all times for a healthy and productive life. At its most basic, food
 security concerns individuals. Individuals consume food and, if their bodies are healthy, this food
 provides them with energy and nutrients to live, grow and contribute to the well being of society.
 When individuals cannot obtain an appropriate amount of the right type of food or if their bodies
 cannot adequately absorb this food because of disease or other causes, then the individual becomes
 malnourished and may starve.

 Economists, donors and national policy makers, however, usually do not focus on
 individuals in considering food security policy. Focus on individuals requires so many variables
 that it is impossible to formulate viable policy options. The household is usually the smallest unit
 considered in issues of food security. It must be remembered, nevertheless, that the household
 'is an abstraction from actual individuals. Assumptions about health, intra-household distribution
 of food and other considerations need to be continually reviewed and reassessed.

 Households can be aggregated into communities, communities agregated into societies,
 and societies aggregated into nation-states. For planning and policy purposes, the larger this
 aggregation becomes the more distant policy makers are from the needs and behaviors of
 individuals. This distance and abstraction from the problem may be required to develop coherent
 and achievable objectives in a given society and economy. Such abstraction, however, can also
 lead to a fixation on specific elements of the food security situation that, while analytically useful,
 may be only marginally relevant to the actual food security situation faced by the country's
 population. To a certain extent this has been the case in Malawi.

 is not unusual in studies of food security to make a distinction between two kinds of
 food security: household food security and national food security. Under the first category,
'io-usehold food security, analysts examine the prevalence of inadequate food consumption and
malnutrition in the population and examine remedies aimed at increasing household productivity
and income.

 Within the second category, national food security, studies focus on food market issues,
 trends and stability in nationwide demand and supply, the extent of self-sufficiency in food
 production, the adequacy of inventories held in storage, and other variables, to examine ways to
 increase food availability and/or supplement household income. National food security should not
 focus too heavily on food production (see Chapter 3). Food production is an important variable