whose nutritional needs remain unmet. And, perhaps much worse, if anyone really attempted to
fill the "food gap" with imported food supplies without actually seeing to it that these are used to
fill the calculated "nutrition gap", the excess food could play havoc with the functioning of an
orderly market, throwing traders into confusion, depressing the price to producers, reducing
incentive for domestic food production, and possibly causing increased undernutrition among the
rural population.

 There is some evidence that market supplies have been at times excessive in Malawi so that
 prices were lower than needed to cover costs of production, while malnutrition has remained
 widespread. Full silos and acutely undernourished children is not what policy makers intended.
 The lesson, of course, is that food security policy might be more effective if the focus of attention
 is not so much on filling a national "food gap", but on filling the "income gap" of the food
 insecure population.

 3.2 Assessing Food Security: A Market Based Approach

 A market based approach to assessing food security is concerned with the economic
 indicators that lead to change in demand and supply for food in the economy. The focus is on
 how market conditions affect household food security. As supply fluctuates, prices rise and fall
 accordingly, assuming fairly fixed short-term demand for food. Over time, people adjust demand
 in accordance to relative prices among food goods and shift consumption to lower priced foods.
 By following price and quantity movements, a fairly clear picture of overall food availability can
 be determined. This food availability is the equivalent to the so-called food gap.

 In much of policy analysis, the question asked determines to a great extent the type of
 answer received. If the questions related to food security ask about a food gap, the response will
 concern need to fill a production short-fall with imports or food aid, i.e., a quantity of food. If,
 however, the question asked is how a production short-fall affects food security, a much different
 response occurs. Now the focus is on food security and not on some given quantity of food. In
 this case, the response deals with questions of effective demand, food prices, and income levels.
 The analysis looks at the responses elasticitiess) of prices, income and supply to the changing
 market situation resulting from the production short-fall. This is a market-based approach to
 assessing questions of food security.

 For government to address transitory food insecurity issues, it needs much more than
 information of impending changes in the national food gap. Information by regions on production
 and prices not only of maize but of other foods is required. Much of this information is already
 collected. The primary improvement needed is for the information to be interpreted for
 appropriate action. An analysis might be organized along the lines of segmented markets
 described in Annex D. For illustration, the analysis presented in that annex is based on
 segmenting the maize market into two largely independent arts. One segment is maize-deficit
[fh in-gihouseholds and the other segment is maize-surplus arming/households.