Chapter 1


specific members of the family, as attempts to implement targeted feeding programmes
have shown. Food given to one member of a household, what ever the internal structure of
that household, affects the distribution of the remaining household food. All studies of
supplementary feeding schemes, whether these involve on-site feeding or take home
rations, show there to have been some leakage to other household members.

It is questionable how desirable it is to attempt to influence intra-familial food distribution
through indirect social engineering. In most cases, increasing the level of food security of
the household overall will lead to adequate diets for the individual members of the
household. Programme designers and policy analysts must be aware of the complexities of
intra-household food distribution, and the possible effects of changing the entitlements of
one family member, particularly at the expense of others. However, this is an area where
our understanding is still very incomplete.

2. Recent Trends in the World Food Economy

In the mid-1970s, the world was perceived to be in the midst of a severe food crisis.
Adverse weather in South Asia Europe, North America and the former USSR affected
cereal supplies. This, combined with a change in USSR livestock policy which
coincidentally increased the demand for imported cereals, led to very tight conditions in
world cereal markets. The OPEC oil price rise of 1973 increased the price of energy and
other inputs for the agricultural sector, such as fertilizer. This was expected to further
exacerbate the world food crisis.

By the time the conference actually took place, in October 1974, the peak of the grain price
crisis had already passed. By the late 1980s, the situation had changed dramatically. Global
cereal stocks almost doubled between the mid-1970s and the mid-1980s. Overall cereal
production has continued to grow over the past quarter century, with growth in wheat
(3.8%), rice (3.0%) and maize (2.7%) easily outstripping population growth. As Table 1.2
shows overall per capital world food supply has continued to increase on average over the
last thirty years, thus banishing the Malthusian nightmare for the present. The issues facing
the World Food Summit of 1996 are those of household food security, poverty, and
sustainability and the environment.

Closer examination of Table 1.2 shows that even the figures for broad country groupings
show considerable variation in both level and trend. Although there has been substantial
growth in food supplies for developing countries, most of that growth has come from East
Asia and the Near East and North Africa. Figures for sub-Saharan Africa indicate that food
supplies have worsened since the early 1970s. Per capital food availability figures, which will
be discussed in greater detail in Chapter 2, are inadequate to ensure food security for the
countries in that region. However care is necessary when making inferences based on such
aggregate data. Although the figures for sub-Saharan Africa as a whole are very low, in the
early 1990s, Mauritania has a per caput food supply of around 2,600 calories per day. The
high average figures for Latin America hide a per caput food supply for Bolivia of around
2,000 calories.


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