Chapter I


It also gives a framework for an overview of the many food-mediated interventions and
programmes which are implemented to address the issues of poverty. It should not be
forgotten, however, when reading this manual, that broader initiatives to tackle poverty
should also alleviate food insecurity.


 Box 1.3 The State and Food Security in History

 The state has a long history of public action to protect its subjects from starvation and
 extreme want. This has not simply been for reasons of benevolence. One of the bases on
 which the state has claimed the right to power has been its ability to enhance food
 security for its citizens. This function has often been central to the notion of state
 legitimacy, and certainly one of the primary public expectations of the state.

 Several thousand years ago in Egypt, in the time of the pharaohs, the state undertook a
 form of buffer stock storage, whereby grain was stored in good years and sold at
 subsidized prices to the needy in years of scarcity. Grain and bread rations were
 distributed to the poor in Rome and ancient Greece when war or bad harvests created
 scarcity, or when there was fear of public unrest. In China, during the Manchu dynasty,
 emergency relief in the form of cash or food, low price grain sales and food loans were
 all employed as measures to enhance food security at times of crisis.

 Public employment schemes have also been used by various governments to enhance
 food security. They were introduced by Indian rulers as early as the fourth century B.C.
 Relief during the potato famines of the 1840s, in both Ireland and the Highlands of
 Scotland, was in the form of what would now be called food-for-work projects, where
 able-bodied men participated in public works programmes for food rations. Outdoor
 relief for the poor (as opposed to being admitted to workhouses) was given in return for
 the provision of labour in public works. These can be seen as precursors to modern
 social security systems.



In the past, a somewhat artificial dichotomy has been set up by some analysts, between
pursuing efficiency and improving equity. It is now widely accepted that economic growth
is a necessary condition for a sustainable solution to poverty and food insecurity. Growth
will raise incomes and welfare of the poor, thus increasing their access to food, while
reducing their vulnerability to economic stress. At the same time, it will also provide
governments with the means to implement poverty-oriented programmes and resource
transfers which could enable the poor to participate in the growth process. In the 1970s, the
redistribution with growth approach argued that transfers of income and assets to the poor
would allow the disadvantaged to become a source of growth themselves, and could even
lead to a higher overall growth rate of the economy than would be achieved with a more
unequal income distribution. This is probably rather more radical than would be generally
accepted nowadays, but most analysts would agree that the poor are potentially the most
important market in many developing countries and as such it is important that they are
included in the growth process. There is more debate as to whether active resource transfers
to the poor are the best way to spend limited resources.