Chapter 2


Box 2.2 Measuring Food Security in Mali
A study was undertaken in southern Mali, to examine a number of commonly used indicators of food security and
their relation to one another. The motive was to understand if supply indicators which might be easier to measure,
such as regional food production, are correlated with more direct measurements of household and individual food
security.
Grain production and transactions data were collected for ninety households in the OHV (Operation Haute Vallee)
area of Mali. over the period 1985-1988. In addition, food consumption, expenditure and anthropometric data
were collected for 1988 and 1989. A household food security ranking was developed for the households, based on
a number of indicators: the number of meals eaten per day and the quality and variety of the meals. This was
correlated with a number of measures of food production and availability.
The correlations were very different between the north and south of the region. In the north, which has lower
rainfall, and is often seen as more food insecure, the household food security measure was positiyely related to the
size of market purchases. This was explained by the researchers in terms of the diversity of income sources in the
north. Households which had higher income bought more food. In the south, which had more favourable rainfall,
the main economic activity was grain farming. Here, market purchases were negatively correlated with food
security, an indication that domestic food production had been insufficient.
There was virtually no correlation between anthropometric measurements and household food security in either
the north or the south of the region. Growth stunting (low height-for-age) was much more prevalent in the south. it
is suggested because of greater incidence of malaria in that sub-region.
In conclusion, regional indicators of grain production are not good indicators for household food security, nor are
household figures for food production, in Mali. All these figures are measuring some element of the food security
picture but cannot be used in isolation to guide interventions to help the hungry.
J M.Staatz et al., Measuring Food Security in Africa: Conceptual, Empirical and Policy Issues, AJAE, 1990.
The task of food policy analyst is not an easy one when it comes to identifying relevant data
and interpreting it correctly to enable policy formation. Box 2.2 describes how one
researcher used multiple sources of food related data to clarify the food security problem in
southern Mali. His results are fairly typical of the complexity of food systems and the
difficulty in describing them with only one or two data sources.

Compiling a description of food security problems in a given country is rather like trying to
solve a jigsaw puzzle, with a number of the pieces missing, or following a map which has
become torn and illegible in places. The analyst has to use what data are available. If specific
policies are being contemplated, then there may be a need for very focused survey work to
elaborate on the appropriateness and likely impact of that policy. There will be a place for a
broad range of socio-economic data which have not been discussed in this chapter to identify
problems in availability, access and stability of food supplies for specific groups of the
population. Qualitative information can be useful as well as the quantitative sources
discussed above.

However, the analyst or decisionmaker should not become too focused on the problem of
inadequate data. Data collection can be extremely expensive, and a balance has to be struck
between spending scarce resources on collecting more information and spending those
resources on tackling problems. This is not an easy balance to strike, but it is central to
tackling food security problems successfully.


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