Chapter 3


Chapter 3: Food Security: the Economic and Institutional
Framework

OBJECTIVES

By the end of this chapter, participants will have:

1. an understanding of the role of the food chain, its impact on food availability and
 accessibility, and hence food security and both household and national level;

 2. examined the evolution of international food markets and their impact on national
 and household food security;

 3. an awareness of the importance of political and institutional factors in determining
 the availability of food and of individual and household access to that food;

 4. an ability to analyse the response of food systems to stress, whether economic,
 political or agroclimatic in origin;

 5. an understanding of the role of a food security monitoring system and the elements it
 might contain.

 TOPICS ACTIVITIES

 1. The Role of the Food Chain 1. Description of Food Chain for Major Staples

 2. The Open Economy and the Role of 2. Calculation of Dependency Ratios
 Food Imports and Exports

 3. The Political and Institutional 3. Measurement and Analysis of Inter-annual
 Context of the Food System Food Production Variability

 4. The Food System under Stress 4. Identification of Elements of Food Security
 Monitoring System.
 5. Monitoring Food Security

 REFERENCES

 FAO, World Food Summit papers on relevant issues (please see References)
 S. Yao et al., Comparative Advantage and Crop Diversification, FAO TCP Thailand
 Training project, 1995.
 A.Aroon et al., Commodity Chain Analysis: A Case of Crop Diversification in
 Thailand, FAO Bangkok, 1995.
 International Conference on Nutrition, Major Issues for Nutrition Strategies, Theme Paper
 No. 7, Assessing, analysing and monitoring nutrition situations.
 FAO, Committee on World Food Security, Approaches to Monitoring Access to Food and
 Household Food Security, 1992.