Chapter 3


result of seasonal variation in the incidence of diseases such as malaria and respiratory
infections, which can also result in fluctuations in body weight.

There are a number of approaches which can be taken to alleviate the problem of food
insecurity. At the household level, they include encouragement of better storage, crop
diversification to stagger harvest periods and mixed farming. Governments can provide
support to develop off-season sources of employment and non-farm activities. Price
stabilisation boards and buffer stocks can be effective in reducing seasonal price variation,
though often at considerable cost. Provision of alternative sources of credit can help break
the cycle of indebtedness.

Cyclical patterns of food insecurity can.be defined as the result of year to year variations in
the level of output, specifically in the agricultural sector and usually climatically induced. It
is frequently difficult to identify what is normal annual variation in rainfall or temperature,
and therefore distinguish between cyclical food insecurity and transitory food insecurity
resulting from a shock, such as drought or flood. There has been considerable work done in
recent years on how to define drought, or abnormally low rainfall. One way of doing this is
to use the concept of dependable rain, the annual rainfall which may be 'reasonably' expected
to be exceeded in a given year. A common interpretation of 'reasonable' is the rainfall to be
expected in four years out of five. Clearly this has to be defined in relation to a country's
past history. The definition of a drought, which could be when rainfall is lower than that
expected in nineteen out of twenty years would be quite different for a semi-arid country
such as Namibia, compared to a country like Thailand.

There is no question that most countries experience considerable year on year variation in
output of agricultural products, both food and cash crops. Figure 3.3 shows the levels of'
crop production over an eleven year period for Kenya.

All the crops included in the graph show considerable variation on a year to year basis. This
could cause considerable cyclical food insecurity to farmers who grow food crops, such as
maize, wheat and beans, which they will consume in part and sell the surplus. In some years
they may grow insufficient for their own consumption. In others they may have insufficient
surplus to sell to meet their other food needs. Cash crop farmers too can suffer from cyclical
food insecurity, though their food entitlement will also be affected by the price the crop
makes in the international market. For example, in 1984, tea production was slightly lower
than in the previous year, but export earnings from tea reached record heights because of the
level of world prices.

It is difficult to tell just by looking at Figure 3.3 which commodity has the greatest inter-
annual variation. Both maize and beans appear to have high variation, but theabsute
amounts being produced are very different. One way to compare variability is to compute
 the coefficient nf variation (CV) for each time series. This is the standard deviation divided
 by the mean output. This shows that beans have the highest CV, at 28.5, coffee has the
 lowest at 15.2 and the CV for maize is relatively low. at 17.5.


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