Chapter 5


Analysing the political economy of a policy change means that the policy analyst concerned
with food security is more likely to be able to say in which way certain policies (can be
designed to) contribute to improved food security, and, where required, to identify practical and
acceptable alternatives to cushion the immediate impact of policy change on the poor and food
insecure. These issues form the subject of our further analysis. We will concentrate on the
role of government in implementing relevant policies. This does, however, not mean that the
highly important role of the private sector and other relevant actors (communities, NGOs) is
neglected (see discussion on the relative role of the public and private sector in Chapter 3).
Government policy is rather understood as complementary and supportive to efforts of the
private sector in all fields which are relevant for food security: production, input supply,
marketing, employment and income generation, etc.

In analysing policies to improve food security, a distinction can be made between supply and
demand based approaches. Food supply determines availability, food demand is an
expression of the ability to gain access to food, and both availability and access have to be
ensured at the same time to achieve food security. This applies to individual household as
well as national and global levels. (see chapters 2 and 4 for details on this subject).

Factors determining food availability are:

* the volume and stability of food production (subsistence and market oriented production),

* available food stocks (farm-level, commercial, government stocks),

* food imports (commercial and concessional imports).

Factors determining access to food are:

* the purchasing power, or level of real income, for all those who depend, fully or partly. on
 the market as their source of food supplies. The level of real income depends, again, on a
 variety of factors such as wage levels, employment, prices, etc. This applies at the
 household level. On the national level, access to food depends on the availability of
 foreign exchange to pay for food imports, if- due to an existing production deficit these
 are required to complement domestic supplies.

 the productive assets available to those who depend on subsistence production as their
 source of food supply, and

 non market transfers (on the national level: food aid).

 Policy interventions to promote food security can be broadly characterized as approaches
 which either emphasise food production and supplies, or which are primarily aimed at
 improving access to food. In our further analysis of approaches to promote food security, we
 will distinguish between policies according to their primary objectives and points of
 intervention. We should, however, be aware of the fact that, due to the multiple macro-meso-
 micro economic linkages (see section 2 of Chapter 4), there is a close interaction between
 demand and supply factors, and that there are, in most cases, effects on both sides of the food


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