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Food Security

Development specialists agree that nutrition must be placed at the heart of national poverty reduction efforts. A myriad of planning tools exist to help countries address poverty and food security. One of the most comprehensive is the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP), jointly administered by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund….As the process of implementing and revising these plans proceeds, national leaders should work to raise the profile of nutrition and its importance to the success of poverty-reduction efforts….Finding solutions will mean mainstreaming nutrition concerns into the development agenda. (Hunger Report 2006, Page 107) Cross Reference: Development Assistance and Nutrition Safety Net
National governments have the ultimate responsibility for ensuring that families are able to improve their nutritional status and achieve long-term food security (Hunger Report 2006, Page 98)
National efforts to address food security should integrate nutrition interventions into their broader development initiatives. Incorporating nutrition concerns into agricultural production and processing, for example, is one way of improving knowledge of nutrition among the wider public. In the long term, these interventions are critical to ensuring that addressing hunger and health also means addressing nutrition (Hunger Report 2006, Page 91) Cross Reference: African Agriculture, Development Aid
Ending chronic malnutrition will mean overcoming the numerous barriers to food security: where and how much food is available, how much it costs, and how it is prepared and distributed. Responding to the multitude of factors that determine whether an individual will experience chronic hunger requires a two-track strategy. The root causes of hunger must be addressed through long-term commitments to improve infrastructure, increase agricultural production and reduce poverty. These strategies must be supported by direct nutrition interventions that aim to meet people's immediate food needs (Hunger Report 2006, Page 89) Cross Reference: Malnutrition
Most farmers in poor rural areas are women. Thus, women must be integral to any development discussion. Generally, women must gain legally recognized access to resources and decision making both in their homes and communities. Such gains would give them claim to social and legal rights that would increase their personal and households' productivity and contribute directly to food security (Hunger Report 2003, Page 109). Cross Reference: Empowerment of Women
Any effort to development agriculture and improve household food security must include a focus on women. Most African farmers are women, and female-headed households are prone to hunger and poverty. African women generate two-thirds of Africa's agricultural production, and participate in trade and processing (Hunger Report 2003, Page 77). Cross Reference: African Agriculture, Gender Equality, and Trade
Calls for a Development Box—a series of exemptions from WTO rules—Specifically, these exemptions would allow developing country governments to protect their poorest farmers in an effort to increase food security. Developing countries must avoid pushing for permission to enact policies that they cannot afford or cannot implement because of other factors. As a rule and not an exemption, the WTO should incorporate measures that represent and advance developing countries interests (Hunger Report 2003, Side Bar: Page 68).
The ultimate goal of U. S. farm programs must be to promote sustainable agriculture, reduce rural poverty and eliminate food insecurity, both in the United States and throughout the world. Toward this end, the United States should: gradually eliminate tariffs on developing country agriculture exports, export subsidies and production-linked domestic support payments; support U.S. farmers who leave agriculture with adjustment assistance that would include counseling, job training, education reimbursement and transportation aid; support small and mid-size farmers with comprehensive rural development programs and technical assistance in adopting new technologies and developing greater economies of scale; establish provisions for farmers to help them sustain losses resulting from catastrophic weather events; strengthen assistance for farmers in meeting conservation goals and environmental mandates, including increased technical assistance, cost-share programs and incentive payments for use of environmentally friendly practices; increase research and regulation in areas, such as biotechnology, food safety, disease prevention and environmental quality; invest in rural communities by supporting economic development initiatives, job training, business promotion and infrastructure development, and reduce hunger in the United States (through nutrition and poverty reduction programs) and worldwide (through development assistance and trade opportunities), with this adding to the ongoing demand for food production (Hunger Report 2003, Page 55). Cross Reference: Agriculture Domestic, Food Security Domestic Rural Development International, Environment, Biotechnology, Nutrition Programs, Trade, and Development Assistance.

Food Insecurity

In 1996, at the World Food Summit in Rome, the United States joined 185 other nations in a pledge to halve food insecurity and hunger by 2015….To meet the goal set in Rome, food insecurity must be reduced to 6 percent….The commitment to cut food insecurity and hunger in half needs to be matched by appropriate plans, investments and action. (Hunger Report, 2006, Page 41) Cross Reference: Food Insecurity—Domestic
The goal of U.S. farm policy must be to promote sustainable agriculture, reduce rural hunger and poverty, and eliminate food insecurity here in our own country and around the world (Hunger Report 2005, Page 110) Cross Reference: Food Insecurity Domestic and Agriculture Domestic and International
Bread for the World and its coalition partners are asking Congress and the president to commit to cutting hunger and food insecurity in half by 2010 (Hunger Report 2005, Page 11). Cross Reference: Food Insecurity--Domestic

Malnutrition

National governments can show their commitment not only through speeches and public information campaigns to educate people on the causes and consequences of malnutrition, but by developing and implementing national policies and devoting sufficient resources to carry out their commitments to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) (Hunger Report 2006, Page 106-107)
Since the greatest concentrations of undernourished people are in rural areas, this is where interventions should be focused.…One place to start is by helping farmers used technologies that improve the nutritional content of staple crops….Ending chronic malnutrition among the rural poor will require more than just providing smallholder farmers with better seeds….Helping smallholder farmers increase production of a varied selection of fruits and vegetables can help improve rural livelihoods and support greater dietary diversification (Hunger Report 2006, Page 102 and 104) Cross Reference: Agriculture and Biotechnology
Ending chronic malnutrition will mean overcoming the numerous barriers to food security: where and how much food is available, how much it costs, and how it is prepared and distributed. Responding to the multitude of factors that determine whether an individual will experience chronic hunger requires a two-track strategy. The root causes of hunger must be addressed through long-term commitments to improve infrastructure, increase agricultural production and reduce poverty. These strategies must be supported by direct nutrition interventions that aim to meet people's immediate food needs (Hunger Report 2006, Page 89) Cross Reference: Food Security
Devising and implementing a plan to solve a longstanding and acute problem like hunger is complex. One key strategy for identifying and serving people vulnerable to hunger is to focus on hunger “hotspots” within countries. These are subnational units with (1) more than 20 percent of their children underweight; (2) more than 100,000 underweight children under five; (3) a high number of underweight children per square kilometer (Hunger Report 2006, Page 84)

Nutrition interventions should function as an essential part of international development programming (Hunger Report 2006, Page 15)
Most people suffer micronutrient malnutrition because they do not have enough vitamin- and mineral-rich foods in their diets, a situation often aggravated by the body's impaired absorption or use of food nutrients because of an infection and/or parasitic infestation…the ultimate long-term solution to hunger and malnutrition is dietary diversification. Because poor diets most often stem from poverty itself—inability to purchase enough of the most nutritious foods—poverty reduction efforts must be tied to any nutrition intervention in poor countries (Hunger Report 2004: Side Bar: Page 47).

Effective targeting of micronutrient malnutrition in South Asia should begin with improving people's access to vitamin rich foods (Hunger Report 2000, Page 84).

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