World Food Day :

Achieving national food security

Prof. Ranjith PREMALAL De Silva

‘Achieving food security in times of crisis’ is the theme of the World Food Day celebrated all over the world today. In a crisis situation irrespective of the nature of the crisis whether it is economical, political, social or environmental, the end result is that people will lose their right to have regular access to sufficient, nutritionally adequate and culturally acceptable food for an active, healthy life. This could be due to restrictions in food supply at a time of a crisis, deprivation of food due to individual economic scarcity due to limited livelihood options available or physical and mental incapacity to intake sufficient quantity of food.

Global food production has grown faster than the population increase since 1950s and at present, the production is above the need of food for global consumption. However, about one sixth of the global population remains underfed and still there are countries with significant malnutrition problems.

Agriculture development

Population growth rates are high in most of the food insecure countries where agricultural productivity is low and water availability is a serious impediment for agriculture development. Frequent occurrence of natural extreme events such as floods and droughts further worsen the problem. The investment potential for agriculture research is very poor in these countries making societies more vulnerable. Hence food security is one of the major topics of global community, which can be and should be achieved globally.

The political unrests and civil wars further aggravate the problem of good insecurity and vulnerability. Heavy expenditure on national security permits only a skeletal budget for agriculture development. Manipulation of trade schemes such as GSP+ and other econo-political tools for reprimanding the developing nations add further weight into this problem. Global economic downturn could further restrict the investment and cutoff the remittances for humanitarian assistance in the crisis hit countries. In view of these limitations, it is necessary to have an assessment of food security in the country in order to determine the status of food production, distribution of food commodities, commodity price indices and food affordability and nutritional quality and safety standards of the consumed food.

In Sri Lanka, in the last few decades, the human development levels have improved. However, malnutrition remains high in the country as per the standards of WHO and FAO.

Food security

However, most of the social, economical and health indicators in Sri Lanka are higher than those of the other countries in the South Asian region. These indicators could put the real problem out of sight thus preventing any remedial measures undertaken to ensure food security of all people.

In terms of food security of the nation, problems exist in some parts of the country, especially the area affected by the conflict in the last 30 years. Therefore, ensuring food security for all is a very significant aspect of government economic policy in order to make a healthy human resource available for the whole country.

Even in the government policy Mahinda Chinthana, it includes a special emphasis on food security through promoting subsistence farming aimed at an overall advancement of the rural agricultural economy of the country. Agriculture Development and Agrarian Services Ministry has initiated a number of programs such as ‘Let us Cultivate and Uplift the Nation,’ Home Gardening promotion campaign, guaranteed purchase schemes, Organic agriculture promotion program, aiming at overall uplift of rural agrarian societies ensuring food and nutritional security.

Even when the food is available, food security does not exist when people have no economical strength to purchase food. It is clear that a number of spatially distributed factors could contribute to the status of food security of the country.

These variables can be viewed in terms of generalized spatial and temporal averages to determine the general status of food security in the long run, while dynamic changes of these variables could be considered in short term food security issues. Climatic extremes and disaster situations could further worsen the situation and hence the populations at risk need to be identified.

Resource allocation

Since food security varies due to a number of spatially varying factors, Geographical Information Systems (GIS) are useful tools in identifying spatial relationships required for resource allocation, food availability and various other related factors.

GIS could also assist in identifying production sources and planning for efficient transport network. Mapping of food security is helpful in demarcating areas, which are likely to suffer due to short-term fluctuations and identifying contributing factors and the communities which continue to be deprived of food in order to implement intervention strategies.

In this process, initially, an attempt was made to assess the food security status at District level by collecting, compiling and analyzing the available secondary data. Data was categorized in four major areas related to food security namely, food availability based on food production, food accessibility and affordability, health and nutritional status, other related proxy variables.

Geographical area

Statistical technique called factor analysis was used to reduce the dimensionality of the data collected on various related parameters. Further, in this assessment, classification was extended to identify the status of vulnerability towards food insecurity as it provides direct implications for policy formulation for each geographical area. Figure 1 shows the overall food insecurity status and vulnerability of populations for food insecurity in the districts of Sri Lanka.

Although, it is understood that the composite food insecurity of vulnerability index would not provide any meaningful background for policy formulations, the composite status map would provide a generalized thematic product indicating the overall status of food insecurity and vulnerability of the country to address the problem in the correct geographical context.

In order to develop the composite food insecurity and vulnerability ranking, individual outputs of the four main themes namely food availability based on food production, food accessibility and affordability, health and nutritional status and other related proxy variables could be presented.

This would provide a quick overview at a glance for each district and would provide useful insights for the actual causative factors for food insecurity and vulnerability in each area.

A standard set of variables which describe food insecurity and vulnerability has not yet been agreed upon even at the global level.

Further, it is not possible to define an empirical relationship as the status of food insecurity and vulnerability could change with time and space. Furthermore, availability of the data of defined parameters would also pose a question in introducing such empirical relationships in different countries like Sri Lanka. On this background, a large number of variables classified into four main categories wherever useful for this analysis within the general conceptual framework of food insecurity and vulnerability.

FAO study

The availability of data restricted this study to be conducted only at district level without Northern and Eastern districts. This study can be supplemented by the FAO study on recovery and rehabilitation program for the agriculture sector in conflict affected areas of Northern Sri Lanka to derive some indicators to reflect the spatial diversity of food security in the conflict zone.

However, it would be useful to identify food insecurity and vulnerability at higher spatial scales such as DS divisions and GN divisions taking into account the existing agricultural practices, unique cultural and social settings of each area. The selection of variables for the analysis was made through the consultation of a large number of experts using the expert opinion approach within the broad conceptual framework of food security assessment methodologies recommended by FAO. The result show that the status of food insecurity and vulnerability estimated through the considered variables has a significant spatial variability across the country and therefore, different approaches are required to resolve the issues in each geographical area. According to the results, all the districts are classified into four categories and there is no any district classified as moderately vulnerable district. It categorizes only Colombo district as least vulnerable district while Gampaha goes under the less vulnerable group.

The favourable ranking for Colombo is received due to higher income level and infrastructure facilities available.

When considering the country, most of the large scale business owners and employees with high-income levels live in Colombo district and also most of the economic activities are linked with Colombo district.

Urban dwellers

However, it conceals the plight of some parts of the city and suburbs where poor urban dwellers live within the district. Classification of Colombo into high income category makes the poor in Colombo from bad to worse since there will be less public expenditure allocated for Colombo.

However, income disparities exist in Colombo should reflect from the other indicators such as health and nutrition. Colombo and Gampaha show considerable income difference when compared to the other districts. Further, it should be noted that the district level is not and ideal spatial demarcation for analysis and some other spatial unit at sub district level should be the focus for data collection to identify urban poor in Colombo.

Economic situation

The results categorize Kalutara, Galle, Kandy and Puttalam districts into vulnerable category and the districts Matale, Nuwara Eliya, Matara, Hambantota, Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa, Kurunegala, Badulla, Moneragala, Kegalle and Ratnapura show critically vulnerable condition according to accessibility and affordability criteria.

It is shocking to note that the main rice producing districts are classified as critically food insecure and vulnerable due to the poor economic situation, limited infrastructure facilities and lack of proper knowledge and standards for balanced nutrition.

These revelations should set an important agenda for policy decisions related to agriculture development in the country. While joining the celebrations globally on the World Food Day, we should determine to address the issues driving us towards the poor equity in food consumption and nutrition of all communities in the country.

The writer is a Director, Hector Kobbekaduwa Agrarian Research and Training Institute.