FOOD SECURITY, FOOD PRICES AND CLIMATE VARIABILITY - Food Security, Food Prices and Climate Variability - page 6

120

Kaya
Bobo Dioulasso
Income

100

80

60

40

20

0

FIGURE 1.1 Average monthly millet prices per 100 kg millet and average monthly income in 1993
dollars in Burkina Faso (sources: monthly millet prices from Bobo Dioulasso and Kaya
are expressed in 1993 international dollars and are from USAID historical price series,
and the average monthly income data are derived from Benin and Randriamamonjy,
2008).

Food systems and vulnerability

Food systems are defined as the processes and infrastructure that are involved in meeting a
population's food requirements. The activities involved in a food system are catching,
growing, harvesting, storing, processing, packaging, transporting, marketing and consuming
food (Ericksen, 2008). Economic conditions and a region's level of development affects how
food production activities are conducted, and the weather, climate and environmental poten-
tial in the region affect how efficient these food systems are. Food security of households,
communities and nations rely on food systems that enable enough food to be grown or
imported from elsewhere to meet the needs of all residents.
Food price volatility, defined as the inability of market participants to predict food prices
from one month or one year to the next, has a significantly negative effect on investment in
the food system, food production and market efficiency. In many parts of the world, local
food prices are independent of international prices because of their distance from and lack of
interaction with the international market. Minot (2011) showed that only 13 of 62 local food
price time series in Africa were influenced by world prices during a period when international
commodity prices were changing rapidly. Other authors argue that government policies con-
tribute significantly to local food price volatility, increasing uncertainty around food supply
and imports from other regions (Tschirley and Jayne, 2010). Local weather shocks to produc-
tion can be shown to affect local food prices, but may also contribute additional variability to
an already poorly functioning market system (Zant, 2013; Ihle et al ., 2011).
When poor people rely on locally produced food for the majority of their caloric intake,
shifts in climate and weather patterns such as drought can dramatically reduce local agricul-
tural productivity, affecting how much food is available for consumption, trade or barter.