FOOD SECURITY, FOOD PRICES AND CLIMATE VARIABILITY - Food Security, Food Prices and Climate Variability - page 18

moisture conditions that may affect food production, combined with long-term observations
that enable an understanding of how ecosystems are changing, form the underpinning of the
knowledge of climate variability. Remote sensing of vegetation is the primary source of
information used to bring together information about weather shocks on food prices because
of the observation's ability to integrate the impact of both temperature and precipitation on
agriculture, and because of the independence of the measure from ground observations. These
observations are described and their assessment of climate variability discussed.
Chapter 4 describes trends in national food security and the impact of climate variability
and change on the ability of food insecure countries to meet their own food needs. Food
security crises can be caused by structural problems, where food production languishes due to
lack of investment, but development efforts do not provide adequate alternative sources of
income for a growing population. When countries experience widespread production impacts
due to drought and are unable to import and distribute sufficient food to meet the needs of
its population, food security crises occur. This chapter outlines these vulnerabilities and
describes efforts to understand long-term trends in agriculturally relevant weather that are
likely to impact food security.
Chapter 5 summarizes trends in food prices and price volatility over the past decade.
Because food price levels are at historic highs, the vulnerability of nations, communities and
households to price dynamics is becoming much clearer. The chapter discusses trends in the
number of people who are food insecure and the impact of high price levels on these people.
It also explores the effect of international prices on local food prices, along with the impact
on nutrition outcomes that changes in price levels are likely to have.
Chapter 6 focuses on seasonality. Thin, isolated and poorly functioning food markets are
likely to exhibit food price seasonality, where prices are typically much higher during the
pre-harvest season than the post-harvest season. A high proportion of the income of house-
holds in many developing countries is spent on food; thus, these seasonal increases are likely
to affect nutrition outcomes as well as the debt burden and resource accumulation of house-
holds. The chapter also explores the link between regions with price seasonality and climate
variability.
Chapter 7 presents research that quantitatively connects food price dynamics with observa-
tions of climate variability using satellite remote sensing in a predictive econometric model.
It presents the underlying economic theory using supply and demand curves, and describes
market functioning under different environmental conditions. Using a Kalman filter approach,
maize prices from Africa are decomposed into a seasonal, trend and noise component and
each is analyzed for its connection to environmental drivers. The model is used to demon-
strate the impact of climate variability on price dynamics and the reduction in error due to the
use of satellite observations.
Chapter 8 describes nutrition impacts of climate variability and environmental change. It
explores the broader connections between environment and health outcomes, because
although we can quantify the direct impact of drought and other weather shocks on food
prices, there are many other pathways through which climate dynamics can affect food
security outcomes. This chapter presents current and ongoing studies using Demographic and
Health Survey information that measures directly the nutrition status of children and others
in vulnerable communities.
The final chapter presents conclusions and policy relevance of an improved understanding
of climate variability, food prices and food security interactions. It reviews government