FOOD SECURITY AND MONITORING SYSTEMS - Food Security, Food Prices and Climate Variability - page 29

700,000

600,000

Cereals
Other food
Water
Daily non-food
Health care
School
Clothes
Khat
Other

500,000

400,000

300,000

200,000

100,000

0

Very poor Poor

FIGURE 2.3 Expenditures in Somaliland shillings of poor and very poor households in Somalia in
a normal year.

Note
The figure shows that very poor households spend 73 percent of their income on food, whereas poor house-
holds spend 60 percent of their income on food. When prices increase, the very poor are less able to main-
tain basic consumption.

have very different household incomes, and thus the impact of food price spikes can vary
across these different groups.
An example of the impact of large changes in food prices on human welfare can be taken
from Somalia. Figure 2.3 shows an example of the categories of goods that two Somali wealth
groups spend in a normal, non-drought year. FEWS NET uses the entitlement approach to
group poor people into different categories with variable exposure to changes in food prices,
economic shocks and other food security threats. The figure shows that 73 percent of income
is spent on food for a very poor family, whereas a poor family spends 60 percent on food. The
very poor household is more exposed to abrupt changes in the cost of food relative to income
than the poor household, and thus would need gifts or other outside support to ensure that
their basic daily food needs are covered during times of shock. If these coping strategies are
not available, significant reductions in food consumption is likely to occur (Hillbruner and
Egan, 2008; Handa and Mlay, 2006).

Famines and food security crises

When food prices rise dramatically, does a food security crisis result? When does a crisis in
food security in a country or region become so severe as to be declared a famine? Does this
happen as often as food price spikes? These questions are critical for understanding when the
increase in the cost of food is important and how price increases may cause a food security
crisis, and when it is not likely to do so.
A famine can be declared only when certain measures of mortality, malnutrition and
hunger are met: to have at least 20 percent of households in an area face extreme food short-
ages with a limited ability to cope; documented acute malnutrition rates to exceed 30 percent;
and the death rate be at least two persons per day per 10,000 persons. Famines occur only