TRENDS IN NATIONAL FOOD SECURITY AND THE IMPACT OF CLIMATE - Food Security, Food Prices and Climate Variability - page 72

The impact of high food prices over a period of months or years cannot be easily detected
by the methods used by the FAO. They may result in a reduction in dietary diversity of the
food consumed, or revert to less expensive but less nutritious foods without changing the
overall number of calories consumed. Reductions in other necessary but difficult to track
portions of the household budget, such as health care and education, housing and transporta-
tion expenses, may also have occurred with long-term consequences but little impact on
overall calories. The effect of these shifts in household spending will take time to appear, but
are likely to be negative in the long run (Barrett and Bellemare, 2011; Darnton-Hill and
Cogill, 2009).
The impact of global economic recessions and food price instability affects some countries
more than others (Gouel, 2013). The policy response of the national government to changes
in food prices is a critical determinant of the likely impact of these shocks on food insecurity.
The countries of south Asia have seen far less impact on food security outcomes from extreme
changes in food prices and the global economic recession of 2008-10 than their African gov-
ernment counterparts because of their effective use of macroeconomic policies (Rashid et al .,
2008).

Climate and food security trends

Climate variability and climate change are likely to impact every agricultural region in the
world, since agriculture is dependent on local temperature and precipitation conditions
(Ericksen et al ., 2011; IPCC, 2007b). Efficiently producing more food for an expanding
population while keeping up with increasing demands for industrial and energy uses of food
and fiber will challenge farmers while they are adapting to a changing climate. To explore
these large-scale stresses to the agricultural system, the International Food Policy Research
Institute (IFPRI) conducted a set of scenarios to explore how food security and climate
change are likely to interact in the future. The scenario framework that they state is “still
in its infancy” is based primarily on approaches used to understand trends in national dietary
energy supply as a proxy for food security. The study team developed three income and
population growth scenarios: a baseline scenario which is meant to represent current trends,
a pessimistic scenario that while being realistic will result in more negative outcomes for
human well-being and an optimistic scenario that will result in more positive outcomes.
Each of these economic/population scenarios had five climate futures applied to them,
which resulted in 15 plausible potential outcomes for food security (Nelson et al ., 2010).
Although these scenarios were designed to understand the impact of climate change, they
are relevant to our exploration of trends in national food security because they allow an
assessment of the relative importance of growing conditions compared to other causes on
food insecurity.
The Nelson et al . (2010) report draws four main conclusions from their scenario modeling.
These are:

1. Broad-based economic development is central to food security and resilience to climate

change, as well as to improvements in well-being. Without adequate economic growth,
the poorest countries will struggle to provide sufficient calories for its population given
resource constraints, and will be more vulnerable over time to climate and food price
shocks.