Files
Abstract
Success in ensuring a continuous, adequate
supply of food is one of the most important
bases on which governments of low-income
countries are judged by their people.
This is because downward fluctuations in
food supplies wreak great privation on low-income
people and redistribute real income
away from them. In view of this, the International
Food Trade and Food Security Program
at the International Food Policy Research
Institute (IFPRI) has undertaken a series of
studies of food supply management in developing
countries.
Among the policies considered have been
schemes to compensate for fluctuations in
food production and supply and in foreign
exchange availability at the national, regional,
and international levels. IFPRI's studies
of food management policies in individual
countries have included Government Policy
and Food Imports: The Case of Wheat in
Egypt, Research Report 29, by Grant M.
Scobie, and Policy Modeling of a Dual Grain
Market: The Case of Wheat in India, Research
Report 38, by Raj Krishna and Ajay
Chhibber. Work on food security policies
in Pakistan is under way.
The continuing difficulty in establishing
a world grain reserve suggests that such a
scheme is impractical. However, regional
cooperation may provide a viable means of
improving Third World food security. In Research
Report 26, Food Security in the Sahel:
Variable Import Levy, Grain Reserves, and
Foreign Exchange Assistance, John Mclntire
looked at possibilities for regional cooperation
among the Sahelian countries.
This research report focuses on the potential
for improving food security among
nine Southern and Eastern African countries
that joined together in 1980 to explore regional
cooperation by forming the Southern
African Development Coordination Conference
(SADCC). Ulrich Koester, a professor
of agricultural economics at the University
of Kiel, Federal Republic of Germany, was
asked to undertake this research because
he has spent many years studying the effects
of the food policies of the European Community.
In 1982 IFPRI published his work
Policy Options for the Grain Economy of
the European Community: Implications for
Developing Countries, Research Report 35.
Because he is so thoroughly versed in the
successes and failures of the EC and other
regional cooperation schemes, he was particularly
qualified to evaluate the possibilities
and pitfalls that face the SADCC countries
in pursuing regional cooperation to ensure
food security.
Koester shows that considerable savings
are possible from regional cooperation, due
substantially to the circumvention of extraordinarily
high transport costs that so insulate
the bulk of the countries from international
trade. However, he also points to the difficulty
in obtaining cooperation on exchange
rates and other macro policies, though this
is essential if regional cooperation is to
achieve its full potential for providing food
security.
Besides the substantial research project
under way in Pakistan, IFPRI has plans for
comparative analyses of food security issues
in several other countries. When these studies
are completed, a broad picture will be
available as to the varying needs for achieving
food security in the Third World.