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Confusion
One of the difficulties encountered is that, even among those who should know better, poverty, undernourishment, and food insecurity are often confused as representing one and the same thing. They are not. If considered closely, it will be seen that food insecurity is a less severe condition than undernourishment. This is important, since the target countries are obligated to meet in the 1996 Rome Declaration is to half the level of food insecurity by 2015. In practice separate estimates are usually made of global malnutrition, and these indicate a current figure of about one billion such persons. Many of these persons are not starving but may suffer from vitamin and mineral deficiencies, for example, iron deficiency and anemia in pregnant women.
It has also been found that even with access to food supplies malnutrition can exist, if education about proper health behaviour is not widely available. Lack of health awareness of the important roles played by breastfeeding, proper sanitation, healthy cooking habits, and exercise, in determining a household's nutritional status and its level of food security, can undermine the benefits of food access.
Child nutrition determinants
Surveys in several developing countries over the period 1970-1995 have indicated that four factors constitute the principal underlying determinants for achieving good child nutrition among households. First and foremost is improvement in women's education. This accounted for as much as 43 per cent of the total reduction of child malnutrition in households. Second in importance is increased per person food insecurity, which accounted for 26 per cent of the measured reduction of child malnutrition in households. Next in importance was the health environment of households, which accounted for 19 per cent. And, finally, women's status relative to men in the household accounted for the remaining 12 per cent. The important role played by women and education in supporting food security among children is well supported by experience in Guyana.
Continuum
Last week we referred to the USDA surveys of food security in the US. These reveal that food insecurity and undernourishment are rarely the result of poverty, even though as we noted significant levels of the population (12 per cent of US households) do in fact suffer from food insecurity. One way to reconcile the linkage between food insecurity, hunger and poverty would be to conduct the monitoring of households and families in such a way that it covers a continuum of possibilities, ranging from 'food security,' through 'food insecurity,' to 'food insecurity with hunger.'
Based on this approach it can be stated that in practice 'food security' requires as a minimum 1) nutritionally adequate and safe foods readily available to families and households, and 2) the acquisition of this food in a socially accepted manner. That is, the food is not acquired through socially unacceptable means such as scavenging, stealing, or reliance on charity.
Following on this we could then state that 'food insecurity' would require three minimum conditions. One is that the household or family worries over 'running out of food' before it can afford to purchase more. Second, that the household has in fact 'run out of food' before it can afford more. And third, members of the household/family cannot afford to have regular balanced meals.
At the other end of the continuum, there is 'food insecurity with hunger.' This would require that, in addition to the requirements for food insecurity, members of the household/family would have eaten less than they felt they should, or cut meals and/or skipped meals and felt hungry over an extended period eg three months. The hunger referred to here is of course involuntary hunger. It therefore excludes voluntary hunger due to personal situations like dieting, fasting, or being too busy to eat.
Paying lip-service to the right to food
Last week a plea was made for Caricom governments to begin the routine monitoring of food insecurity. This plea is repeated here again today. Surveys to establish the extent of this in the region are an absolute must and could easily be built in to other routine surveys. The information these yield could then be used to monitor food insecurity and to provide the basis for introducing safety nets to restrict this scourge among the Region's population.
Here the experience of the USA is instructive. Since 1995, the US Census Bureau has conducted on behalf of the USDA, as an annual supplement to its Current Monthly Population Survey, an added survey on food security. This is done annually and utilises the same survey population that provides unemployment and poverty data for the USA. The nationally representative sample has 40,000 households. Food security is assessed over the previous 12 months on the basis of 18 questions, which are focused on the behaviours and experiences known to characterise households that are having difficulty meeting their food needs.
Readers should note that at the 27th FAO Regional Conference for Latin America and the Caribbean held in April this year, Caricom representatives committed to making food security the first priority of the FAO. They also committed to tabling a proposal at the World Food Summit earlier this month, for the meeting of an Inter-Governmental Working Group to draw up a Voluntary Code on the Right to Food.
The lesson from all this is resoundingly clear. The practice of Caricom governments giving global undertakings and then paying lip-service to them, without seeking to monitor their fulfilment should stop. Obligations to provide food security should reflect our own sense of caring and the values we attach to citizenship and rights of our peoples. The Region's silence over the recent World Food Security Summit is an eloquent condemnation of our failures and shortcomings in this regard.