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Hunger plagues large sectors of the global population, in
particular the poor in developing countries. Although there are
large surpluses of food in some countries, hundreds of millions
of people in other countries still face a struggle for their daily
bread. The World Food Summit of 1996 noted that the number
of undernourished people, estimated at 854 million in 1995,
will rise to 915 million within two decades if no action is taken
to turn the tide. The Summit thus set a target to halve the
number, to about 400 million by 2015 (Stryker and Salinger,
1998).
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Food scarcity may occur as a result of natural (flood, drought)
or man-made (political strife, war) disasters that wipe out entire
crops, or because of economic factors such as poverty or
breakdowns in the food supply and delivery chain. Berg and
Bigman (1993) refer to food security as the availability of enough
food in order to sustain life and good health of all the world
population at all times, across all countries and regions, across
all income groups, and across all members of individual
households. Food security policies take on both economic and
political dimensions and involve three categories – getting prices
right, optimal storage and supply enhancement (Berg and
Bigman, 1993). |
Food insecurity is more typical of developing countries, since
developed countries often have in place the requisite
mechanisms for food production, storage and distribution.
Developing countries may lack one or more of these. The
problem could be more acute for countries that are unable to
produce sufficient food to meet domestic requirements and
thus have to depend on imports. Many Muslim countries, for
example, face problems of inadequate food production,
insufficient food supplies and inefficient food delivery systems.
They currently depend on substantial food imports. However,
over-reliance on imports poses a major drain on the national
economy, while exposing countries to food insecurity risks.
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