Food Security

Plant Pathogens which Threaten Food Security: Viruses of Chickpea and Other Cool Season Legumes in West Asia and North Africa Abstract West Asia and North Africa (WANA) and the Indian sub-continent are regions of major production of chickpea, faba bean and lentil, where these crops represent a major source of protein in the diet of the population. These crops are attacked by a large number of viruses, the most economically important among them being which cause stunting and yellowing symptoms together with poor or no pod setting. Our knowledge of the identity of these viruses improved significantly over the past three decades because of the advances in molecular diagnostics. At present, there are 12 viruses in chickpea and 6 in faba bean that are insect transmitted in the persistent manner, cause stunting and yellowing symptoms, and the number is increasing. Virus disease management involving a combination of control measures is the best practical strategy to reduce virus disease levels, and consequently increase productivity of grain legume crops. Research that leads to the design of most appropriate control strategies is needed for each grain legume producing region in WANA countries and within each country.

In this issue - February 2020

Looking back on 2019: a selection of Food Security articles Abstract Food Security has a multidisciplinary vision which addresses all the dimensions of food security at all its scales, from the individual to global. The journal involves a large Editorial Board and an extended network of Reviewers. Nevertheless, because of the many dimensions of the food security problem, because of the large size of the submissions that are commonly submitted to the journal, and because of our aim to excellence, publication may sometimes be slow. We shall do better in 2020. This editorial highlights some of the diversity, relevance, and importance of Food Security as an international scientific journal in different fields: the importance of sociology and social capital; the physical access to food; agriculture - what it is supposed to deliver as a system and its sustainability; gender and the inequality of gender towards food; and the environmental constraints to achieving food security. Some Food Security submissions involve up to three Editors and ten Reviewers to achieve publication: This Editorial is also meant to thank the very large, volunteer, community involved in Food Security: Authors, Editors, and Reviewers.

Impacts of smallholder agricultural adaptation on food security: evidence from Africa, Asia, and Central America Abstract Understanding the efficacy of smallholder adaptation to changing environments is crucial to policy design. Past efforts in understanding whether, and to what extent, adaptation improves household welfare have faced some key challenges including: 1) endogeneity of adaptation; 2) localized results that are difficult to generalize; and 3) understanding whether the efficacy of adaptation depends on the reasons for adaptation (e.g. market conditions vs climate change). In this study we estimate effects of smallholder agricultural adaptation on food security, while addressing each of these three challenges. First, we identify and test instrumental variables based on neighbor networks. Second, we use a dataset that contains information from 5159 households located across 15 countries in Africa, Asia, and Central America. Third, we investigate whether adaptation that is motivated by changes in market conditions influences the efficacy of adaptation differently than adaptation motivated by climate change. Across our global sample, an average household made almost 10 adaptive changes, which are responsible for approximately 47 days of food security yearly; an amount nearly 4 times larger than is indicated if endogeneity is not addressed. But these effects vary depending on what is motivating adaptation. Adaptation in response to climate change alone is not found to significantly affect food security. When climate adaptation is paired with adaptation in response to changing market conditions, the resulting impact is 96 food secure days. These results suggest the need for further work on the careful design of climate change interventions to complement adaptive activities.

Land scarcity, resettlement and food security: Assessing the effect of voluntary resettlement on diet quality in Malawi Abstract Food insecurity persists globally, with lack of access to farmland among the main factors contributing to chronic undernourishment. Population resettlement to areas of low density presents a possible but controversial solution to land scarcity. This paper examines the case of Malawi’s Community Based Rural Land Development Project, a World Bank funded internal resettlement scheme for 15,000 participating households. Based on four months of fieldwork, including a survey of 200 households, 5 focus group discussions and 20 expert interviews, we assess how voluntary, internal, ‘rural to rural’ resettlement affects food security and nutrition through diet quality. Overall, we found that lack of wage labour opportunities and poor access to markets lowered food access (HDDS) among beneficiaries compared to non-beneficiaries (who did not participate in the resettlement scheme from the outset but were eligible), former beneficiaries (who had participated in scheme but had abandoned it by the time of the study), and national averages. Diet quality (IDDS) varied significantly according to resettlement location, as well as between beneficiaries and former-and non-beneficiaries, where overall, beneficiaries who were still living in their resettlement location at the time of the study had the lowest IDDS and therefore poorest diet quality. The regression results and the focus group discussions suggest that beyond access to infrastructure and markets, secure entitlements to training and farming inputs need to be sustained and improved in relocation areas to bring about positive food security outcomes for resettled populations.

Unravelling the variability and causes of smallholder maize yield gaps in Ethiopia Abstract Ethiopia has achieved the second highest maize yield in sub-Saharan Africa. Yet, farmers’ maize yields are still much lower than on-farm and on-station trial yields, and only ca. 20% of the estimated water-limited potential yield. This article provides a comprehensive national level analysis of the drivers of maize yields in Ethiopia, by decomposing yield gaps into efficiency, resource and technology components, and accounting for a broad set of detailed input and crop management choices. Stochastic frontier analysis was combined with concepts of production ecology to estimate and explain technically efficient yields, the efficiency yield gap and the resource yield gap. The technology yield gap was estimated based on water-limited potential yields from the Global Yield Gap Atlas. The relative magnitudes of the efficiency, resource and technology yield gaps differed across farming systems; they ranged from 15% (1.6 t/ha) to 21% (1.9 t/ha), 12% (1.3 t/ha) to 25% (2.3 t/ha) and 54% (4.8 t/ha) to 73% (7.8 t/ha), respectively. Factors that reduce the efficiency yield gap include: income from non-farm sources, value of productive assets, education and plot distance from home. The resource yield gap can be explained by sub-optimal input use, from a yield perspective. The technology yield gap comprised the largest share of the total yield gap, partly due to limited use of fertilizer and improved seeds. We conclude that targeted but integrated policy design and implementation is required to narrow the overall maize yield gap and improve food security.

Intertemporal evaluation of household food security and its determinants: evidence from Rwanda Abstract The food security literature has reiterated the importance of having an indicator that simultaneously captures the different dimensions of the food security definition. In this regard, this study builds on previous studies using a harmonized food security indicator within a relatively high frequency panel data from Rwanda to examine the dynamics of household food security. Summary statistics show the transitory nature of food security where households go either from complete state of food insecurity to being partially food insecure or from being partially food insecure to being completely food secure during the harvesting seasons and later fall back to their initial state during the sowing and growing seasons. This underscores the intertemporal dimension and transitory nature of food security over time. We also employed a correlated random effects multinomial logit model to further identify the determinants of households being in any of the identified states of food security. Results suggest that agricultural seasons of major food crops do determine households’ state of food security. Also, household socio-demographic characteristics, household assets, income diversification, and location of the household dwelling are some of the consistent factors that increase or decrease the likelihood of the household being food insecure.

How the choice of food security indicators affects the assessment of resilience—an example from northern Ethiopia Abstract Using longitudinal survey data from northern Ethiopia collected over 18 months, this study shows that conclusions about household food security are highly sensitive to measurement decisions. Especially important are 1) decisions about which food security indicators and cut-offs are chosen, and 2) whether analysis focuses on food security status at a given point in time or food security resilience over time. We define resilience as the probability that a household is truly above a chosen food security cut-off, given its underlying assets, demographic characteristics, and past food security status. Our study finds that different factors determine food security status and food security resilience. We also find that the drivers of resilience vary depending on whether food security is measured by Food Consumption Score (FCS) or the reduced Coping Strategies Index (rCSI). Literacy and livestock holdings are associated with both FCS status and FCS resilience, and the latter is also predicted by access to safe water and sanitation, the dependency ratio, and debt. In contrast, only previous rCSI scores predict current rCSI status, while marital status, literacy, livestock, and other forces matter for determining rCSI resilience. We also find that conclusions about food security resilience are sensitive to the cut-offs chosen to signify a food secure state.

Overcoming the dependent variable problem in studying food policy Abstract The development of a comparative food policy research agenda has been hampered by the dependent variable problem of how to delineate the policy field. Through a concise literature review, we show that the existing literature has conceptualised food policy as policy outputs, institutional orders, or discursive constructs. Focusing on the policy outputs, we define food policy as a set of policy outputs adopted to address one or more food system activities (production, processing and packaging, distribution and retailing, and consumption) with the explicit aim of affecting food system outcomes in a desired direction. The paper develops a heuristic encompassing four dimensions along which food policy outputs may differ: (i) policy scope, (ii) targeting of policy efforts, (iii) type of policy instruments applied and how these are calibrated, and (iv) integration of the various components of the policy complex. These four dimensions can be applied to characterise individual food policies and compare across countries and time. Comparing and tracking the development of food policy along these dimensions would allow for addressing follow-up questions about impacts and what explains policy change.

Weather index insurance, agricultural input use, and crop productivity in Kenya Abstract Weather risk is a serious issue in the African small farm sector that will further increase due to climate change. Farmers typically react by using low amounts of agricultural inputs. Low input use can help to minimize financial loss in bad years, but is also associated with low average yield and income. Increasing small farm productivity and income is an important prerequisite for rural poverty reduction and food security. Crop insurance could incentivize farmers to increase their input use, but indemnity-based crop insurance programs are plagued by market failures. This article contributes to the emerging literature on the role of weather index insurance (WII). We use data from a survey of farmers in Kenya, where a commercial WII scheme has been operating for several years. Regression models with instrumental variables are used to analyze WII uptake and effects on input use and crop productivity. Results show that WII uptake is positively and significantly associated with the use of chemical fertilizer and improved seeds, and also with crop yield. We conclude that upscaling WII programs may help to spur agricultural development in the small farm sector.