Unit 6 Access to Food Flashcards
Relationship between income poverty and access to food: empirical evidence;
poor households in poor countries spend 50% (80% in hard times) of income on food
average households in wealthy countries spend 12-15% of income on food
6.1.1.1: food budget share and food purchased: Poorest tercile of rural Africa (e.g. Malawi, Mozambique) have the highest food budget share (around 70%, compared to 55% in metropolitan areas (less poverty)).
6.1.1.
Engel’s law and emprical evidence
As income rises, the % of income spent on food decreases (E. Engel 1800s)
Figure 1.1.2 % spent on food vs. total per capita expenditure in Andhra Pradesh, India
Same relationships holds in average food expenditure shares across countries with different GDPs
Exception: very poorest don’t have enough food, thus increased income spent on extra food
6.1.1.
Sen’s entitlement framework
A. Sen’s insights: 1974 Bengal Famine not due to declining food availability, but decline in access by particular groups (e.g. poor rural labourers); recognizes non-income channels of food access
Entitlements = legitimate access to food, ability to acquire food
• Sources of entitlement:
o direct entitlements (food production, or income generation to be exchanged for food)
o other resource transfers (customary, social, governmental)
• Sources can be formal (state) or informal (neighborhood networks)
Commodity bundles = sets of commodities over which someone can establish entitlement (choices)
Endowments = capitals: initial ownership of land, assets, labour
Exchange = process of converting endowments into entitlements, e.g. labour for money to buy food, assets and labour to produce food (“exchange with nature”)
Exchange conditions = “terms of trade”, affect purchasing power (e.g. food price ratio to wage rates, ratio of grain prices to fish prices)
Entitlement failure =loss of entilement / access to food
6.1.1
Entitlement failure
loss of entitlement / access to food due to:
- Loss of direct entitlement due to employment loss, crop failure or poor yields – bigger impact on food security of poor farming households than aggregate availability failure (Sen
- Loss of resource transfers e.g. cut of remittances, supplementary feeding programme abandoned
- Loss of endowments e.g. productive assets (ox, fishing boat, family member receiving gvt pension etc.)
• Loss of exchange entitlements , i.e. unfavourable terms of trade e.g. rising food prices relative to wages; lower food prices paid to farmers due to food aid; peaking grain prices relative to livestock prices.
(6.1.1)
Links between food availability and access;
Links between food access and food utilization
Links: aggregate food availability and food access:
Availability affects food prices and thus terms of trade for labour, crops etc. Food price rise affects day labourers, informal traders, pastoralists whose terms of trade decline
Uncertainty about future availability causes panic buying, hoarding, driving up prices
Aggregate production decrease -> agricultural labour declines -> rural wages drop
Lack of aggregate availability reduces likelihood of informal food distribution
Links: loss of food access and food utilization
Responses to food access loss, leading to unfavourable food utilization and nutritional outcomes: Coping strategies: buy less expensive, less nutritious, lower quality food; food reallocation within household; less care for children due to time constraints; less money to spend on health care.
6.1.1
Why do women tend to have lower entitlements than men?
How do their allocations differ from men’s?
(1) Endowments: women have limited control in patriarchal societies
(2) Exchange conditions: women earn lower wages for same job; travel restrictions for women forces them to sell products near home where prices may be lower
(3) Commodity bundles choice: women often responsible for food aspects, prefer to allocate to small children
e. g. Thomas’ 1990 study: Money in mother’s control has bigger effect on family health, higher child survival rate (Brazilian hh survey) – could also be due to utilization of food
6.1.2
What factors affect intra-household access to food?
What are the consequences?
(short summary)
Culture (gender norms), social status (age, gender, wealth…), legal/econ. environment -> bargaining power -> decision-making on savings/investment decisions, resource allocation intra hh -> future wealth, food security, well-being hh member
6.1.2
Intra-household effect of social transfer: model applied to food access and gender differences
Bargaining within household
(1) Ability to produce/access directly from own income: women have limited income-generating opps (EXCHANGE CONDITIONS)
(2) Bargaining within household for income use (ENDOWMENTS)
Economic perspective: intra-hh bargaining (6.1.2.1)
o Unitary hh model: pooling of income, economically efficient labour allocation; assumption that policy decisions (allocating transfer to men vs. women) affect hh members equally
o F. Engels 1884: private property related to development of nuclear family, subjugation of women; 1 century later, ideas of intra-hh differences introduced in policy models (economic models influence national policies!)
o Bargaining models and “gaming”; threat of violence/divorce underpins models, therefore national policies (divorce, child care…) and social norms affect behaviors differently for men vs. women.
Co-operative models: partners pool resources, bargain to attain compromise over allocation.
Non-co-operative model: Mostly separate budgets, separate decision-making, norms assign activities and payments to husbands, others to wives (SDoL).
(3) Different preferences in choice and allocation to family members: women spend less on alcohol, cigarettes, more on welfare (Lundberg and Pollak 1996). (COMMODITY BUNDLES CHOICE)
6. 1.2
“Gaming”
a concept used in decision sciences and economics among others. It refers to the behaviour of decision-makers where each may gain or lose by a certain choice of action,
depending on what others choose to do or not to do.
Expectations of others’ behaviour play a large part in
gaming
re. 6.1.2
Empirical evidence on allocation of food within household
“It is common in poor households for young girls to get fed less well than young boys?”
:Weak evidence on systematic discrimination in feeding, except in south Asia (girls discriminated by food stressed hh), but no consensus because indicator is dietary energy intake, which is poor indicator of inequality (reflects staple food = cheapest, does not measure diversity or quality, whilst discrimination is based on variety, e.g. pre-schoolers get less meat, beverage, fathers more in Philippine study);
6.1.3
Self-assessment:
“This is true in much of South Asia, especially when poor families are under stress. Elsewhere, however, academic studies have not recorded systematic discrimination against girls. However,
many studies have only looked at overall dietary energy (calories) rather than questions such as whether girls get fed as much meat or vegetables as boys, so further research is needed
Origins and context of legal right to food, and underpinnings
“In relation to the right to food, ‘adequate food’ is defined as a minimum package of food containing
the necessary nutrients to support life.” True or false?
“Is it legally acceptable for a country which has ratified ICESCR to claim that it is too poor to feed all
its citizens?”
o Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person” (1948 UN)
o India 2001 widespread hunger yet food stocks accumulating in state granaries
Petition to Supreme Court that state must prevent hunger and starvation: gvt has duty to fulfill obligation to protect right to life enshrined in Indian Constitution
Court actions, recognizes legal entitlement: orders opening of ration shops, subsidized grain to poor families, dissemination of information about nutrition-related schemes, school meals
o ICESCR (multilateral treaty in force since 1976, ratified by 160 states excl. e.g. USA): Right to Adequate food
Principle of PROGRESSIVE REALIZATION of rights: legal requirement for gradual progress; individuals can take gvt to court over legal obligations
“Right to adequate standard of living, incl. adequate food; right to be free from hunger”: INTERPRETATION? Certain quantity? Cultural acceptability factor? Adequately nourished (utilization)?
o UNCESCR (1999) clarifies: “Physical, economic access at all times to adequate food or means for its procurement” for everyone; not minimum package, but incl cultural and safety factors; progressive realization; state’s obligation to mitigate and alleviate hunger, even in times of crisis.
o FAO (05/09) builds on: governments should establish explicit, justiciable legal right of all citizens to food (e.g. India, Brazil include wording in legal frameworks/constitution; requires strong CS and incorruptible legal system!). FAO promotes voluntary guidelines to support the progressive realization of the right to adequate food in the context of national food security: From Democracy/governance/human rights over legal framework over access to resources and assets over safety nets to national and international human rights dimensions... (6.1.3.1)
6.1.3
Self-assessment q4:
[False: the United Nations has stated that ‘The right to adequate food shall not be interpreted in a narrow or restrictive sense which equates it with a minimum package of calories, proteins and other specific nutrients.’ The right to food includes notions of cultural acceptability and food safety]
Self-assessment q5:
No. Under ICESCR, states have ‘a core obligation to take the necessary [minimum] action to
mitigate and alleviate hunger … even in times of natural or other disasters.’ However, ICESCR
applies the principle of ‘progressive realisation of rights’: that is, poor countries are required to show that they are making progress and doing their best with the available resources. (In practice, however, many governments have not done much yet, and it is unclear how easy it will be to sanction them for this.)
International human rights discourse:obligations of nation state (duty bearer) toward rights holders
(1) Respect access: states not to interfere with /undermine access (e.g. take away land from smallholder farmer without adequate compensation)
(2) Protect access: states ensure that enterprises do not deprive individuals of access to adequate food (e.g. step in if private company are displaced from their land without adequate compensation)
(3) Fulfill rights: states FACILITATE (pro-actively strengthen people’s access and use of resources and means to ensure livelihood, incl. food security); states PROVIDE the right to adequate food directly if individuals/groups are unable to enjoy it for reasons beyond their control (e.g. victims of disasters).
6.1.3
Case study: UN report on Right to Food in Brazil 2009-2010
(1) Obligation to respect existing access to adequate food:
• Legal protection: 2010 Constitutional amendment to guarantee right to food, legally and institutionally implemented – BUT gaps remain; need independent national institution to promote and protect human rights
• Measures preventing access to productive resources: Government to provide title and protection to traditional communal property – BUT INCRA (National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform) settlements exert pressures for displacement, infrastructural projects, risk of violations of right to food – BUT land disputes over large infrastructural projects leads to violent repression by state, criminalization of social movements
(2) Obligation to protect access from deprivation by private enterprises or individuals (measures: labour/environmental legislation, land ownership and use law; • Labour relations: measures repressing slave-like labour conditions, sacrificing inspectors (murdered on duty), and minimum wages adjusted more than inflation • Environmental protection ensures long-term sustainability of agriculture, ensures healthy food, guarantees biodiversity • Land ownership and use: GRILAGEM: illegal occupation by large-scale landowners, speculators in 12% or territory (3) Obligation to fulfill rights: Strengthen access and use of resources and means to ensure livelihoods • Zero Huger strategy by gvt (53 initiatives) BUT question about sufficient funding in case of economic shock • Tax structure REGRESSIVE: high taxes for goods & services, low for income & property • Rural family access to credit at better than market conditions BUT 1% obtain 43% of credit • Agrarian reform BUT challenge of inequitable land access, not tackled efficiently • Trade, export-led agriculture important for development BUT must consider economic, social, environmental effects of open markets on groups • Agrofuel production BUT need to ensure income of rural poorest benefits • Citizens’ Territory programme targets lowest HD areas, 200 policies BUT poorest in wealthy areas left out
6.1.3
Acts of commission vs acts of omission
Humanitarian agencies might be legally held to account for widespread food access with
Acts of commission (deliberate, by government using famine as weapon of war or genocide- can be put on trial at international Criminal Court for crimes against humanity)
Acts of omission (governments or donors fail to respond appropriately and timely to prevent food crises from developing into famines, despite having the power to do so, e.g. withholding aid for political reasons (e.g. Ethiopia 2000): should be subject to sanctions, e.g. dismissal of negligent officials).
6.1.3
Features of seasonal instability
o Widespread and persistent (regions have term for it!), in particular rural: dependent on agriculture, in rain-fed, semi-arid areas (one single main harvest season)
e.g. Hungry season in North Ghana: 70’% of farmers are smallholders, depend on subsistence farming and other activities: Dry season – lean season – rainy season (lowest food stock, highest food prices, ppl work on others’ fields thus own production suffers, forcing them to buy food; children lose weight, ) – harvest 1 (millet) – harvest 2 (sorghum) – harvest 3 (maize) – main harvest (cereal…) (lowest prices but farmers forced to sell to pay off debt, fees…); Rain, food prices and malnutrition correlate!
o Hungry season correlates with rainy season in (sub-)tropical countries, bringing disease, blocking roads -> worst hunger, poverty unnoticed by researchers and policy makers!
6.2.1
