The first Millennium Development Goal (MDG) seeks to halve the proportion of people suffering from hunger. In the Asia-Pacific region only seven developing countries are on track. Almost two-thirds of the world’s undernourished live in Asia. India – where one in five people are undernourished – has more undernourished people than the whole of Africa. In eight Asian countries the absolute numbers of those experiencing hunger is increasing. What, if anything, can be done?

Research from the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) reviews food security in Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Nepal and Vietnam. The authors analyse current policies for targeting extremely poor and vulnerable people and argue they need to be reformed to guarantee wider access to nutritional food.

Virtually all of developing Asia’s population suffers from iron deficiency and a large number is subject to vitamin A and iodine deficiency. Anaemia caused by iron deficiency impairs ability and productivity, and therefore fulfilment of other MDGs. In Bangladesh the proportion of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) lost to anaemia in 2001 is estimated at 1.8%. Children and women of child-bearing age are especially at risk from vitamin A deficiency.

Growing inequality means that improved access to food is unevenly distributed. ‘Averages’ conceal the chronic inability of many urban slum dwellers, inhabitants of remote regions and those marginalised by ethnicity and caste status to access food. As the better-off eat more meat, grain is being diverted to livestock production with upward pressure on grain prices which affect the poor.

Other key factors inhibiting the achievement of the hunger MDG are:

• Over-emphasis on boosting production of carbohydrates at the expense of promoting other macronutrients (proteins and essential fats): only in Vietnam and Bangladesh are policy-makers now beginning to emphasise these wider aspects of under-nutrition.
• The influence of seasons on food availability and local prices – the poor suffer most.
• Unaffordable and ineffective guaranteed food purchase and reserves schemes which distort the location of food production.
• Neglect of the nutritional needs of those unable to engage in the productive economy.
• Intra-household disparities in access to food, particularly in South Asia.
• Agricultural subsidies in developed countries which prevent least developed Asian farmers from exploiting their comparative advantage.

The challenges are enormous. In Bangladesh production per hectare will have to rise by over a third just to maintain today’s inadequate per capita production levels. In several countries ability to pay for food imports is threatened by loss of textile export revenue once the Multi Fibre Arrangement ends. Poor sanitation and hygiene, inappropriate cooking and food-handling practices and taboos on certain kinds of food work against adequate nutrition.

The authors call for:

• Better identification of chronically poor and vulnerable groups so that transfers, of food or cash can be targeted better.
• Taxation and other mechanisms to restrict grain-based feeding of livestock in peri-urban areas and curb luxury consumption of livestock products.
• Policies to improve food supply, access and utilisation across the spectrum of macro and micronutrients.
• Realisation that basing the hunger MDG on a single macronutrient is an inadequate measure of nutrition security.
• Measures to assist the sick, elderly and women with dependents in order to improve their nutritional status and also to boost purchasing in demand-constrained markets in isolated areas.

Asia has made strides towards achieving food security but the size of its population means that it dominates world undernutrition in terms of sheer numbers. Policy-makers must realise that the problem is not so much one of supply, but of the reliability of access and the way food is utilised.

Source(s):
‘Food Security and the Millennium Development Goal on Hunger in Asia’, Working Paper 231, Overseas Development Institute by Gerard J. Gill, John Farrington, Edward Anderson, Cecilia Luttrell, Tim Conway, N.C. Saxena and Rachel Slater December 2003 Full document.

Funded by: Department for International Development, UK

id21 Research Highlight: 4 October 2004

Further Information:
Gerard J. Gill, John Farrington, Edward Anderson and Cecilia Luttrell
Overseas Development Institute
111 Westminster Bridge Road
London
SE1 7JD
UK

Tel: +44 (0)
Fax: +44 (0)
Contact the contributor: gerard.gill@ntlworld.com

Contact the contributor: j.farrington@odi.org.uk

Contact the contributor: e.anderson@odi.org.uk

Overseas Development Institute, UK

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