Seminar
Zhang-Yue Zhou: Fighting Food Insecurity
As a whole, Asia has made a remarkable achievement in feeding its huge populations and improving its food security since World War II. However, food insecurity still prevails in many developing countries in Asia, with over 500 million Asians chronically undernourished.
Lessons and Experiences from Asia
The still tenacious food insecurity status for a large number of hungry Asians calls for strategies and actions that can improve their food security. Sound strategies and actions must be based on insights from cases of success and failure in attaining food security.
Although there are still a large number of Asians living under food insecurity, there have been some successes in achieving food security, or in significantly reducing food insecurity, in many parts of Asia. Scrutinizing the forces responsible for the success or failure of Asia’s fight against food insecurity can generate valuable lessons and experiences for countries to learn from each other not only in Asia but also beyond.
We take a cross-country comparative approach to examine food security practices of selected Asian countries that share some similarities but also differ in terms of their institutional settings, natural resource endowments, population size, and the level of economic development. Useful lessons and experiences are derived and policy implications discussed.