Why some are more equal than others: Country typologies of food security

Food (in)security conditions differ across countries, and those differences affect the discussion of potential policy approaches. This paper reviews several approaches to creating country typologies of food (in)security conditions and then updates Díaz-Bonilla et al.’s 2000 IFPRI paper Food Security...

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Autores principales: Díaz-Bonilla, Eugenio, Thomas, Marcelle
Formato: Artículo preliminar
Lenguaje:Inglés
Publicado: International Food Policy Research Institute 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/10568/148643
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author Díaz-Bonilla, Eugenio
Thomas, Marcelle
author_browse Díaz-Bonilla, Eugenio
Thomas, Marcelle
author_facet Díaz-Bonilla, Eugenio
Thomas, Marcelle
author_sort Díaz-Bonilla, Eugenio
collection Repository of Agricultural Research Outputs (CGSpace)
description Food (in)security conditions differ across countries, and those differences affect the discussion of potential policy approaches. This paper reviews several approaches to creating country typologies of food (in)security conditions and then updates Díaz-Bonilla et al.’s 2000 IFPRI paper Food Security and Trade Negotiations in the World Trade Organization. The exercise uses five variables: domestic food production per capita (constant dollars per capita); a combination of calories and protein per capita; the ratio of total exports to food imports; the ratio of the nonagricultural population to total population; and a variable based on the mortality rate for children under 5. The raw values are all transformed into z-scores. The paper explains how the variables relate to the traditional dimensions of availability, access, and utilization in the definition of food security. Data for the variables correspond to the period 2009–2011 (or the latest available) and cover 155 developed and developing countries. Two clustering methods are applied: hierarchical and k-means. The hierarchical approach is used first, to determine potential outliers and to explore what would be a reasonable number of clusters. That analysis suggests that the maximum number of relevant clusters for the analysis is 10 and identifies three countries as outliers. We then use the k-means method to classify all other countries in one of the 10 different clusters or groups. The paper analyzes the average profile of each one of those groups and divides them into three categories of food insecure, intermediate, and food secure. We highlight the different profiles of each of the food-insecure clusters (such as whether they were rural or urban, trade stressed or not, and so on). Limitations related to land and water availability (measured as arable land, hectares per person, and renewable internal freshwater resources in cubic meters per capita) are incorporated into the analysis as an additional dimension to be considered. The paper closes with some policy considerations for the different types of clusters of food-insecure countries.
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spelling CGSpace1486432025-11-06T07:02:38Z Why some are more equal than others: Country typologies of food security Díaz-Bonilla, Eugenio Thomas, Marcelle cluster sampling nutrition security nutrition policies agricultural policies typology food security Food (in)security conditions differ across countries, and those differences affect the discussion of potential policy approaches. This paper reviews several approaches to creating country typologies of food (in)security conditions and then updates Díaz-Bonilla et al.’s 2000 IFPRI paper Food Security and Trade Negotiations in the World Trade Organization. The exercise uses five variables: domestic food production per capita (constant dollars per capita); a combination of calories and protein per capita; the ratio of total exports to food imports; the ratio of the nonagricultural population to total population; and a variable based on the mortality rate for children under 5. The raw values are all transformed into z-scores. The paper explains how the variables relate to the traditional dimensions of availability, access, and utilization in the definition of food security. Data for the variables correspond to the period 2009–2011 (or the latest available) and cover 155 developed and developing countries. Two clustering methods are applied: hierarchical and k-means. The hierarchical approach is used first, to determine potential outliers and to explore what would be a reasonable number of clusters. That analysis suggests that the maximum number of relevant clusters for the analysis is 10 and identifies three countries as outliers. We then use the k-means method to classify all other countries in one of the 10 different clusters or groups. The paper analyzes the average profile of each one of those groups and divides them into three categories of food insecure, intermediate, and food secure. We highlight the different profiles of each of the food-insecure clusters (such as whether they were rural or urban, trade stressed or not, and so on). Limitations related to land and water availability (measured as arable land, hectares per person, and renewable internal freshwater resources in cubic meters per capita) are incorporated into the analysis as an additional dimension to be considered. The paper closes with some policy considerations for the different types of clusters of food-insecure countries. 2016-02-26 2024-06-21T09:25:18Z 2024-06-21T09:25:18Z Working Paper https://hdl.handle.net/10568/148643 en https://hdl.handle.net/10568/155880 https://hdl.handle.net/10568/152555 https://doi.org/10.2499/9780896298590 https://openknowledge.fao.org/handle/20.500.14283/i5218e Open Access application/pdf International Food Policy Research Institute Díaz-Bonilla, Eugenio and Thomas, Marcelle. 2016. Why some are more equal than others: Country typologies of food security. IFPRI Discussion Paper 1510. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). https://hdl.handle.net/10568/148643
spellingShingle cluster sampling
nutrition security
nutrition policies
agricultural policies
typology
food security
Díaz-Bonilla, Eugenio
Thomas, Marcelle
Why some are more equal than others: Country typologies of food security
title Why some are more equal than others: Country typologies of food security
title_full Why some are more equal than others: Country typologies of food security
title_fullStr Why some are more equal than others: Country typologies of food security
title_full_unstemmed Why some are more equal than others: Country typologies of food security
title_short Why some are more equal than others: Country typologies of food security
title_sort why some are more equal than others country typologies of food security
topic cluster sampling
nutrition security
nutrition policies
agricultural policies
typology
food security
url https://hdl.handle.net/10568/148643
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