Sound Policies for Food Security: The Role of Culture and Social Organization

Joseph J. Molnar

Review of Agricultural Economics, 1999, vol. 21, issue 2, 489-498

Abstract: Culture conditions the ability to organize to provide food security, but social organization is the immediate source of policies that prevent food insecurity or determine what happens when it does occur. Weather, war, terrorism, conflict, overpopulation, environmental degradation, corruption, and faulty policies have been identified as causes of food insecurity. Perhaps most of the blame for food insecurity should go to faulty policies or poor implementation of sound policy. This article identifies reasons for both kinds of failure that are linked to culture and social organization. The central task of government is to allow the food system to manage its own affairs, but policies must be ready to guide action when market, crop, or policy failures create food insecurity among those with no other means of coping with adversity.

Date: 1999
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