Food security: global trends and regional perspective with reference to East Asia

Abstract

The sharp increase in global food prices during 2007–2008 has triggered the awareness of food insecurity problems and their impacts on the low-income, food-deficient countries, many of which are located in East Asia. Protein and fat consumption are higher in East Asia than that of other regions, although the percentage of carbohydrates consumed is slightly lower than the world's average. Nevertheless, the food security situation in East Asia was good relative to other countries in the world. The food security in East Asia is largely contributed by domestic production. Despite of a doubled import of foods over the last decade to meet its ever-growing population, Asia remains the least dependent among all regions on food imports. However, the raised energy costs and grain prices due to increasing grain demand for biofuel purposes appeared to exacerbate the undernourishment of poor households in the region. While most of the government interventions focus on short-term measures such as reducing domestic food prices through trade or price control, the risk of facing a long-term food insecurity still exists, which may render national action inadequate and require multilateral cooperation.

Keywords:

• Food security
• East Asia
• climate change
• computable general equilibrium analysis

Notes

1 According to FAO, the undernourishment exists when caloric intake is below the minimum dietary energy requirement (MDER). The MDER is the amount of energy needed for light activity and a minimum acceptable weight for attained height, and it varies by country and from year to year depending on the gender and age structure of the population.

2 Lee et al. (2009) for AEZ land use; Dimaranan (2004) for other economic variables and parameters.

3 In order to simulate for more Asian countries, we tried to use the yield change estimates of as disaggregated regions as possible. Rosenzweig and Iglesias (2001) has, so far, the most disaggregated regions of estimates that fit with the need of our study purposes.

4 Vietnam is included in CPA; Thailand and the Philippines are in PAS.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ching-Cheng Chang

Ching-Cheng Chang is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Economics, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan.

Huey-Lin Lee

Huey-Lin Lee is an Associate Professor at the Department of Economics, National Chengchi University, Taipei, Taiwan.

Shih-Hsun Hsu

Shih-Hsun Hsu is a Professor at the Department of Agricultural Economics, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan.