“Measurement drives diagnosis and response”: Gaps in transferring food security assessment to the urban scale

Gareth Haysom,Godfrey Tawodzera

doi:10.1016/j.foodpol.2017.12.001

Abstract

The understanding of food security has seen major shifts since the original conceptualisations of the challenge. These changes in understanding have been accompanied by different food security measurement approaches. Despite the fact that the world has become increasingly urbanised and the developing world in particular, is experiencing its own urban transition, changes in food security measurement remain predominantly informed by a rural understanding of food security. In instances where urban measurement does take place, rural-oriented measurement approaches are adopted, occluding critical urban challenges and systemic drivers. This paper begins by highlighting the urban transition and attendant food security challenges in the Global South. It then reflects on existing food security measurement methods, detailing the positive components but also highlighting the shortfalls applicable to the urban context. At the urban scale, a food system assessment is argued to be one appropriate tool to respond to urban food insecurity while at the same time providing both the “breadth and depth” to inform effective food security programming and policy interventions. Theoretically, questions of scale, context and a critique of the rural bias in food systems work are essential informants guiding the approaches applied.

Highlights

From simple beginnings at the 1943 Hot Spring Conference of Food and Agriculture, food security has become “a cornucopia of ideas” (Maxwell, 1996, p. 155)
This paper argues that the historical neglect of food security in the urban areas by national policy processes, urban managers, the global development fraternity, and academics, has serious repercussions for the way in which food insecurity in the city has been, and is, measured
This resulted in food security programming and fiscal allocations directed to agricultural production and rural development, this in a country that is over 60 percent urbanised and where the net numbers of citizens experiencing food insecurity were significantly higher in the urban centres, and in a country whose food system reflects a largely urban food system

Summary

Introduction

From simple beginnings at the 1943 Hot Spring Conference of Food and Agriculture, food security has become “a cornucopia of ideas” (Maxwell, 1996, p. 155). From simple beginnings at the 1943 Hot Spring Conference of Food and Agriculture, food security has become “a cornucopia of ideas” The concept of a “secure, adequate and suitable supply of food for everyone” 4) enunciated at the conference has since been reconceptualised and expanded to meet contemporary food security concerns, perceptions and realities. Reviewing literature on household food security, Maxwell and Frankenberger (1992) listed 194 and 172 different studies on food security conceptualization and food security indicators respectively. Five years later Clay (1997) provided an additional 72 references dealing with food security conceptualizations. Why should one be overly concerned about what is measured and where? 230) argues that: Measurement is indisputably an important element of the process through which we advance knowledge. To contribute to knowledge and to allow correct assessments, measurement should be valid and reliable, posing two fundamental but distinct problems regarding what is being measured and how it is done

Objectives

Findings

Discussion

Conclusion