Improving human health and nutrition is a key goal of food systems. The cases in this section describe the interactions between the food systems and human health and nutrition and illustrate how government action may improve health and nutrition through a portfolio of direct interventions such as food fortification, biofortification, price policies, educational campaigns, food for education, and a variety of other government policies to improve health, reduce hunger and malnutrition, and decrease the prevalence of overweight and obesity.

 

Food security is defined as access to sufficient food to meet the energy and nutrient requirements for a healthy and productive life. The majority of food-insecure people live in rural areas of developing countries. Their food security is heavily influenced by poverty, access to resources, and fluctuations in weather patterns and markets. Household and individual food security is also influenced by household behavior in general and intrahousehold allocations in particular, which in turn, are influenced by knowledge, promotion, and advertising. The cases in this section explain how government policies can reduce food insecurity caused by rural poverty and fluctuations in weather patterns and markets to which the rural poor are exposed, as well as change household allocative behavior and regulate external influences such as food advertising by retailers and wholesalers.

 

The cases in this section address the interaction between income distribution, poverty, food security, and nutrition and illustrate how government action can influence all of these through conditional transfers programs, policies to facilitate migration out of agriculture, and a series of other policies to influence income distribution and poverty.

 

The cases in this section illustrate the role of food markets and food marketing in the economy and discuss the links between farmers and markets. These cases discuss policies designed to help integrate small farmers into the market economy, with emphasis on the facilitation of contract farming, collective bargaining, farmer associations, food price stabilization, and the successful development of high-value agriculture on small farms. They also discuss the increasing concentration of food retailers and wholesalers, the role of government, and the importance of infrastructure to facilitate market-based poverty reduction.

 

The cases in this section present and discuss various policy options to assist farmers to expand production, increase incomes, improve food security, and manage production and market risks. Emphasis is on policies that mitigate the negative effects of potential or actual famines, droughts, and a series of other threats facing small farmers and pastoralists. The cases also discuss land distribution policies, research and technology policies, and policies that facilitate the production of biofuel without negative effects on food security.

 

The interaction between natural resource management and food production and the role of government are illustrated in the cases prepared for this section. These cases present policy options for the government and civil society to fight soil degradation along with an illustration of how government policy can best be used to deal with the very complex but common situation in which there are strong interactions between human and environmental health in the context of expanded food production. Several policy options for the allocation of scarce water supplies are also presented.

 

While the term "food policy" is often interpreted to mean sectorial, micro, or meso policies, food systems are strongly influenced by macroeconomic policies, as illustrated by the cases in this section. Institutions enter into food systems in a variety of ways at local, national, and international levels, and institutional innovation is a critical element of effective policy design and implementation. The cases discuss these issues and the related role of governments, along with the impact of instability and armed conflict on food security and lessons for government action.

 

The impact of globalization on food systems is of a very complex nature. The cases prepared for this section address the impact of trade and agricultural policies in both high- and low-income countries as well as the impact of other elements of globalization such as the international expansion and concentration of the private food sector. These cases discuss the impact of trade and domestic agricultural policies in OECD countries on low-income countries and low-income people, available policy options for alleviating these negative consequences, and the effect of tariff escalation and non-tariff trade barriers.

 

Many of the cases in the sections above discuss the ethical aspects of food systems. The case prepared for this section discusses policy options for implementing the human right to freedom from hunger in the context of experience from India. Cases on other aspects of ethics and the food systems will be developed in the future.