Book Chapter
Global Food Balances and Individual Hunger

This chapter discusses three themes illuminating the regional element in the link between global food balances and individual hunger. First, for a nation-state in a global setting, it underlines the importance of non-market-based food-entitlements and the availability of food aid. Importantly, the prices of non-food exports should be considered while constructing early warning systems. It is argued that there can be and usually are significant indirect effects when various traded and non-traded food crops are substitutes in production or consumption. Lastly, in a system of market-based entitlements, there exists net buyers and net sellers, and hence a fall in food price has a mixed impact. The chapter also examines the problem of data availability. For making good use of nutrition-based poverty measures, performing sensitivity analysis using different cut-offs is suggested.