Food Insecurity in Developing Nations

One of the projects I worked on this semester has been focusing on a global trend. Our group chose to focus on food insecurity in developing nations. To shed light on the current situation, it is necessary to look at contributing factors. First off, food prices are estimated to have risen by 80 percent over the past three years. For example, some staple crops such as rice have tripled in price in just the last 2 years. Food production costs have also increased, which has been affected by the volatile price of oil. Because of this, an estimated 75-100 million additional people have been pushed into poverty and food insecurity as a direct result of the crisis. Ironically, agriculture is the largest source of employment in developing nations.

Additionally, agriculture receives only 4 percent of U.S. foreign assistance, while most developing countries are also only allocating 4 percent of their budgets to the agriculture sector. Increased food prices with little aid ultimately results in the threat that those who need food most will not have it. The health implications on these societies are larger than simply missing a meal - it implies long term health problems which will cut many lives short.

The company that we decided to focus on was ACDI/VOCA. ACDI/VOCA uses value chains, specifically value chain analysis, to understand private sector development in emerging economy settings to jumpstart economic growth and poverty reduction. ACDI/VOCA's value chain approach is unique in that it uses a participatory, stakeholder-driven approach to exploit opportunities for investment and growth in industries with high levels of micro and small enterprise (MSE) involvement.

Today the organization is known for its value chain approaches to enterprise development, self-sustaining financial services development, farmer organization, self-help community development and projects that work to stabilize fragile economies. This will inevitably include poking into their other programs such as agribusiness and financial services, but our focus will remain on the overarching trend of food security and food scarcity.

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