Introduction:
Balancing the Scales
In order to conduct research into
food security, researchers need to start with a broad conceptual framework for
what constitutes that security and what characterizes its absence. Not only
that, but researchers must also decide the scale at which to locate their
investigations: food security can be examined from a global perspective, with a
national focus, at the community level, or through the lens of individuals within
households. While there are probably well over 200 competing definitions for
food security, only two organizations have, since the late 1970s, defined the
boundaries of that debate while simultaneously providing major funding for worldwide
food security research, policy, and practice: the World Bank (WB) and the United
Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
These international and multilateral
bodies, along with bit players like the United States Agency for International
Development (USAID), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Trade
Organization (WTO), and various other multinational agricultural interests, have
formed the collective force behind which governmental and non-governmental food
security policies have been historically transformed.
Through annual reports, research
journals, conferences, and funding decisions, these institutions have framed
food security discourse at various scales, starting in the 1970s at the
global/national macroeconomic level, and subsequently transitioning to a
position that today views food security as best examined at the local,
microeconomic level. The question of whether or not these changes have been the
result of a natural progression defined primarily by research/policy successes
and failures, or whether they are in fact simply theoretical readjustments
necessary to serve prevailing neoliberal economic practice, will be the focus
of this paper.
