Food Security as Basic Goods Provision

• Author: Kenneth A. Reinert
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/wmh3.151
• Published date: 01 September 2015
• Date: 01 September 2015

Food Security as Basic Goods Provision

Kenneth A. Reinert

Food security is a central aspect of human well-being. Given current trends in population, climate

change, water availability, and conf‌lict, however, food security is under threat for hundreds of

millions of people. This article will argue that we can helpfully assess food security through the lens

of basic goods provision. The basic goods approach is a type of development ethics that emphasizes

the role of basic goods and services as prerequisites for well-being and subsistence rights fulf‌illment.

The article summarizes this version of development ethics and then focuses on food security as one

important type of basic goods provision.

KEY WORDS: food security, development ethics, subsistence rights

Introduction

Food security is a central aspect of human well-being. Given current trends

in population, climate change, water availability, and conf‌lict, however, food

security is under threat for hundreds of millions of people. The standard Food

and Agricultural Organization (FAO) def‌inition of food security is as follows:

“Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic

access to suff‌icient safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and

food preferences for an active and healthy life.”

1

In this sense, approximately

800 million people currently suffer from chronic hunger in the sense that they are

not well nourished enough for an active life (FAO, 2014).

2

United Nations

projections suggest that we will add approximately 2 billion people by 2050 and

an additional 1 billion by 2100, for a total world population of approximately

10 billion. Given the fact that we currently fail to provide adequate nutrition for

over 800 million people, can we provide nutrition for an additional 3 billion

individuals by 2100? The FAO’s most recent projections suggest that we can, that

the absolute number of malnourished people will decline steadily to approximately

300 million in 2050 (FAO, 2012a).

This article will argue that we should be prepared for the possibility that this

happy scenario might prove to be illusory. It will also argue that food security

can helpfully be assessed through the lens of basic goods provision. The basic goods

approach is a type of development ethics that emphasizes the role of basic goods

World Medical & Health Policy, Vol. 7, No. 3, 2015

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and services as prerequisites for well-being and subsistence rights fulf‌illment. The

article will brief‌ly present this version of development ethics and then focus on

food security as one type of basic goods provision.

The Basic Goods Approach

The f‌ield of development ethics attempts to provide appropriate structures

for normative issues that arise in development policy (e.g., Crocker, 2008). At a

very broad level, there are three alternative approaches to development outcomes

assessment. The growth or gross domestic product (GDP) perspective emphasizes

growth in GDP per capita as the means to reduce income poverty and thereby

increase consumption levels of all types of goods and services (e.g., Bhagwati &

Panagariya, 2013). The capabilities approach or human development perspective

emphasizes peoples’ abilities to achieve certain desired outcomes in the realm of

“doing” and “being,” such as avoiding premature mortality or being literate (e.g.,

Nussbaum, 2011; Sen, 1989). The basic goods approach emphasizes the provision of

basic goods and services as key ingredients of human well-being and argues that

a focus on these determinants is more helpful than a focus on outcomes (e.g.,

Reinert, 2011).

The growth perspective f‌its neatly into the long tradition of growth theory in

economics and allows for empirical analysis in the form of growth accounting.

However, GDP per capita is not always well correlated with important develop-

ment outcomes, particularly health outcomes (Casabonne & Kenny, 2012). The

growth perspective would also have little to directly say about food security since

food is just one of innumerable consumption goods that households might

purchase. The capabilities approach or human development perspective rejects

growth in GDP per capita as a basis for development ethics. But the capabilities

approach and human development perspective also reject basic goods and

services provision as a fundamental focus, often relegating it to “commodity

fetishism.”

3

While these perspectives would acknowledge a place for food in

helping humans to achieve certain capabilities, food is not something that matters

in and of itself.

The basic goods approach argues that basic goods, namely those goods and

services that meet basic needs, are at the center of human progress. The approach

views basic goods as the ingredients of well-being that allow human beings to be

secure, healthy, literate, and able to participate meaningfully in their societies.

Consequently, the basic goods approach argues that certain goods and services

need to be treated differently than others and given priority in policy deliberations.

Basic goods are related to basic needs, and one characteristic of basic needs is that

they are developmentally related to the human condition, supporting the life of the

human organism.

4

Basic goods also support basic human rights in the area of

subsistence as described by Shue (1996) and Hertel and Minkler (2007). A list

of basic goods would include nutritious food, clean water, sanitation, health

services, education services, housing, electricity, and security services. Signif‌icant

deprivations exist across this spectrum of basic goods and services.

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