3: Macroeconomic Policies and Food Security

This chapter places the discussion of trade and food security in a more general macroeconomic context.

This chapter uses historical analysis to briefly trace the debate on economy-wide policies, starting with the 1943 United Nations (UN) Conference on Food and Agriculture that led to the creation of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in 1945. A general economic framework is used to organize the different channels through which macroeconomic policies may affect food and nutrition security.

Examples of monetary, financial, fiscal, and exchange rate policies are presented, along with their implications for food and nutrition security.

The current debates about trade and food security must be placed in the context of the overall macroeconomic framework: a single trade policy may have different impacts depending on its interactions with other macroeconomic policies and structural factors.