Food insecurity has been a problem in the region for most of the past century, and increases in food prices have occurred in the past, some of them even worse than the present one. Granted that why is food security in the Asia-Pacific Region (A-P Region) so important now? The answer lies in the fact that the food security challenge for the Asia-Pacific is not merely about how to attenuate the impact of the spike in crises on the most vulnerable groups seen in the recent past, especially 2007 and 2008; the challenge is how to continue making progress in guaranteeing food security in a context where the production of food will be increasingly stressed in the face of decreasing resources pitched against continually expanding demand. That is, (what we call for want of a better word!) the challenge is to transform the food systems in A-P Region for greater resilience, to fully meet the emerging challenges. The need to build the ‘resilience’ of countries to future shocks and risks that could plunge the A-P region in food insecurity of the kind experienced in 2007-2008, and even worse, can not be over-emphasized.

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Securing Food Security in the Asia-Pacific Region: A Partial Analysis
by Dr. Amitava Mukherjee
Senior Economic Affairs Officer and Head
United Nations Asian and Pacific Centre for Agricultural Engineering and Machinery