World Food Policy Volume/Issue 2-2/3-1 Fall 2015/Spring 2016 | Page 144

Food Security in an Age of Falling Commodity and Food Prices

developed countries, the situation is rather
clear. If we take these countries as a group
and look at the most important staple
food, namely cereals, then we can see that
the least developed countries as a group
are a large net importer of cereals, and
what is more their net imports of cereals
are growing rapidly (see Figure 8).

As a matter of fact, the least
developed countries are net importers
not only of cereals, but as a group they are
also net importers of rice. Moreover, least
developed countries as a group are net
importers for the whole set of agricultural
products taken together, obviously to be
expressed not in physical but in monetary
terms.

If we look at individual countries,
then the picture is obviously more diverse.
If the first half of the 1980s is compared
with the second half of the 2000s, then we
find that a growing share of developing
countries in all income groups are net
food importers (Figure 9). That trend
toward a growing proportion of net food

importers is particularly true for the lowincome developing countries. Among the
high-income developing countries, 100%
of them are net food importers. If we take
all developing countries together, 80% of
them are now net food importers, and
that share is growing.

Obviously, this overall situation
does not apply to all individual countries.
Thailand is a net exporter of cereals,
rice, and even of agricultural products
overall (Figure 10). Thus, there are major
exceptions among developing countries.
But for the group of developing countries
overall it remains true that they are
net food importers. The implications
regarding the interplay between food
prices on international markets and food
security are obvious. For developing
countries as a group, high food prices are
a problem rather than a solution. That is
not the case, though, for Thailand: a food
exporting country of course is happy to
see high food prices.

When we move to the level of

Figure 9: Number of Net Food Importer Countries as Percentage of Number of Developing Countries in Respective Income Group
Source: OECD (2013a; 2013b) based on Matthews (2012).

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