World Food Policy Volume/Issue 2-2/3-1 Fall 2015/Spring 2016 | Page 88

Constructing a Database for Food Security Assessments in Southeast Asia

Figure 1: Shares in food consumption before and after food price crisis, Thailand and
Vietnam
Source: Waibel and Hohfeld (2015)

This indicates that the majority of rural
households had to allocate a much higher
share of their consumption expenditures
to food. The effect was stronger in
Vietnam where the mode shifted to
~80%, whereas it increased to >60% in
Thailand.

Relating these observations to t he
data on poverty and consumption shows
that, in spite of a decline in poverty,
adjustments in food consumption became
necessary and, therefore, consequences
for nutrition are likely.

While this brief case study does
not use any detailed or in-depth food
consumption indicators (as summarized
in Annex Table 1), it shows that a
consumption module is an important
component of any food security database.

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