Carlo Cafiero

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations | FAO · Statistics Division

Organizations and initiatives concerned with food security and nutrition have long positioned protein, together with dietary energy, as the keystone for life itself. Indeed, the word protein, derived from the Greek proteios, means ‘of primary importance’. There is a long history of attention to, and controversies over, proteins in UN processes, beg...

This paper presents an approach to estimate the between-subject variability in nutrient intake (through the coefficient of variation [CV]) and a method to estimate the prevalence of nutrient inadequacy (PoNI) (for eight micronutrients) using household consumption and expenditure survey (HCES) data. Prevalence values are compared to individual-level...

Women face a higher prevalence of food insecurity than do men, both on a global scale and across all regions. This paper delves into the global determinants contributing to the gender gap in food insecurity and explores how the COVID-19 pandemic influenced its trajectory. Additionally, it estimates the impact of improvements in food security and in...

A new food system indicator framework and monitoring architecture is presented to track food system transformation towards global development, health and sustainability goals. Five themes are considered: (1) diets, nutrition and health; (2) environment, natural resources and production; (3) livelihoods, poverty and equity; (4) governance; and (5) r...

The European Union, apart from its well-developed socio-economic regions, is also characterized by marginal, remote rural areas, where the difficult socio-economic conditions and gentrification are the basis of an increasing phenomenon of depopulation and territorial abandonment. In some of these areas, sometimes, not only the development of inland...

Globally and in every region, women are more food insecure than men, and the gender gap has widened during the outbreak of Covid-19. (FAO et al., 2022). This paper first presents the FAOSTAT data on the prevalence of severe and moderate or severe food insecurity based on Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES) for women and men and the evolution fr...

Transforming food systems is essential to bring about a healthier, equitable, sustainable, and resilient future, including achieving global development and sustainability goals. To date, no comprehensive framework exists to track food systems transformation and their contributions to global goals. In 2021, the Food Systems Countdown to 2030 Initiat...

Objective: To investigate how water and food insecurity were associated in nationally representative samples of individuals from 25 low- and middle-income countries. Methods: We used data from the 2020 World Gallup Poll in which the Individual Water Insecurity Experiences Scale and the Food Insecurity Experience Scale had been administered to 31...

Malnutrition is pervasive in both low- and middle-income countries. Yet, there is a scarcity of food intake data collected at the individual level to describe diets, determine the prevalence of inadequate nutrient consumption in populations, and shed light on how diets contribute to the malnutrition burden. In the absence of nationally representati...

The goal of this research was to explore the effects associated with children's food insecurity using children's accounts of their experiences.

Objectives Although water insecurity and food insecurity may be related via various pathways, this relationship has received little attention. Knowing where and among whom water and food insecurities coexist is critical for developing nutrition interventions and policies that are not undermined by concurrent problems with water. The objective of th...

A un anno e mezzo dallo scoppio della pandemia, i dati ISTAT registrano un aumento di un milione di poveri assoluti. La povertà economica è un driver fondamentale che causa la mancanza di accesso a un cibo adeguato. Una condizione, quest’ultima, non necessariamente determinata da una scarsità assoluta bensì relativa di cibo che riguarda la possibil...

Food systems that support healthy diets in sustainable, resilient, just, and equitable ways can engender progress in eradicating poverty and malnutrition; protecting human rights; and restoring natural resources. Food system activities have contributed to great gains for humanity but have also led to significant challenges, including hunger, poor d...

This paper presents the first global picture of food security at a subnational level based on the Food Insecurity Experience Scale, the indicator for the Sustainable Development Goal of “Zero Hunger” that is most indicative of the individual’s lived experience of food insecurity and hunger. Using microdata from 75 countries and filling gaps using m...

Households and individuals that experience moderate or severe food insecurity may have poorer diets, in quantity or in quality, than their food secure counterparts. Much of the evidence highlighting the associations between food insecurity and diet comes from North America. However, far less research has been conducted on the association of food in...

One of the main pillars of food security is food supply, which refers to the availability of sufficient quantities of food of appropriate quality, supplied through domestic production or imports. In this paper, we use quantities of commercialized foods from the Supply and Utilization Accounts (SUA) compiled by the Food and Agriculture Organization...

This technical note describes the methodology used to obtain estimates of rising undernourishment, under three hypothetical scenarios of gross domestic product (GDP) growth reduction, which are within a range that is aligned with current forecast with regard to GDP growth before and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Purpose This paper aims to provide evidence on the extent to which traditional agri-food products (TFPs) constitute a leverage to promote tourism in the province of Reggio Calabria, Italy, and discuss ways in which community-led local development governance institutions might enhance it. Design/methodology/approach The study is based on a review o...

This article is part of a broader study of the fishery system in a coastal area of Southern Italy. It presents a description of the main features of the fishing sectors in the five ports of the southernmost part of Tyrrhenian coast of the Reggio Calabria province, as derived from personal interviews to key informants. Such description contributes t...

Small-scale fishery in Southern Italy is exposed to increasing pressure from changing economic, institutional and environmental conditions. Diversification strategies to accompany the changes will require the support from effective institutions, where fishermen are given a central position and an active role. To explore the strength of the social f...

The request originated from a strongly felt need of stakeholders and policy makers of exploring possible new means to provide producers with stronger ability to prevent and cope with the consequences of short term market crises, a common phenomenon in the European Fruits and Vegetable sector, and considering the changes that the sector would underg...

Residing with the exponential growth of gastronomy tourism research, a number of review articles have examined the relationship of gastronomy and tourism from distinct thematic and disciplinary perspectives. What remains absent is a comprehensive overview that encapsulates the interdisciplinary dimensions of this area of research. In response, this...

This document is available at: http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/templates/ess/foodsecurity/Optimizing_the_use_of_ADePT_FSM_for_nutrient_analysis.pdf This document describes the updates introduced in ADePT-FSM version 3 to improve its capacity for nutritional analysis by adding new indicators and refining methodologies. It also describes how to optimiz...

The ability of households and individuals to access food (one of the key aspects of 'food security') is an important welfare dimension that poses important challenges for objective measurement. This paper describes the Rasch model-based procedures developed to define the eight-item Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES) as a contribution towards t...

By analyzing the food consumption data from the 2008/09 Pesquisa de Orçamentos Familiares in Brazil, we demonstrate that failing to account for food consumed for free at school may significantly distort the assessment of the distribution of food consumption among households and therefore the assessment of the extent of food insecurity in the countr...

Statistical methods based on item response theory are applied to experiential food insecurity survey data from 147 countries, areas, and territories to assess data quality and develop methods to estimate national prevalence rates of moderate and severe food insecurity at equal levels of severity across countries. Data were collected from nationally...

We offer a critical review of the Paretian definition of efficiency by noting its correspondence with the description of the logic underpinning market relationships. With reference to Ludwig Wittgenstein’s analysis of the value content of tautologies, we discuss the tautological nature of the propositions regarding the efficiency of exchange and ma...

Given the importance of the role assigned to social relations and the exchange of information in the theory that subsumes the latest EU Development Policy planning for 2007-2013, this study analyses the “Stretto” Coast FLAG fishing community, in Southern Italy, from the perspective of the “relational capital” it possesses. The analysis aims at high...

A key objective of the Voices of the Hungry project (VoH) is to estimate comparable prevalence rates of food insecurity in national populations for more than 140 countries every year. These estimates are based on conditions and behaviors reported by adults through the Food Insecurity Experience Scale survey module (FIES-SM). The data collected in n...

The ability of the standard commodity storage model to replicate annual price serial correlation is a controversial issue. Calendar year averages of prices induce spurious smoothing of price spikes, a fact that has been surprisingly overlooked in several empirical estimations of the annual commodity storage model for agricultural commodities. We pr...

This paper reviews some of the existing food security indicators, discussing the validity of the underlying concept and the expected reliability of measures under reasonably feasible conditions. The main objective of the paper is to raise awareness on existing trade-offs between different qualities of possible food security measurement tools that m...

We present a Maximum Likelihood estimator for the standard commodity storage model with stockouts, based on prices only. While it imposes no additional assumptions on the model, the Maximum Likelihood estimator has small sample properties superior to those of the Pseudo Maximum Likelihood approach. We provide a proof that is crucial for applying ou...

FAO relies on official sources for its statistical work to the greatest possible extent. However, in certain circumstances that are consistent with the “recommended practices in the use of non-official sources in international statistics” as endorsed at the 22nd Session of the CCSA, it is occasionally necessary for FAO to also use non-official sour...

Since the end of the Second World War, the international community has been focusing on reducing the number and the proportion of people who suffer from hunger. Over time it became clear that no single indicator would provide a comprehensive picture of the food security situation. Rather, a suite of indicators is necessary to describe food insecuri...

Access to enough nutritionally adequate food is a basic need shared by all human beings. in 1949, the right to adequate food was declared a basic human right. It was only during the Rome World Food Summit in 1996 that the discussion on the right to food was revitalized, and it took another eight years before the "Voluntary Guidelines to support the...

In times of highly volatile commodity markets, governments often try to protect their populations from rapidly rising food prices, which can be particularly harmful for the poor. A potential solution for food-deficit countries is to hold strategic reserves that can be called on when international prices spike. But how large should strategic stockpi...

Many discussions following the 2007/08 food price crisis have revolved around the magnitude of the negative impacts that it may have had on food security worldwide. Analysts have been asked to provide timely assessments, often based on partial data and information. The variety of opinions and the ranges of reported estimated impacts that have follo...

The empirical relevance of models of competitive storage arbitrage in explaining commodity price behavior has been seriously challenged in a series of pathbreaking papers by (Deaton and Laroque, 1992), (Deaton and Laroque, 1995) and (Deaton and Laroque, 1996). Here we address their major criticism, that the model is in general unable to explain the...

Aggregate stocks of major grains declined to minimal feasible levels in 2007–2008, due to high global income growth and biofuel mandates. Given these minimal stocks, prices were very sensitive to shocks, such as the Australian drought, and biofuel demand boosts due to the oil price spike. The effects of these shocks were magnified by a sequence of...

Analyses of agricultural insurance failures often assume the existence of competitive supply, tracing the reasons for high insurance cost and limited farmer participation to informational problems, and suggesting the need for premium subsidization in order to increase participation. However, in countries such as Spain and Italy, where agricultural...

Currently there is ample discussion among EU Institutions (European Commission, European Parliament, and Member States' governments) on the opportunity for setting up a comprehensive EU-wide framework on risk and crises in agriculture. In the meantime, within the limits of the WTO rules on agriculture, national governments are allowed to intervene...

The paper explores the feasibility of the use of weather index based derivatives for farms’ risk management in an Italian province. Based on a combination of detailed local weather data and of data on farms’ yields, various possible weather indexes are found that are highly correlated with yields of the major crops in the area. Simulations show tha...

In the recent past, growing attention has been devoted to the attempt to correctly include con- siderations of exposure to risk in the discussions on poverty reduction and, more generally, economic and social development. The purpose of this article is to take stock of all these ef- forts and to reconsider the relationship between poverty and expos...

Knowing whether a household behaves according to separability or non-separability is needed for the correct modeling of production decisions. We propose a superior test to those found in the literature on separability by using a mixture distribution approach to estimate the probability that a farm household behaves according to non-separability, an...

Within the context of the debate on agricultural income stabilisation, many suggest the need for direct or indirect public support to crop insurance. This arti-cle questions the value of such a form of intervention. The potential benefits of public support to crop insurance depend upon the answers to the following ques-tions: (i) Is it true that ag...

We use mixture distribution techniques to show that labor mar- ket participation is not enough to conclude separability between pro- duction and consumption decisions of farm-households. Our findings clearly show the existence of two distinct types of households among net-sellers of labor: those behaving as if unconstrained and hence in a separable...