Targeted food for work program, food ration or food stamp program, and school feeding program
Conditional cash transfer program
Consumer price subsidies, fertilizer or input subsidies, iIncreasing supply using food grain stocks, xport ban on food staples, easing restrictions on imports by reducing tariffs and easing nontariff trade barriers or government purchase of food abroad to sell at home at controlled prices
Food price controls in selected government markets or in all markets and ilateral agreements on food or grain imports.
Food policy interventions fall into two main categories: coping and curing. Coping strategies are focused on the household but have broader implications and can be a rapid response option. Curing strategies focus on supply response and are typically an option for the medium to long term. Some options from both categories are better than others.
Latin American and Caribbean countries have been focusing primarily on consumer coping strategies (table 8). These policies seek to provide consumers with access to basic food stuffs, increase poor people’s real income and thereby their consumption of staples, and insulate consumers from volatility in food prices. Food subsidies are critical. Evidence shows that as poor people’s current income increased the proportion spent on food and the amount of food consumed increased as well.
Table 8. Policies in use in the Latin America and the Caribbean region
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a. Paraguay’s conditional cash transfer program is being scaled up from the 17,000 households that were covered at the end of 2007.
b. Includes temporary price controls on specific products. In some countries (such as Argentina) price controls allow for pass-through of cost increases.
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