Food, economics and entitlements.

Abstract

The 'acquirement problem', which is central to questions of starvation and hunger in the modern world, has been neglected. The 'entitlement approach', which analyses acquirements in terms of entitlement, provides a particular focus for the analysis of famines. Often in a famine the per capita availability of food has not declined but there is a distribution problem. Among the policy issues examined are famine anticipation and action; relief, food and cash; food distribution versus cash relief; food supply and food prices; long-run investigations of entitlements and public distribution; and production and diversification. By concentrating on the acquirement problem and the major variables influencing acquirement, the entitlement approach can be fruitfully used to analyse the phenomenon of hunger as well as the requirements of food policy.-D.G.Price