A multidimensional approach to food security and non-traditional export agriculture: a case study in Guatemala

There are four important dimensions of food security: food availability, food access, food utilization and food system stability. However, although the concept of food security has come of age, food security remains difficult to measure across these dimensions. In the first chapter of this thesis, I review the concepts and indicators used to assess the four dimensions of food security at the household level, and argue that a multidimensional approach to food security analysis is fundamental to understanding the overall impacts of development strategies on the food security of households. This is an important area of research because many strategies to improve food security in the developing world focus on income (supposedly an indicator of food access) and neglect to consider the other three dimensions of food security and associated indicators. Food system stability, in particular, is often overlooked in assessments of food security.In the second chapter of this thesis, I present a case study exploring the food security implications of farming broccoli for export in Guatemala, recognizing that broccoli, a non-traditional export crop, is widely promoted in this region as a means to increase smallholder incomes and food security. I use a multidimensional approach to explore the four dimensions of household food security, and compare the food security of broccoli farmers (adopters) and corn farmers (non-adopters) in the community of Chilascó, in Central Guatemala. Neither food availability nor food utilization differed significantly between adopters and non-adopters. Although adopters earned significantly higher income (40%) than non-adopters, income gains did not translate into improvements in food access according to outcome indicators. The majority of adopters and non-adopters alike were categorized as moderately to extremely food insecure according to the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale. Households in the top income tercile had significantly higher dietary diversity (an indicator of food access) compared to households in the bottom tercile. A nuanced conclusion from this work is that income can lead to positive food security outcomes, but does not guarantee them. In terms of food system stability, adopters applied twice as much manure per hectare, three times more inorganic fertilizer per hectare, and had a higher environmental impact associated with pesticide use. Taken together, there are trade-offs among the different dimensions of food security, whereby some indicators improve (e.g. income), others remain unchanged (e.g., staple crop production), and others degrade (e.g. the ecosystem service of biological pest control) for adopters relative to non-adopters. My results show that narrow, often income-oriented approaches to food security analysis may mask important differences among the four dimensions of food security. Future research into the food security implications of non-traditional export agriculture must move beyond the dualistic understanding of food security outcomes (better/worse) in order to better target interventions. This will require a systematic consideration of all four dimensions of food security in assessments and development planning.

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