Definition

Food transfers or subsidized food are non-contributory social assistance instruments that Governments can use to pursue food-related objectives, and as such they need to meet both quantity and quality requirements. With food subsidies, basic food items are sold at a cheaper price than on the free market.

Rationale

Food transfers or subsidized food programmes provide direct access to adequate and nutritious food for vulnerable populations—helping stabilize consumption, improve nutrition outcomes, and protect purchasing power in contexts where markets are constrained or prices are high.

Key features

• Food transfers typically consist of non-perishable food items (e.g. packages, rations) and ideally including fortified foods, that are intended to contribute towards meeting food security and nutrition needs of households or individuals in a reliable and predictable way over a long period. Food transfers should not consist of single food items, but should include a balanced combination of one or more staple foods, pulses, vegetable oil, salt.
• Food may be procured from within the country, including from smallholder farmers, which can in turn support livelihoods and boost the local economy.
• Subsidies can be general or targeted to selected segments of the population (e.g. the poorest based on their socioeconomic and demographic characteristics).
• Successful delivery of food transfers requires significant investments in effective logistics for food procurement, planning food distributions, ensuring food safety and quality, and maximising their nutritional benefit.
• Food rations reaching vulnerable households are unlikely to meet the nutritional needs of all members of the household, and particularly those most at risk, such as for example pregnant and breastfeeding women and children under five years of age. A complementary and nutritious food supplement or cash top-up, or vouchers that is provided directly to these women and children, will be needed, particularly in contexts of high food insecurity, in order to prevent malnutrition.
• Because of fiscal constraints and macroeconomic inefficiencies, in many countries food subsidies have become less popular in recent years, with greater emphasis placed on employment and productivity-based interventions, as well as on cash-based transfers.
• Historically, food transfers and subsidies have often over-relied on cheap and calorie-dense foods which limits or even contributes to worsening the nutritional status of targeted beneficiaries. That said, food transfers and subsidies hold significant potential for achieving nutrition outcome at scale. Altering consumption patterns to favor certain types of nutritious foods for example, is a public policy objective that may be more easily achieved with well-designed and well-implemented nutrition-sensitive food transfers than with cash transfers (given the fungibility of cash).
• In contexts where food prices are high or volatile or experiencing high inflation, the capacity of food transfers to keep beneficiaries’ purchasing power constant can be an advantage and may make them a more appropriate instrument than cash transfers.