50
Consumers also face risks from economic instability or food price shocks.
Governments are establishing social protection programs to stabilize households
experiencing food and income insecurity. Some countries rely on national reserves
to feed their population and manage food prices. Ensuring that agricultural trade
remains open is essential to keeping food prices stable, especially when commodity
stocks are low.
Box 2.6 Social Protection Programs Reduce Risk (Daidone et al. 2014)
Social protection programs, such as cash grants, provide the poorest rural
residents with income stability and food security while also reducing their
reliance on agricultural wage labor and freeing them up to invest time and
resources in their own farms, to develop off-farm enterprises, or to pursue
training for non-agricultural employment. In 2010, the Zambian Ministry of
Community Development for Mother and Child Health (MCDMCH) piloted a
Child Grant Program (CGP) in three provinces, where the program gave
households with children under the age of 5 a total cash grant of $12 per
month. Payments were made monthly and without condition.
The Child Grant Program, a pilot project in the Eastern Province of
Zambia, provided families who have children under the age of 5 with a
monthly grant that helped stabilize family incomes, enabling parents to invest
more time and resources in developing their farms and off-farm enterprises.
The program not only reduced the severity of poverty, but it changed the
participants’ perception of their own food and income security: the number of
households that reported being better off than they had been 12 months earlier
increased by 45%. Perhaps most encouraging was the increased investment in
productivity-enhancing and labor-saving inputs and the increases in agricultural output by CGP beneficiaries. The value of the overall harvest increased
by 50%, on average, with most of the additional production being sold. CGP
households increased both their ownership of livestock (21%) and the diversity of their livestock.
Finally, the income stability of the cash grants enabled participants,
particularly women, to reduce their wage labor hours and develop their own
(continued)
A. Steensland and M. Zeigler
Consumers also face risks from economic instability or food price shocks.
Governments are establishing social protection programs to stabilize households
experiencing food and income insecurity. Some countries rely on national reserves
to feed their population and manage food prices. Ensuring that agricultural trade
remains open is essential to keeping food prices stable, especially when commodity
stocks are low.
Box 2.6 Social Protection Programs Reduce Risk (Daidone et al. 2014)
Social protection programs, such as cash grants, provide the poorest rural
residents with income stability and food security while also reducing their
reliance on agricultural wage labor and freeing them up to invest time and
resources in their own farms, to develop off-farm enterprises, or to pursue
training for non-agricultural employment. In 2010, the Zambian Ministry of
Community Development for Mother and Child Health (MCDMCH) piloted a
Child Grant Program (CGP) in three provinces, where the program gave
households with children under the age of 5 a total cash grant of $12 per
month. Payments were made monthly and without condition.
The Child Grant Program, a pilot project in the Eastern Province of
Zambia, provided families who have children under the age of 5 with a
monthly grant that helped stabilize family incomes, enabling parents to invest
more time and resources in developing their farms and off-farm enterprises.
The program not only reduced the severity of poverty, but it changed the
participants’ perception of their own food and income security: the number of
households that reported being better off than they had been 12 months earlier
increased by 45%. Perhaps most encouraging was the increased investment in
productivity-enhancing and labor-saving inputs and the increases in agricultural output by CGP beneficiaries. The value of the overall harvest increased
by 50%, on average, with most of the additional production being sold. CGP
households increased both their ownership of livestock (21%) and the diversity of their livestock.
Finally, the income stability of the cash grants enabled participants,
particularly women, to reduce their wage labor hours and develop their own
(continued)
A. Steensland and M. Zeigler