Food security in Cambodia: trends and policy objectives

The paper presents food and nutritional status and relevant policy objectives that can sustain food security in Cambodia. This paper aims to review Cambodia’s food security situation over a period.

The paper provides an approach for selecting food security indicators in relation to both inputs and outcomes by drawing on a conceptual framework. National level data for the food security indicators are analysed over a period to provide trends in food and nutritional status.

Cambodia has not experienced drastic food insecurity yet, as most people are farmers and their livelihoods dependent on agriculture. Agriculture has maintained food availability in the country; however, there is a proportion of the population living in remote areas unable to obtain sufficient, safe, nutritious food. Landlessness, internal migration, rapid population growth, lack of education and skills, limited access to natural resources and agricultural land, poor health and infrastructure leave the people with inadequate employment opportunities, low capabilities and low productivity which in turn bring deeper poverty. Therefore, people are insecure, excluded and vulnerable to food deprivation.

To tackle the food security challenges, the Government of Cambodia focuses on food-based social safety nets in the sectors of education, nutrition and productive assets/livelihoods support, to enable longer-term, nationally owned food security solutions.

The paper draws conclusions using a range of recently proposed food security indicators and offers a perspective for policy formulation which may be of interest to development scholars and practitioners.