INTRODUCTION

The preceding chapters have provided detailed analysis of the impact of global financial and economic crisis (GFEC) on Cambodia's economy and the poor there. However almost a year before the GFEC, the world witnessed an unprecedented increase in prices of food and most agriculture products which was as devastating for the poor as the GFEC was. Although the two crises differ in their origins and breadth of impact, they have endangered food security and therefore setback poverty alleviation efforts, especially among marginalized groups in both rural and urban areas. In this chapter we focus on analysing the impact of the twin crises – GFEC and food price increases that preceded it –on the poor in Cambodia.

The rest of the chapter is structured as follows. Section 2 provides detailed analysis of the impact of food price increases on food security. Given that food security is also affected by the state and pace of change within the agriculture sector, the impact of food prices on agriculture is looked at as well. Section 3 explores the impact of GFEC on food security and agriculture. Finally section 4 offers some recommendations and concludes the chapter.

IMPACT OF THE FOOD CRISIS ON FOD SECURITY AND AGRICULTURE

Food price Trends and Determinants of Impact

What was unique about the food price trends witnessed in 2007–08 was not the price escalation itself. Steep price increases also occurred in 1973–74, chiefly because of the oil crisis. What set the food price movements in 2007–08 apart was that the prices of almost all major food and non–food commodities soared at the same time (FAO 2008) and more importantly, that the confluence of old and new drivers may have started a long trend of higher than average food prices.

The full-blown crisis entailed food price record highs. For each of the first six months of 2008, the international food price index registered a year-on-year increase of more than 50 per cent on average.